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If You Can’t Meditate, Bake Bread

If You Can’t Meditate, Bake Bread The act of making something every day can be a powerful form of anxiety relief Photo: Theme Photos/Unsplash A recent comic by Luke McGarry shows a man in an apocalyptic hellscape, trying to get past a pair of armed and intimidating gatekeepers. “Please — grant me safe passage,” the man says. “I can trade medicine and precious metals.” To which the gatekeepers reply: “Ha! Fool! Don’t you know the currency of the future is homemade sourdough?” You’re not just imagining it. Everyone is baking bread right now. The search terms “bread,” and “baking bread,” have spiked to a 14-year high on Google Trends. You probably know a Bread Guy (or Bread Gal), and may even be one yourself. But why have so many people suddenly become pursuers of the perfect olive loaf or French baguette during this pandemic? One explanation is that making bread can be an existentially healing endeavor. Stephen S. Jones, director of Washington State University’s Bread Lab, tells Wired that, over the years, he has received handwritten letters from three different people who, after visiting his lab, turned to breadmaking to cope with the grief of losing a child. He believes that baking bread is akin to a spiritual experience. “Bread is alive” and “you become one with this thing,” he suggests. To lessen our anxiety and improve our well-being, we’re often prescribed mindfulness-cultivating practices, like yoga and meditation. But another option is to make something every day. You may choose to bake a loaf of bread or pick up an old hobby, or you could try a completely new creative pursuit altogether. Your daily creative task might be to write a poem or sketch a picture, or to fold origami. In this thread on Hacker News, the user Internetvin writes about how the emotional overload of his father-in-law passing away within days of his son’s birth led him to make a song every day. The healing effect of a creative outlet inspired him to build Futureland, a project network for people to record their progress of making something every day. Similarly, as a means of coping in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the designer Michael Bierut started drawing something every day. This practice led him to start The 100 Day Project with his students at Yale. The project eventually found its way online, where participants have shared more than 1.4 million Instagram posts (and counting) of their projects to date. This year’s 100 Day Project starts on April 7. The goal of making something during times of hardship isn’t to be “productive,” or to even achieve anything specific. Rather, the aim is to tap into your creativity to make meaning from the situation — or to find an outlet for your energy that makes it easier to maintain a calm, positive attitude. Your daily creative practice can be as short as 20 to 60 seconds. The key is just to pick something you can do every day. For example, one of Bierut’s students, the art director Zak Klauck, set out to design a poster every day in under 60 seconds. Internetvin has tweeted about setting himself the goal to write just a single line of code within 20 seconds. And the artist Mike Winkelmann has so far followed through on his mandate to draw something every day for nearly 5,000 days straight, even on the day his daughter was born. If you’re interested in setting up a daily creative practice, but have no idea how to get started, here’s some advice: Whatever you pick, you don’t have to do it for 100 days — even 10 days will suffice. Much like mustering the energy for physical exercise through this pandemic, you will thank yourself for exerting the effort. Instead of seeing this isolation as time that’s lost, you can decide to do something with it. And who knows, maybe you can even make something that you love. Once this is all over, you may look back on your daily creative practice as the one thing that made your isolation bearable.

https://forge.medium.com/if-you-cant-meditate-bake-bread-b99dda9dc6da

['Herbert Lui']

2020-04-03 16:02:29.565000+00:00

['Habits', 'Meaning', 'Creativity', 'Psychology', 'Coronavirus']

Title Can’t Meditate Bake BreadContent Can’t Meditate Bake Bread act making something every day powerful form anxiety relief Photo Theme PhotosUnsplash recent comic Luke McGarry show man apocalyptic hellscape trying get past pair armed intimidating gatekeeper “Please — grant safe passage” man say “I trade medicine precious metals” gatekeeper reply “Ha Fool Don’t know currency future homemade sourdough” You’re imagining Everyone baking bread right search term “bread” “baking bread” spiked 14year high Google Trends probably know Bread Guy Bread Gal may even one many people suddenly become pursuer perfect olive loaf French baguette pandemic One explanation making bread existentially healing endeavor Stephen Jones director Washington State University’s Bread Lab tell Wired year received handwritten letter three different people visiting lab turned breadmaking cope grief losing child belief baking bread akin spiritual experience “Bread alive” “you become one thing” suggests lessen anxiety improve wellbeing we’re often prescribed mindfulnesscultivating practice like yoga meditation another option make something every day may choose bake loaf bread pick old hobby could try completely new creative pursuit altogether daily creative task might write poem sketch picture fold origami thread Hacker News user Internetvin writes emotional overload fatherinlaw passing away within day son’s birth led make song every day healing effect creative outlet inspired build Futureland project network people record progress making something every day Similarly mean coping aftermath 911 attack designer Michael Bierut started drawing something every day practice led start 100 Day Project student Yale project eventually found way online participant shared 14 million Instagram post counting project date year’s 100 Day Project start April 7 goal making something time hardship isn’t “productive” even achieve anything specific Rather aim tap creativity make meaning situation — find outlet energy make easier maintain calm positive attitude daily creative practice short 20 60 second key pick something every day example one Bierut’s student art director Zak Klauck set design poster every day 60 second Internetvin tweeted setting goal write single line code within 20 second artist Mike Winkelmann far followed mandate draw something every day nearly 5000 day straight even day daughter born you’re interested setting daily creative practice idea get started here’s advice Whatever pick don’t 100 day — even 10 day suffice Much like mustering energy physical exercise pandemic thank exerting effort Instead seeing isolation time that’s lost decide something know maybe even make something love may look back daily creative practice one thing made isolation bearableTags Habits Meaning Creativity Psychology Coronavirus

20 Ways to Unlock Facebook Chatbots for Business in 2019

Facebook opened the gates to build Facebook Messenger bots in 2016. Today there are 400K Facebook chatbots in the world, helping businesses get more leads, close more sales, recruit team talent, and save money with automation. A Facebook Messenger marketing chatbot has a wide range of functionality and at the end of the day, marketing bots have a direct impact on boosting the bottom line. But how? And more importantly, how can you leverage Facebook Messenger automation for your own company? Read on for 20 ways to use Facebook chatbots for business today. You’ll see real-life Facebook chatbots that businesses are using for a lot of these applications. Don’t have a bot just yet? Build a free chatbot using MobileMonkey in under 5 minutes. It’s easy. Monkey see, monkey do. How to Put Facebook Chatbots to Work for Business Building a bot is surprisingly easy. Achieving your goals with a Facebook chatbot takes a little more strategy. We’ve broken it down into three goals. Pick a focus to get started. Goal I. Prospecting & Nurturing Leads with Bots Get more contacts, qualify leads and nurture leads to customers with chatbot development. 1. Grow Your Contacts to Generate Leads Anytime someone responds to the chatbot on your site, you’ll get them in MobileMonkey as a contact. This happens automatically. But, you can take that one step further with Facebook auto-responders. Basically, these posts auto-respond anytime a friend or fan interacts with your content. Learn how to hack growth organically with Facebook auto reply bot here. Facebook advertisers can use Facebook Click-to-Messenger Ads to grow contacts with ad budget and laser-focused audience targeting. Twelve ways to get more contacts for your Facebook chatbot are lined up here. 2. Run Giveaways to Get More Contacts Who doesn’t get excited over a product giveaway? Use your bot to inform your audience and encourage them to enter. Achieve that 20% average click rate. This golden unicorn of a chatbot giveaway generated 200 quality leads that turned into major sales: When you’re ready to launch your own Facebook Messenger chatbot contest take a look at MobileMonkey’s guide and featured examples. 3. Share Insider Knowledge via Facebook Chatbots Who doesn’t like being on the VIP list? Offer your future customers a way to stay on the inside track with your company. Then make your audience feel important with Messenger updates. Send out a chat blast to let them know about a new store opening or an exciting product announcement first. Sure, put the news on social media and send an email, but give a heads-up to your Facebook Messenger bot users first to treat them like the insiders they are. Give Gary Vaynerchuk’s VIP Facebook chatbot a spin to see how Gary Vee keeps Messenger subscribers on the inside track. 4. Make Messaging Interactive & Engaging Messenger chatbots are a great opportunity to showcase your brand voice and personality. Keep text succinct. Use GIFs, entertainment, and witty copy to connect with users. Want to get on the list for MobileMonkey’s engaging chat blasts? We always demonstrate the ways you can use Messenger chatbots in engaging and interactive ways. Subscribe to our updates and see what’s possible with Facebook chatbots 2x a week! Yeah, we think our bot is pretty engaging, but don’t take our word for it. Check out what Baby Got Bot’s Kelly Noble Mirabella has to say about ways to humanize your conversational chatbot to make it super engaging and interactive. 5. Personalize Messaging with a Facebook Chatbot With Messenger chatbots, you know who you’re talking to. That’s because it’s tied to the Facebook user. Optimize their customer journey to increase sales by sending customized content and products based on their interests. It’s easy for marketers to leverage personalization with Facebook chatbots because you can use system attributes and custom chatbot attributes right in the messaging and to segment your audience and serve up relevant content, too. 6. Revamp Email Marketing You have a whole new channel to reach your customers. And guess what? It has much higher rates of engagement than email. So, leverage that power to sell. Make your Messenger bot the new email. Test out drip campaigns and experiment with messaging and psychological marketing principles to get results. 7. Qualify Leads using Facebook Chatbots Screen your inquiries with questions so that by the time they get to your customer service team, there’s already information to act on. Ask questions of your Facebook chatbot contacts and engage them in two-way conversations where you can find out what they like and need. This is an important lead qualification that your Facebook chatbot can do in a natural, mobile-friendly conversational interface. Follow-up with your leads with a chatbot funnel designed just for them and with your sales and marketing as appropriate. Goal II. Increase Conversions & Customer Retention with Chatbots Improve and groom customer relationships. 8. Highlight Promotions via Facebook Chatbots And do it more than once! Customers are more likely to open what you send out on a Messenger blast than they are the average email. Send out a sale announcement, as well as a 1-hour left reminder, or any combination that you’d like. There’s an art and a science behind using Facebook chatbots to send promotional messages. Read the guide to Facebook Sponsored Messages Ads to learn everything there is to know. 9. Extend Special Offers to Key Audiences Send out discounts and offers through Messenger, exclusively to your chatbot audience. Check out how IMStonegifts sends exclusive offers to Facebook chatbot subscribers to drive sales and brand loyalty. 10. Send Exclusive Invitations via Facebook Chatbots Have a rewards program or a beta test running? You can target specific customers and invite them through your Messenger chatbot. It sounds simple, but it can do a lot for your customers’ experience. Celebrity and social media influencer Christina Milian uses a Facebook chatbot as an ecommerce storefront and a channel for sending exclusive invitations to connect more deeply. 11. Make Checkout / Conversion More Engaging Improve your customer’s experience with order processing. Using Facebook Messenger chatbots, you can offer up engaging order status updates every step of the way. Showcase your brand voice and make the waiting step of the process more enjoyable for everyone. 12. Offer Add-Ons and Upsells via Facebook Chatbots You know you can increase sales by upselling. So, don’t limit add-ons and upsells to email marketing and your site interface. Use your Facebook chatbot. And make it fun. If you know what customers ordered, you can now target them with complementary products. 13. Get Customer Feedback using Facebook Chatbots Ask for feedback and reviews with pre-filled buttons and easy-to-click designs. And then actually listen to that feedback. Not only can this help improve your product, but it’ll show you care about what your customers have to say. This simple survey Facebook chatbot example will show you how easy it is to take a survey with a bot. And here’s the guide to how to run a customer survey with a Messenger bot. Goal III. Automate to Boost Efficiency Your Facebook chatbot is up and running. Now what? Make your job easier and start automating. This strategy is a no-brainer. Improve customer experience and save your team time. 14. Send Order Updates or Event Reminders in Messenger If your customer or contact is connected to you in Messenger, or even signed up for that event or asked to receive order updates through Messenger, you can keep the chat convo going. Integrate your chatbot to your other business applications to give your customers a seamless experience while you save time through automation. 15. Be Available 24/7 with Answers to FAQs with Facebook Chatbots Got a list of FAQs? Repurpose the content and add it to the Facebook chatbot. Not only will this create fast responses for your visitors (and everyone appreciates instant information) but it will improve efficiency. Now, your customer service team doesn’t have to answer one question dozens of times and can focus on other important tasks. Yes, you already have your hours and location on your site. But, don’t make your visitors search. Add the basic details to your Facebook chatbot: hours, location, contact information, maps. For easy accessibility, install the best Facebook chatbot on your website. Ready to roll? Here’s how to answer FAQs in Messenger in 3 steps using MobileMonkey. 16. Fix a Service or Support Bottleneck Is there an [email protected] email address that never gets answered? A few negative reviews because of a customer service line that’s not 24 hours? Look for holdups and incorporate solutions in your Facebook Messenger chatbot. You can even notify a sales or customer support team if someone talking to your chatbot needs help. Jump into the chat conversation with live chat takeover any time. The beauty of automation. 17. Drip Content in Chat for Increased Reach using Facebook Chatbots White papers, eBooks, guides, infographics, tools like Google Chrome Extensions — if you’ve got it, send it. Push out in automated messaging sequences (aka drip campaigns) encouraging users to download the tool or content most useful to them. The more personalized, the better. Designing and launching Facebook chatbot drip campaigns are free to do with MobileMonkey! This interactive chatbot drip campaign example will give you a sense of what the experience is like for customers. Create a chatbot drip campaign for your business with this guide. 18. Get Better Survey Results using a Facebook Chatbot Sending out surveys is a breeze with chatbots. You can even set them up on a drip campaign so customers get them 3 days, 10 days, or any interval, after their experience with you. Get more responses by pre-filling answers so all users have to do is click. See chatbot templates here, including a survey chatbot. 19. Repurpose Content Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you have content, you can get creative and reuse that content to delight customers with your chatbot. Segment users and push content related to their purchase or interests. 20. Automate Appointment Scheduling using Facebook Chatbots In a service-based industry? Have workshops or tutorial classes? Automate sign-ups and appointment scheduling for a more seamless process. When Sephora implemented its appointment scheduling Facebook chatbot, the rate of appointments rose 11%! Be a Unicorn in a Sea of Donkeys Get my very best Unicorn marketing & entrepreneurship growth hacks: 2. Sign up for occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news & tips via Facebook Messenger. About the Author Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey — provider of the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform. He’s also the founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. Do you want a Free Facebook Chatbot builder for your Facebook page? Check out MobileMonkey! Originally posted on Mobilemonkey.com

https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/20-ways-to-unlock-facebook-chatbots-for-business-in-2019-30d12d56fa97

['Larry Kim']

2019-09-14 09:56:01.518000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Marketing', 'Chatbots', 'Facebook', 'Bots']

Title 20 Ways Unlock Facebook Chatbots Business 2019Content Facebook opened gate build Facebook Messenger bot 2016 Today 400K Facebook chatbots world helping business get lead close sale recruit team talent save money automation Facebook Messenger marketing chatbot wide range functionality end day marketing bot direct impact boosting bottom line importantly leverage Facebook Messenger automation company Read 20 way use Facebook chatbots business today You’ll see reallife Facebook chatbots business using lot application Don’t bot yet Build free chatbot using MobileMonkey 5 minute It’s easy Monkey see monkey Put Facebook Chatbots Work Business Building bot surprisingly easy Achieving goal Facebook chatbot take little strategy We’ve broken three goal Pick focus get started Goal Prospecting Nurturing Leads Bots Get contact qualify lead nurture lead customer chatbot development 1 Grow Contacts Generate Leads Anytime someone responds chatbot site you’ll get MobileMonkey contact happens automatically take one step Facebook autoresponders Basically post autorespond anytime friend fan interacts content Learn hack growth organically Facebook auto reply bot Facebook advertiser use Facebook ClicktoMessenger Ads grow contact ad budget laserfocused audience targeting Twelve way get contact Facebook chatbot lined 2 Run Giveaways Get Contacts doesn’t get excited product giveaway Use bot inform audience encourage enter Achieve 20 average click rate golden unicorn chatbot giveaway generated 200 quality lead turned major sale you’re ready launch Facebook Messenger chatbot contest take look MobileMonkey’s guide featured example 3 Share Insider Knowledge via Facebook Chatbots doesn’t like VIP list Offer future customer way stay inside track company make audience feel important Messenger update Send chat blast let know new store opening exciting product announcement first Sure put news social medium send email give headsup Facebook Messenger bot user first treat like insider Give Gary Vaynerchuk’s VIP Facebook chatbot spin see Gary Vee keep Messenger subscriber inside track 4 Make Messaging Interactive Engaging Messenger chatbots great opportunity showcase brand voice personality Keep text succinct Use GIFs entertainment witty copy connect user Want get list MobileMonkey’s engaging chat blast always demonstrate way use Messenger chatbots engaging interactive way Subscribe update see what’s possible Facebook chatbots 2x week Yeah think bot pretty engaging don’t take word Check Baby Got Bot’s Kelly Noble Mirabella say way humanize conversational chatbot make super engaging interactive 5 Personalize Messaging Facebook Chatbot Messenger chatbots know you’re talking That’s it’s tied Facebook user Optimize customer journey increase sale sending customized content product based interest It’s easy marketer leverage personalization Facebook chatbots use system attribute custom chatbot attribute right messaging segment audience serve relevant content 6 Revamp Email Marketing whole new channel reach customer guess much higher rate engagement email leverage power sell Make Messenger bot new email Test drip campaign experiment messaging psychological marketing principle get result 7 Qualify Leads using Facebook Chatbots Screen inquiry question time get customer service team there’s already information act Ask question Facebook chatbot contact engage twoway conversation find like need important lead qualification Facebook chatbot natural mobilefriendly conversational interface Followup lead chatbot funnel designed sale marketing appropriate Goal II Increase Conversions Customer Retention Chatbots Improve groom customer relationship 8 Highlight Promotions via Facebook Chatbots Customers likely open send Messenger blast average email Send sale announcement well 1hour left reminder combination you’d like There’s art science behind using Facebook chatbots send promotional message Read guide Facebook Sponsored Messages Ads learn everything know 9 Extend Special Offers Key Audiences Send discount offer Messenger exclusively chatbot audience Check IMStonegifts sends exclusive offer Facebook chatbot subscriber drive sale brand loyalty 10 Send Exclusive Invitations via Facebook Chatbots reward program beta test running target specific customer invite Messenger chatbot sound simple lot customers’ experience Celebrity social medium influencer Christina Milian us Facebook chatbot ecommerce storefront channel sending exclusive invitation connect deeply 11 Make Checkout Conversion Engaging Improve customer’s experience order processing Using Facebook Messenger chatbots offer engaging order status update every step way Showcase brand voice make waiting step process enjoyable everyone 12 Offer AddOns Upsells via Facebook Chatbots know increase sale upselling don’t limit addons upsells email marketing site interface Use Facebook chatbot make fun know customer ordered target complementary product 13 Get Customer Feedback using Facebook Chatbots Ask feedback review prefilled button easytoclick design actually listen feedback help improve product it’ll show care customer say simple survey Facebook chatbot example show easy take survey bot here’s guide run customer survey Messenger bot Goal III Automate Boost Efficiency Facebook chatbot running Make job easier start automating strategy nobrainer Improve customer experience save team time 14 Send Order Updates Event Reminders Messenger customer contact connected Messenger even signed event asked receive order update Messenger keep chat convo going Integrate chatbot business application give customer seamless experience save time automation 15 Available 247 Answers FAQs Facebook Chatbots Got list FAQs Repurpose content add Facebook chatbot create fast response visitor everyone appreciates instant information improve efficiency customer service team doesn’t answer one question dozen time focus important task Yes already hour location site don’t make visitor search Add basic detail Facebook chatbot hour location contact information map easy accessibility install best Facebook chatbot website Ready roll Here’s answer FAQs Messenger 3 step using MobileMonkey 16 Fix Service Support Bottleneck infocompanycom email address never get answered negative review customer service line that’s 24 hour Look holdup incorporate solution Facebook Messenger chatbot even notify sale customer support team someone talking chatbot need help Jump chat conversation live chat takeover time beauty automation 17 Drip Content Chat Increased Reach using Facebook Chatbots White paper eBooks guide infographics tool like Google Chrome Extensions — you’ve got send Push automated messaging sequence aka drip campaign encouraging user download tool content useful personalized better Designing launching Facebook chatbot drip campaign free MobileMonkey interactive chatbot drip campaign example give sense experience like customer Create chatbot drip campaign business guide 18 Get Better Survey Results using Facebook Chatbot Sending survey breeze chatbots even set drip campaign customer get 3 day 10 day interval experience Get response prefilling answer user click See chatbot template including survey chatbot 19 Repurpose Content Don’t reinvent wheel content get creative reuse content delight customer chatbot Segment user push content related purchase interest 20 Automate Appointment Scheduling using Facebook Chatbots servicebased industry workshop tutorial class Automate signups appointment scheduling seamless process Sephora implemented appointment scheduling Facebook chatbot rate appointment rose 11 Unicorn Sea Donkeys Get best Unicorn marketing entrepreneurship growth hack 2 Sign occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news tip via Facebook Messenger Author Larry Kim CEO MobileMonkey — provider World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform He’s also founder WordStream connect Facebook Messenger Twitter LinkedIn Instagram want Free Facebook Chatbot builder Facebook page Check MobileMonkey Originally posted MobilemonkeycomTags Entrepreneurship Marketing Chatbots Facebook Bots

What Climate Models Tell Us About Future Global Precipitation Patterns

What are climate models? As described by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, climate models are mathematical representations of the major components of the climate system (the atmosphere, land surface, ocean, and sea ice) and their interactions. Each component of the climate models are described as such: The atmospheric component simulates clouds and aerosols and plays a large role in the transport of heat and water around the globe. The land surface component simulates surface characteristics such as vegetation, snow cover, soil water, rivers, and carbon storage. The ocean component simulates ocean current movement and mixing. It also simulates biogeochemistry because the ocean is the dominant reservoir of heat and carbon in the whole climate system. The sea ice component modulates solar radiation absorption (the albedo of the planet) and air-sea heat and water exchanges. All climate models may contain and track different components. However, an article by the University at Albany explains that the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere (ice-covered regions, includes ground in permafrost), and lithosphere (upper layer of Earth’s crust, both continental and oceanic), are the main drivers of climate change and are all generally represented to some extent or another in most climate models to ensure accurate simulations. How do climate models work? Climate models divide the Earth’s surface into a three-dimensional grid. Each grid contains equations that represent each component of the model. Therefore, there are atmospheric equations, hydrospheric equations, lithospheric equations, and so on. These equations represent how each component of the climate works in a given area for a given set of variables. These variables represent different conditions and changes to those conditions. Variables may either be calculated by the equation or may be parameterized (hard-coding the variable to save on computing power). Because there are so many equations and variables at play, a lot of computing power is required to run the system. In other words, the smaller the individual cells of the grid, the more complex and detailed the model, the more computing power is required. Climate models also include the element of time, which allows models to simulate climatic conditions over a range of time units. These complex mathematical equations which describe how the different components of the atmosphere interact, and within themselves, how the materials within these components interact, give scientists the ability to “look into the future” to see what the climate will be like decades into the future. Currently, there are three types of climate models: energy balance models, intermediate complexity models, and general circulation models. Energy balance models forecast climate change as a result of Earth’s energy budget. This type of model looks specifically at how surface temperatures are affected by solar energy and Earth’s natural reflectivity (albedo). Using this type of model, scientists use equations that represent the exchange of energy between Earth and the Sun to better determine how heat is stored on Earth. Intermediate complexity models share similarities with energy balance models although they include Earth’s biogeochemical components to better simulate large-scale climate scenarios. Scenarios such as glacial melting, changes in ocean currents, and changes in greenhouse gas emission composition of the atmosphere can be simulated to determine how they affect Earth’s climate on the whole. Finally, global circulation models are the most complex, time-intensive, and computing-heavy models that offer precise predictions about climate change. These models incorporate each component listed above, including equations concerning chemistry, the carbon cycle, and the makeup of isolated areas. This type of model would use a small three-dimensional grid which offers more precision when it comes to understanding how these grids interact with each other. The difficulty of predicting precipitation changes with climate models. A chapter discussing the evaluation of climate models published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) discusses how the modeling of large-scale future precipitation patterns has improved since the days of the AR4 (the IPCC’s fourth climate assessment report conducted in 2007), although the modeling of regional precipitation remains subpar. According to their studies, the IPCC has found that climate models are prone to underestimating the sensitivity of extreme precipitation events to changes in global temperature. This implies that models could underestimate the projected increase in extreme precipitation events in the future. The chapter goes on to discuss how the simulation of precipitation is one of the most rigorous tests a model can conduct because precipitation characteristics depend heavily on various other processes (such as cloud formation, radiation, atmospheric moisture, and aerosols) that must be parameterized (the processes are defined by a specific variable in the code instead of letting the model calculate the value of the variable itself — saves on computing power when dealing with processes that can occur over much shorter scales than an entire grid cell) in the model. In some cases, where precipitation is concerned, this parameterization of variables must include a range of values to better account for variations in the cell in question, such as topography. In other words, due to the ranges of error involved in modeling precipitation, there can be varying levels of certainty when predicting the future precipitation of a region. This results in studies having to use several estimations of future precipitation to draw somewhat solid conclusions that may end up being changed a few years down the road. Because of this variation in the regional results of different models (one model could say that a region will become wetter while another model will say that the same region will become drier), a multimodel mean is required to get a rough answer to questions concerning the future of precipitation patterns. What climate models tell us about future global precipitation patterns. Without using precipitation-focused climate models, scientists can already infer a couple of things about how precipitation will change in response to a warming climate. According to a paper published by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, increased planet temperatures would give rise to increased evaporation and, as a result, desertification. Greater evaporation would contribute to the severity and duration of droughts. As the planet warms, the atmosphere’s carrying capacity for water also increases. This, coupled with increased evaporation, means that storms, whether they be thunderstorms, cyclones, or hurricanes, will unleash even greater amounts of precipitation. Vast amounts of precipitation that fall on parched ground will find it hard to be absorbed, resulting in greater amounts of runoff and severe flooding events. The article goes on to mention how climate models suggest that dry areas will become drier, and wet areas will become wetter, due to a lack of change in the planet’s wind patterns as forecasted for the foreseeable future. This means that while copious amounts of water will be added to the atmosphere, its distribution as precipitation will be uneven. When it comes to making predictions using climate models, the results generally mirror the phenomena described above. As previously discussed, a model mean is generally required to get the average prediction about future precipitation levels for a given region. However, there are some parts of the world where 9 out of 10 models will agree about future precipitation patterns. Currently, models agree that tropical and high latitude regions will see an increase in precipitation. Models predict that locations such as India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and northern China will observe greater amounts of precipitation. Regions that will likely see drier conditions include the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and parts of Australia and South America. North America, Europe, and the greater part of northern continental Asia appear to be slightly harder to predict due to seasonal variation, with precipitation prediction amounts being on the higher end during the winter, spring, and fall and predicted precipitation amounts being lower during the summer months. Regardless of regions becoming wetter or drier, a consensus among climate models suggests that intense precipitation events will increase worldwide by the end of the century. It’s currently projected that a particular intensification of precipitation events will occur in Eurasia and North America.

https://medium.com/predict/what-climate-models-tell-us-about-future-global-precipitation-patterns-e7b52d2447aa

['Madison Hunter']

2020-11-28 00:54:09.170000+00:00

['Climate Change', 'Technology', 'Environment', 'Future', 'Science']

Title Climate Models Tell Us Future Global Precipitation PatternsContent climate model described Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory climate model mathematical representation major component climate system atmosphere land surface ocean sea ice interaction component climate model described atmospheric component simulates cloud aerosol play large role transport heat water around globe land surface component simulates surface characteristic vegetation snow cover soil water river carbon storage ocean component simulates ocean current movement mixing also simulates biogeochemistry ocean dominant reservoir heat carbon whole climate system sea ice component modulates solar radiation absorption albedo planet airsea heat water exchange climate model may contain track different component However article University Albany explains atmosphere hydrosphere biosphere cryosphere icecovered region includes ground permafrost lithosphere upper layer Earth’s crust continental oceanic main driver climate change generally represented extent another climate model ensure accurate simulation climate model work Climate model divide Earth’s surface threedimensional grid grid contains equation represent component model Therefore atmospheric equation hydrospheric equation lithospheric equation equation represent component climate work given area given set variable variable represent different condition change condition Variables may either calculated equation may parameterized hardcoding variable save computing power many equation variable play lot computing power required run system word smaller individual cell grid complex detailed model computing power required Climate model also include element time allows model simulate climatic condition range time unit complex mathematical equation describe different component atmosphere interact within material within component interact give scientist ability “look future” see climate like decade future Currently three type climate model energy balance model intermediate complexity model general circulation model Energy balance model forecast climate change result Earth’s energy budget type model look specifically surface temperature affected solar energy Earth’s natural reflectivity albedo Using type model scientist use equation represent exchange energy Earth Sun better determine heat stored Earth Intermediate complexity model share similarity energy balance model although include Earth’s biogeochemical component better simulate largescale climate scenario Scenarios glacial melting change ocean current change greenhouse gas emission composition atmosphere simulated determine affect Earth’s climate whole Finally global circulation model complex timeintensive computingheavy model offer precise prediction climate change model incorporate component listed including equation concerning chemistry carbon cycle makeup isolated area type model would use small threedimensional grid offer precision come understanding grid interact difficulty predicting precipitation change climate model chapter discussing evaluation climate model published Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change IPCC discus modeling largescale future precipitation pattern improved since day AR4 IPCC’s fourth climate assessment report conducted 2007 although modeling regional precipitation remains subpar According study IPCC found climate model prone underestimating sensitivity extreme precipitation event change global temperature implies model could underestimate projected increase extreme precipitation event future chapter go discus simulation precipitation one rigorous test model conduct precipitation characteristic depend heavily various process cloud formation radiation atmospheric moisture aerosol must parameterized process defined specific variable code instead letting model calculate value variable — save computing power dealing process occur much shorter scale entire grid cell model case precipitation concerned parameterization variable must include range value better account variation cell question topography word due range error involved modeling precipitation varying level certainty predicting future precipitation region result study use several estimation future precipitation draw somewhat solid conclusion may end changed year road variation regional result different model one model could say region become wetter another model say region become drier multimodel mean required get rough answer question concerning future precipitation pattern climate model tell u future global precipitation pattern Without using precipitationfocused climate model scientist already infer couple thing precipitation change response warming climate According paper published National Center Atmospheric Research increased planet temperature would give rise increased evaporation result desertification Greater evaporation would contribute severity duration drought planet warms atmosphere’s carrying capacity water also increase coupled increased evaporation mean storm whether thunderstorm cyclone hurricane unleash even greater amount precipitation Vast amount precipitation fall parched ground find hard absorbed resulting greater amount runoff severe flooding event article go mention climate model suggest dry area become drier wet area become wetter due lack change planet’s wind pattern forecasted foreseeable future mean copious amount water added atmosphere distribution precipitation uneven come making prediction using climate model result generally mirror phenomenon described previously discussed model mean generally required get average prediction future precipitation level given region However part world 9 10 model agree future precipitation pattern Currently model agree tropical high latitude region see increase precipitation Models predict location India Bangladesh Myanmar northern China observe greater amount precipitation Regions likely see drier condition include Mediterranean southern Africa part Australia South America North America Europe greater part northern continental Asia appear slightly harder predict due seasonal variation precipitation prediction amount higher end winter spring fall predicted precipitation amount lower summer month Regardless region becoming wetter drier consensus among climate model suggests intense precipitation event increase worldwide end century It’s currently projected particular intensification precipitation event occur Eurasia North AmericaTags Climate Change Technology Environment Future Science

Finale — The IDFA conundrum. In my previous articles, I wrote about:

In my previous articles, I wrote about: The ecosystem around the IDFA A deeper look into why the ad industry needs a reboot With that, let me close the series with a few thoughts for developers to mitigate any perceived effects from Apple’s recent announcement: Internal Data Audits Start by getting a good sense of your application’s data policies. As developers/marketers, we tend to accumulate in-app engagement events beyond what we need. Too often, I hear requests from cross-functional divisions to collect user events..“just in case”. Before you know it, the app is configured to send events that end up getting stored for little to no use. Tip: Reach out to data experts in your division to perform an audit of events/parameters collected. As a team, you need to comb through the events and ask the questions: Are we using this event/field today? If so, does it add value? If not, do we have a tangible use-case in the future? Can we quantify said value by running a quick experiment? Can we repurpose a combination of other existing fields to achieve the same outcomes as predicated by collecting the event? Going through this exercise on an ongoing basis should make the process easier and productive for the long haul. 3P Education More often than not, you may find that your app collects information unbeknownst to your team in the form of SDKs/Frameworks introduced by 3P advertising networks. Educate yourself about your ad partner’s data policies. Focus on the principles of data collection and usage alongside their retention policies. Ensure that whatever gets collected on your behalf is what your business needs and not the other way around. Tip: Look past assurances around enforced policies such as GDPR. Simply adhering to such guidelines should not become the gold standard. Own your Channel Advertising is a great way to acquire users (or) monetize your apps. It should be done tastefully. Why would you work hard on building incredibly engaging content only to lease out your space to sub-optimal advertising? Work closely with your marketing agencies to focus on content as much as performance Obsess over the copy/verbiage/demo to highlight key value Increase and diversify fill by working with your mediation partners. Focus on ad quality as much as your eCPMs Keep close tabs with your customer experience team — Highlight and penalize errant networks that boost fill with trashy ads Switch to Subscription Models I like how Ben connects product adoption to the user’s willing-to-pay for content. Now might be a good time to understand your audience whatever be your business vertical and gauge your ability to focus on users who truly value your content. Switching over to a subscription model could fetch a premium cost with higher margins. The flip side is true though— Subscription models tend to narrow down the focus of your offering which takes away the broader reach and growth. Tip: Analyze your customer behaviors and rethink the right opportunity for your app. Ensure that you go deep on engagement. Skimming the surface with top-line metrics such as CAC and LTV could take you down the wrong path. You need to have a solid read on your customer journeys with your product to make an informed decision. Aim for Transparency One approach is to be straight up transparent to the user. Customers are more receptive to giving you the benefit of doubt when: You are ultra transparent about your intent Provide value-driven options and let the user make the decision In my own anecdotal experience, developers have improved conversions when they communicate their intent upfront. Take push notifications for instance. Which one of these do you think resonates well with your audience: Obviously the one on the left is going to perform better. You may want to use the same strategy to convince your users to opt-in to sharing their IDFA. You just need to be honest and transparent. Good Luck! Feel free to reach out should you have additional thoughts on this topic. Cheers :-)

https://medium.com/macoclock/finale-the-idfa-conundrum-3aebb7740cd6

['Abishek Ashok']

2020-12-08 07:17:48.464000+00:00

['Advertising', 'Marketing', 'iOS', 'Apple', 'Startup']

Title Finale — IDFA conundrum previous article wrote aboutContent previous article wrote ecosystem around IDFA deeper look ad industry need reboot let close series thought developer mitigate perceived effect Apple’s recent announcement Internal Data Audits Start getting good sense application’s data policy developersmarketers tend accumulate inapp engagement event beyond need often hear request crossfunctional division collect user events“just case” know app configured send event end getting stored little use Tip Reach data expert division perform audit eventsparameters collected team need comb event ask question using eventfield today add value tangible usecase future quantify said value running quick experiment repurpose combination existing field achieve outcome predicated collecting event Going exercise ongoing basis make process easier productive long haul 3P Education often may find app collect information unbeknownst team form SDKsFrameworks introduced 3P advertising network Educate ad partner’s data policy Focus principle data collection usage alongside retention policy Ensure whatever get collected behalf business need way around Tip Look past assurance around enforced policy GDPR Simply adhering guideline become gold standard Channel Advertising great way acquire user monetize apps done tastefully would work hard building incredibly engaging content lease space suboptimal advertising Work closely marketing agency focus content much performance Obsess copyverbiagedemo highlight key value Increase diversify fill working mediation partner Focus ad quality much eCPMs Keep close tab customer experience team — Highlight penalize errant network boost fill trashy ad Switch Subscription Models like Ben connects product adoption user’s willingtopay content might good time understand audience whatever business vertical gauge ability focus user truly value content Switching subscription model could fetch premium cost higher margin flip side true though— Subscription model tend narrow focus offering take away broader reach growth Tip Analyze customer behavior rethink right opportunity app Ensure go deep engagement Skimming surface topline metric CAC LTV could take wrong path need solid read customer journey product make informed decision Aim Transparency One approach straight transparent user Customers receptive giving benefit doubt ultra transparent intent Provide valuedriven option let user make decision anecdotal experience developer improved conversion communicate intent upfront Take push notification instance one think resonates well audience Obviously one left going perform better may want use strategy convince user optin sharing IDFA need honest transparent Good Luck Feel free reach additional thought topic Cheers Tags Advertising Marketing iOS Apple Startup

5 Things You Buy When You Read The Sober Lush

The book that reminded me to enjoy all the things, not just one. I’m not a sober person. Just in case you’re not sober, I don’t want you to think you can’t read this book or this essay. In fact I think you should read both. The Sober Lush, by Amanda Eyre Ward and Jardine Libaire is, in my opinion, required reading on the syllabus of adult life regardless of whether or not you drink. Do you ever think about how we just kind of stop all version of formal instruction at the very moment we enter adulthood, arguably a rather tricky path to navigate without a guide? I’m very grateful that a podcast listener of mine suggested I read The Sober Lush, it’s a book that delves deeply and truthfully into sobriety, but it also reminds you of all the delicious, varied, and luscious ways we can consume life, that have nothing to do with consuming alcohol. As I read the book, I stumbled upon ideas, concepts, and products that were so profoundly interesting to me, that I wanted to experience so much, that I couldn’t keep reading until someone had my credit card information and shipping address. There are moments in this book that forgive you for overlooking countless joys of life in lieu of alcohol, which seems to be the most widely understood form of adulthood indulgence and celebration. The book forgives you, making it easier for you to forgive yourself, thereby freeing you to dive into things you love that maybe you haven’t let yourself love, or remembered to love, in awhile. In finishing the book, I felt free. More free than I’d felt in a long time. Which is cool, considering the reason I read the book in the first place was my curiosity around alcohol moderation, which I’d always thought would make me feel more limited. Instead, I felt a profound freedom to be myself, and enjoy the things that are enjoyable to me, with a uniqueness and a recklessness I haven’t felt since I was kid. On top of that, I was experiencing rediscovery at the same time. I really like a lot of things! It feels weird to type it, but I was kind of ashamed of how frequently I’d previously associated feeling good with alcohol, and not much else. Which is counterintuitive, when you factor in the following mornings. It feels like I’m operating inside a new world, which is particularly beautiful when you remember that there’s a pandemic and the only place I’ve been this year is home. I feel renewed, and a bit like an explorer rediscovering things I used to love or will start to love soon. Enjoy The Sober Lush, let it remind you of all the things there are in the world to enjoy, and if you need specifics, here are a few favorites of mine: Raw Honey: Honestly, just jars of things in general. Do you know how many wonderful things come in jars? Take a spin around the dry goods section of the grocery store next time you’re there, with a particularly keen eye alert in the jams. When raw honey was described in this book, I was more excited than I’d been on…oh let’s just say half of the first dates I’ve ever attended. Honey is truly a gift to humans on this planet, probably as compensation for other bullshit like taxes and Twitter. Buy a jar of good raw honey, and remind yourself why everyone freaks out so much about the bees. We need them, we need their righteous work. Taste it for yourself and remember why. *Pro tip: Drizzle some raw honey on the OUTSIDE of your grilled cheese as you cook it, or atop your bowl of pasta instead of finishing salt. Trust me. Incense & Scented Candles: I’m big on smells. I blame my faulty eyes for an overly acute nose. I hadn’t heard anyone exalt the merits of incense since like…college, when we thought burning it qualified as making us cool and interesting. Incense is glorious. I literally cannot stop indulging in it. I now see no reason not to live in a space where smoke is perpetually drifting from the top of a stick. It’s a scent, a sight, and a mood, more powerful and transportive than redecorating your entire house. My favorites come from P.F. Candle Co but I strongly encourage you to shop around and find scents that make you feel something. You’ll know what I mean when you get it right. The scent will take you to a place or a memory that hasn’t been center stage in your mind for quite awhile. One kind of incense reminds me of summer camp in Ojai, the other one reminds me, and for the life of me I don’t know why, of a performance of Sleep No More. I’ve typically kept a scented candle or two around the house, but I always felt guilty about buying them. So much money on something I’ll burn through so quickly always felt weird to me. But not when you realize how much you personally value the pleasure they provide. Scent matters to me, it’s allowed to matter to me, and why was I so willing to spend $25 on a bottle of wine that would be gone in a couple of hours but not a scented candle that would increase my enjoyment of my own home and not make me feel like garbage afterward? My apartment smells amazing these days, and it’s because a book reminded me that it can. Now, the difference for me between burning a candle or not burning a candle is much like the difference between a house where music is playing in the background and one where it’s not. I pay a lot more attention to all the ways I can enjoy my time inside my home, and the cost of them no longer feels like guilt, it feels like living more fully. Press-On Nails: While not mentioned in the book, I feel like they very much fit into the Sober Lush lifestyle. I perpetually wear a full set of the most luscious press on nails. I change them whenever I want, I buy the styles and colors that appeal to me (usually glitter). No unpleasant smells, drying time, or salon expense at all. Press-on nails aren’t necessary, not even practical at certain lengths given that I type for a living, but valuable for the enjoyment and pleasure I take in how they look and feel. I’ve got boxes of them now. Colorful little tiles I adhere to my hands effortlessly, and feel 10x more glamorous as a result. Did I almost loose one in a batch of cookie dough the other day? Yes. Was it worth it to be able to love what I see every time I look at my own hands? Also yes. Good, Rich Chocolate: All sorts of precious flavors and moods are mentioned in the book. Chocolate is certainly one you’d expect, but I’d challenge us all to try and remember the last time we really thought about what chocolate tastes like. The last time you had some, was that all you were doing? Enjoying it, identifying it’s pleasures, or where you just popping some into your mouth while you did something else? I chose to explore my Sober Lush-inspired relationship with chocolate via a rich bar of milk and dark swirled together with bits of butterscotch laced throughout. Just stand there when you eat it, and clear your mind of anything that’s in the way of you and a moment of melting joy. You guys…chocolate is fantastic. Halloween Decorations: Again, not explicitly mentioned, but fully within range of lush behavior. Halloween brings me joy, and sometimes in the past I’ve felt guilty about that joy, as if I shouldn’t love or celebrate Halloween so much because it’s childish. This book reminded me that what brings us joy and pleasure isn’t childish, instead it’s actually necessary for us to live full, joyous lives where we’re not denying ourselves the full range of life’s experiences. Alcohol is a super adult thing to partake in, but it hurts. None of my childhood amusements and indulgences hurt. Maybe reverting back a little bit isn’t such a bad thing. Anyway, my living room looks like a haunted mansion, and I’m thrilled about it. Life is a lot of different tastes and scents and textures and experiences. I didn’t think a book about abstaining from alcohol would remind me just how much of life is worth getting up to our elbows in, but here we are. If you need to open the aperture of your enjoyment a little wider, and remind yourself of all the places pleasure and joy can be found, read The Sober Lush, as soon as possible. ____________ Shani Silver is a humor essayist and podcaster based in Brooklyn who writes on Medium, pretty frequently actually. Links above to The Sober Lush are affiliate links.

https://shanisilver.medium.com/5-things-you-buy-when-you-read-the-sober-lush-9d1570ee3af

['Shani Silver']

2020-09-13 14:59:29.911000+00:00

['Alcohol', 'Nonfiction', 'Books', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

Title 5 Things Buy Read Sober LushContent book reminded enjoy thing one I’m sober person case you’re sober don’t want think can’t read book essay fact think read Sober Lush Amanda Eyre Ward Jardine Libaire opinion required reading syllabus adult life regardless whether drink ever think kind stop version formal instruction moment enter adulthood arguably rather tricky path navigate without guide I’m grateful podcast listener mine suggested read Sober Lush it’s book delf deeply truthfully sobriety also reminds delicious varied luscious way consume life nothing consuming alcohol read book stumbled upon idea concept product profoundly interesting wanted experience much couldn’t keep reading someone credit card information shipping address moment book forgive overlooking countless joy life lieu alcohol seems widely understood form adulthood indulgence celebration book forgives making easier forgive thereby freeing dive thing love maybe haven’t let love remembered love awhile finishing book felt free free I’d felt long time cool considering reason read book first place curiosity around alcohol moderation I’d always thought would make feel limited Instead felt profound freedom enjoy thing enjoyable uniqueness recklessness haven’t felt since kid top experiencing rediscovery time really like lot thing feel weird type kind ashamed frequently I’d previously associated feeling good alcohol much else counterintuitive factor following morning feel like I’m operating inside new world particularly beautiful remember there’s pandemic place I’ve year home feel renewed bit like explorer rediscovering thing used love start love soon Enjoy Sober Lush let remind thing world enjoy need specific favorite mine Raw Honey Honestly jar thing general know many wonderful thing come jar Take spin around dry good section grocery store next time you’re particularly keen eye alert jam raw honey described book excited I’d on…oh let’s say half first date I’ve ever attended Honey truly gift human planet probably compensation bullshit like tax Twitter Buy jar good raw honey remind everyone freak much bee need need righteous work Taste remember Pro tip Drizzle raw honey OUTSIDE grilled cheese cook atop bowl pasta instead finishing salt Trust Incense Scented Candles I’m big smell blame faulty eye overly acute nose hadn’t heard anyone exalt merit incense since like…college thought burning qualified making u cool interesting Incense glorious literally cannot stop indulging see reason live space smoke perpetually drifting top stick It’s scent sight mood powerful transportive redecorating entire house favorite come PF Candle Co strongly encourage shop around find scent make feel something You’ll know mean get right scent take place memory hasn’t center stage mind quite awhile One kind incense reminds summer camp Ojai one reminds life don’t know performance Sleep I’ve typically kept scented candle two around house always felt guilty buying much money something I’ll burn quickly always felt weird realize much personally value pleasure provide Scent matter it’s allowed matter willing spend 25 bottle wine would gone couple hour scented candle would increase enjoyment home make feel like garbage afterward apartment smell amazing day it’s book reminded difference burning candle burning candle much like difference house music playing background one it’s pay lot attention way enjoy time inside home cost longer feel like guilt feel like living fully PressOn Nails mentioned book feel like much fit Sober Lush lifestyle perpetually wear full set luscious press nail change whenever want buy style color appeal usually glitter unpleasant smell drying time salon expense Presson nail aren’t necessary even practical certain length given type living valuable enjoyment pleasure take look feel I’ve got box Colorful little tile adhere hand effortlessly feel 10x glamorous result almost loose one batch cookie dough day Yes worth able love see every time look hand Also yes Good Rich Chocolate sort precious flavor mood mentioned book Chocolate certainly one you’d expect I’d challenge u try remember last time really thought chocolate taste like last time Enjoying identifying it’s pleasure popping mouth something else chose explore Sober Lushinspired relationship chocolate via rich bar milk dark swirled together bit butterscotch laced throughout stand eat clear mind anything that’s way moment melting joy guys…chocolate fantastic Halloween Decorations explicitly mentioned fully within range lush behavior Halloween brings joy sometimes past I’ve felt guilty joy shouldn’t love celebrate Halloween much it’s childish book reminded brings u joy pleasure isn’t childish instead it’s actually necessary u live full joyous life we’re denying full range life’s experience Alcohol super adult thing partake hurt None childhood amusement indulgence hurt Maybe reverting back little bit isn’t bad thing Anyway living room look like haunted mansion I’m thrilled Life lot different taste scent texture experience didn’t think book abstaining alcohol would remind much life worth getting elbow need open aperture enjoyment little wider remind place pleasure joy found read Sober Lush soon possible Shani Silver humor essayist podcaster based Brooklyn writes Medium pretty frequently actually Links Sober Lush affiliate linksTags Alcohol Nonfiction Books Life Lessons Writing

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https://medium.com/p/462571b65b35#79d4

['Tds Editors']

2020-11-19 01:16:58.476000+00:00

['Writers’ Guide', 'Tds Team', 'Writers Guide']

Title FAQsContent Writers happens submit article TDS Thank much taking time submit article team review soon believe article excellent ready go able add post publication “Towards Data Science” show click “Add publication” dropdown menu top page mean added author waiting submit article submitted article reviewed editor final decision made think article interesting need improved someone team provide feedback directly submitted Medium article Please note respond article properly submitted using either form via email exactly follows instruction listed don’t respond pitch question already answered FAQs Contribute page also ignore article don’t comply rule haven’t heard u within next five working day please carefully check article submitted team See submit directly TDS look private note u may missed also make sure check spam folder can’t reach u best thing submit article another publication Although we’d love can’t provide customized feedback everyone simply receive many submission learn decision submit another post monthTags Writers’ Guide Tds Team Writers Guide

Visualize multi-dimension datasets in a 2D graph using t-SNE (Airbnb bookings dataset as an example)

Visualize multi-dimension datasets in a 2D graph using t-SNE (Airbnb bookings dataset as an example) Paul Lo Follow Jan 15 · 6 min read Using 31 numeric features in the user booking dataset which has 12 different travel destinations for prediction— and yeah, I know it’s really messy, at least we immediately know we have some feature engineering work to do :D t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) algorithm First of all, what is t-SNE and when and why are we using it? It is an unsupervised and non-linear dimension reduction algorithm, people usually use it during exploratory data analysis , an early stage in the whole machine learning pipeline. It helps us surface high-dimensional datasets (e.g. many features) through a 2D or 3D plot (or other relatively low numbers), and thus get a quick intuition about the data. It is NOT designed in a way to apply it directly to a classification task. How about PCA? In the dimension reduction area, people often compare it with PCA , or Principal Component Analysis . Actually, t-SNE is a much newer approach that was developed by Laurens van der Maatens and Geoffrey Hinton in 2008 (see paper “Visualizing Data using t-SNE” here), while PCA was developed by Hotelling H. back in 1933 (Analysis of a complex of statistical variables into principal components), almost 3 generations ago! As mentioned in the t-SNE paper, there is certainly some limitations for the linear type of models like PCA, “For high-dimensional data that lies on or near a low-dimensional, non-linear manifold it is usually more important to keep the low-dimensional representations of very similar datapoints close together, which is typically not possible with a linear mapping.” To understand better about this, we can take a look at the underlying algorithm (and many great ‘PCA vs t-SNE’ articles online), aside from the Algorithm section in the original paper, I also highly recommend this An illustrated introduction to the t-SNE algorithm read, which provides a very intuitive but mathematical perspective to the model. In order to move on to the coding section, here, let’s just say t-SNE is more effective in handling certain types of complicated data, compared with PCA ‘s linear approach. As shown in the following pictures, a Kaggle script created by puyokw demonstrates t-SNE’s capabilities clearly. Code For R Step 1: Install and load Rtsne package install.packages("Rtsne") # Install Rtsne from CRAN library library(Rtsne) Step 2. Load a dataset for our example use case > iris_unique <- unique(iris) # remove duplicate rows > head(iris_unique) Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa Step 3. Fit with t-SNE and visualize Yes — it’s really that simple > iris_matrix = as.matrix(iris_unique[,1:4]) # note: we can only pass in numeric columns > tsne_out <- Rtsne(iris_matrix) > plot(tsne_out$Y,col=iris$Species) # graph is now generated t-SNE visualization for a simple Iris dataset, the three types of flowers are clearly divided into different 3 clusters Now, let’s try with another real-world dataset, but much more complicated — Airbnb’s user booking dataset in a Kaggle competition. With the following code, we can check out its visualization in a 2D space. Step 1. Load the data: Airbnb dataset (there are 213,451 rows in training dataset) > library(readr) > df_train = read_csv(“train_users.csv”) # subset numerical features > numeric_columns = sapply(df_train, is.numeric) > countries = as.factor(df_train$country_destination) > df_train = df_train[, numeric_columns] > df_train$country_destination = countries # put destination column back > df_train_unique <- unique(train) # de-duplication > dim(df_train_unique) [1] 213451 31 Step 2. Fit t-SNE and generate the plot > matrx = as.matrix(df_train_unique) > tsne_out <- Rtsne(matrx) > plot(tsne_out$Y, col=countries, main=’t-SNE of airbnb dataset on Kaggle (31 features)’) 31 numeric features and 12 different target variables It took 20–30 minutes on Rtsne() and unique() , and the resulting graph was bad, which implied that I hadn’t come up with good features yet to separate 12 different country destinations for an accurate prediction. (The speed can be improved with parameters like theta, max_iter, etc.) > colnames(df_train) [1] “timestamp_first_active” “age” [3] “signup_flow” “-unknown-” [5] “Android App Unknown Phone/Tablet” “Android Phone” [7] “Blackberry” “Chromebook” [9] “Linux Desktop” “Mac Desktop” [11] “Opera Phone” “Tablet” [13] “Windows Desktop” “Windows Phone” [15] “iPad Tablet” “iPhone” [17] “iPodtouch” “total_elapsed_time” [19] “-unknown-_pct” “Android App Unknown Phone/Tablet_pct” [21] “Android Phone_pct” “Blackberry_pct” [23] “Chromebook_pct” “Linux Desktop_pct” [25] “Mac Desktop_pct” “Opera Phone_pct” [27] “Tablet_pct” “Windows Desktop_pct” [29] “Windows Phone_pct” “iPad Tablet_pct” [31] “iPhone_pct” Python code For Python folks, we’ll be using TSNE package under sklearn.manifold , a simple use case looks like the following, while there are optional parameters including learning_rate, n_components (dimension of the embedded space, default=2), n_iter (maximum number of iterations for the optimization) to play with from sklearn.manifold import TSNE import matplotlib.pyplot as plt X_tsne = TSNE().fit_transform(df_train_unique) scatter(X_tsne[:, 0], X_tsne[:, 1], c=countries,cmap=plt.cm.spectral,alpha=.4, edgecolor='k') The Tradeoff: High time and space complexity When I passed in completed 150+ features (including categorical fields added by dummyVars() ) of 200K data points to build a 2D t-SNE visualization, it took forever and ate up 25GB of memory in my MBP, pretty scary….! Other than that, t-SNE is computationally expensive. As shown in the sklearn documents, in the same Manifold Learning (non-linear dimensionality reduction) family, t-SNE can take 6–100 times more compared with other models such as Spectral Embedding (SE) and Multi-dimensional Scaling (MDS). t-SNE is very computationally intensive, even compared with other non-linear dimensional reduction models When we think about the underlying algorithm, t-SNE has to compute the distances between all the points and maintain a pairwise N by N distance matrix (N = # of examples). Therefore, its space and time complexity are at quadratic level, O(n²), and this problem naturally becomes another popular research domain people are trying to optimize, one example is Fast Fourier Transform-accelerated Interpolation-based t-SNE (FIt-SNE), the details can be found in the paper here. To be continued…… Going back to the Airbnb dataset example, we should be able to generate a better visualization result with t-SNE — please stay tuned, let me share more next time! Reference End Notes:

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/note-visualize-multi-dimension-datasets-in-a-2d-graph-using-t-sne-airbnb-bookings-dataset-as-824541cc5388

['Paul Lo']

2020-01-15 12:23:46.859000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Dimensionality Reduction', 'Clustering', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Exploration']

Title Visualize multidimension datasets 2D graph using tSNE Airbnb booking dataset exampleContent Visualize multidimension datasets 2D graph using tSNE Airbnb booking dataset example Paul Lo Follow Jan 15 · 6 min read Using 31 numeric feature user booking dataset 12 different travel destination prediction— yeah know it’s really messy least immediately know feature engineering work tDistributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding tSNE algorithm First tSNE using unsupervised nonlinear dimension reduction algorithm people usually use exploratory data analysis early stage whole machine learning pipeline help u surface highdimensional datasets eg many feature 2D 3D plot relatively low number thus get quick intuition data designed way apply directly classification task PCA dimension reduction area people often compare PCA Principal Component Analysis Actually tSNE much newer approach developed Laurens van der Maatens Geoffrey Hinton 2008 see paper “Visualizing Data using tSNE” PCA developed Hotelling H back 1933 Analysis complex statistical variable principal component almost 3 generation ago mentioned tSNE paper certainly limitation linear type model like PCA “For highdimensional data lie near lowdimensional nonlinear manifold usually important keep lowdimensional representation similar datapoints close together typically possible linear mapping” understand better take look underlying algorithm many great ‘PCA v tSNE’ article online aside Algorithm section original paper also highly recommend illustrated introduction tSNE algorithm read provides intuitive mathematical perspective model order move coding section let’s say tSNE effective handling certain type complicated data compared PCA ‘s linear approach shown following picture Kaggle script created puyokw demonstrates tSNE’s capability clearly Code R Step 1 Install load Rtsne package installpackagesRtsne Install Rtsne CRAN library libraryRtsne Step 2 Load dataset example use case irisunique uniqueiris remove duplicate row headirisunique SepalLength SepalWidth PetalLength PetalWidth Species 1 51 35 14 02 setosa 2 49 30 14 02 setosa 3 47 32 13 02 setosa 4 46 31 15 02 setosa 5 50 36 14 02 setosa Step 3 Fit tSNE visualize Yes — it’s really simple irismatrix asmatrixirisunique14 note pas numeric column tsneout Rtsneirismatrix plottsneoutYcolirisSpecies graph generated tSNE visualization simple Iris dataset three type flower clearly divided different 3 cluster let’s try another realworld dataset much complicated — Airbnb’s user booking dataset Kaggle competition following code check visualization 2D space Step 1 Load data Airbnb dataset 213451 row training dataset libraryreadr dftrain readcsv“trainuserscsv” subset numerical feature numericcolumns sapplydftrain isnumeric country asfactordftraincountrydestination dftrain dftrain numericcolumns dftraincountrydestination country put destination column back dftrainunique uniquetrain deduplication dimdftrainunique 1 213451 31 Step 2 Fit tSNE generate plot matrx asmatrixdftrainunique tsneout Rtsnematrx plottsneoutY colcountries main’tSNE airbnb dataset Kaggle 31 features’ 31 numeric feature 12 different target variable took 20–30 minute Rtsne unique resulting graph bad implied hadn’t come good feature yet separate 12 different country destination accurate prediction speed improved parameter like theta maxiter etc colnamesdftrain 1 “timestampfirstactive” “age” 3 “signupflow” “unknown” 5 “Android App Unknown PhoneTablet” “Android Phone” 7 “Blackberry” “Chromebook” 9 “Linux Desktop” “Mac Desktop” 11 “Opera Phone” “Tablet” 13 “Windows Desktop” “Windows Phone” 15 “iPad Tablet” “iPhone” 17 “iPodtouch” “totalelapsedtime” 19 “unknownpct” “Android App Unknown PhoneTabletpct” 21 “Android Phonepct” “Blackberrypct” 23 “Chromebookpct” “Linux Desktoppct” 25 “Mac Desktoppct” “Opera Phonepct” 27 “Tabletpct” “Windows Desktoppct” 29 “Windows Phonepct” “iPad Tabletpct” 31 “iPhonepct” Python code Python folk we’ll using TSNE package sklearnmanifold simple use case look like following optional parameter including learningrate ncomponents dimension embedded space default2 niter maximum number iteration optimization play sklearnmanifold import TSNE import matplotlibpyplot plt Xtsne TSNEfittransformdftrainunique scatterXtsne 0 Xtsne 1 ccountriescmappltcmspectralalpha4 edgecolork Tradeoff High time space complexity passed completed 150 feature including categorical field added dummyVars 200K data point build 2D tSNE visualization took forever ate 25GB memory MBP pretty scary… tSNE computationally expensive shown sklearn document Manifold Learning nonlinear dimensionality reduction family tSNE take 6–100 time compared model Spectral Embedding SE Multidimensional Scaling MDS tSNE computationally intensive even compared nonlinear dimensional reduction model think underlying algorithm tSNE compute distance point maintain pairwise N N distance matrix N example Therefore space time complexity quadratic level On² problem naturally becomes another popular research domain people trying optimize one example Fast Fourier Transformaccelerated Interpolationbased tSNE FItSNE detail found paper continued…… Going back Airbnb dataset example able generate better visualization result tSNE — please stay tuned let share next time Reference End NotesTags Machine Learning Dimensionality Reduction Clustering Data Visualization Data Exploration

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https://medium.com/p/462571b65b35#1204

['Tds Editors']

2020-11-19 01:16:58.476000+00:00

['Writers’ Guide', 'Tds Team', 'Writers Guide']

Title FAQsContent Writers happens submit article TDS Thank much taking time submit article team review soon believe article excellent ready go able add post publication “Towards Data Science” show click “Add publication” dropdown menu top page mean added author waiting submit article submitted article reviewed editor final decision made think article interesting need improved someone team provide feedback directly submitted Medium article Please note respond article properly submitted using either form via email exactly follows instruction listed don’t respond pitch question already answered FAQs Contribute page also ignore article don’t comply rule haven’t heard u within next five working day please carefully check article submitted team See submit directly TDS look private note u may missed also make sure check spam folder can’t reach u best thing submit article another publication Although we’d love can’t provide customized feedback everyone simply receive many submission learn decision submit another post monthTags Writers’ Guide Tds Team Writers Guide

2020 Sucked, But We Also Made Some Astounding Scientific Progress

2020 Sucked, But We Also Made Some Astounding Scientific Progress In a year of lows, it’s important to remember the highs Photo sources: enot-poloskun, Tang Ming Tung, Odd Andersen, Mlenny, and dowell via Getty Images In a recent conversation about the year in science, a colleague made the inevitable joke: “There was this little thing called the coronavirus…” Grim, but impossible not to smirk: Ten, twenty years from now, when we look back on this moment in science, we will remember Covid-19 and the maddening dash to understand it. But now and in the future, it will be important to remember that the dominant narrative of 2020 was in fact a culmination of science stories we’ve been aware of — and complicit in — for a long time. Humans have been well aware of their destructive tendencies for millennia — this year, our relentless march into the habitats of wild animals created the conditions that scientists have long warned would allow a zoonotic disease to spread. A disproportionate number of Americans who died from Covid-19 in the U.S. were Black or other people of color, a result of the racist healthcare access and geographical redlining that is part of this country’s dark legacy. Now, as two vaccines roll out across the nation, we face the consequences of mounting mistrust in public health and government: hesitation, in many cases warranted, to receive vaccines that scientists have vetted as safe and effective. Despite itself, 2020 was a staggering year for scientific achievement. You might have just missed it because of all the bad news. Covid-19 was just one culmination of what we already knew. There will inevitably be others if we don’t change the way we react and respond to what scientists are continually telling us. But that’s not to say that there aren’t people out there, building on the knowledge that previous research has amassed. Despite itself, 2020 was a staggering year for scientific achievement. You might have just missed it because of all the bad news. In a year of lows, it’s important to remember the highs: In 2020 in particular, scientific progress was a reminder of what people are capable of if we “trust the process,” to quote NBA star Joel Embiid. Just look at the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which were developed in record-breaking time and vetted by multiple panels of experts as safe and 95% effective: There’s so much we can do if we decide we actually want to do it. My hope for 2021 is that we’ll finally want it badly enough. The Lows The botched U.S. public health response to Covid-19. When the global pandemic was declared in March, it was surreal to watch U.S. leaders flip-flop on the utility of shutdowns and mask-wearing despite the strong recommendations of scientists. There was a shocking dearth of Covid-19 tests and the distribution of faulty tests; today, there still aren’t enough. Contact tracing, a tried-and-true public health intervention that helped get the virus under control in countries like Taiwan and Japan, has ramped up unevenly and is still not considered robust enough to stop transmission. As of this writing, there are over 17.2 million cases and over 310,000 deaths in the U.S., and while Vice President Mike Pence has received the vaccine on public television, President Trump still hasn’t shared plans to get vaccinated. The U.S. left the Paris Climate Agreement. This year tied 2016 as the hottest year on record and had the worst West Coast wildfire season on record. It was the worst possible time for the U.S. to leave the Paris Climate Agreement, which it did, officially, in November, at the behest of Donald Trump’s three year-old promise. This means the U.S. is no longer bound to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The Trump administration is also responsible for rolling back numerous other environmental regulations, like those protecting the country’s largest pristine landscape from drilling, and most recently rules for limiting soot pumped into the air by power plants. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day in office. Gene editing human embryos shown to be unsafe. Gene editing holds promise for treating and eliminating genetic disease — perhaps even permanently. But researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London used the technique in human embryos this year, to disastrous results. To be clear, researchers had no intention of allowing these embryos to develop; they just wanted to investigate the role of a single gene in early development. They learned that making even tiny edits can lead to major unintended edits — changes that could lead to genetic disease or cancer later in life, as Emily Mullin wrote in June. “This is a restraining order for all genome editors to stay the living daylights away from embryo editing,” Fyodor Urnov, PhD, an expert in the field, said at the time. The pandemic within a pandemic. U.S. data on Covid-19 made it clear that the coronavirus disproportionately impacts Black people and people of color in the U.S. This discrepancy, as Drew Costley wrote in April, is the sad consequence of longstanding systemic racism, which reaches into every realm of daily life: As a result, Black and POC Americans experience a lack of access to healthcare, clean air, and healthy food; the tendency for these groups to have essential jobs that force them onto the frontlines. These inequalities, which cleared the way for the deadly virus to wreak its most severe consequences, were well documented long before the pandemic. Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matters protests, which displayed the full ugliness of racist police brutality, forced us to confront them. Now, the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine is testing whether any of these difficult truths have been taken to heart: Experts have recommended prioritizing minorities for the vaccine, but whether states will implement this guidance in their distribution plans remains to be seen. Waving goodbye to the Arecibo Observatory. In November, the National Science Foundation announced plans to demolish Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, the renowned radio telescope facility that had served the astronomy community for almost 60 years. At the beginning of December, the massive telescope collapsed, bringing the legendary facility to a devastatingly pitiable end. One researcher, speaking to the New York Times, angrily insisted that its destruction wasn’t inevitable: “If they had properly maintained it, it’s likely that wouldn’t have happened.” Funding issues had plagued Arecibo in the last few years, with the NSF transferring its care to the University of Central Florida. Its end marks the end of an era in which public funds were routed toward this kind of public research, wrote Brian Merchant in Future Human. The baton has been passed to private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, for better or for worse. The Highs Vaccines were developed in record time. The development, testing, and distribution of multiple safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines this year was an astounding achievement. Normally this process would take at least a decade; to accomplish it in fewer than 12 months is essentially miraculous. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, both approved in the U.S., show roughly 95% efficacy — experts had hoped for 50%. They’re both also the triumphant conclusion of three decades of research on mRNA-based vaccine technology, which has never been applied in a human vaccine until now. It paves the way for a vastly more nimble and efficient vaccine-making process in the future. Proof that an HIV cure is long lasting. In March, researchers announced that a man who became the second person to be cured of HIV in 2019 is still free of the virus after 30 months. The man, previously known only as the “London patient,” revealed his identity to the New York Times as Adam Castillejo, wishing to become an “ambassador of hope.” (Timothy Brown, the “Berlin patient,” was cured in 2011.) The technique involved infusing Castillejo with stem cells carrying a genetic mutation that conferred protection against HIV. Doing so essentially replaced his immune system with one that was HIV-resistant. The treatment won’t be available to the majority of people, but it opens the door to genetic therapies involving the same resistance-conferring mutation. SpaceX sends people to space. In May, a few months before Arecibo’s closure sounded a death knell for publicly funded space exploration, the private company SpaceX successfully carried two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, marking what many called a “new era” of spaceflight — one where private vehicles primarily bring people to orbit, and NASA’s role diminishes. While there are many reasons to be critical of privatization — especially with super-billionaires like Elon Musk helming space companies — it could rapidly speed up the development of new spacefaring technology, much as private pharmaceutical companies accelerated a Covid-19 vaccine. CRISPR pioneers win the Nobel prize. In October, Jennifer Doudna, PhD, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their pioneering work on the gene-editing tool CRISPR — the first pair of women ever to win a science Nobel. CRISPR, which allows scientists to make precise changes to the genomes of living organisms, is considered a revolutionary discovery. When perfected, it could allow scientists to eliminate genetic disease, engineer climate change-resistant crops and animals, and diagnose illness. In a conversation with Emily Mullin in October, Doudna discussed one exciting future of CRISPR: using it to regulate, but not permanently edit, human genomes.

https://futurehuman.medium.com/2020-sucked-but-we-also-made-some-astounding-scientific-progress-bc247aa9fcfa

['Yasmin Tayag']

2020-12-21 19:20:10.300000+00:00

['Science', 'Future', 'Climate Change', 'Space', 'Health']

Title 2020 Sucked Also Made Astounding Scientific ProgressContent 2020 Sucked Also Made Astounding Scientific Progress year low it’s important remember high Photo source enotpoloskun Tang Ming Tung Odd Andersen Mlenny dowell via Getty Images recent conversation year science colleague made inevitable joke “There little thing called coronavirus…” Grim impossible smirk Ten twenty year look back moment science remember Covid19 maddening dash understand future important remember dominant narrative 2020 fact culmination science story we’ve aware — complicit — long time Humans well aware destructive tendency millennium — year relentless march habitat wild animal created condition scientist long warned would allow zoonotic disease spread disproportionate number Americans died Covid19 US Black people color result racist healthcare access geographical redlining part country’s dark legacy two vaccine roll across nation face consequence mounting mistrust public health government hesitation many case warranted receive vaccine scientist vetted safe effective Despite 2020 staggering year scientific achievement might missed bad news Covid19 one culmination already knew inevitably others don’t change way react respond scientist continually telling u that’s say aren’t people building knowledge previous research amassed Despite 2020 staggering year scientific achievement might missed bad news year low it’s important remember high 2020 particular scientific progress reminder people capable “trust process” quote NBA star Joel Embiid look vaccine Pfizer Moderna developed recordbreaking time vetted multiple panel expert safe 95 effective There’s much decide actually want hope 2021 we’ll finally want badly enough Lows botched US public health response Covid19 global pandemic declared March surreal watch US leader flipflop utility shutdown maskwearing despite strong recommendation scientist shocking dearth Covid19 test distribution faulty test today still aren’t enough Contact tracing triedandtrue public health intervention helped get virus control country like Taiwan Japan ramped unevenly still considered robust enough stop transmission writing 172 million case 310000 death US Vice President Mike Pence received vaccine public television President Trump still hasn’t shared plan get vaccinated US left Paris Climate Agreement year tied 2016 hottest year record worst West Coast wildfire season record worst possible time US leave Paris Climate Agreement officially November behest Donald Trump’s three yearold promise mean US longer bound keep global temperature 2 degree Celsius preindustrial level Trump administration also responsible rolling back numerous environmental regulation like protecting country’s largest pristine landscape drilling recently rule limiting soot pumped air power plant Presidentelect Joe Biden said rejoin Paris Agreement first day office Gene editing human embryo shown unsafe Gene editing hold promise treating eliminating genetic disease — perhaps even permanently researcher Francis Crick Institute London used technique human embryo year disastrous result clear researcher intention allowing embryo develop wanted investigate role single gene early development learned making even tiny edits lead major unintended edits — change could lead genetic disease cancer later life Emily Mullin wrote June “This restraining order genome editor stay living daylight away embryo editing” Fyodor Urnov PhD expert field said time pandemic within pandemic US data Covid19 made clear coronavirus disproportionately impact Black people people color US discrepancy Drew Costley wrote April sad consequence longstanding systemic racism reach every realm daily life result Black POC Americans experience lack access healthcare clean air healthy food tendency group essential job force onto frontlines inequality cleared way deadly virus wreak severe consequence well documented long pandemic Covid19 Black Lives Matters protest displayed full ugliness racist police brutality forced u confront rollout Covid19 vaccine testing whether difficult truth taken heart Experts recommended prioritizing minority vaccine whether state implement guidance distribution plan remains seen Waving goodbye Arecibo Observatory November National Science Foundation announced plan demolish Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory renowned radio telescope facility served astronomy community almost 60 year beginning December massive telescope collapsed bringing legendary facility devastatingly pitiable end One researcher speaking New York Times angrily insisted destruction wasn’t inevitable “If properly maintained it’s likely wouldn’t happened” Funding issue plagued Arecibo last year NSF transferring care University Central Florida end mark end era public fund routed toward kind public research wrote Brian Merchant Future Human baton passed private company like SpaceX Blue Origin better worse Highs Vaccines developed record time development testing distribution multiple safe effective Covid19 vaccine year astounding achievement Normally process would take least decade accomplish fewer 12 month essentially miraculous Pfizer’s Moderna’s vaccine approved US show roughly 95 efficacy — expert hoped 50 They’re also triumphant conclusion three decade research mRNAbased vaccine technology never applied human vaccine pave way vastly nimble efficient vaccinemaking process future Proof HIV cure long lasting March researcher announced man became second person cured HIV 2019 still free virus 30 month man previously known “London patient” revealed identity New York Times Adam Castillejo wishing become “ambassador hope” Timothy Brown “Berlin patient” cured 2011 technique involved infusing Castillejo stem cell carrying genetic mutation conferred protection HIV essentially replaced immune system one HIVresistant treatment won’t available majority people open door genetic therapy involving resistanceconferring mutation SpaceX sends people space May month Arecibo’s closure sounded death knell publicly funded space exploration private company SpaceX successfully carried two NASA astronaut International Space Station marking many called “new era” spaceflight — one private vehicle primarily bring people orbit NASA’s role diminishes many reason critical privatization — especially superbillionaires like Elon Musk helming space company — could rapidly speed development new spacefaring technology much private pharmaceutical company accelerated Covid19 vaccine CRISPR pioneer win Nobel prize October Jennifer Doudna PhD Emmanuelle Charpentier PhD Nobel Prize Chemistry pioneering work geneediting tool CRISPR — first pair woman ever win science Nobel CRISPR allows scientist make precise change genome living organism considered revolutionary discovery perfected could allow scientist eliminate genetic disease engineer climate changeresistant crop animal diagnose illness conversation Emily Mullin October Doudna discussed one exciting future CRISPR using regulate permanently edit human genomesTags Science Future Climate Change Space Health

Inspired Writer’s Christmas Challenge Winners Announced!

Inspired Writer’s Christmas Challenge Winners Announced! The best of the best of our third writing contest Image source: Massonstock on Freepik — Caption: Canva We’re happy to announce that our third writing challenge was a success and that we have chosen our winners! Thanks to all those who participated and went the extra mile to make their stories shine like diamonds! You gave me and our dear chief editor Kelly Eden a wonderful time as we immersed ourselves in your creative and thought-provoking stories. That alone makes all of you winners in our hearts. Naturally, having dozens of outstanding entries to choose from, it was tough to make up our minds for our twelve finalists. Selecting the winners was even more challenging. To see what I mean, imagine being asked which of your children you love most. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that hard or dramatic, but you get the idea. Before we unveil the names of our winners, we would like to thank The Writing Cooperative for making this possible. It was great to see so many of you in The Writing Cooperative’s Facebook group supporting each other with entries. Enough chit-chat! Here’s what you came here for: These are Inspired Writer’s 2020 Christmas Writing Challenge winners, editors’ pics, and honorable mentions!

https://medium.com/inspired-writer/inspired-writers-christmas-challenge-winners-announced-9058e3fdbd49

['Joe Donan']

2020-12-22 05:37:17.561000+00:00

['Writing', 'Nonfiction', 'Challenge', 'Creativity', 'Writing Tips']

Title Inspired Writer’s Christmas Challenge Winners AnnouncedContent Inspired Writer’s Christmas Challenge Winners Announced best best third writing contest Image source Massonstock Freepik — Caption Canva We’re happy announce third writing challenge success chosen winner Thanks participated went extra mile make story shine like diamond gave dear chief editor Kelly Eden wonderful time immersed creative thoughtprovoking story alone make winner heart Naturally dozen outstanding entry choose tough make mind twelve finalist Selecting winner even challenging see mean imagine asked child love Okay maybe wasn’t hard dramatic get idea unveil name winner would like thank Writing Cooperative making possible great see many Writing Cooperative’s Facebook group supporting entry Enough chitchat Here’s came Inspired Writer’s 2020 Christmas Writing Challenge winner editors’ pic honorable mentionsTags Writing Nonfiction Challenge Creativity Writing Tips

Startup Spotlight Q&A: Deepzen

Taylan Kamis is the CEO and co-founder of DeepZen, an artificial intelligence company focused on publishing and producing audiobooks. He is an experienced tech leader and entrepreneur. He has consulted with private equity and venture capital-backed tech companies as their CFO and was part of the international online media division leadership team at Microsoft where he led strategy, FP&A and business planning for 50 plus markets. He is curious about exploring the limits of deep tech and excited by the challenge of applying it in real-life scenarios to make life better for all humans. In his limited free time, he enjoys reading and listening to contemporary politics and economics commentary and supports several education and research charities. DeepZen is a British company comprised of technical, language and business experts who are bringing a new generation of AI driven voice technology to businesses and individuals. — In a sentence, what does your company do? We have developed exclusive AI technology which synthesizes the human voice in order to replicate emotions and intonations. The technology, which is being applied across multiple verticals including book publishing, gaming, podcasting, voiceovers, Apps and education, is revolutionising the way audiobooks and other forms of content, are produced. — What makes your company/product different in this market? Our core differentiators are the level of technical and NLP expertise we bring to bear, which results in a more advanced quality of product and therefore a superior listening experience for customers and a more authentic brand representation for clients. We have emphasis and intonation control overlaid with emotion control and additionally pronunciation control through our editing suite, which allows us to adapt our technology to fit our clients’ specific needs. No other player in the market provides this level of a complete technological solution. Our key focus is on simultaneously delivering quality, speed, simplicity and scalability. — Describe how and when your company came to be. In other words, what was the problem you found and the ‘aha’ moment? We could see the developing importance of voice across many different sectors, however the ability to create emotion in the human speech wasn’t possible, technically, before 2017 when deep neural networks became more advanced. The aha moment was the realisation that a deep learning based system could generate complete human sounding audio recordings which would overcome the time and financial constraints of doing so at scale through current processes. — What milestone are you most proud of so far? We have built our deep learning based end to end technology which identifies the emotions within text and synthesizes the text based on those emotions. We built our editorial tool which gives us the ability to control the synthetic voice in any way we want. We also introduced a library of voices both male and female with different accents. All these things happened in the last 12 months. Additionally, we have signed 4 co-publishing deals in the UK, signed a Worldwide distribution deal and digitally produced tens of books with hundreds more in the pipeline to be delivered this year. — What are people most excited by? People are very excited by the product itself and the fact that we have built a system which can read any text as a human would do. Also, the financial and temporal savings have been very exciting for the publishing community; we can significantly reduce the process and complexity of creating audiobooks from an average of 4 weeks to a few days and at a significant cost reduction versus traditional studio production methods. — Have you pursued funding and if so, what steps did you take? We have pursued funding yes. — What KPIs are you tracking that you think will lead to revenue generation/growth? Sales KPIs: # of new contracts signed both publishing and non-publishing, the $ value of these contracts; the # of engaged qualified leads in the sales funnel and the average time to conversion on net sales # of new contracts signed both publishing and non-publishing, the $ value of these contracts; the # of engaged qualified leads in the sales funnel and the average time to conversion on net sales Financial KPIs: Revenue growth and net profit margin Revenue growth and net profit margin Customer KPIs: # of customers gained and retained, market share %, net promoter score — How do you build and develop talent? As a small business you need to be very clear on what your key goals are in the upcoming three year window. You then need to recruit in to your company the talent with which you need to build it, whilst ensuring you provide an environment where you can continually develop the talent you have. Employees need to understand the aspirations the company has, the part they play in that success story, i.e. how their role helps to achieve those aspirations and what the development plan is for them within the company. People don’t want to stand still; they want to learn and improve their own skills and knowledge and you need to show them that your company is the right place for them to achieve that. — How do you manage growth vs sustainability? We think of our sustainable growth rate as the “ceiling” for sales growth or the most our sales can grow without new financing and without exhausting our cash flow. It is a balance we are very conscious of maintaining at this stage in our lifecycle. Our focus is on choosing the right target verticals with whom to work in order to manage the returns on investment of time and money in an optimal way. — What are the biggest challenges for the team? Developing the technology fast enough to meet the demand and to meet our own exacting standards in terms of what we deliver to our clients. — What’s been the biggest success for the team? After eighteen months of development of the platform itself, the first range of books are now ready for release, comprising of original and digital narration and produced by DeepZen in collaboration with publishers including Endeavour and Legend Press. — What advice would you give to other founders? Increasing areas of our lives are being touched by technology, so to be successful in this space you need to identify a key problem and then believe you can build a solution to that problem in a way which is superior to any other options out there for that customer base. Then it is all in the planning. Your business plan needs to be rock solid and built for sustainable growth. Protect your downsides, quickly identify potential added value and execute. — Have you been or are you part of a corporate startup program or accelerator? If so, which ones and what have been the benefits? We are in the Oracle for Startups program. (DeepZen will be one of the startups featured at Oracle OpenWorld Europe taking place Feb. 12 and 13 in London.) We are also in the start-up programs of Google, Amazon, NVIDIA and IBM. The main benefits are the support, advice, engagement and contacts derived from these associations.

https://medium.com/startup-grind/startup-spotlight-q-a-deepzen-1195603775a1

['The Startup Grind Team']

2020-06-01 22:24:11.594000+00:00

['Startup Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Startup Spotlight', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Title Startup Spotlight QA DeepzenContent Taylan Kamis CEO cofounder DeepZen artificial intelligence company focused publishing producing audiobooks experienced tech leader entrepreneur consulted private equity venture capitalbacked tech company CFO part international online medium division leadership team Microsoft led strategy FPA business planning 50 plus market curious exploring limit deep tech excited challenge applying reallife scenario make life better human limited free time enjoys reading listening contemporary politics economics commentary support several education research charity DeepZen British company comprised technical language business expert bringing new generation AI driven voice technology business individual — sentence company developed exclusive AI technology synthesizes human voice order replicate emotion intonation technology applied across multiple vertical including book publishing gaming podcasting voiceovers Apps education revolutionising way audiobooks form content produced — make companyproduct different market core differentiator level technical NLP expertise bring bear result advanced quality product therefore superior listening experience customer authentic brand representation client emphasis intonation control overlaid emotion control additionally pronunciation control editing suite allows u adapt technology fit clients’ specific need player market provides level complete technological solution key focus simultaneously delivering quality speed simplicity scalability — Describe company came word problem found ‘aha’ moment could see developing importance voice across many different sector however ability create emotion human speech wasn’t possible technically 2017 deep neural network became advanced aha moment realisation deep learning based system could generate complete human sounding audio recording would overcome time financial constraint scale current process — milestone proud far built deep learning based end end technology identifies emotion within text synthesizes text based emotion built editorial tool give u ability control synthetic voice way want also introduced library voice male female different accent thing happened last 12 month Additionally signed 4 copublishing deal UK signed Worldwide distribution deal digitally produced ten book hundred pipeline delivered year — people excited People excited product fact built system read text human would Also financial temporal saving exciting publishing community significantly reduce process complexity creating audiobooks average 4 week day significant cost reduction versus traditional studio production method — pursued funding step take pursued funding yes — KPIs tracking think lead revenue generationgrowth Sales KPIs new contract signed publishing nonpublishing value contract engaged qualified lead sale funnel average time conversion net sale new contract signed publishing nonpublishing value contract engaged qualified lead sale funnel average time conversion net sale Financial KPIs Revenue growth net profit margin Revenue growth net profit margin Customer KPIs customer gained retained market share net promoter score — build develop talent small business need clear key goal upcoming three year window need recruit company talent need build whilst ensuring provide environment continually develop talent Employees need understand aspiration company part play success story ie role help achieve aspiration development plan within company People don’t want stand still want learn improve skill knowledge need show company right place achieve — manage growth v sustainability think sustainable growth rate “ceiling” sale growth sale grow without new financing without exhausting cash flow balance conscious maintaining stage lifecycle focus choosing right target vertical work order manage return investment time money optimal way — biggest challenge team Developing technology fast enough meet demand meet exacting standard term deliver client — What’s biggest success team eighteen month development platform first range book ready release comprising original digital narration produced DeepZen collaboration publisher including Endeavour Legend Press — advice would give founder Increasing area life touched technology successful space need identify key problem believe build solution problem way superior option customer base planning business plan need rock solid built sustainable growth Protect downside quickly identify potential added value execute — part corporate startup program accelerator one benefit Oracle Startups program DeepZen one startup featured Oracle OpenWorld Europe taking place Feb 12 13 London also startup program Google Amazon NVIDIA IBM main benefit support advice engagement contact derived associationsTags Startup Lessons Entrepreneurship Startup Startup Spotlight Artificial Intelligence

How to Act Around a Person with Depression

Things You Should Not Say to a Depressed Person There are specific phrases and statements you shouldn’t be saying to someone struggling with depression. This should be common sense, but depending on how educated you are on the topic, you may not be aware of the consequences these words carry. So, please sit down and take notes. “I don’t believe in depression.” It doesn’t matter if you believe it in or not — it exists anyway. Depression isn’t something people made up with; it’s a medical diagnosis and a legitimate illness. Your personal opinion on the topic doesn’t override the official position of the entire medical community worldwide. This is one of the worst statements you can come up with. Not everyone who’s depressed is entirely on good terms with their diagnosis, especially if this is a recent development in their medical history. They may be vulnerable, lost, scared, and confused. They are doing their best to cope and accept their situation, which means the absolute worst you could do is poke at them with a sharp stick. An individual who’s diagnosed with depression is experiencing what might be the worse hardship in their lives, and they might be coming to terms with their condition. Devaluing this condition can cause great harm. It doesn’t matter if you believe it in or not — it exists anyway. “You just need a hobby.” Photo by Dương Nhân from Pexels News flash: they now have a hobby — depression! This “hobby” might stay with them for a while, and it may also go away and come back at any point. Most likely, your friend has a ton of hobbies as it is. Another news flash: none of those hobbies prevented them from getting depressed in the first place. Please don’t mix up the treatment plan, such as more active social life and coping mechanisms, with the causes and nature of their illness. Imagine coming over to someone with a leg cast and telling them they need a hobby. A hobby won’t cure their broken limb. “It’s all in your head.” Thank you, Captain Obvious. Of course, it’s in their head. Guess what? It doesn’t make it any easier. And the broken leg is a part of your body — so what? Is that a cure? No, the cast is the cure, similar to a depression treatment plan. As Albus Dumbledore said in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” — J.K. Rowling. “You need to fill up your schedule and stop thinking about it.” While this is a sweet sentiment, filling up their schedule won’t fix the problem. It’s a way to self-distract and avoids their illness, not a solution. The more they attempt to pretend everything is all right, the worst it gets. There is a difference between planning social life to help with depression while receiving help and improving mental health, and pretending that everything is okay while making no progress. Furthermore, increasing the number of work hours can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and suicidal thoughts. South Korea is well-known to have a high number of suicides due to its citizens working more extended hours compared to other nations on the planet. According to Welcome to the Jungle, Koreans see 25 suicides per 100,000 citizens, and almost 20% of their population admits having 10 or more drinks every week trying to cope with stress. Don’t tell your friends to work harder and longer hours. It may harm them significantly. “I don’t believe in anti-depressants (or therapy, mindfulness).” Again, you don’t need to believe in anything — it exists, whether you like it or not. Anti-depressants are approved by medical specialists and scientists worldwide. Therapy has been a known strategy not only for those with depression but for anyone struggling with an issue. Mindfulness is a practice actively followed around the world. There is no need for you to believe or not believe. Your friend is following the plan their medical specialist provided him. If it requires them to take medication — they have to take medication. If there are no meds, but meditation and reflection journals are a part of it — they will have to do it. Unless you are a licensed specialist with a medical degree and many years of experience, keep your opinions to yourself. “But you seem so happy all the time!” Yes, it takes much effort to put on a facade of calmness and professionalism. It doesn’t mean that the depressed person isn’t slowly dying inside. You also won’t see them cry in the break room during lunch, but they still do it. If someone looks composed and well-put-together, it doesn’t change the fact they might be hanging by a thread. Most of us don’t want to affect others around us negatively. Unless you are a licensed specialist with a medical degree and many years of experience, keep your opinions to yourself. “Why are you depressed? You have everything!” It’s not a matter of having everything or having nothing. One’s possessions and accomplishments don’t dictate happiness and a healthy mental state. If someone who’s depressed drives a Tesla Model X and owns three condos, it doesn’t mean they are mentally healthy, happy, and in peace with themselves. Similarly to this, some people look at celebrities and expect them to be perpetually happy and well. However, a lot of famous people are admitting they have or had mental issues. They tell us about their struggles with mental health, which is an excellent example of how no one is safe from depression and other mental disorders. It’s phenomenal that celebrities are using their voices to discuss such important topics. Having everything doesn’t constitute being fine. People from less fortunate countries probably look at us and think we have everything; therefore, we must always be happy. This is not always the case. “Just snap out of it.” I can’t just snap out of it, Karen. There is no “snapping out” of depression in a matter of seconds. Approach this the same way you would approach a patient with a broken leg. Are you going to tell him the same thing? I imagine this dialogue: “Hey, man, just snap out of it!” “Um… My leg is broken, and I have a cast.” “It doesn’t matter. Snap out of it!” You understand how ridiculous this is. Mental illness requires proper treatment and often involves multiple doctors’ approval. It takes months or even years. So, please, don’t suggest anything that can be upsetting to your friend who has depression. It will only make them feel worse, if not worthless. “My friend, Kevin, dealt with his depression in a month, so can you.” I’m super happy for Kevin, but everyone is different. Every mental issue is unique, as well. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Even if two people have the same problem, they may have been treated differently. Maybe they have been taking different medications or taught different coping mechanisms. Something as small as work schedule can make a difference in one’s mental health, because depression can manifest earlier in the day for some people, and later for others. Even a slight variation in the diet can spark a change. Therefore, don’t mention any Kevins. You don’t know their precise diagnosis and mental state. “You need to try this [insert mushroom/vitamin/online class].” No, I don’t need to try the magical mushroom. If a doctor doesn’t approve a treatment, the patient with a mental problem should not be exploring it. Again, if something worked for one person, it doesn’t mean it will work for another one. There are thousands of people claiming online that they find a cure for depression, cancer — and a ton of other diseases. If the doctor doesn’t approve it, it’s not happening. “Your anti-depressants are making it worse. Try aromatherapy instead.” Thank you, Karen, but lavender oil won’t cure the depression. Orange oil won’t help either. While it’s nice to turn on the diffuser and spray the oils, this isn’t a treatment plan. Lavender does indeed calm you down, and sweet orange oil scent may distract you from spiralling down the negative thoughts rabbit hole. However, this is a temporary solution. Essential oils are not FDA-approved as an anti-depressant.

https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-to-act-around-a-person-with-depression-e89149b1e866

['Joanna Henderson']

2020-05-15 12:01:01.145000+00:00

['Mindfulness', 'Mental Illness', 'Psychology', 'Health', 'Mental Health']

Title Act Around Person DepressionContent Things Say Depressed Person specific phrase statement shouldn’t saying someone struggling depression common sense depending educated topic may aware consequence word carry please sit take note “I don’t believe depression” doesn’t matter believe — exists anyway Depression isn’t something people made it’s medical diagnosis legitimate illness personal opinion topic doesn’t override official position entire medical community worldwide one worst statement come everyone who’s depressed entirely good term diagnosis especially recent development medical history may vulnerable lost scared confused best cope accept situation mean absolute worst could poke sharp stick individual who’s diagnosed depression experiencing might worse hardship life might coming term condition Devaluing condition cause great harm doesn’t matter believe — exists anyway “You need hobby” Photo Dương Nhân Pexels News flash hobby — depression “hobby” might stay may also go away come back point likely friend ton hobby Another news flash none hobby prevented getting depressed first place Please don’t mix treatment plan active social life coping mechanism cause nature illness Imagine coming someone leg cast telling need hobby hobby won’t cure broken limb “It’s head” Thank Captain Obvious course it’s head Guess doesn’t make easier broken leg part body — cure cast cure similar depression treatment plan Albus Dumbledore said “Harry Potter Deathly Hallows “Of course happening inside head Harry earth mean real” — JK Rowling “You need fill schedule stop thinking it” sweet sentiment filling schedule won’t fix problem It’s way selfdistract avoids illness solution attempt pretend everything right worst get difference planning social life help depression receiving help improving mental health pretending everything okay making progress Furthermore increasing number work hour lead exhaustion burnout suicidal thought South Korea wellknown high number suicide due citizen working extended hour compared nation planet According Welcome Jungle Koreans see 25 suicide per 100000 citizen almost 20 population admits 10 drink every week trying cope stress Don’t tell friend work harder longer hour may harm significantly “I don’t believe antidepressant therapy mindfulness” don’t need believe anything — exists whether like Antidepressants approved medical specialist scientist worldwide Therapy known strategy depression anyone struggling issue Mindfulness practice actively followed around world need believe believe friend following plan medical specialist provided requires take medication — take medication med meditation reflection journal part — Unless licensed specialist medical degree many year experience keep opinion “But seem happy time” Yes take much effort put facade calmness professionalism doesn’t mean depressed person isn’t slowly dying inside also won’t see cry break room lunch still someone look composed wellputtogether doesn’t change fact might hanging thread u don’t want affect others around u negatively Unless licensed specialist medical degree many year experience keep opinion “Why depressed everything” It’s matter everything nothing One’s possession accomplishment don’t dictate happiness healthy mental state someone who’s depressed drive Tesla Model X owns three condo doesn’t mean mentally healthy happy peace Similarly people look celebrity expect perpetually happy well However lot famous people admitting mental issue tell u struggle mental health excellent example one safe depression mental disorder It’s phenomenal celebrity using voice discus important topic everything doesn’t constitute fine People le fortunate country probably look u think everything therefore must always happy always case “Just snap it” can’t snap Karen “snapping out” depression matter second Approach way would approach patient broken leg going tell thing imagine dialogue “Hey man snap it” “Um… leg broken cast” “It doesn’t matter Snap it” understand ridiculous Mental illness requires proper treatment often involves multiple doctors’ approval take month even year please don’t suggest anything upsetting friend depression make feel worse worthless “My friend Kevin dealt depression month you” I’m super happy Kevin everyone different Every mental issue unique well onesizefitsall approach Even two people problem may treated differently Maybe taking different medication taught different coping mechanism Something small work schedule make difference one’s mental health depression manifest earlier day people later others Even slight variation diet spark change Therefore don’t mention Kevins don’t know precise diagnosis mental state “You need try insert mushroomvitaminonline class” don’t need try magical mushroom doctor doesn’t approve treatment patient mental problem exploring something worked one person doesn’t mean work another one thousand people claiming online find cure depression cancer — ton disease doctor doesn’t approve it’s happening “Your antidepressant making worse Try aromatherapy instead” Thank Karen lavender oil won’t cure depression Orange oil won’t help either it’s nice turn diffuser spray oil isn’t treatment plan Lavender indeed calm sweet orange oil scent may distract spiralling negative thought rabbit hole However temporary solution Essential oil FDAapproved antidepressantTags Mindfulness Mental Illness Psychology Health Mental Health

Designed Intelligence: Enhancing the human experience

By Connor Upton, Group Design Director, Fjord at The Dock, and James O’Neill, Service and Systems Design Lead, Fjord at The Dock. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic .” — Arthur C. Clarke We often hear about how AI can be used to automate mundane tasks and free us up to do other things, but we rarely talk about what those other things are. What about an alternative perspective: how might AI help us do the things we love, but better? AI can be used to extend our perceptual and cognitive abilities and change how we interact with the world around us. It could be used to give us new capabilities beyond what we can achieve on our own. Enhancing the human experience is one of the pillars of Designed Intelligence, our approach to designing for, and designing with, AI at Fjord. This allows us to think about experience design in a new way, not just as a means to deliver an existing service, but potentially opening up new ways to interact with customers and generating new business models. Artistic inspiration The world of art is often a source of inspiration for technologist and designers. Autonomous vehicles were described in a short story by Asimov in 1953 and voice interfaces by Philip K Dick in 1968. Technology also informs the work of artists, and AI has now become a new creative medium. When Google released Deep Dream, a computer vision application, in 2015 many creators experimented with its ability to transfer artistic styles onto their images or generate psychedelic patterns. But beyond its ability to mimic style, artists are exploring how AI can be used in more novel ways. Gene Kogan’s work on deep fakes, where he controls the faces of famous politicians, opens up questions around the trustworthiness of media. Memo Akten uses neural nets to create new forms of participatory art. In his piece “Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday”, he enables people to move mundane household objects around under a camera to generate stunning interactive scenes from nature, including seascapes, clouds and fire. These “live reality filters” are a new form of experience, and they feel magical. And like all good art they help us see our reality through different eyes. So, how are these works of art and AI influencing the world of interaction design? AI as interface AI, like all new technologies, needs new modes of interaction. The early web brought drop-down selection and digital forms into the mainstream, mobile brought us the hamburger menu, pull-to-refresh and infinite scrolling. Each new type of interaction is a response to the goals people want to achieve and the constraints or abilities of the technology. While AI may seem new, it is already driving many of our interactions. Everyday experiences, like auto complete in your search bar and song recommendations on your streaming service, are so common we forget that these are powered by machine learning. Even more recent AI advances like computer vision are becoming important interaction techniques. The first time you pointed your camera at your credit card rather than type in all those numbers it felt amazing. This “perceptual accelerator” got the job done faster and more accurately using the technology that was already built into the device. We’ve been experimenting with how computer vision can be used in this way in different domains. For example, when you buy a box of medication it comes with a wad of paper that describes ingredients, dosage, side-effects and other important information. Most of us never read it. But what if you could just point your camera at the box and let it identify the drug and cross reference it against your conditions, drug regimen, allergies and other factors. Native digital formats make it easier to highlight the parts that are most relevant to you, insuring that you don’t miss any important information. We developed a prototype that showed that this approach is feasible. What impact might this have on patient experience and safety? Using similar technology, AI can redefine how we navigate the physical and digital world. Working with grocery retailer Whole Foods, our Austin studio developed a proof of concept that demonstrates how computer vision, NLP and recommendation systems can be blended into the shopper experience. Enhancing the experience with these technologies allowed shoppers better navigate the store, find products quicker, and discover new recipes and ingredients in real-time. AI and AR for grocery shopping. The role of computer vision in user interaction will accelerate as the technology becomes more accessible. Companies like Matterport are already providing a platform that allows people to capture, edit and share 3D models of physical spaces and objects. Originally targeted at professional users, their new mobile app puts the capability into everybody’s hands. This makes it possible for designers to experiment with creating digital twins, simulations, and AR experiences. Extending human capabilities As well as accelerating our interactions with services, AI is allowing us to tackle entirely new interaction challenges. Dr Peter Scott-Morgan is a Cambridge academic who suffers from motor neuron disease, a degenerative condition that attacks nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Peter has set out on a mission to become the world first true cyborg, undergoing a series of physical and technological augmentations to help him continue to live and work. The personality retention project is a collaborative research program that uses emerging technologies to support this mission. Working with a team of partners, Fjord helped design a new eye-tracking keyboard that integrates with text to voice generating technology. This solution enables Peter to continue to write and communicate even as he gradually loses his natural physical and sensory abilities. Concept design of new visual keyboard from personality retention project. We’re also using technology to give people skills they’ve never had before. For example with VELUX, the roof window specialist, we designed an app that lets people see how additional light could transform their living space. Combining computer vision and augmented reality with a seamless interface, the app let people scan a room and then place virtual windows into the space. This gives the average home-owner the ability to explore and imagine 3D space with the vision of an architect.

https://medium.com/design-voices/designed-intelligence-enhancing-the-human-experience-b9c60aeab0f3

[]

2020-09-11 10:50:09.377000+00:00

['Design', 'Fjord', 'Experience', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI']

Title Designed Intelligence Enhancing human experienceContent Connor Upton Group Design Director Fjord Dock James O’Neill Service Systems Design Lead Fjord Dock “Any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable magic ” — Arthur C Clarke often hear AI used automate mundane task free u thing rarely talk thing alternative perspective might AI help u thing love better AI used extend perceptual cognitive ability change interact world around u could used give u new capability beyond achieve Enhancing human experience one pillar Designed Intelligence approach designing designing AI Fjord allows u think experience design new way mean deliver existing service potentially opening new way interact customer generating new business model Artistic inspiration world art often source inspiration technologist designer Autonomous vehicle described short story Asimov 1953 voice interface Philip K Dick 1968 Technology also informs work artist AI become new creative medium Google released Deep Dream computer vision application 2015 many creator experimented ability transfer artistic style onto image generate psychedelic pattern beyond ability mimic style artist exploring AI used novel way Gene Kogan’s work deep fake control face famous politician open question around trustworthiness medium Memo Akten us neural net create new form participatory art piece “Learning see Gloomy Sunday” enables people move mundane household object around camera generate stunning interactive scene nature including seascape cloud fire “live reality filters” new form experience feel magical like good art help u see reality different eye work art AI influencing world interaction design AI interface AI like new technology need new mode interaction early web brought dropdown selection digital form mainstream mobile brought u hamburger menu pulltorefresh infinite scrolling new type interaction response goal people want achieve constraint ability technology AI may seem new already driving many interaction Everyday experience like auto complete search bar song recommendation streaming service common forget powered machine learning Even recent AI advance like computer vision becoming important interaction technique first time pointed camera credit card rather type number felt amazing “perceptual accelerator” got job done faster accurately using technology already built device We’ve experimenting computer vision used way different domain example buy box medication come wad paper describes ingredient dosage sideeffects important information u never read could point camera box let identify drug cross reference condition drug regimen allergy factor Native digital format make easier highlight part relevant insuring don’t miss important information developed prototype showed approach feasible impact might patient experience safety Using similar technology AI redefine navigate physical digital world Working grocery retailer Whole Foods Austin studio developed proof concept demonstrates computer vision NLP recommendation system blended shopper experience Enhancing experience technology allowed shopper better navigate store find product quicker discover new recipe ingredient realtime AI AR grocery shopping role computer vision user interaction accelerate technology becomes accessible Companies like Matterport already providing platform allows people capture edit share 3D model physical space object Originally targeted professional user new mobile app put capability everybody’s hand make possible designer experiment creating digital twin simulation AR experience Extending human capability well accelerating interaction service AI allowing u tackle entirely new interaction challenge Dr Peter ScottMorgan Cambridge academic suffers motor neuron disease degenerative condition attack nerve brain spinal cord Peter set mission become world first true cyborg undergoing series physical technological augmentation help continue live work personality retention project collaborative research program us emerging technology support mission Working team partner Fjord helped design new eyetracking keyboard integrates text voice generating technology solution enables Peter continue write communicate even gradually loses natural physical sensory ability Concept design new visual keyboard personality retention project We’re also using technology give people skill they’ve never example VELUX roof window specialist designed app let people see additional light could transform living space Combining computer vision augmented reality seamless interface app let people scan room place virtual window space give average homeowner ability explore imagine 3D space vision architectTags Design Fjord Experience Artificial Intelligence AI

Starbucks’ Founding Story Teaches Us to Leave Our Egos at the Door

With each passing day, the heaviness on Howard’s shoulders kept accumulating. He saw a world of opportunity and couldn’t let his moment pass away. He decided to leave Starbucks and build his own chain of espresso bars. As I’m learning about the story of what became synonymous with an American classic, our loved-to-hate, yet beloved hangout spot, I’m pondering on an idea cemented by determination and audacity. It’s a story founded on humbling self-trust; on believing so much in something that it borders infatuation, a conviction of the heart that breaks away from the comforts of complacency and into the expanse of possibility. “There’s a fine line between self-doubt and self-confidence, and it’s even possible to feel both emotions simultaneously. Back then, and often enough today, I could be overwhelmed with insecurities, and at the same time have an abundance of self-assurance and faith.” — Howard Schultz As Howard is due to teach us, there is no ego in greatness, but only humility and nimbleness, coupled with a deep focus on doing what’s best for the business or project at hand, whatever that may be. When Howard founded his espresso bar in April 1986, he named it ‘Il Giornale,’ after one of the largest newspapers in Italy. He reasoned that Italian giornale, translating to daily, distilled his vision of building a loyal following that would learn to appreciate great coffee. Under the mantra ‘Everything mattered,’ Howard directed the operation like a fine orchestra conductor: opera playing in the background, international newspapers neatly displayed on rods, carefully-selected Italian descriptors spotlighting the espresso creations, and servers accessorized with bow ties. However, even a well-executed performance could fall short of the audience’s expectations: people started expressing their dissatisfaction with the loud music, the staff felt the bow ties were impractical, only very few could read and understand the Italian terminology. Regardless of what your vision may be, it needs to be tailored to what your customers want. Educating your audience requires you to gather them in your store in the first place, and you only do that by creating an environment they want to be in. This is a life lesson, as much as it holds true in business: to get someone to listen, you first need to build an audience. And you only do that by listening first. This is tough for an entrepreneur, or anyone who’s ever had to share an idea. You have a vision in mind that unfolds perfectly into the accumulation of your decisions, almost robotic movements that are difficult to part with. You spend all waking hours obsessing over every single detail, and once deliberated, you’ve already formed the emotional bond that prevents you from letting go.

https://medium.com/swlh/starbucks-original-name-teaches-us-to-leave-our-egos-at-the-door-bf04129d8cf7

[]

2020-09-03 22:21:23.792000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Life Lessons', 'Startup', 'Startup Lessons', 'Marketing']

Title Starbucks’ Founding Story Teaches Us Leave Egos DoorContent passing day heaviness Howard’s shoulder kept accumulating saw world opportunity couldn’t let moment pas away decided leave Starbucks build chain espresso bar I’m learning story became synonymous American classic lovedtohate yet beloved hangout spot I’m pondering idea cemented determination audacity It’s story founded humbling selftrust believing much something border infatuation conviction heart break away comfort complacency expanse possibility “There’s fine line selfdoubt selfconfidence it’s even possible feel emotion simultaneously Back often enough today could overwhelmed insecurity time abundance selfassurance faith” — Howard Schultz Howard due teach u ego greatness humility nimbleness coupled deep focus what’s best business project hand whatever may Howard founded espresso bar April 1986 named ‘Il Giornale’ one largest newspaper Italy reasoned Italian giornale translating daily distilled vision building loyal following would learn appreciate great coffee mantra ‘Everything mattered’ Howard directed operation like fine orchestra conductor opera playing background international newspaper neatly displayed rod carefullyselected Italian descriptor spotlighting espresso creation server accessorized bow tie However even wellexecuted performance could fall short audience’s expectation people started expressing dissatisfaction loud music staff felt bow tie impractical could read understand Italian terminology Regardless vision may need tailored customer want Educating audience requires gather store first place creating environment want life lesson much hold true business get someone listen first need build audience listening first tough entrepreneur anyone who’s ever share idea vision mind unfolds perfectly accumulation decision almost robotic movement difficult part spend waking hour obsessing every single detail deliberated you’ve already formed emotional bond prevents letting goTags Entrepreneurship Life Lessons Startup Startup Lessons Marketing

Toxic solutioning, form vs function, blurred vision

The UX Collective is honored to have been recognized as the Best Design Publication of 2020 at the Brazil Design Awards. 💙 The results of the State of CSS survey are out, and the State of JS survey is now open. The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices, reaching over 401,100 designers every week. Curated by Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga I disguised as an Instagram UX influencer for 4 months; this is what I learned → By Teisanu Tudor Form vs. function: when is it okay to be weird? → By Jason Brush The problem of toxic solutioning → By Nathan Robinson Do stories make social media more addictive? → By Anna E. Cook Learn like a scientist, think like a PM, work like a designer → By Boon Yew Chew More top stories: News & ideas Look to speak → Google’s tech lets you speak with your eyes. → Google’s tech lets you speak with your eyes. Yahoo’s icons → Refining Yahoo’s weather icon suite. → Refining Yahoo’s weather icon suite. Alternative maps → Intriguing maps that reveal alternate histories. → Intriguing maps that reveal alternate histories. Going deeper → Non-obvious ways to have deeper conversations. Tools & resources Platform abuse → A guide for safer product development. → A guide for safer product development. Octopus → Generate visual sitemap from any sites. → Generate visual sitemap from any sites. Awkward convo → A framework for having design conversations. → A framework for having design conversations. Blurred vision → Stark’s new burred vision simulator tool.

https://uxdesign.cc/toxic-solutioning-form-vs-function-blurred-vision-cffd37d8f56f

['Fabricio Teixeira']

2020-12-12 13:29:29.193000+00:00

['Product Design', 'Design', 'Startup', 'Productivity', 'UX']

Title Toxic solutioning form v function blurred visionContent UX Collective honored recognized Best Design Publication 2020 Brazil Design Awards 💙 result State CSS survey State JS survey open UX Collective independent design publication elevates unheard design voice reaching 401100 designer every week Curated Fabricio Teixeira Caio Braga disguised Instagram UX influencer 4 month learned → Teisanu Tudor Form v function okay weird → Jason Brush problem toxic solutioning → Nathan Robinson story make social medium addictive → Anna E Cook Learn like scientist think like PM work like designer → Boon Yew Chew top story News idea Look speak → Google’s tech let speak eye → Google’s tech let speak eye Yahoo’s icon → Refining Yahoo’s weather icon suite → Refining Yahoo’s weather icon suite Alternative map → Intriguing map reveal alternate history → Intriguing map reveal alternate history Going deeper → Nonobvious way deeper conversation Tools resource Platform abuse → guide safer product development → guide safer product development Octopus → Generate visual sitemap site → Generate visual sitemap site Awkward convo → framework design conversation → framework design conversation Blurred vision → Stark’s new burred vision simulator toolTags Product Design Design Startup Productivity UX

3 Fantastic Tips for Writers from Arthur Conan Doyle

This month I’ve been watching Granada’s “Sherlock Holmes” television series from the 1980s starring Jeremy Brett. While I’ve enjoyed numerous different screen adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery stories (including Cumberbatch’s modern spin on the detective), I love how this series seems to bring the stories to life exactly as Doyle envisioned them, including his Victorian England. Jeremy Brett is absolutely fantastic as Holmes, portraying him to the letter. Here’s a clip from one of the episodes (you can find many of the episodes on YouTube). I also love how this show makes me want to dive back into the Holmes books all over again (I read them long ago when I was a little kid). Stay tuned! I might be typing up a blog post soon filled with writing techniques gleaned from Doyle’s stories. But, today, I have an interesting find to share with you. While reading about Doyle and the Holmes stories online, I stumbled across a short article by Doyle titled “How I Write My Books”. The article first appeared in The Strand Magazine in 1924. It’s always fascinating to get a peek at the writing process of a famous author. Here are my top three takeaways: 1. Forget Factual Accuracy, Focus on Dramatic Effect Sometimes when I’m working on a piece of fiction, I worry over whether I’ve made any factual errors. Yes, it’s fiction, but the piece might be based in the real world. Maybe one of my characters works in a profession that I don’t have any personal experience with. That’s when I start Googling for hours, and I might still worry that I’ve made errors once I finish the piece. Has that happened to you too? Doyle says not to obsess over getting every little detail correct. He admits that he often made factual errors when writing his Sherlock Holmes stories. He writes, “In short stories it has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter If I can hold my readers? I claim that I may make my own conditions, and I do so. I have taken liberties in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I have been told, for example, that in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze,’ half the characters would have been in jail and the other half warned off the Turf forever. That does not trouble me in the least when the story is admittedly a fantasy.” Doyle emphasizes that your main concern should be making sure that your story holds the attention of readers. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do any research at all. If an error makes the story unbelievable, that will ruin the dramatic effect. But, in most cases, readers will overlook tiny errors in fiction pieces if the story is entertaining. The bottom line is to concentrate on telling a gripping story. And don’t let your worries over factual errors stop you from sharing your story with the world. Now, Doyle does believe factual accuracy is necessary if you’re writing historical fiction. That leads into takeaway #2… 2. How to Research Doyle notes that he researched extensively when writing historical fiction, “It is otherwise where history is brought in. Even in a short story one should be accurate there. In the Brigadier Gerard stories, for example, even the uniforms are correct. Twenty books of Napoleonic soldier records are the foundation of those stories. This accuracy applies far more to a long historical novel. It becomes a mere boy’s book of adventure unless it is a correct picture of the age.” Essentially, Doyle is saying that if you want your readers to take your piece seriously (an article, essay, biography, memoir, etc.), devote time to research. Doyle shares his system for researching that will be helpful to any writer who is working on a research heavy project: “My system before writing such a book as ‘Sir Nigel’ or ‘The Refugees’ was to read everything I could get about the age and to copy out into notebooks all that seemed distinctive. I would then cross-index this material by dividing it under the heads of the various types of character. Thus under Archer I would put all archery lore, and also what oaths an archer might use, where he might have been, what wars, etc., so as to make atmosphere in his talk. Under Monk I would have all about stained glass, illumination of missals, discipline, ritual, and so on. In this way if I had, for example, a conversation between a falconer and an armourer, I could make each draw similes from his own craft.” You could follow Doyle’s notebook system but use computer apps instead like Evernote or Scrivener. 3. How to Become a Successful Writer Finally, Doyle shares his secret for success as a writer: a strong work ethic. “As to my hours of work, when I am keen on a book I am prepared to work all day, with an hour or two of walk or siesta in the afternoon…Twice I have written forty-thousand-word pamphlets in a week, but in each case I was sustained by a burning indignation, which is the best of all driving power.” I love that Doyle broke his writing sessions up with a long walk. I wrote about how walking can stimulate your creativity in my blog post here. Even though many of us probably can’t devote entire days to writing, Doyle’s amazing dedication to his craft is inspiring. Just like Doyle, we can try to make writing a priority in our schedules each day (even if some days that means only an hour or even just twenty minutes). Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art, “This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.” Doyle also points out that it’s easier to find the motivation to write when you are working on a project that you love, “From the time that I no longer had to write for sustenance I have never considered money in my work. When the work is done the money is very welcome, and it is the author who should have it. But I have never accepted a contract because it was well paid, and indeed I have very seldom accepted a contract at all, preferring to wait until I had some idea which stimulated me, and not letting my agent or editor know until I was well advanced with the work. I am sure that this is the best and also the happiest procedure for an author.” Doyle’s picture of the happy writer is a fantastic goal to work towards. Many of us who are working writers are probably not yet at that point where we can write solely for pleasure alone. We need to take on projects that will pay the bills and put food on the table. However, even at this point in our writing life, it’s important to make sure that we don’t abandon the writing that feeds our souls. Do you have an idea for a story or a blog post or a book that’s tugging at your heart? Maybe you’re not sure if you should write it, if it will be successful, if your audience will enjoy it. Write it anyway. The world needs to hear your story. And, as Doyle says, it will make you happier too.

https://medium.com/copywriting-secrets/3-helpful-tips-for-writers-from-arthur-conan-doyle-dd8425c41dc8

['Nicole Bianchi']

2020-10-17 19:02:43.110000+00:00

['History', 'Writing', 'Fiction', 'Productivity', 'Creativity']

Title 3 Fantastic Tips Writers Arthur Conan DoyleContent month I’ve watching Granada’s “Sherlock Holmes” television series 1980s starring Jeremy Brett I’ve enjoyed numerous different screen adaptation Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery story including Cumberbatch’s modern spin detective love series seems bring story life exactly Doyle envisioned including Victorian England Jeremy Brett absolutely fantastic Holmes portraying letter Here’s clip one episode find many episode YouTube also love show make want dive back Holmes book read long ago little kid Stay tuned might typing blog post soon filled writing technique gleaned Doyle’s story today interesting find share reading Doyle Holmes story online stumbled across short article Doyle titled “How Write Books” article first appeared Strand Magazine 1924 It’s always fascinating get peek writing process famous author top three takeaway 1 Forget Factual Accuracy Focus Dramatic Effect Sometimes I’m working piece fiction worry whether I’ve made factual error Yes it’s fiction piece might based real world Maybe one character work profession don’t personal experience That’s start Googling hour might still worry I’ve made error finish piece happened Doyle say ob getting every little detail correct admits often made factual error writing Sherlock Holmes story writes “In short story always seemed long produce dramatic effect accuracy detail matter little never striven made bad mistake consequence matter hold reader claim may make condition taken liberty Sherlock Holmes story told example ‘The Adventure Silver Blaze’ half character would jail half warned Turf forever trouble least story admittedly fantasy” Doyle emphasizes main concern making sure story hold attention reader course doesn’t mean shouldn’t research error make story unbelievable ruin dramatic effect case reader overlook tiny error fiction piece story entertaining bottom line concentrate telling gripping story don’t let worry factual error stop sharing story world Doyle believe factual accuracy necessary you’re writing historical fiction lead takeaway 2… 2 Research Doyle note researched extensively writing historical fiction “It otherwise history brought Even short story one accurate Brigadier Gerard story example even uniform correct Twenty book Napoleonic soldier record foundation story accuracy applies far long historical novel becomes mere boy’s book adventure unless correct picture age” Essentially Doyle saying want reader take piece seriously article essay biography memoir etc devote time research Doyle share system researching helpful writer working research heavy project “My system writing book ‘Sir Nigel’ ‘The Refugees’ read everything could get age copy notebook seemed distinctive would crossindex material dividing head various type character Thus Archer would put archery lore also oath archer might use might war etc make atmosphere talk Monk would stained glass illumination missal discipline ritual way example conversation falconer armourer could make draw simile craft” could follow Doyle’s notebook system use computer apps instead like Evernote Scrivener 3 Become Successful Writer Finally Doyle share secret success writer strong work ethic “As hour work keen book prepared work day hour two walk siesta afternoon…Twice written fortythousandword pamphlet week case sustained burning indignation best driving power” love Doyle broke writing session long walk wrote walking stimulate creativity blog post Even though many u probably can’t devote entire day writing Doyle’s amazing dedication craft inspiring like Doyle try make writing priority schedule day even day mean hour even twenty minute Steven Pressfield writes War Art “This secret real artist know wannabe writer don’t sit day work power concentrate around u Muse take note dedication approves earned favor sight sit work become like magnetized rod attracts iron filing Ideas come Insights accrete” Doyle also point it’s easier find motivation write working project love “From time longer write sustenance never considered money work work done money welcome author never accepted contract well paid indeed seldom accepted contract preferring wait idea stimulated letting agent editor know well advanced work sure best also happiest procedure author” Doyle’s picture happy writer fantastic goal work towards Many u working writer probably yet point write solely pleasure alone need take project pay bill put food table However even point writing life it’s important make sure don’t abandon writing feed soul idea story blog post book that’s tugging heart Maybe you’re sure write successful audience enjoy Write anyway world need hear story Doyle say make happier tooTags History Writing Fiction Productivity Creativity

Theories on Theory: Why Some of it is Bull****

The world of advertising theory and research is a mystical and enticing place. Nuggets of truth pulled from studies can have immense power; they can fuel a creative brief or help you win over a client. But, we can’t forget that theory isn’t fact and must be used cautiously. To avoid the advertising research rabbit-hole, here are a few tips. 1. Check the references A popular statistic echoed throughout advertising blogs and forums is that people only remember about 10% of what they see. Interesting, right? Well, this “fact” is extremely misleading for two reasons. First, the original study that published this finding said that people only remember 10% of what they READ but 30% of what they SEE. That’s a huge difference. Second, this article was first published in 1946. It’s ancient! The moral of the story here is that before using a compelling bit of research, always consult the original source. As a rule of thumb, anything published before 2005 is probably no longer relevant. However, you might discover that newer papers reference original studies and build off their findings. 2. Beware of the dramatic headline You may have heard that because of the internet and mobile devices, humans now have an attention span shorter than that of the average goldfish. A 2015 study showed that participants had an average attention span of 8.25 seconds while that of a goldfish is 9 seconds. I have mistakenly used this statistic several times to colorfully demonstrate why messaging needs to be short and sweet. Similarly, it has appeared in the New York Times, Time Magazine and splashed all over online marketing blogs and publications. But, when you dig deeper, there is not much substance to backup this “fact.” The stat, originally published in a report by Microsoft, was actually pulled from an outside source that claims to have pulled it from another source that also claims to have pulled it from another source, and so on. Long story short, there is no definitive source of this claim nor is there a reputable study to back it up. If you want to learn more about this statistical conspiracy check out this interesting blog post. Maybe our attention spans really are shrinking due to our constant exposure to content. However, we probably should not make the comparison between human and goldfish attention spans until we get more data. 3. Be skeptical Researchers are only human and the data they dig up are not always perfect. Conducting a study with reliable results is f***ing tough. It requires a lot of time, money and a great deal of patience. When conducting my own research in college on the effects of music therapy on students with developmental disabilities, I saw how frustrating this process can be. There is endless red tape with participants and institutional review boards. My study took over six months to get approved, cutting our window for data collection in half. Consequently, the results of our year long study were not as exciting or impactful as we had hoped. Although a study may not yield optimal results, researchers sometimes rush to publish in order to stay relevant in the academic community, placate clients or defend an investment in the study. So, it should come as no surprise that results are often cherry-picked to maximize their impact. This is not to say that these researchers aren’t brilliant, they almost always are. However, we have to be wary of studies with splashy and exciting claims and be cautious of taking them at face value. A few key questions to ask yourself if evaluating an advertising study: Are the authors transparent about their methodology? Do they talk about how many subjects they used and how data was collected? Is the research published in a peer-reviewed journal? Have experts supported the findings and checked for inconsistencies (e.g. Journal of Advertising Research, Psychology & Marketing, Advertising & Society Review)? Is the author affiliated with any institutions or corporations? Could the language or results be biased because of that affiliation? A good example of healthy skepticism was discussed by Ashley Ringrose in a recent Mumbrella360 debate. Ringrose pointed to research conducted by Oxford BioChronometrics that had been frequently used by his colleague to argue that digital metrics were ineffective because of the abundance of fraudulent bot clicks. The claim here is that up to 98% of clicks on Google ads are from bots. If taken at face value, this research could have an enormous effect on how we use digital. However, there are several red flags. First, this research was conducted over a seven day period. Second, only￡100 (GBP) was allocated as a budget for each platform (Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Facebook). Third, this study was not picked up or supported by any reputable journal or research publication. Ultimately, this tells me that these results are probably unreliable and definitely aren’t representative of the scope of digital ads. Accordingly, similar studies show that only 2% of ad clicks are from bots. Moral of the story: don’t ignore a study’s methodology and take results with a grain of salt. 4. Don’t make theory the law While it can be perilous to oversimplify, theory should also never rule your life. Theory and research can open many doors; it can shed light on universal truths and similarities in the human experience. However, it shouldn’t close any doors. A recent article showed machine learning algorithms often risk over or under-extrapolating from data it’s given. Its answer to a simple SAT-style question is not only wrong but it also has an insane series of equations to support it. This is over-complicating things at its finest. Even gravity is still considered a “theory” and can be disproved if there is sufficient evidence. So, advertising theory should be treated as such. Humans are strange and unpredictable creatures. No one theory or algorithm can conclusively explain how all people consume media, shop for products or become loyal to brands. Use advertising theory as a thought starter and creative fuel, not as a tool to shut down divergent thinking. For a more fun take on how we should be wary of research watch this.

https://medium.com/comms-planning/theories-on-theory-why-some-of-it-is-bull-b8fbfb9c5e1a

['Ali Goldsmith']

2017-07-24 08:47:15.564000+00:00

['Advertising', 'Marketing', 'Science', 'Research', 'Creativity']

Title Theories Theory BullContent world advertising theory research mystical enticing place Nuggets truth pulled study immense power fuel creative brief help win client can’t forget theory isn’t fact must used cautiously avoid advertising research rabbithole tip 1 Check reference popular statistic echoed throughout advertising blog forum people remember 10 see Interesting right Well “fact” extremely misleading two reason First original study published finding said people remember 10 READ 30 SEE That’s huge difference Second article first published 1946 It’s ancient moral story using compelling bit research always consult original source rule thumb anything published 2005 probably longer relevant However might discover newer paper reference original study build finding 2 Beware dramatic headline may heard internet mobile device human attention span shorter average goldfish 2015 study showed participant average attention span 825 second goldfish 9 second mistakenly used statistic several time colorfully demonstrate messaging need short sweet Similarly appeared New York Times Time Magazine splashed online marketing blog publication dig deeper much substance backup “fact” stat originally published report Microsoft actually pulled outside source claim pulled another source also claim pulled another source Long story short definitive source claim reputable study back want learn statistical conspiracy check interesting blog post Maybe attention span really shrinking due constant exposure content However probably make comparison human goldfish attention span get data 3 skeptical Researchers human data dig always perfect Conducting study reliable result fing tough requires lot time money great deal patience conducting research college effect music therapy student developmental disability saw frustrating process endless red tape participant institutional review board study took six month get approved cutting window data collection half Consequently result year long study exciting impactful hoped Although study may yield optimal result researcher sometimes rush publish order stay relevant academic community placate client defend investment study come surprise result often cherrypicked maximize impact say researcher aren’t brilliant almost always However wary study splashy exciting claim cautious taking face value key question ask evaluating advertising study author transparent methodology talk many subject used data collected research published peerreviewed journal expert supported finding checked inconsistency eg Journal Advertising Research Psychology Marketing Advertising Society Review author affiliated institution corporation Could language result biased affiliation good example healthy skepticism discussed Ashley Ringrose recent Mumbrella360 debate Ringrose pointed research conducted Oxford BioChronometrics frequently used colleague argue digital metric ineffective abundance fraudulent bot click claim 98 click Google ad bot taken face value research could enormous effect use digital However several red flag First research conducted seven day period Second only￡100 GBP allocated budget platform Google Yahoo LinkedIn Facebook Third study picked supported reputable journal research publication Ultimately tell result probably unreliable definitely aren’t representative scope digital ad Accordingly similar study show 2 ad click bot Moral story don’t ignore study’s methodology take result grain salt 4 Don’t make theory law perilous oversimplify theory also never rule life Theory research open many door shed light universal truth similarity human experience However shouldn’t close door recent article showed machine learning algorithm often risk underextrapolating data it’s given answer simple SATstyle question wrong also insane series equation support overcomplicating thing finest Even gravity still considered “theory” disproved sufficient evidence advertising theory treated Humans strange unpredictable creature one theory algorithm conclusively explain people consume medium shop product become loyal brand Use advertising theory thought starter creative fuel tool shut divergent thinking fun take wary research watch thisTags Advertising Marketing Science Research Creativity

Why Antibodies Don't Tell the Whole Story of Immunity

There’s Good News About Your Immune System and the Coronavirus When antibody levels go down, T cells have your back T cell rendering. Image: Design Cells/Getty Images More than any other facet of Covid-19, the question of immunity has been a stressful source of good news/bad news whiplash. Good news: Scientists discovered early on that most people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the official name for the novel coronavirus) create virus-specific antibodies — special proteins produced by immune cells that help fight off the coronavirus and provide immunity against future infections. This finding helped guide the dozens of vaccines currently under development. Bad news: Those antibodies may hang around for only a couple months, a phenomenon called waning immunity. There have been anecdotal accounts of a few people potentially contracting the virus a second time, and a new preprint paper — which has not yet been peer reviewed — showed that in some recovered patients, antibody levels declined to undetectable levels after three months. These reports have caused some people to speculate that a vaccine will be largely ineffective and that we may never develop herd immunity to the virus. Before you start to doom spiral, though, let’s turn back to good news: Antibodies aren’t the only tools the immune system has to fight repeat invaders. Several recent studies have shown that in addition to antibodies, people also develop virus-specific T cells. These immune cells are an important component of long-term immunity, and in some cases they’re detectable in the body many years after antibodies dissipate. But because nothing is simple with SARS-CoV-2, the T cells produced in response to the coronavirus are a little unusual. B cells and T cells work as a team The immune system has two waves in its defense against an invader: the initial innate response, which looks the same for pretty much any attacker, and the slower adaptive response, which takes about a week to develop but is tailored to the current assailant. The adaptive response also serves as a type of immunological memory, so that if the same virus tries to reinfect a person, their immune system can kick into gear and immediately mount a virus-specific defense. It’s this second phase that scientists are especially interested in right now, because it’s also the one that’s activated by vaccines. There are two main cell types involved in adaptive immunity that work as a team, B cells and T cells, both of which are white blood cells — technically called lymphocytes — that primarily live in the lymph nodes. B cells make antibodies, those coveted proteins that latch onto the virus and either disarm it or block it from entering the body’s cells. But in order to learn what the virus looks like and what kinds and shapes of antibodies to make, B cells need T cells. Even if “antibody levels are quite low in coronavirus infection, having T cells around to get them up quickly will give you quite a bit of protection.” “To make really good quality B cells and get good antibodies, you need T cell help,” says Richard Locksley, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. For example, he says, “When you get a vaccine, like a flu vaccine or a tetanus toxin or whatever, the T cell help is what makes you get the good antibodies by the B cells.” There are several different flavors of T cells that play a role in the immune system, but the two variations that are especially important when it comes to immunity are referred to as memory T cells, because they remember the virus in case it comes back. The first memory T cells, known as “helper” T cells, educate the B cells about what the antibodies should look like to combat the current invader. They also provide the B cells with growth factors and general support to produce as many antibodies as possible. The other kind of memory T cells are called “killer” T cells. These T cells also learn what the current viral threat looks like, and they go off to find infected cells and destroy them so the virus can’t spread further inside the body. One expert called them “the special forces” of the immune system. When antibody levels go down, T cells have your back Several studies have shown that people who were infected with the novel coronavirus create memory T cells that react specifically to SARS-CoV-2. In one paper published in June, 100% of people who had recovered from mild Covid-19 infections developed virus-specific helper T cells, and 70% developed killer T cells. A follow-up study by the same scientists similarly found that, in people who were hospitalized with severe Covid-19 infections, 100% produced helper T cells and 80% produced killer T cells. Two other groups in Germany and Sweden have released preprint papers showing similar results. “The good news is, despite all the worries at the time that there was no immunity whatsoever, we did find immunity in all the factors that we analyzed,” says Alba Grifoni, PhD, a scientist at the La Jolla Institute who worked on both of the published studies. “One month after the infection, we were able to detect a good immune response both for the B and T cell sides.” The discovery of virus-specific memory T cells is good news for several reasons. First, those T cells boost the immune response and help guarantee that B cells create high-quality antibodies. Potentially even more important is the fact that the memory T cells can remain in a reservoir in the body for a long time, in some cases for decades. This fact is especially critical in light of the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies might decline rather quickly. Memory T cells can remind the B cells which antibodies to make, replenishing the pool on command. “But what we think happens is almost all of those patients will have T cell memory, and the T cells seem to be quite durable.” “The advantage of having really good T cells is even if the antibody levels have gone down, every time you get exposed again, the T cells will clone up and provide help really quickly, and those antibodies will be expanded again,” Locksley says. Even if “antibody levels are quite low in coronavirus infection, having T cells around to get them up quickly will give you quite a bit of protection.” Based on what scientists know about SARS and MERS, coronaviruses related to the current infection, there was speculation that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies would provide immunity for several years. Since the new coronavirus has been circulating for only six months, it’s too soon to know how long the antibodies will last, but the latest research suggests that the timeline might be months rather than years, especially in people who had mild or asymptomatic infections. “There’s some information now emerging that antibodies may decline over time,” says John Wherry, PhD, director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. “That concerns some people, suggesting that our antibody memory, our protective immunity, may wane over time. Jury’s still out on that. But what we think happens is almost all of those patients will have T cell memory, and the T cells seem to be quite durable.” Scientists don’t yet know how long SARS-CoV-2 T cells will last, but one recent study published in the journal Nature found that people who were exposed to the original SARS virus in 2003 still had T cells that responded to the virus in 2020, 17 years later. Some people’s immune systems might be handicapped by the virus, while others may have a running start Of course, it can never just be easy with this virus. While people do produce T cells in response to SARS-CoV-2, evidence has emerged that the cells are delayed, suppressed, and out of balance — a phenomenon known as lymphopenia, meaning a deficiency of lymphocytes. Disrupting the immune system isn’t unique to the coronavirus, virtually all viruses do it to some extent to help them thwart the immune response. But in SARS-CoV-2, the lymphopenia is more severe and appears to target the killer T cells. “When you see this lymphopenia, the loss of lymphocytes, in other infections, often it’s B cells and T cells and the other minor [cell] populations. In SARS-CoV-2, it seems to be preferentially impacting the [killer] T cells,” says Wherry, who released a preprint paper on the finding. “We don’t really know why. That occurs in some other very severe infections — it can occur in Ebola, it may occur in some others — but it’s a little bit unusual. It’s also unusual for the lymphopenia to be lasting a long time. In other infections, it tends to be very transient, only lasting for maybe a few days.” “I think this is working like lots of viruses work, and it’s going to hit these pathways we know about. And maybe tucked in there will be some new surprise that will guide the way to a better way to treat not only this virus, but other viruses.” Lymphopenia is more pronounced in people with severe Covid-19 infections, although scientists don’t know if it is the cause or the result of the prolonged, exhausting war the immune system wages against the virus. One possibility is that without the anticipated T cell response, the initial innate immune defense goes into overdrive, resulting in the so-called cytokine storm, where inflammatory immune proteins cause irreparable damage to the body’s tissues. The adaptive immune system does rebound eventually, though, and people who recover from the virus produce adequate numbers of B cells and T cells to fight off the infection. Another question mark when it comes to T cells is the discovery by Grifoni and others that up to 50% of people have memory T cells that respond to SARS-CoV-2, even if they’ve never had the virus. The leading theory is that exposure to other similar coronaviruses, like the ones that cause the common cold, prompted people to produce T cells that also respond to the new strain. This discovery could potentially explain why some people have very mild or asymptomatic infections — perhaps their immune systems have a running start to mount a response and quickly produce antibodies to the novel coronavirus. Grifoni says these cases are important to keep in mind for vaccine development, because a higher baseline level of memory T cells could influence how a person’s immune system responds to the vaccine, potentially speeding up their production of antibodies and enhancing their protection against the virus. “If you have a T cell response before the vaccine, and you don’t measure that and just look at the response after the vaccination, you would not know whether [the vaccine actually worked or] you got lucky,” she says. “You need to look at what was the [T cell] response before.” While there are still a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to the novel coronavirus, the good news is that scientists do know a lot about the immune system, and they’re working at record speed to figure out how it responds to this particular virus. “I don’t think all of a sudden something is going to work in some bizarre way we’ve never seen before. I think this is working like lots of viruses work, and it’s going to hit these pathways we know about,” Locksley says. “And maybe tucked in there will be some new surprise that will guide the way to a better way to treat not only this virus, but other viruses.”

https://elemental.medium.com/theres-good-news-about-your-immune-system-and-the-coronavirus-7d2c1fc976c1

['Dana G Smith']

2020-07-22 17:43:13.602000+00:00

['Science', 'Body', 'Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'Health']

Title Antibodies Dont Tell Whole Story ImmunityContent There’s Good News Immune System Coronavirus antibody level go cell back cell rendering Image Design CellsGetty Images facet Covid19 question immunity stressful source good newsbad news whiplash Good news Scientists discovered early people infected SARSCoV2 official name novel coronavirus create virusspecific antibody — special protein produced immune cell help fight coronavirus provide immunity future infection finding helped guide dozen vaccine currently development Bad news antibody may hang around couple month phenomenon called waning immunity anecdotal account people potentially contracting virus second time new preprint paper — yet peer reviewed — showed recovered patient antibody level declined undetectable level three month report caused people speculate vaccine largely ineffective may never develop herd immunity virus start doom spiral though let’s turn back good news Antibodies aren’t tool immune system fight repeat invader Several recent study shown addition antibody people also develop virusspecific cell immune cell important component longterm immunity case they’re detectable body many year antibody dissipate nothing simple SARSCoV2 cell produced response coronavirus little unusual B cell cell work team immune system two wave defense invader initial innate response look pretty much attacker slower adaptive response take week develop tailored current assailant adaptive response also serf type immunological memory virus try reinfect person immune system kick gear immediately mount virusspecific defense It’s second phase scientist especially interested right it’s also one that’s activated vaccine two main cell type involved adaptive immunity work team B cell cell white blood cell — technically called lymphocyte — primarily live lymph node B cell make antibody coveted protein latch onto virus either disarm block entering body’s cell order learn virus look like kind shape antibody make B cell need cell Even “antibody level quite low coronavirus infection cell around get quickly give quite bit protection” “To make really good quality B cell get good antibody need cell help” say Richard Locksley MD professor medicine University California San Francisco example say “When get vaccine like flu vaccine tetanus toxin whatever cell help make get good antibody B cells” several different flavor cell play role immune system two variation especially important come immunity referred memory cell remember virus case come back first memory cell known “helper” cell educate B cell antibody look like combat current invader also provide B cell growth factor general support produce many antibody possible kind memory cell called “killer” cell cell also learn current viral threat look like go find infected cell destroy virus can’t spread inside body One expert called “the special forces” immune system antibody level go cell back Several study shown people infected novel coronavirus create memory cell react specifically SARSCoV2 one paper published June 100 people recovered mild Covid19 infection developed virusspecific helper cell 70 developed killer cell followup study scientist similarly found people hospitalized severe Covid19 infection 100 produced helper cell 80 produced killer cell Two group Germany Sweden released preprint paper showing similar result “The good news despite worry time immunity whatsoever find immunity factor analyzed” say Alba Grifoni PhD scientist La Jolla Institute worked published study “One month infection able detect good immune response B cell sides” discovery virusspecific memory cell good news several reason First cell boost immune response help guarantee B cell create highquality antibody Potentially even important fact memory cell remain reservoir body long time case decade fact especially critical light possibility SARSCoV2 antibody might decline rather quickly Memory cell remind B cell antibody make replenishing pool command “But think happens almost patient cell memory cell seem quite durable” “The advantage really good cell even antibody level gone every time get exposed cell clone provide help really quickly antibody expanded again” Locksley say Even “antibody level quite low coronavirus infection cell around get quickly give quite bit protection” Based scientist know SARS MERS coronaviruses related current infection speculation SARSCoV2 antibody would provide immunity several year Since new coronavirus circulating six month it’s soon know long antibody last latest research suggests timeline might month rather year especially people mild asymptomatic infection “There’s information emerging antibody may decline time” say John Wherry PhD director Institute Immunology University Pennsylvania “That concern people suggesting antibody memory protective immunity may wane time Jury’s still think happens almost patient cell memory cell seem quite durable” Scientists don’t yet know long SARSCoV2 cell last one recent study published journal Nature found people exposed original SARS virus 2003 still cell responded virus 2020 17 year later people’s immune system might handicapped virus others may running start course never easy virus people produce cell response SARSCoV2 evidence emerged cell delayed suppressed balance — phenomenon known lymphopenia meaning deficiency lymphocyte Disrupting immune system isn’t unique coronavirus virtually virus extent help thwart immune response SARSCoV2 lymphopenia severe appears target killer cell “When see lymphopenia loss lymphocyte infection often it’s B cell cell minor cell population SARSCoV2 seems preferentially impacting killer cells” say Wherry released preprint paper finding “We don’t really know occurs severe infection — occur Ebola may occur others — it’s little bit unusual It’s also unusual lymphopenia lasting long time infection tends transient lasting maybe days” “I think working like lot virus work it’s going hit pathway know maybe tucked new surprise guide way better way treat virus viruses” Lymphopenia pronounced people severe Covid19 infection although scientist don’t know cause result prolonged exhausting war immune system wage virus One possibility without anticipated cell response initial innate immune defense go overdrive resulting socalled cytokine storm inflammatory immune protein cause irreparable damage body’s tissue adaptive immune system rebound eventually though people recover virus produce adequate number B cell cell fight infection Another question mark come cell discovery Grifoni others 50 people memory cell respond SARSCoV2 even they’ve never virus leading theory exposure similar coronaviruses like one cause common cold prompted people produce cell also respond new strain discovery could potentially explain people mild asymptomatic infection — perhaps immune system running start mount response quickly produce antibody novel coronavirus Grifoni say case important keep mind vaccine development higher baseline level memory cell could influence person’s immune system responds vaccine potentially speeding production antibody enhancing protection virus “If cell response vaccine don’t measure look response vaccination would know whether vaccine actually worked got lucky” say “You need look cell response before” still lot unanswered question come novel coronavirus good news scientist know lot immune system they’re working record speed figure responds particular virus “I don’t think sudden something going work bizarre way we’ve never seen think working like lot virus work it’s going hit pathway know about” Locksley say “And maybe tucked new surprise guide way better way treat virus viruses”Tags Science Body Covid 19 Coronavirus Health

Meet Angela Friedman the invincible 102 year old from New York.

Image by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash Meet Angela Friedman the invincible 102 year old from New York. She's beat Covid-19 twice, and she lived through the flu of 1918 as a baby. Joanne Merola, Angela’s daughter, says her mother was first diagnosed with the corona virus back in March 2020 whilst in hospital for a minor procedure. She spent a week in hospital followed by a period of self-isolation, and recovered fully. In late October, Joanne received a call from the nursing home where her mother lives. She had tested positive for the virus yet again, and had symptoms. Fortunately, after a period of isolation and treatment, on 17 November she tested negative. Maybe living through the flu of 1918 is what has made her invincible!

https://medium.com/vital-world-online/meet-angela-friedman-the-invincible-102-year-old-from-new-york-d4f2ab769ea0

['Rejoice Denhere']

2020-12-19 09:03:08.553000+00:00

['Covid 19', 'Wellness Coaching', 'Wellness', 'Health', 'Coronavirus']

Title Meet Angela Friedman invincible 102 year old New YorkContent Image Obi Onyeador Unsplash Meet Angela Friedman invincible 102 year old New York Shes beat Covid19 twice lived flu 1918 baby Joanne Merola Angela’s daughter say mother first diagnosed corona virus back March 2020 whilst hospital minor procedure spent week hospital followed period selfisolation recovered fully late October Joanne received call nursing home mother life tested positive virus yet symptom Fortunately period isolation treatment 17 November tested negative Maybe living flu 1918 made invincibleTags Covid 19 Wellness Coaching Wellness Health Coronavirus

Permissionless Professors #5: Nat Eliason

We believe monetization is a hidden secret. Secrets hiding in plain sight. From the psychology of anchoring, the mathematics of power-law pricing tables, the application of demand elasticity, and the market positioning of your price — your path to better monetization awaits. Follow

https://medium.com/monetization-manifesto/permissionless-professors-5-nat-eliason-b4a72f8edd2d

['Gary Bailey - Monetization Manifesto']

2020-12-17 14:56:35.631000+00:00

['Growth', 'Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Monetization']

Title Permissionless Professors 5 Nat EliasonContent believe monetization hidden secret Secrets hiding plain sight psychology anchoring mathematics powerlaw pricing table application demand elasticity market positioning price — path better monetization awaits FollowTags Growth Marketing Entrepreneurship Startup Monetization

new writing resource

Hi there, Hope all of your writing projects are going well. I just wanted to let you know about the latest article published at Copywriting Secrets: A Look Back at August: new projects, the best books I read, writing & creative inspiration, and more! This is a different guide than usual. I’m sharing a recap of my August: new projects I’m working on as well as books and articles that I enjoyed that I thought you’d enjoy as well. Here are some of the things you’ll discover in the new article: what we can learn from the classics about creating influential work how difficult the writing process was even for famous writers like J.R.R. Tolkien a fantastic book that will help you boost your creativity quotes to keep you going when writing gets tough I hope you enjoy the article. Have a fantastic week! Cheers, Nicole

https://medium.com/copywriting-secrets/new-writing-resource-febbddb7e8dc

['Nicole Bianchi']

2019-09-12 22:18:57.370000+00:00

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

Title new writing resourceContent Hi Hope writing project going well wanted let know latest article published Copywriting Secrets Look Back August new project best book read writing creative inspiration different guide usual I’m sharing recap August new project I’m working well book article enjoyed thought you’d enjoy well thing you’ll discover new article learn classic creating influential work difficult writing process even famous writer like JRR Tolkien fantastic book help boost creativity quote keep going writing get tough hope enjoy article fantastic week Cheers NicoleTags Inspiration Creativity Productivity Writing

How I Sold More Membership Cards Than Any Other Store Clerk

How I Sold More Membership Cards Than Any Other Store Clerk The exact scripts to use Photo by Christiann Koepke on Unsplash In 2007, when I was a 17-year-old sales assistant in a clothing store, I sold more store cards than entire store ‘clusters’ put together. A cluster, in this example, was all of the staff in all of the stores for each area — competing against me. So I wasn’t just first, I was so far ahead that the company itself actually asked me to re-train its sales assistants on my technique. After it became immoral to sell people into retail credit-agreements (post-2008), these skills transitioned into my other ventures of sales and marketing. Less used for selling ‘finance’ or ‘payment plans’ and instead focusing on making products look, sound, and feel more attractive to buyers. You see, marketing is sales. Marketing is the efforts you make to create, support, or close the sale. Today, I’m going to tell you exactly what it was that helped me do so well, so in turn, you can use these tactics in your own careers too.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-i-sold-more-membership-cards-than-any-other-store-clerk-3166376576a2

['Geraint Clarke']

2020-08-11 17:05:53.527000+00:00

['Sales', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Marketing', 'Psychology']

Title Sold Membership Cards Store ClerkContent Sold Membership Cards Store Clerk exact script use Photo Christiann Koepke Unsplash 2007 17yearold sale assistant clothing store sold store card entire store ‘clusters’ put together cluster example staff store area — competing wasn’t first far ahead company actually asked retrain sale assistant technique became immoral sell people retail creditagreements post2008 skill transitioned venture sale marketing Less used selling ‘finance’ ‘payment plans’ instead focusing making product look sound feel attractive buyer see marketing sale Marketing effort make create support close sale Today I’m going tell exactly helped well turn use tactic career tooTags Sales Business Startup Marketing Psychology

A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming

In the United States, the rising severity of the current moment was obscured for several weeks by the downward drift of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from the spring outbreak in northeastern states. Even though deaths have been rising in the hardest-hit states of the Sun Belt surge, falling deaths in the Northeast disguised the trend. It is true that the proportion of infections in younger people increased in June and July compared with March and April. And young people have a much lower risk of dying than people in their 60s and older. But, at least in Florida, where the best age data are available, early evidence suggests that the virus is already spreading to older people. Additionally, analysis of CDC data by The New York Times has found that younger Black and Latino people have a much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than white people the same age. According to the racial data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project in concert with the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, Latinos in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas are 1.3 to 1.6 times more likely to be infected than their proportion of the population would suggest. It is telling that despite outbreaks all over Texas in recent weeks, the border region has been leading the state in deaths per capita. Even with cases surging, if hospitalizations were not rising, that might suggest that this outbreak might be less deadly than the spring’s. But hospitalization data maintained by the COVID Tracking Project suggested otherwise as early as June 23. On that date, hospitalizations began to tick up across the South and West, and they have not stopped. It’s possible we’ll match the national peak number of hospitalizations from the spring outbreak over the next week. Even if better knowledge of the disease and new treatments have improved outcomes by 25 or even 50 percent, so many people are now in the hospital that some of them will almost certainly die. There was always a logical, simple explanation for why cases and hospitalizations rose through the end of June while deaths did not: It takes a while for people to die of COVID-19 and for those deaths to be reported to authorities. So why has there been so much confusion about the COVID-19 death toll? The second surge is inconvenient for the Trump administration and the Republican governors who followed its lead, as well as for Mike Pence, the head of the coronavirus task force, who declared victory in a spectacularly incorrect Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave.’” “Cases have stabilized over the past two weeks, with the daily average case rate across the U.S. dropping to 20,000 — down from 30,000 in April and 25,000 in May,” Pence wrote. In the month since Pence made this assertion, the seven-day average of cases has tripled. Several individual states have reported more than 10,000 cases in a day, and Florida alone reported 15,000 cases, more than any state had before, on an absolute or per capita basis. But there’s another reason for some of the confusion about the severity of the outbreak right now. And that’s the perceived speed at which the outbreak initially landed on American shores and started killing people. The lack of testing let the virus run free in February and much of March. As my colleague Robinson Meyer and I put it at the time, “Without testing, there was only one way to know the severity of the outbreak: counting the dead.” And that is how we figured out how bad the outbreak was. Thousands began dying in the greater New York City area and a few other cities around the country in early April. The seven-day average for new cases peaked on April 10, followed by the peak of the seven-day average for daily deaths just 11 days later. Everything seemed to happen at once: lots of cases, lots of hospitalizations, lots of deaths. But some of this is also the compression of memory. Most of us remember the deaths in March beginning as quickly as the cases, especially given the testing debacle. That’s not exactly what happened, however. The nation did, in fact, see cases rise weeks before the death toll shot up. There was a time in March when we had detected more than 100 cases for each death we recorded. This is a crucial metric because it gets at the perceived gap between cases and deaths. And it tells us that we did see a lag between rising cases and deaths back in the spring. During the slow-decline phase in May, the case-to-deaths ratio fell to about 20. Then, this summer, the case-to-death ratio began to rise in early June. On July 6, the ratio hit 100 again, just like in the spring. But as in spring, this was not a good sign, but rather the leading indicator that a new round of outbreaks was taking hold in the country. And, indeed, a week ago, this ratio began to fall as deaths ramped up. The U.S. came most of the way down the curve from the dark days of April, and now we’re watching the surge happen again. The testing delays, the emergency-room-nurse stories, the refrigerated morgue trucks — the first time as a tragedy, the second time as an even greater tragedy. One must ask, without really wanting to know the answer, How bad could this round get?

https://medium.com/the-atlantic/a-second-coronavirus-death-surge-is-coming-10dba630f635

['The Atlantic']

2020-07-16 14:14:01.021000+00:00

['Health', 'Science', 'Coronavirus']

Title Second Coronavirus Death Surge ComingContent United States rising severity current moment obscured several week downward drift case hospitalization death resulting spring outbreak northeastern state Even though death rising hardesthit state Sun Belt surge falling death Northeast disguised trend true proportion infection younger people increased June July compared March April young people much lower risk dying people 60 older least Florida best age data available early evidence suggests virus already spreading older people Additionally analysis CDC data New York Times found younger Black Latino people much higher risk dying COVID19 white people age According racial data compiled COVID Tracking Project concert Boston University Center Antiracist Research Latinos Arizona California Florida Texas 13 16 time likely infected proportion population would suggest telling despite outbreak Texas recent week border region leading state death per caput Even case surging hospitalization rising might suggest outbreak might le deadly spring’s hospitalization data maintained COVID Tracking Project suggested otherwise early June 23 date hospitalization began tick across South West stopped It’s possible we’ll match national peak number hospitalization spring outbreak next week Even better knowledge disease new treatment improved outcome 25 even 50 percent many people hospital almost certainly die always logical simple explanation case hospitalization rose end June death take people die COVID19 death reported authority much confusion COVID19 death toll second surge inconvenient Trump administration Republican governor followed lead well Mike Pence head coronavirus task force declared victory spectacularly incorrect Wall Street Journal oped titled “There Isn’t Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’” “Cases stabilized past two week daily average case rate across US dropping 20000 — 30000 April 25000 May” Pence wrote month since Pence made assertion sevenday average case tripled Several individual state reported 10000 case day Florida alone reported 15000 case state absolute per caput basis there’s another reason confusion severity outbreak right that’s perceived speed outbreak initially landed American shore started killing people lack testing let virus run free February much March colleague Robinson Meyer put time “Without testing one way know severity outbreak counting dead” figured bad outbreak Thousands began dying greater New York City area city around country early April sevenday average new case peaked April 10 followed peak sevenday average daily death 11 day later Everything seemed happen lot case lot hospitalization lot death also compression memory u remember death March beginning quickly case especially given testing debacle That’s exactly happened however nation fact see case rise week death toll shot time March detected 100 case death recorded crucial metric get perceived gap case death tell u see lag rising case death back spring slowdecline phase May casetodeaths ratio fell 20 summer casetodeath ratio began rise early June July 6 ratio hit 100 like spring spring good sign rather leading indicator new round outbreak taking hold country indeed week ago ratio began fall death ramped US came way curve dark day April we’re watching surge happen testing delay emergencyroomnurse story refrigerated morgue truck — first time tragedy second time even greater tragedy One must ask without really wanting know answer bad could round getTags Health Science Coronavirus

5 Tips on How to Use Your Unfinished Blog Posts to Help You Write New ones

5 Tips on How to Use Your Unfinished Blog Posts to Help You Write New ones What to do with all the blog posts that you started and never finished Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash My approach to writing is a little bit messier and chaotic than other writers. I believe in progress over perfection, forward momentum, bouncing between projects and constantly growing and improving. But this approach to writing lends itself to several unfinished posts piling up in the drafts, and that’s fine, I have space for it and it doesn’t hinder my current or future writing. In fact, it helps it. If you’re like me, you probably have a stack of unfinished posts laying around too. This post is for you, and to help you answer the question of what to do with all this raw potential. Because that’s what it really is. Keep reading to find out what I mean. №01 Combine and turn into a new post One great way to make use of all the sort-of-started-but-didn’t-finish blog posts you have piling up is to take a couple, or take several, and find ways to combine them. Sometimes this will work easily, and sometimes it’ll take some effort on your part. I’ve found several older unfinished posts that perfectly compliment something I’m working on but needed a little something to feel finished, to feel polished. These older pieces are great sources, either in entirety or with key passages, to perfectly fit the dry parts and difficult parts of current work. More often than not, we writers write on specific themes and ideas. We come back to these same topics over and over, exploring for greater understanding and also to teach more deeply on the subject. This means that all the unfinished posts were likely some kind of attempt to do the same or similar. And if so, then they likely have some good lines, solid passages, or some perfectly fitting contribution to your latest attempt at the same or similar subject. This is a win-win for writers, and proof that you really shouldn’t delete things in haste. Let your work sit, even if it feels like it fails short, or you just couldn’t find a way to finish the piece. You never know how useful those words might be to some future pieces. №02 Find their common theme, combine and turn them into one new post As was mentioned, we writers tend to explore common themes in our work. Sometimes our unfinished pieces will complement each other well enough to come together as one new piece entirely. When you feel a bit dry on inspiration, or some piece you’re working isn’t quite panning out for whatever reason, take time to hit pause and explore your collection of unfinished work. You may find something to help finish or carry your current work along, as we discussed in the previous point. Or, and this can be a fun diversion from the frustration of your current work, you may find some unfinished work that can work together. Here’s what I do: Copy the first piece, and create a new document, paste the work there. Copy the second, third, and however many others and paste them over as well Be sure to leave plenty of white space between the copy-pastes, you need wiggle room and room to experiment, and find connections Play around with what’s there, copy lines and passages, paste them into the empty spaces, see what can run together, and take a measure of the shape of the whole Work at it until you have something that begins to look more like one piece instead of a sewn together blog post version of Frankenstein’s monster Rinse and repeat The creative lifestyle is a constant push to stretch your creative barriers, to find new experiments and to not be afraid to try new and different things. And if you followed my steps above, even if the new piece crashes and burns entirely, it’s ultimately just a copy of earlier work, and the earlier work is still safe. No harm, no foul. №03 Find their theme, turn them into a series Follow the same steps from the previous point, except this time, look for the theme that connects them and look for ways to make a series. It’s a simple trick, but sometimes understanding how your work connects can become its own inspiration and driving power in helping you complete individual posts. Seeing these individual pieces as part of a series helps you see the questions that are driving the collection, and understanding these questions helps you see what is left unsaid, unanswered. Finish these pieces then becomes a simple task of saying what’s left unsaid and answering those questions. Plus, once you have the series finished, you have several pieces on one common theme that tie together instead of the one you originally sat down to write. It’s a solid win for you and your efforts and a great way to stretch yourself and grow into a more capable writer. What’s more, your confidence grows too, and I have yet to meet a writer who doesn’t, from time to time, need a little boost in their confidence. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash №04 Learn from them This might seem like the easiest of tasks on this list, but it’s deceptive in its complexity and challenge. When you come up against your unfinished work, have the courage to ask why you didn’t finish this work. And then with each answer, you come up with, keep asking more questions of yourself. There are few skills more powerful and better able to transform you and your work than that of honest self-reflection. Explore why you didn’t finish a piece, look for patterns, and gauge where your interest waned. See if you can better understand these things and then take note if you’ve felt or experienced them recently or in current works. Learn your lessons, apply them, and grow into the writer your work needs and deserves. №05 Finish them Sometimes, all your work really needs is time. And some pieces need more time than others. If you’ve read enough of my work by now, you know I’m a big fan of letting your written work sit for a while before editing or continuing it. I usually do this from one day to the next, but I’ve had some unfinished work that took well into and beyond a month to finally find the missing parts they needed to be carried to completion. Finishing your unfinished work can be some of the most challenging and difficult work you do. But, it’s also the most rewarding and satisfying. There’s a simple joy in finishing your work. And what’s more, there is no better way to grow as a writer than to finish your writings. Next Steps Stop deleting your work, play the long game, invest in the unfinished work you’ve started but couldn’t quite bring to a finish for whatever reason. Every so often, take a look at this collection, find your next piece there, find some inspiration from something you once had great momentum and passion behind, or find several pieces and find a way to combine them. The point is this: Don’t be so quick to delete, sometimes your work just needs to sit a while longer, and you need more thinking-time to grow and develop these pieces and explore the powerful potential they already have. My challenge to you is to explore your unfinished work, see what’s there, what you can work with and start breathing new life into it.

https://medium.com/swlh/5-tips-on-how-to-use-your-unfinished-blog-posts-to-help-you-write-new-ones-5fa50833de18

['Gregory D. Welch']

2020-02-28 05:35:03.477000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Writing', 'Inspiration', 'Creativity']

Title 5 Tips Use Unfinished Blog Posts Help Write New onesContent 5 Tips Use Unfinished Blog Posts Help Write New one blog post started never finished Photo Brooke Cagle Unsplash approach writing little bit messier chaotic writer believe progress perfection forward momentum bouncing project constantly growing improving approach writing lends several unfinished post piling draft that’s fine space doesn’t hinder current future writing fact help you’re like probably stack unfinished post laying around post help answer question raw potential that’s really Keep reading find mean №01 Combine turn new post One great way make use sortofstartedbutdidn’tfinish blog post piling take couple take several find way combine Sometimes work easily sometimes it’ll take effort part I’ve found several older unfinished post perfectly compliment something I’m working needed little something feel finished feel polished older piece great source either entirety key passage perfectly fit dry part difficult part current work often writer write specific theme idea come back topic exploring greater understanding also teach deeply subject mean unfinished post likely kind attempt similar likely good line solid passage perfectly fitting contribution latest attempt similar subject winwin writer proof really shouldn’t delete thing haste Let work sit even feel like fails short couldn’t find way finish piece never know useful word might future piece №02 Find common theme combine turn one new post mentioned writer tend explore common theme work Sometimes unfinished piece complement well enough come together one new piece entirely feel bit dry inspiration piece you’re working isn’t quite panning whatever reason take time hit pause explore collection unfinished work may find something help finish carry current work along discussed previous point fun diversion frustration current work may find unfinished work work together Here’s Copy first piece create new document paste work Copy second third however many others paste well sure leave plenty white space copypastes need wiggle room room experiment find connection Play around what’s copy line passage paste empty space see run together take measure shape whole Work something begin look like one piece instead sewn together blog post version Frankenstein’s monster Rinse repeat creative lifestyle constant push stretch creative barrier find new experiment afraid try new different thing followed step even new piece crash burn entirely it’s ultimately copy earlier work earlier work still safe harm foul №03 Find theme turn series Follow step previous point except time look theme connects look way make series It’s simple trick sometimes understanding work connects become inspiration driving power helping complete individual post Seeing individual piece part series help see question driving collection understanding question help see left unsaid unanswered Finish piece becomes simple task saying what’s left unsaid answering question Plus series finished several piece one common theme tie together instead one originally sat write It’s solid win effort great way stretch grow capable writer What’s confidence grows yet meet writer doesn’t time time need little boost confidence Photo Austin Distel Unsplash №04 Learn might seem like easiest task list it’s deceptive complexity challenge come unfinished work courage ask didn’t finish work answer come keep asking question skill powerful better able transform work honest selfreflection Explore didn’t finish piece look pattern gauge interest waned See better understand thing take note you’ve felt experienced recently current work Learn lesson apply grow writer work need deserves №05 Finish Sometimes work really need time piece need time others you’ve read enough work know I’m big fan letting written work sit editing continuing usually one day next I’ve unfinished work took well beyond month finally find missing part needed carried completion Finishing unfinished work challenging difficult work it’s also rewarding satisfying There’s simple joy finishing work what’s better way grow writer finish writing Next Steps Stop deleting work play long game invest unfinished work you’ve started couldn’t quite bring finish whatever reason Every often take look collection find next piece find inspiration something great momentum passion behind find several piece find way combine point Don’t quick delete sometimes work need sit longer need thinkingtime grow develop piece explore powerful potential already challenge explore unfinished work see what’s work start breathing new life itTags Self Improvement Productivity Writing Inspiration Creativity

The Studies of Heredity Started in Mental Asylums

The Studies of Heredity Started in Mental Asylums The most important research to date Patients from a mental asylum out for air in Victorian England. (Source: Painting by K H Merz 1843) The science of heritage is quite a big scientific sector that actually focuses on many branches of human behavior and human evolution. Historians state that the research of heredity was started in the early centuries AD, but due to the lack of advanced knowledge or technological advancements, the field was in a slow evolution and obtaining only vague results based on many assumptions that would fill the many missing gaps. Today we can read the DNA of a person to determine their heritage, but back in the day, before the knowledge of DNA, this science was based very much on registries and statistics. In other words, researchers would look in different archives for a person’s heredity and compose the data into statistics that would best represent the heritage of that person. As I always say, the best way to understand a certain event or field is to look at where things started, or in this case where heredity science started to actually become interesting and more promising. Mental asylums could be the answer Theodore M. Porter, a historian and researcher in this field, has stated that the deteriorating mental health of King George III led to the study of heritage to be carried out in mental asylums during the beginning of the 18th century. This is because the registry system in mental asylums was the best at the time due to all the patients being registered with every piece of information available. This meant that mental asylums, prisons, or even correction schools had the largest archives which would have given contemporary researchers a better chance at actually making some connections. King George III of England (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Due to the development of psychiatry, many criminals were actually ending up in mental asylums and not prisons as judges would define their crimes based on psychopathic behavior which needed to be treated, not confined. This meant that the registry would grow exponentially during the 18th century in West Europe. From this, researchers also discovered a reason for the increased number of patients that were suffering from mental illnesses: the increased complexities of ordinary life which also came with more stress. However, at the time, many researchers believed that mental illnesses were actually hereditary and this is because they appeared when they made certain connections in the heritage of patients. Some of the patients were found because a previous generation in their heritage had also ended up in a mental asylum. Therefore, the directors of asylums within West Europe were told to modify their registry so that they would keep track of siblings of each patient that would become patients in the future. This led to some drastic interventions within the families who seemed to have mental illnesses passed on from generation to generation. These families were discouraged from reproducing in order to stop the spread of mental illnesses. A drastic solution, but even they knew that their lack of scientific knowledge in correlation with the lack of technological advancement did not allow them to come up with better solutions towards stopping the spread of mental illnesses. The evolution of hereditary studies Another interesting fact from Porter’s latest book, Genetics in the Madhouse, is that at the beginning of the 19th-century scientists in this field had a burning desire to standardize the data gathered by mental asylums. Mainly to offer them a constant flow of information as well as to make data easier to analyze. This is where the information which was used in Ludvig Dahl’s Pedigrees of Mental Illnesses came from Frederik Holst, M.D., Beretning, Betankning og Indstilling fra en til at undersøge de Sindsvages Kaar i Norge (1828), table of causes by disease form, from a census. (Source: Theodore M. Porter UCLA Department of History) Such studies were seen as the pillars of statistics which were recognized by scholars such as Francis Galton who launched the eugenics paradigm in 1900. Another great scientist in the field by the name of Gregor Mendel tried to experiment with the transmission of hereditary characteristics within different plants. This study really showed potential as many people thought that this ideology could be applied to people with mental illnesses, however, this theory was rejected by many contemporary scientists on the basis that the theory was too simplistic. What followed in the early 20th century, before molecular genetics, was Nazi scientists that really looked into the eugenics field to accomplish some tremendous research (although suspiciously unethical). Since the discovery of molecular genetics, most of the research done by these Nazi scientists was disregarded.

https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-studies-of-heredity-started-in-mental-asylums-e073d73f1c49

['Andrei Tapalaga']

2020-11-30 21:02:11.964000+00:00

['Science', 'Mental Illness', 'History', 'Mental Health', 'Health']

Title Studies Heredity Started Mental AsylumsContent Studies Heredity Started Mental Asylums important research date Patients mental asylum air Victorian England Source Painting K H Merz 1843 science heritage quite big scientific sector actually focus many branch human behavior human evolution Historians state research heredity started early century AD due lack advanced knowledge technological advancement field slow evolution obtaining vague result based many assumption would fill many missing gap Today read DNA person determine heritage back day knowledge DNA science based much registry statistic word researcher would look different archive person’s heredity compose data statistic would best represent heritage person always say best way understand certain event field look thing started case heredity science started actually become interesting promising Mental asylum could answer Theodore Porter historian researcher field stated deteriorating mental health King George III led study heritage carried mental asylum beginning 18th century registry system mental asylum best time due patient registered every piece information available meant mental asylum prison even correction school largest archive would given contemporary researcher better chance actually making connection King George III England Source Wikimedia Commons Due development psychiatry many criminal actually ending mental asylum prison judge would define crime based psychopathic behavior needed treated confined meant registry would grow exponentially 18th century West Europe researcher also discovered reason increased number patient suffering mental illness increased complexity ordinary life also came stress However time many researcher believed mental illness actually hereditary appeared made certain connection heritage patient patient found previous generation heritage also ended mental asylum Therefore director asylum within West Europe told modify registry would keep track sibling patient would become patient future led drastic intervention within family seemed mental illness passed generation generation family discouraged reproducing order stop spread mental illness drastic solution even knew lack scientific knowledge correlation lack technological advancement allow come better solution towards stopping spread mental illness evolution hereditary study Another interesting fact Porter’s latest book Genetics Madhouse beginning 19thcentury scientist field burning desire standardize data gathered mental asylum Mainly offer constant flow information well make data easier analyze information used Ludvig Dahl’s Pedigrees Mental Illnesses came Frederik Holst MD Beretning Betankning og Indstilling fra en til undersøge de Sindsvages Kaar Norge 1828 table cause disease form census Source Theodore Porter UCLA Department History study seen pillar statistic recognized scholar Francis Galton launched eugenics paradigm 1900 Another great scientist field name Gregor Mendel tried experiment transmission hereditary characteristic within different plant study really showed potential many people thought ideology could applied people mental illness however theory rejected many contemporary scientist basis theory simplistic followed early 20th century molecular genetics Nazi scientist really looked eugenics field accomplish tremendous research although suspiciously unethical Since discovery molecular genetics research done Nazi scientist disregardedTags Science Mental Illness History Mental Health Health

What Survival Experts Say About Quarantine Baking

It’s not really about being able to build a fire or carry a heavy pack over long distances, it’s a general feeling of competence that imbues you with a sense of confidence. And that realization of “I can do this” can carry over into other parts of life. Having accomplished one hard task, you believe you can problem-solve and persevere through other difficult situations as well. Now faced with the challenge of a global pandemic, it seems that many of us are brushing up on our practical skills, although they’re more Little House on the Prairie than My Side of the Mountain. And while knitting a scarf may not directly relate to surviving a deadly virus, it does provide a feeling of competence and control. Maybe we can’t ensure that our parents will be safe or we won’t lose our jobs, but we can turn flour, water, and yeast into bread and grow our own sustenance from vegetable trimmings and seedlings. And in gaining control over that facet of our lives, we gain a little control over the rest of our lives, too. “A lot of this pandemic and the things surrounding it are out of our control,” Robinson says. “It’s not our personal choice to stay at home, it’s not our personal choice not to go into the office. Homemaking tasks give you that bit of control and a sense of accomplishment.” A concrete feeling of accomplishment is something that many of us were lacking even before the novel coronavirus emerged, says John Hudson, chief survival instructor for the British military. As our lives have become more virtual, outdoor survival courses and shows like Naked and Afraid have risen in popularity over the last decade. Hudson, who’s applied his survival knowledge to the current situation in the e-book How to Survive a Pandemic, thinks a big reason for this appeal is the instant gratification that living off the land offers people. When the only evidence that the sacrifices we’re making through social distancing are working is that nothing happens, it makes sense that so many of us would yearn for a more tangible outcome from our efforts. “We spend an enormous amount of our working hours indoors, looking at a screen, answering emails … and we never really see an immediate or even any tangible result of our efforts,” he says. “Doing survival instruction, there’s a definite reward in my world if you complete a task. It’s almost an immediate reward because you know if you’ve succeeded or failed [in building shelter or lighting a fire] straight away.” When so much in our lives is uncertain, and the only evidence that the sacrifices we’re making through social distancing are working is that nothing happens, it makes sense that so many of us would yearn for a more tangible outcome from our efforts. “It may be out of boredom, but when we’re so anxious and you can cook, that’s an effort-based reward,” says Kelly Lambert, PhD, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond. “You’re chopping, you’re dicing, you’re stirring, and then you have this wonderful reward at the end of it, something that’s tangible, something you can see, something you can share with your family.”

https://elemental.medium.com/what-survival-experts-say-about-quarantine-baking-9b654a2d5fdf

['Dana G Smith']

2020-04-22 16:00:56.620000+00:00

['Brain', 'Food', 'Baking', 'Psychology', 'Coronavirus']

Title Survival Experts Say Quarantine BakingContent It’s really able build fire carry heavy pack long distance it’s general feeling competence imbues sense confidence realization “I this” carry part life accomplished one hard task believe problemsolve persevere difficult situation well faced challenge global pandemic seems many u brushing practical skill although they’re Little House Prairie Side Mountain knitting scarf may directly relate surviving deadly virus provide feeling competence control Maybe can’t ensure parent safe won’t lose job turn flour water yeast bread grow sustenance vegetable trimming seedling gaining control facet life gain little control rest life “A lot pandemic thing surrounding control” Robinson say “It’s personal choice stay home it’s personal choice go office Homemaking task give bit control sense accomplishment” concrete feeling accomplishment something many u lacking even novel coronavirus emerged say John Hudson chief survival instructor British military life become virtual outdoor survival course show like Naked Afraid risen popularity last decade Hudson who’s applied survival knowledge current situation ebook Survive Pandemic think big reason appeal instant gratification living land offer people evidence sacrifice we’re making social distancing working nothing happens make sense many u would yearn tangible outcome effort “We spend enormous amount working hour indoors looking screen answering email … never really see immediate even tangible result efforts” say “Doing survival instruction there’s definite reward world complete task It’s almost immediate reward know you’ve succeeded failed building shelter lighting fire straight away” much life uncertain evidence sacrifice we’re making social distancing working nothing happens make sense many u would yearn tangible outcome effort “It may boredom we’re anxious cook that’s effortbased reward” say Kelly Lambert PhD professor behavioral neuroscience University Richmond “You’re chopping you’re dicing you’re stirring wonderful reward end something that’s tangible something see something share family”Tags Brain Food Baking Psychology Coronavirus

Time Management: The Single Most Important Component to My Productivity

Time Management: The Single Most Important Component to My Productivity The combined strategy of time management that applies to most artistic creators, especially with the COVID-19 Pandemic Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash Stop and retrace your day today, what you’ve done thus far, or, if you’re reading this in the morning, stop and think about what you did yesterday. What was the structure like? Did you find time to write? Did you set aside a few hours to churn out a few dozen or hundred words to your liking? Were you satisfied with your productive output? What do you think you could’ve done better? Honestly, I tend to stay away from writing self-help articles that try to tell people how to work. Everyone’s workflow is different, people thrive on different things, people are distracted by different things, where some people can write in a crowded bar, others would need a quiet library or home office. The Covid-19 outbreak has changed the way we do everything in our lives for pretty much everybody, including us writers. I’ve noticed that quite a few people have reported that they’re finding it more difficult to write, even if they have extra time to do so and less responsibilities. If this sounds like you, I think the answer might lie in how you use your interrupted versus your uninterrupted productive time, and how you balance and use the two in conjunction to create better pieces. It doesn’t matter what your business or work is, if you’re in charge of yourself and independent, whether it’s with your dream business startup, or writing career, or perhaps even your music gig, time management is an essential skill to have. Over the years, one thing that’s been a constant for my productivity has been the effect of how I manage my time on the total output of work. This same principle applied when I was a musician and it still applies as a writer, though I wouldn’t put too much stock in the first part of that section because I was a terrible musician. Let’s just say writing is more my calling than music was. Ultimately, what the different spaces we may write and the different times we may seek out those spaces have to do with our productivity is the difference between distracted and undistracted time. We don’t analyze material the same when we have a small amount of allotted time versus an extended period where our brains can focus. The Divided Day Many of my days are spent dividing the day up and putting the focus in when I can, allowing myself an hour here, two hours there, and spacing it out so I can get other things done. We all have lives that need tending and there’s really not anything we can much do about that, sometimes. When my month is primarily composed of divided days, I tend to get a lot less finished, but I get a whole lot more started. I think this is pretty true of everyone. We start a piece, our focus is broken, we go do something and come back only to find it extremely difficult to get back into the frame of mind we were in when we left. The divided day has its perks, make no mistake. This is actually a good thing and will come in handy later. For many people, starting a piece is the hard part and continuing them even harder. But we can utilize the divided day to touch up pieces that are old with no intention of finalizing them. When I sit down to finish a piece and only give myself an hour to do it, something just doesn’t feel right, no matter how close to done it was when I started. But I can use the divided day to slowly work on pieces over time, etching them out like a sculpture slowly sculpts his finest works of art. The Whole Day As harsh as this may sound, I think any writer’s work will suffer if they cannot take whole days to themselves in order to write. No distractions, phone turned off, no friends, no Facebook, no social media, nothing. The whole day is necessary for the pieces that can be started and brought to completion in a single day and to really give those pieces that have been sitting on my shelf a few proof-reads before I feel comfortable enough to hit publish. Whole days are what I designate as publishing days. When I submit or publish work in a rush, I feel uncertain and insecure about how well I did. I don’t feel confident. I tend to think this lags onto our next pieces and the following pieces and can build up and pretty soon, we’re unsure, we feel scattered, confused about our purpose, and like we’re working in a total state of distraction and chaos. This isn’t good for us as writers. Some writers prefer to have a designated writing area so they can get into the habit of treating writing like their actual work for another company (because it is) and eliminate all distractions during that period of time. If we really want to be serious, whole days are absolutely essential to our productivity and our sense of purpose as creators, whether we’re writers or musicians or artists is less relevant than how we manage our time to maximize our productivity and focus. Not all focus is equal. Ten minutes to glance over a piece and improve it here and there, touch up sentences, and change out words for more interesting ones are not the same as having three hours to feel comfortable in taking our time, focusing solely on the work in front of us, and publishing the finalized work once we’re happy with it. The Combined Strategy I actually use both of these in conjunction for my process. I give myself dates for each piece to be published by, I build them slowly in several apps (Microsoft To-Do and OneNote are essential for my business) where I can organize each piece by title, main topic, section, and then the content of each part, contributing to a lot of pieces slowly over time. This makes the respective parts better, overall. A lot of people I know tend to try to use one or the other. There are the peeps who always want to have a good chunk of time ahead of them, at least a couple of hours before they even get started. I’m absolutely frickin’ convinced that this is why so many people rarely start anything, if ever. So, from my heart to yours, for God’s sake, start your work even if you don’t have the time to finish it. Get a paragraph out there. Writing doesn’t have to be linear, get anything out there, throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Sometimes I start with what ends up becoming the 8th paragraph of a piece. You can always reassemble later, but if you struggle with getting words on paper, the thing you need to embrace the gaps in time, whatever they may be, to pour out your thoughts no matter how good or bad, and roll with it. They don’t have to be masterpieces, what’s important in the downtime is tossing whatever scraps you can out there to build with later. The more notes you have, the better off you’ll be when it comes time to assemble pieces of work. If you’re a musician, take that time to think up a new melody or rhythm or what have you and make sure you get it down by practicing it a few times. Use that time wisely. Then when you finally get a day ahead of you to put all of your efforts towards the completion of work, you’ll just have tons of material lying around. Assembling it all into the perfect whole is the only task you have ahead of you and you don’t have to focus on conjuring up so much new material and writing everything from scratch, you can more assemble the ideas you’ve already thought up in the interim moments. Completing a piece is much easier when you have a predetermined guide to follow, one that you’ve made on your own. Takeaway I’m actually not one of those people who believes we need to maximize every moment of every day. I’m a firm believer that rest and daydreaming are very important elements of the human psyche and imagination (I did a story on the importance of daydreaming on mental health) and they’re crucial to my productivity and overall well-being as a person. But I think that there are still going to be moments in between where we can sneak in some ideas when our brains are up for the task, and, of course, time we’ll need to set aside if we’re going to take our work seriously, time that’s uninterrupted where we can dedicate 100% of our focus to the task at hand. As you can see, I’m a proponent of the wholistic approach. Don’t rely too much on one strategy or the other, A lot of people try to pinch whatever time they can in their already-hectic lives, but aren’t willing to trade in the things they love for the whole-day approach. I’ve been this person and, honestly, it took eliminating social media from my work atmosphere before my work really began to take off in terms of productive output (and reception). Other people try to rely way too much on sitting down in front of a blank, empty screen without ideas laying around to assemble and just rolling with the assumption that they’ll be able to dream up all the right words in that very moment. But that’s not really how our concentration works. We can’t force our brains to think of interesting things in the times when our brains aren’t cooperating. This is why a balanced strategy is the best for my productivity and hopefully, by employing it, it might help yours as well.

https://joemduncan.medium.com/time-management-the-single-most-important-component-to-my-productivity-fb26c3b3787d

['Joe Duncan']

2020-04-14 02:51:26.767000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Time Management', 'Business Strategy', 'Writing']

Title Time Management Single Important Component ProductivityContent Time Management Single Important Component Productivity combined strategy time management applies artistic creator especially COVID19 Pandemic Photo Kari Shea Unsplash Stop retrace day today you’ve done thus far you’re reading morning stop think yesterday structure like find time write set aside hour churn dozen hundred word liking satisfied productive output think could’ve done better Honestly tend stay away writing selfhelp article try tell people work Everyone’s workflow different people thrive different thing people distracted different thing people write crowded bar others would need quiet library home office Covid19 outbreak changed way everything life pretty much everybody including u writer I’ve noticed quite people reported they’re finding difficult write even extra time le responsibility sound like think answer might lie use interrupted versus uninterrupted productive time balance use two conjunction create better piece doesn’t matter business work you’re charge independent whether it’s dream business startup writing career perhaps even music gig time management essential skill year one thing that’s constant productivity effect manage time total output work principle applied musician still applies writer though wouldn’t put much stock first part section terrible musician Let’s say writing calling music Ultimately different space may write different time may seek space productivity difference distracted undistracted time don’t analyze material small amount allotted time versus extended period brain focus Divided Day Many day spent dividing day putting focus allowing hour two hour spacing get thing done life need tending there’s really anything much sometimes month primarily composed divided day tend get lot le finished get whole lot started think pretty true everyone start piece focus broken go something come back find extremely difficult get back frame mind left divided day perk make mistake actually good thing come handy later many people starting piece hard part continuing even harder utilize divided day touch piece old intention finalizing sit finish piece give hour something doesn’t feel right matter close done started use divided day slowly work piece time etching like sculpture slowly sculpts finest work art Whole Day harsh may sound think writer’s work suffer cannot take whole day order write distraction phone turned friend Facebook social medium nothing whole day necessary piece started brought completion single day really give piece sitting shelf proofreads feel comfortable enough hit publish Whole day designate publishing day submit publish work rush feel uncertain insecure well don’t feel confident tend think lag onto next piece following piece build pretty soon we’re unsure feel scattered confused purpose like we’re working total state distraction chaos isn’t good u writer writer prefer designated writing area get habit treating writing like actual work another company eliminate distraction period time really want serious whole day absolutely essential productivity sense purpose creator whether we’re writer musician artist le relevant manage time maximize productivity focus focus equal Ten minute glance piece improve touch sentence change word interesting one three hour feel comfortable taking time focusing solely work front u publishing finalized work we’re happy Combined Strategy actually use conjunction process give date piece published build slowly several apps Microsoft ToDo OneNote essential business organize piece title main topic section content part contributing lot piece slowly time make respective part better overall lot people know tend try use one peep always want good chunk time ahead least couple hour even get started I’m absolutely frickin’ convinced many people rarely start anything ever heart God’s sake start work even don’t time finish Get paragraph Writing doesn’t linear get anything throw idea wall see stick Sometimes start end becoming 8th paragraph piece always reassemble later struggle getting word paper thing need embrace gap time whatever may pour thought matter good bad roll don’t masterpiece what’s important downtime tossing whatever scrap build later note better you’ll come time assemble piece work you’re musician take time think new melody rhythm make sure get practicing time Use time wisely finally get day ahead put effort towards completion work you’ll ton material lying around Assembling perfect whole task ahead don’t focus conjuring much new material writing everything scratch assemble idea you’ve already thought interim moment Completing piece much easier predetermined guide follow one you’ve made Takeaway I’m actually one people belief need maximize every moment every day I’m firm believer rest daydreaming important element human psyche imagination story importance daydreaming mental health they’re crucial productivity overall wellbeing person think still going moment sneak idea brain task course time we’ll need set aside we’re going take work seriously time that’s uninterrupted dedicate 100 focus task hand see I’m proponent wholistic approach Don’t rely much one strategy lot people try pinch whatever time alreadyhectic life aren’t willing trade thing love wholeday approach I’ve person honestly took eliminating social medium work atmosphere work really began take term productive output reception people try rely way much sitting front blank empty screen without idea laying around assemble rolling assumption they’ll able dream right word moment that’s really concentration work can’t force brain think interesting thing time brain aren’t cooperating balanced strategy best productivity hopefully employing might help wellTags Productivity Creativity Time Management Business Strategy Writing

Writers: How to Accomplish More by Writing Less

The struggle is real So, why did I think this was a good idea to struggle twice as much, or ten times more? Our conscious mind can only process one project at a time, nothing more. There’s no such thing as multitasking — only dilution of our efforts. Writing multiple books at once might feel productive and faster, but the net effect was horribly slow. Three years slow. The process of writing brings a flood of creativity along with it. Whether you write fiction of non-fiction, the world looks different while you’re in writing mode. You pay attention to little details more. You look at language differently and everything around you is fair-game for a story. The problem: the universe will try and conspire against you with everything she has. Most people who start books don’t finish them. These are called drawer novels, because they sit in a proverbial drawer (digital or physical) somewhere. Of the people who do finish novels, most of those first books will be terrible (and should stay in the drawer). This is OK. The bad, first book is part of the process. We’ve got to get it out of our bodies, like the flu. So, it makes sense when a new idea comes to you, and you feel it’s brilliant, that you’d wan’t to act on it immediately. I mean, if we’ve got to write a terrible first book, why not write the bad book and the next book simultaneously? Don’t. It’s a terrible idea. This was my thinking and it took me ten times longer to finish my first book. I wish I’d listened to Stephen King earlier. King takes the extreme stance that writers’ notebooks are the worst idea ever — that the best ideas will rise to the stop and stick in your mind. The ideas you can’t let shake are the ones you should write. The ideas you forget were forgettable. I don’t fully agree with King, but I understand his intention. When I started writing I thought I had all these amazing ideas. I’d write them in giant notebooks and spent more time generating new ideas than I did on the writing itself. I’d get ideas for novel after novel and I’d start each book. When I got to the point where I had to pick a story I couldn’t choose just one. They all sounded so good. I figured I could peck-away at a couple novels simultaneously. How hard could it be? Two books became three. Three became four. Then, I added unfinished short stories to the never-ending conveyor belt of non-productivity. The ideas would come in. I’d stop what I was writing and pick up the new project. I thought I was a genius and wondered why other authors didn’t write this way… I’d get so many more books done at once! The process was brutal and unfulfilling. I’d lose track of storylines and put details in one book that belonged elsewhere. I thought I was working smart. I was a lunatic. Being new to fiction writing the process was so exciting I didn’t recognize the madness. It’s embarrassing to type this now. I hope you won’t follow in my footsteps. I wrote seven manuscripts in a year and none were salvageable, due to this writing process. I had to send myself to personal writing rehab and completely re-think my process. If I had continued with my treadmill writing I never would’ve finished a single project.

https://augustbirch.medium.com/writers-how-to-accomplish-more-by-writing-less-30afdf86024a

['August Birch']

2019-04-15 17:55:50.087000+00:00

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

Title Writers Accomplish Writing LessContent struggle real think good idea struggle twice much ten time conscious mind process one project time nothing There’s thing multitasking — dilution effort Writing multiple book might feel productive faster net effect horribly slow Three year slow process writing brings flood creativity along Whether write fiction nonfiction world look different you’re writing mode pay attention little detail look language differently everything around fairgame story problem universe try conspire everything people start book don’t finish called drawer novel sit proverbial drawer digital physical somewhere people finish novel first book terrible stay drawer OK bad first book part process We’ve got get body like flu make sense new idea come feel it’s brilliant you’d wan’t act immediately mean we’ve got write terrible first book write bad book next book simultaneously Don’t It’s terrible idea thinking took ten time longer finish first book wish I’d listened Stephen King earlier King take extreme stance writers’ notebook worst idea ever — best idea rise stop stick mind idea can’t let shake one write idea forget forgettable don’t fully agree King understand intention started writing thought amazing idea I’d write giant notebook spent time generating new idea writing I’d get idea novel novel I’d start book got point pick story couldn’t choose one sounded good figured could peckaway couple novel simultaneously hard could Two book became three Three became four added unfinished short story neverending conveyor belt nonproductivity idea would come I’d stop writing pick new project thought genius wondered author didn’t write way… I’d get many book done process brutal unfulfilling I’d lose track storyline put detail one book belonged elsewhere thought working smart lunatic new fiction writing process exciting didn’t recognize madness It’s embarrassing type hope won’t follow footstep wrote seven manuscript year none salvageable due writing process send personal writing rehab completely rethink process continued treadmill writing never would’ve finished single projectTags Writing Tips Productivity Creativity Fiction Writing

A Supercomputer's Covid-19 Analysis Yields a New Way to Understand the Virus

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis Photo: zhangshuang/Getty Images Earlier this summer, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples in an effort to better understand Covid-19. Summit is the second-fastest computer in the world, but the process — which involved analyzing 2.5 billion genetic combinations — still took more than a week. When Summit was done, researchers analyzed the results. It was, in the words of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, lead researcher and chief scientist for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge, a “eureka moment.” The computer had revealed a new theory about how Covid-19 impacts the body: the bradykinin hypothesis. The hypothesis provides a model that explains many aspects of Covid-19, including some of its most bizarre symptoms. It also suggests 10-plus potential treatments, many of which are already FDA approved. Jacobson’s group published their results in a paper in the journal eLife in early July. According to the team’s findings, a Covid-19 infection generally begins when the virus enters the body through ACE2 receptors in the nose, (The receptors, which the virus is known to target, are abundant there.) The virus then proceeds through the body, entering cells in other places where ACE2 is also present: the intestines, kidneys, and heart. This likely accounts for at least some of the disease’s cardiac and GI symptoms. (Sign up for Your Coronavirus Update, a biweekly newsletter with the latest news, expert advice, and analysis to keep you safe) But once Covid-19 has established itself in the body, things start to get really interesting. According to Jacobson’s group, the data Summit analyzed shows that Covid-19 isn’t content to simply infect cells that already express lots of ACE2 receptors. Instead, it actively hijacks the body’s own systems, tricking it into upregulating ACE2 receptors in places where they’re usually expressed at low or medium levels, including the lungs. In this sense, Covid-19 is like a burglar who slips in your unlocked second-floor window and starts to ransack your house. Once inside, though, they don’t just take your stuff — they also throw open all your doors and windows so their accomplices can rush in and help pillage more efficiently. The renin–angiotensin system (RAS) controls many aspects of the circulatory system, including the body’s levels of a chemical called bradykinin, which normally helps to regulate blood pressure. According to the team’s analysis, when the virus tweaks the RAS, it causes the body’s mechanisms for regulating bradykinin to go haywire. Bradykinin receptors are resensitized, and the body also stops effectively breaking down bradykinin. (ACE normally degrades bradykinin, but when the virus downregulates it, it can’t do this as effectively.) The end result, the researchers say, is to release a bradykinin storm — a massive, runaway buildup of bradykinin in the body. According to the bradykinin hypothesis, it’s this storm that is ultimately responsible for many of Covid-19’s deadly effects. Jacobson’s team says in their paper that “the pathology of Covid-19 is likely the result of Bradykinin Storms rather than cytokine storms,” which had been previously identified in Covid-19 patients, but that “the two may be intricately linked.” Other papers had previously identified bradykinin storms as a possible cause of Covid-19’s pathologies. Covid-19 is like a burglar who slips in your unlocked second-floor window and starts to ransack your house. As bradykinin builds up in the body, it dramatically increases vascular permeability. In short, it makes your blood vessels leaky. This aligns with recent clinical data, which increasingly views Covid-19 primarily as a vascular disease, rather than a respiratory one. But Covid-19 still has a massive effect on the lungs. As blood vessels start to leak due to a bradykinin storm, the researchers say, the lungs can fill with fluid. Immune cells also leak out into the lungs, Jacobson’s team found, causing inflammation. And Covid-19 has another especially insidious trick. Through another pathway, the team’s data shows, it increases production of hyaluronic acid (HLA) in the lungs. HLA is often used in soaps and lotions for its ability to absorb more than 1,000 times its weight in fluid. When it combines with fluid leaking into the lungs, the results are disastrous: It forms a hydrogel, which can fill the lungs in some patients. According to Jacobson, once this happens, “it’s like trying to breathe through Jell-O.” This may explain why ventilators have proven less effective in treating advanced Covid-19 than doctors originally expected, based on experiences with other viruses. “It reaches a point where regardless of how much oxygen you pump in, it doesn’t matter, because the alveoli in the lungs are filled with this hydrogel,” Jacobson says. “The lungs become like a water balloon.” Patients can suffocate even while receiving full breathing support. The bradykinin hypothesis also extends to many of Covid-19’s effects on the heart. About one in five hospitalized Covid-19 patients have damage to their hearts, even if they never had cardiac issues before. Some of this is likely due to the virus infecting the heart directly through its ACE2 receptors. But the RAS also controls aspects of cardiac contractions and blood pressure. According to the researchers, bradykinin storms could create arrhythmias and low blood pressure, which are often seen in Covid-19 patients. The bradykinin hypothesis also accounts for Covid-19’s neurological effects, which are some of the most surprising and concerning elements of the disease. These symptoms (which include dizziness, seizures, delirium, and stroke) are present in as many as half of hospitalized Covid-19 patients. According to Jacobson and his team, MRI studies in France revealed that many Covid-19 patients have evidence of leaky blood vessels in their brains. Bradykinin — especially at high doses — can also lead to a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. Under normal circumstances, this barrier acts as a filter between your brain and the rest of your circulatory system. It lets in the nutrients and small molecules that the brain needs to function, while keeping out toxins and pathogens and keeping the brain’s internal environment tightly regulated. If bradykinin storms cause the blood-brain barrier to break down, this could allow harmful cells and compounds into the brain, leading to inflammation, potential brain damage, and many of the neurological symptoms Covid-19 patients experience. Jacobson told me, “It is a reasonable hypothesis that many of the neurological symptoms in Covid-19 could be due to an excess of bradykinin. It has been reported that bradykinin would indeed be likely to increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. In addition, similar neurological symptoms have been observed in other diseases that result from an excess of bradykinin.” Increased bradykinin levels could also account for other common Covid-19 symptoms. ACE inhibitors — a class of drugs used to treat high blood pressure — have a similar effect on the RAS system as Covid-19, increasing bradykinin levels. In fact, Jacobson and his team note in their paper that “the virus… acts pharmacologically as an ACE inhibitor” — almost directly mirroring the actions of these drugs. By acting like a natural ACE inhibitor, Covid-19 may be causing the same effects that hypertensive patients sometimes get when they take blood pressure–lowering drugs. ACE inhibitors are known to cause a dry cough and fatigue, two textbook symptoms of Covid-19. And they can potentially increase blood potassium levels, which has also been observed in Covid-19 patients. The similarities between ACE inhibitor side effects and Covid-19 symptoms strengthen the bradykinin hypothesis, the researchers say. ACE inhibitors are also known to cause a loss of taste and smell. Jacobson stresses, though, that this symptom is more likely due to the virus “affecting the cells surrounding olfactory nerve cells” than the direct effects of bradykinin. Though still an emerging theory, the bradykinin hypothesis explains several other of Covid-19’s seemingly bizarre symptoms. Jacobson and his team speculate that leaky vasculature caused by bradykinin storms could be responsible for “Covid toes,” a condition involving swollen, bruised toes that some Covid-19 patients experience. Bradykinin can also mess with the thyroid gland, which could produce the thyroid symptoms recently observed in some patients. The bradykinin hypothesis could also explain some of the broader demographic patterns of the disease’s spread. The researchers note that some aspects of the RAS system are sex-linked, with proteins for several receptors (such as one called TMSB4X) located on the X chromosome. This means that “women… would have twice the levels of this protein than men,” a result borne out by the researchers’ data. In their paper, Jacobson’s team concludes that this “could explain the lower incidence of Covid-19 induced mortality in women.” A genetic quirk of the RAS could be giving women extra protection against the disease. The bradykinin hypothesis provides a model that “contributes to a better understanding of Covid-19” and “adds novelty to the existing literature,” according to scientists Frank van de Veerdonk, Jos WM van der Meer, and Roger Little, who peer-reviewed the team’s paper. It predicts nearly all the disease’s symptoms, even ones (like bruises on the toes) that at first appear random, and further suggests new treatments for the disease. As Jacobson and team point out, several drugs target aspects of the RAS and are already FDA approved to treat other conditions. They could arguably be applied to treating Covid-19 as well. Several, like danazol, stanozolol, and ecallantide, reduce bradykinin production and could potentially stop a deadly bradykinin storm. Others, like icatibant, reduce bradykinin signaling and could blunt its effects once it’s already in the body. Interestingly, Jacobson’s team also suggests vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN. Again, this could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storms from forming. The researchers note that vitamin D has already been shown to help those with Covid-19. The vitamin is readily available over the counter, and around 20% of the population is deficient. If indeed the vitamin proves effective at reducing the severity of bradykinin storms, it could be an easy, relatively safe way to reduce the severity of the virus. Other compounds could treat symptoms associated with bradykinin storms. Hymecromone, for example, could reduce hyaluronic acid levels, potentially stopping deadly hydrogels from forming in the lungs. And timbetasin could mimic the mechanism that the researchers believe protects women from more severe Covid-19 infections. All of these potential treatments are speculative, of course, and would need to be studied in a rigorous, controlled environment before their effectiveness could be determined and they could be used more broadly. Covid-19 stands out for both the scale of its global impact and the apparent randomness of its many symptoms. Physicians have struggled to understand the disease and come up with a unified theory for how it works. Though as of yet unproven, the bradykinin hypothesis provides such a theory. And like all good hypotheses, it also provides specific, testable predictions — in this case, actual drugs that could provide relief to real patients. The researchers are quick to point out that “the testing of any of these pharmaceutical interventions should be done in well-designed clinical trials.” As to the next step in the process, Jacobson is clear: “We have to get this message out.” His team’s finding won’t cure Covid-19. But if the treatments it points to pan out in the clinic, interventions guided by the bradykinin hypothesis could greatly reduce patients’ suffering — and potentially save lives.

https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63

['Thomas Smith']

2020-09-03 18:37:13.371000+00:00

['Health', 'Science', 'Bradykinin Hypothesis', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19']

Title Supercomputers Covid19 Analysis Yields New Way Understand VirusContent Supercomputer Analyzed Covid19 — Interesting New Theory Emerged closer look Bradykinin hypothesis Photo zhangshuangGetty Images Earlier summer Summit supercomputer Oak Ridge National Lab Tennessee set crunching data 40000 gene 17000 genetic sample effort better understand Covid19 Summit secondfastest computer world process — involved analyzing 25 billion genetic combination — still took week Summit done researcher analyzed result word Dr Daniel Jacobson lead researcher chief scientist computational system biology Oak Ridge “eureka moment” computer revealed new theory Covid19 impact body bradykinin hypothesis hypothesis provides model explains many aspect Covid19 including bizarre symptom also suggests 10plus potential treatment many already FDA approved Jacobson’s group published result paper journal eLife early July According team’s finding Covid19 infection generally begin virus enters body ACE2 receptor nose receptor virus known target abundant virus proceeds body entering cell place ACE2 also present intestine kidney heart likely account least disease’s cardiac GI symptom Sign Coronavirus Update biweekly newsletter latest news expert advice analysis keep safe Covid19 established body thing start get really interesting According Jacobson’s group data Summit analyzed show Covid19 isn’t content simply infect cell already express lot ACE2 receptor Instead actively hijack body’s system tricking upregulating ACE2 receptor place they’re usually expressed low medium level including lung sense Covid19 like burglar slip unlocked secondfloor window start ransack house inside though don’t take stuff — also throw open door window accomplice rush help pillage efficiently renin–angiotensin system RAS control many aspect circulatory system including body’s level chemical called bradykinin normally help regulate blood pressure According team’s analysis virus tweak RAS cause body’s mechanism regulating bradykinin go haywire Bradykinin receptor resensitized body also stop effectively breaking bradykinin ACE normally degrades bradykinin virus downregulates can’t effectively end result researcher say release bradykinin storm — massive runaway buildup bradykinin body According bradykinin hypothesis it’s storm ultimately responsible many Covid19’s deadly effect Jacobson’s team say paper “the pathology Covid19 likely result Bradykinin Storms rather cytokine storms” previously identified Covid19 patient “the two may intricately linked” paper previously identified bradykinin storm possible cause Covid19’s pathology Covid19 like burglar slip unlocked secondfloor window start ransack house bradykinin build body dramatically increase vascular permeability short make blood vessel leaky aligns recent clinical data increasingly view Covid19 primarily vascular disease rather respiratory one Covid19 still massive effect lung blood vessel start leak due bradykinin storm researcher say lung fill fluid Immune cell also leak lung Jacobson’s team found causing inflammation Covid19 another especially insidious trick another pathway team’s data show increase production hyaluronic acid HLA lung HLA often used soap lotion ability absorb 1000 time weight fluid combine fluid leaking lung result disastrous form hydrogel fill lung patient According Jacobson happens “it’s like trying breathe JellO” may explain ventilator proven le effective treating advanced Covid19 doctor originally expected based experience virus “It reach point regardless much oxygen pump doesn’t matter alveolus lung filled hydrogel” Jacobson say “The lung become like water balloon” Patients suffocate even receiving full breathing support bradykinin hypothesis also extends many Covid19’s effect heart one five hospitalized Covid19 patient damage heart even never cardiac issue likely due virus infecting heart directly ACE2 receptor RAS also control aspect cardiac contraction blood pressure According researcher bradykinin storm could create arrhythmia low blood pressure often seen Covid19 patient bradykinin hypothesis also account Covid19’s neurological effect surprising concerning element disease symptom include dizziness seizure delirium stroke present many half hospitalized Covid19 patient According Jacobson team MRI study France revealed many Covid19 patient evidence leaky blood vessel brain Bradykinin — especially high dos — also lead breakdown bloodbrain barrier normal circumstance barrier act filter brain rest circulatory system let nutrient small molecule brain need function keeping toxin pathogen keeping brain’s internal environment tightly regulated bradykinin storm cause bloodbrain barrier break could allow harmful cell compound brain leading inflammation potential brain damage many neurological symptom Covid19 patient experience Jacobson told “It reasonable hypothesis many neurological symptom Covid19 could due excess bradykinin reported bradykinin would indeed likely increase permeability bloodbrain barrier addition similar neurological symptom observed disease result excess bradykinin” Increased bradykinin level could also account common Covid19 symptom ACE inhibitor — class drug used treat high blood pressure — similar effect RAS system Covid19 increasing bradykinin level fact Jacobson team note paper “the virus… act pharmacologically ACE inhibitor” — almost directly mirroring action drug acting like natural ACE inhibitor Covid19 may causing effect hypertensive patient sometimes get take blood pressure–lowering drug ACE inhibitor known cause dry cough fatigue two textbook symptom Covid19 potentially increase blood potassium level also observed Covid19 patient similarity ACE inhibitor side effect Covid19 symptom strengthen bradykinin hypothesis researcher say ACE inhibitor also known cause loss taste smell Jacobson stress though symptom likely due virus “affecting cell surrounding olfactory nerve cells” direct effect bradykinin Though still emerging theory bradykinin hypothesis explains several Covid19’s seemingly bizarre symptom Jacobson team speculate leaky vasculature caused bradykinin storm could responsible “Covid toes” condition involving swollen bruised toe Covid19 patient experience Bradykinin also mess thyroid gland could produce thyroid symptom recently observed patient bradykinin hypothesis could also explain broader demographic pattern disease’s spread researcher note aspect RAS system sexlinked protein several receptor one called TMSB4X located X chromosome mean “women… would twice level protein men” result borne researchers’ data paper Jacobson’s team concludes “could explain lower incidence Covid19 induced mortality women” genetic quirk RAS could giving woman extra protection disease bradykinin hypothesis provides model “contributes better understanding Covid19” “adds novelty existing literature” according scientist Frank van de Veerdonk Jos WM van der Meer Roger Little peerreviewed team’s paper predicts nearly disease’s symptom even one like bruise toe first appear random suggests new treatment disease Jacobson team point several drug target aspect RAS already FDA approved treat condition could arguably applied treating Covid19 well Several like danazol stanozolol ecallantide reduce bradykinin production could potentially stop deadly bradykinin storm Others like icatibant reduce bradykinin signaling could blunt effect it’s already body Interestingly Jacobson’s team also suggests vitamin potentially useful Covid19 drug vitamin involved RAS system could prove helpful reducing level another compound known REN could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storm forming researcher note vitamin already shown help Covid19 vitamin readily available counter around 20 population deficient indeed vitamin prof effective reducing severity bradykinin storm could easy relatively safe way reduce severity virus compound could treat symptom associated bradykinin storm Hymecromone example could reduce hyaluronic acid level potentially stopping deadly hydrogel forming lung timbetasin could mimic mechanism researcher believe protects woman severe Covid19 infection potential treatment speculative course would need studied rigorous controlled environment effectiveness could determined could used broadly Covid19 stand scale global impact apparent randomness many symptom Physicians struggled understand disease come unified theory work Though yet unproven bradykinin hypothesis provides theory like good hypothesis also provides specific testable prediction — case actual drug could provide relief real patient researcher quick point “the testing pharmaceutical intervention done welldesigned clinical trials” next step process Jacobson clear “We get message out” team’s finding won’t cure Covid19 treatment point pan clinic intervention guided bradykinin hypothesis could greatly reduce patients’ suffering — potentially save livesTags Health Science Bradykinin Hypothesis Coronavirus Covid 19

How Long Coronavirus Survives on Hard and Soft Surfaces

This scanning electron microscope image shows the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in yellow and isolated from a U.S. patient, emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML How Long Coronavirus Survives on Hard and Soft Surfaces It just sits there for hours, even days, waiting for a new host to pick it up When a new virus emerges, among the many things scientists do not know is how long it survives outside its targeted hosts. For the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, we humans are the host. And scientists now have an idea for how long this thing can remain viable when it gets deposited on various surfaces, typically by a sneeze or a cough. Viruses are not technically living things. To endure, they need to get inside us, invade our cells, then hijack the nuclear machinery of life. The cells of a person infected with SARS-CoV-2 reproduce the coronavirus, and the person suffers the symptoms of COVID 19. Somewhat lost amid all the news lately is new research published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, results that had circulated for about two weeks prior to the formal publication, and which I noted the other day in my COVID-19 FAQ. The research reveals some figures I found startling, so it seems important to highlight it separately. The coronavirus was found to last up to… 3 hours in aerosols (airborne droplets) 4 hours on copper 24 hours on cardboard 3 days on plastic or stainless steel “The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects,” say the researchers, who are from UCLA, Princeton University, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Interestingly, the stability of this new coronavirus on surfaces was found to be similar to that of its cousin that caused the SARS outbreak back in 2002 and 2003, which was contained after infecting about 8,000 people and killing 774. And that similarity “unfortunately fails to explain why COVID-19 has become a much larger outbreak,” the researchers say. “If the viability of the two coronaviruses is similar, why is SARS-CoV-2 [the new one] resulting in more cases? Emerging evidence suggests that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might be spreading virus without recognizing, or prior to recognizing, symptoms. This would make disease control measures that were effective against SARS-CoV-1 less effective against its successor.” That statement refers to so-called super-spreaders, who are infected with the coronavirus, but have no symptoms (or maybe are mildly sick and think they just have a cold or a touch of the flu, or that it’s nothing) and who then spread it widely. Even someone who ends up with severe symptoms can spread the disease during the incubation period of the virus, a period of 2 to 14 days (median of about 5 days) before symptoms appear. The survivability of this new germ shows why it is so important to sanitize surfaces, avoid shaking hands, do the social distancing thing, avoid touching your face, and frequently and properly wash your hands (20 seconds of scrubbing with soap). The CDC has detailed recommendations for disinfecting hard and soft surfaces in your home, here.

https://robertroybritt.medium.com/how-long-coronavirus-survives-on-hard-and-soft-surfaces-dc32696539f9

['Robert Roy Britt']

2020-03-23 21:05:31.459000+00:00

['Home', 'Disease', 'Health', 'Science', 'Coronavirus']

Title Long Coronavirus Survives Hard Soft SurfacesContent scanning electron microscope image show new coronavirus SARSCoV2 yellow isolated US patient emerging surface cell bluepink cultured lab Credit NIAIDRML Long Coronavirus Survives Hard Soft Surfaces sits hour even day waiting new host pick new virus emerges among many thing scientist know long survives outside targeted host new coronavirus SARSCoV2 human host scientist idea long thing remain viable get deposited various surface typically sneeze cough Viruses technically living thing endure need get inside u invade cell hijack nuclear machinery life cell person infected SARSCoV2 reproduce coronavirus person suffers symptom COVID 19 Somewhat lost amid news lately new research published March 17 New England Journal Medicine result circulated two week prior formal publication noted day COVID19 FAQ research reveals figure found startling seems important highlight separately coronavirus found last to… 3 hour aerosol airborne droplet 4 hour copper 24 hour cardboard 3 day plastic stainless steel “The result provide key information stability SARSCoV2 cause COVID19 disease suggests people may acquire virus air touching contaminated objects” say researcher UCLA Princeton University National Institutes Health Centers Disease Control Prevention Interestingly stability new coronavirus surface found similar cousin caused SARS outbreak back 2002 2003 contained infecting 8000 people killing 774 similarity “unfortunately fails explain COVID19 become much larger outbreak” researcher say “If viability two coronaviruses similar SARSCoV2 new one resulting case Emerging evidence suggests people infected SARSCoV2 might spreading virus without recognizing prior recognizing symptom would make disease control measure effective SARSCoV1 le effective successor” statement refers socalled superspreaders infected coronavirus symptom maybe mildly sick think cold touch flu it’s nothing spread widely Even someone end severe symptom spread disease incubation period virus period 2 14 day median 5 day symptom appear survivability new germ show important sanitize surface avoid shaking hand social distancing thing avoid touching face frequently properly wash hand 20 second scrubbing soap CDC detailed recommendation disinfecting hard soft surface home hereTags Home Disease Health Science Coronavirus

Content Means Nothing Without Context

One of the first things I did as a writer was to put together a series of three articles showing people how to use Google to answer nearly any question. It was a massive guide. I was proud of it, and I got some positive feedback from the few readers I had at the time. It must have gone to my head, because I instantly turned that praise into my next mistake: I decided to publish the guide as a book. I spent a week laboring over it, expanding it, improving it, making screenshots — the whole nine yards. I designed everything myself (another mistake) and self-published it on Amazon. The result? Crickets. Even at my low hourly rate at the time, I’m still waiting for that one to recoup its investment. There were many reasons why my book was a flop, but the main one, I think, is that I broke the cardinal rule of creating in an online world: Content is king, but context is God. You can’t just tweet out your article and expect to get an extra 1,000 shares. You can’t just transcribe a video and hit ‘Publish.’ What does well as an article won’t automatically sell as a book. Like the kings of history, our work can only do well insofar as it is empowered by the context around it. If a people stopped believing its king was God’s messenger, they chopped his head off. That’s exactly what happens to our content if we distribute it across dozens of platforms like a firehose, not thinking about the culture and context of each one: It dies immediately. Why do we do this in the first place? “Because I said so.” Influencers, trend reports, pseudo-experts, they all tell us the same thing: “Nowadays, you gotta be everywhere. Be on Instagram. Be on Facebook. Make a TikTok account. Hell, that one’s new — make two!” Bullshit. The only thing that happens if you promote yourself anywhere and everywhere is this: Image courtesy of the author, based on Greg McKeown’s Essentialism If you look at the history of how most influencers become towering giants on multiple social media platforms, you’ll see that they worked really hard on one of them — until they exploded and eventually took their giant crowd elsewhere. It’s really easy to get 100,000 Twitter followers if you have 1,000,000 on Youtube. But to go from 0 to 100,000 on both at the same time? That’s really hard. Each platform has its own, unique context. If we ignore it, we’ll drown. Twitter is built around wit, around humor, sass, information density. Medium offers long-form, transformative reading experiences — people spend hours there, but only if they love words. Instagram is visual. It doesn’t require words at all, but it’s also superficial. This doesn’t mean you can’t share your work around the web, but it’s a reminder to acknowledge context wherever you go. If you share an article on Twitter, quote the top highlight. Deliver a 2-sentence pitch on why I should read it. Or turn it into a tweet storm and give me the whole thing! Whatever you do, don’t walk naked into a pub. Read the room, or we’ll shoo you out the door.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/content-means-nothing-without-context-a032b06ed53f

['Niklas Göke']

2020-05-27 20:15:15.036000+00:00

['Social Media', 'Marketing', 'Creativity', 'Content Marketing', 'Writing']

Title Content Means Nothing Without ContextContent One first thing writer put together series three article showing people use Google answer nearly question massive guide proud got positive feedback reader time must gone head instantly turned praise next mistake decided publish guide book spent week laboring expanding improving making screenshots — whole nine yard designed everything another mistake selfpublished Amazon result Crickets Even low hourly rate time I’m still waiting one recoup investment many reason book flop main one think broke cardinal rule creating online world Content king context God can’t tweet article expect get extra 1000 share can’t transcribe video hit ‘Publish’ well article won’t automatically sell book Like king history work well insofar empowered context around people stopped believing king God’s messenger chopped head That’s exactly happens content distribute across dozen platform like firehose thinking culture context one dy immediately first place “Because said so” Influencers trend report pseudoexperts tell u thing “Nowadays gotta everywhere Instagram Facebook Make TikTok account Hell one’s new — make two” Bullshit thing happens promote anywhere everywhere Image courtesy author based Greg McKeown’s Essentialism look history influencers become towering giant multiple social medium platform you’ll see worked really hard one — exploded eventually took giant crowd elsewhere It’s really easy get 100000 Twitter follower 1000000 Youtube go 0 100000 time That’s really hard platform unique context ignore we’ll drown Twitter built around wit around humor sas information density Medium offer longform transformative reading experience — people spend hour love word Instagram visual doesn’t require word it’s also superficial doesn’t mean can’t share work around web it’s reminder acknowledge context wherever go share article Twitter quote top highlight Deliver 2sentence pitch read turn tweet storm give whole thing Whatever don’t walk naked pub Read room we’ll shoo doorTags Social Media Marketing Creativity Content Marketing Writing

Try These 20 CNN Headline Templates to Draw in Readers

Try These 20 CNN Headline Templates to Draw in Readers I browsed their site for 1.5 hrs Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos. You know how it is. You’ve got that huge to-do list to get through when you get online outside of work: an article to write, the banking, canceling an appointment, finding a gift for your cousin’s newborn, emailing a business for a refund… You log into your email account with the intention of emailing that business who annoyingly billed you after the trial period — and you hadn’t decided to subscribe. But then you see all the new emails that have come in overnight, and curious, you pick out the ones that seem most interesting. Half an hour later, you forget why you logged in. You begin researching the article, and gosh, there’s so much interesting stuff out there. You jump between papers. You get caught up on YouTube, “Ooh a new TEDTalk.” “Hey, those boots I was looking at last week are on sale.” And before you know it, an hour and a half has gone by and you’re only a quarter of the way through your research. Why is it so hard to stay focused online? One reason is there are people out there who are so damn good at writing headlines we can’t resist: for articles. For email subject headers. For videos. Books. Ads. And there’s one industry whose existence depends particularly on writing compelling headlines: The media. Without magnetic headlines, their readership numbers drop. Without strong readership, they won’t attract big advertisers — advertisers that want to reach the right audience to sell their products and services. Without big advertisers, they can’t afford to investigate, write, and distribute content to the masses. Magnetic headlines make all that happen. We can learn a lot from CNN’s headlines because they write with credibility and simplicity. They grab attention — but not through clickbait. The problem with clickbait is it entices readers with over-the-top, vague, or misleading headlines where content doesn’t deliver. That’s a problem because the worst we can do is waste our readers’ time and trample on their trust. You and I wouldn’t dream of deceiving our readers for the sake of a click, would we? You and I know that constant sensational headlines that don’t deliver would turn off readers and damage our reputations long-term, just as it has for dodgy used car salesmen. So CNN is a great place for us to learn about the type of headlines we want to share with our readers. Here’s what we’ll run through today: See real CNN headlines that work Get templates to create your own impactful headlines Understand what makes the headlines so powerful Get a simple summary of what’s common between CNN headlines All this so you can add these templates to your writing swipe file — to get the readership you deserve for your precious words.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/try-these-20-cnn-headline-templates-to-draw-in-readers-632e818b9a4a

['Cynthia Marinakos']

2020-08-19 02:54:00.031000+00:00

['Headline Hacks', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Productivity', 'Startup']

Title Try 20 CNN Headline Templates Draw ReadersContent Try 20 CNN Headline Templates Draw Readers browsed site 15 hr Illustration Cynthia Marinakos know You’ve got huge todo list get get online outside work article write banking canceling appointment finding gift cousin’s newborn emailing business refund… log email account intention emailing business annoyingly billed trial period — hadn’t decided subscribe see new email come overnight curious pick one seem interesting Half hour later forget logged begin researching article gosh there’s much interesting stuff jump paper get caught YouTube “Ooh new TEDTalk” “Hey boot looking last week sale” know hour half gone you’re quarter way research hard stay focused online One reason people damn good writing headline can’t resist article email subject header video Books Ads there’s one industry whose existence depends particularly writing compelling headline medium Without magnetic headline readership number drop Without strong readership won’t attract big advertiser — advertiser want reach right audience sell product service Without big advertiser can’t afford investigate write distribute content mass Magnetic headline make happen learn lot CNN’s headline write credibility simplicity grab attention — clickbait problem clickbait entices reader overthetop vague misleading headline content doesn’t deliver That’s problem worst waste readers’ time trample trust wouldn’t dream deceiving reader sake click would know constant sensational headline don’t deliver would turn reader damage reputation longterm dodgy used car salesman CNN great place u learn type headline want share reader Here’s we’ll run today See real CNN headline work Get template create impactful headline Understand make headline powerful Get simple summary what’s common CNN headline add template writing swipe file — get readership deserve precious wordsTags Headline Hacks Business Writing Productivity Startup

There are Many Uncanny Parallels Between Depression and Fascism

Both depression and fascism thrive on fear and terrorizing their host — be it your mind or your country — until you systematically question what your eyes, ears, and heart are reporting back to you; until you no longer trust your senses and either endorse the agenda of that which seeks to destroy you, or just give up. For its part, depression gradually injects doubt into every aspect of personhood. It may undermine a once competent professional until their skills appear worthless and unemployability certain, or shred someone’s self-esteem until they believe a romantic relationship can only exist out of pity rather than love, or put the kibosh on one’s dreams — because, let’s face it, what future is there for someone who’s such an incapable and unlovable waste of space? Both depression and fascism thrive on fear and terrorizing their host. At its most virulent, depression corrodes your sense of self and erodes your identity, and the parasite feeds until only the physical representation of the host remains. Donald Trump is having the same effect on America that depression has on an individual. And he’s doing it the same way: by distorting reality, strafing journalists and citizens alike with falsehoods. In both cases, the aim is for lies to supplant reality altogether. If the farce endures in its grotesque glory, it’s because it takes initiative, courage, and knowing exactly who you are in order to take a stand against what you’re being told to accept as the norm, whether by your mind or by the latest White House tenant. To the unsuspecting onlooker, when I was in the throes of deepest depression, I looked as I always had. But whenever I opened my mouth, it was clear that it wasn’t me speaking, but depression — through pained, inarticulate self-doubt. To the unsuspecting onlooker, America still mostly looks like it always has. But whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth, it’s clear it isn’t democracy speaking, but fascism, through absurd sentences almost entirely devoid of syntax or meaning. Similarly, just as I remember a different life before depression flattened me, many of us remember a different life before our current political regime began normalizing hate. Now that white supremacists are in charge, they believe that order can be restored by returning anyone who doesn’t fit their norm to their respective sub-human category, ranging from most similar and tolerable (healthy, able-bodied straight American-born Christian white women) to most different and undesirable (anyone else). Plainly put, many of us are now regarded as inferior, as lesser than, based on national origin, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, skin tone, reproductive choices, physical and mental abilities, etc… The current administration would like us to believe that this hierarchy is “normal” — but it is not. That we should have the audacity to define our own identities and demand equality — because America was founded on the basis of all people being created equal — is to invite shaming, if not mockery. Shame and mockery are devastatingly powerful tools. With depression, too, shaming wields great destructive power. When depression became larger than life itself, it bullied me into identifying with it. The illness kept me under house arrest, stewing in shame because I couldn’t work, and therefore I couldn’t afford to consume health care and get well enough to work, a conundrum familiar to many sick Americans. In the eyes of a staunchly individualistic society like ours, in which we’re always supposed to win, to achieve, I didn’t pass muster. I failed to measure up, I was weak, a ‘ridiculous loser’. Depression also built a wall around me to keep out other humans, chipping away at my self-esteem and declaring isolation as the new normal. Under such conditions, staying alive — that is to say, performing the most basic human functions required to do so — becomes the greatest act of resistance you’re capable of. Trite though it may sound, “While there’s life, there’s hope,” and your making it through each brand new day is proof of this. Do not ever discount the hope of better days buried deep inside you. In America, we’ve now got a Muslim ban, and soon we’ll even have a border wall to keep out other fellow humans. Those of us who refuse to fall in line with the regime are constantly being othered, divided, derided, debased — and yet we keep coming together regardless because we remember life before. Do not ever discount the hope of better days buried deep inside you. As the intellectual ability to envisage alternatives to what is, hope is one of the most powerful weapons of all.

https://kittyhannaheden.medium.com/there-are-many-uncanny-parallels-between-depression-and-fascism-f82b999afb95

['A Singular Story']

2020-12-10 15:12:40.377000+00:00

['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self', 'Society', 'Politics']

Title Many Uncanny Parallels Depression FascismContent depression fascism thrive fear terrorizing host — mind country — systematically question eye ear heart reporting back longer trust sens either endorse agenda seek destroy give part depression gradually injects doubt every aspect personhood may undermine competent professional skill appear worthless unemployability certain shred someone’s selfesteem believe romantic relationship exist pity rather love put kibosh one’s dream — let’s face future someone who’s incapable unlovable waste space depression fascism thrive fear terrorizing host virulent depression corrodes sense self erodes identity parasite feed physical representation host remains Donald Trump effect America depression individual he’s way distorting reality strafing journalist citizen alike falsehood case aim lie supplant reality altogether farce endures grotesque glory it’s take initiative courage knowing exactly order take stand you’re told accept norm whether mind latest White House tenant unsuspecting onlooker throe deepest depression looked always whenever opened mouth clear wasn’t speaking depression — pained inarticulate selfdoubt unsuspecting onlooker America still mostly look like always whenever Donald Trump open mouth it’s clear isn’t democracy speaking fascism absurd sentence almost entirely devoid syntax meaning Similarly remember different life depression flattened many u remember different life current political regime began normalizing hate white supremacist charge believe order restored returning anyone doesn’t fit norm respective subhuman category ranging similar tolerable healthy ablebodied straight Americanborn Christian white woman different undesirable anyone else Plainly put many u regarded inferior lesser based national origin immigration status religion sexual orientation skin tone reproductive choice physical mental ability etc… current administration would like u believe hierarchy “normal” — audacity define identity demand equality — America founded basis people created equal — invite shaming mockery Shame mockery devastatingly powerful tool depression shaming wields great destructive power depression became larger life bullied identifying illness kept house arrest stewing shame couldn’t work therefore couldn’t afford consume health care get well enough work conundrum familiar many sick Americans eye staunchly individualistic society like we’re always supposed win achieve didn’t pas muster failed measure weak ‘ridiculous loser’ Depression also built wall around keep human chipping away selfesteem declaring isolation new normal condition staying alive — say performing basic human function required — becomes greatest act resistance you’re capable Trite though may sound “While there’s life there’s hope” making brand new day proof ever discount hope better day buried deep inside America we’ve got Muslim ban soon we’ll even border wall keep fellow human u refuse fall line regime constantly othered divided derided debased — yet keep coming together regardless remember life ever discount hope better day buried deep inside intellectual ability envisage alternative hope one powerful weapon allTags Mental Health Psychology Self Society Politics

Get Started with PySpark and Jupyter Notebook in 3 Minutes

Install pySpark Before installing pySpark, you must have Python and Spark installed. I am using Python 3 in the following examples but you can easily adapt them to Python 2. Go to the Python official website to install it. I also encourage you to set up a virtualenv. To install Spark, make sure you have Java 8 or higher installed on your computer. Then, visit the Spark downloads page. Select the latest Spark release, a prebuilt package for Hadoop, and download it directly. Unzip it and move it to your /opt folder: $ tar -xzf spark-1.2.0-bin-hadoop2.4.tgz $ mv spark-1.2.0-bin-hadoop2.4 /opt/spark-1.2.0 Create a symbolic link: $ ln -s /opt/spark-1.2.0 /opt/spark̀ This way, you will be able to download and use multiple Spark versions. Finally, tell your bash (or zsh, etc.) where to find Spark. To do so, configure your $PATH variables by adding the following lines in your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc ) file: export SPARK_HOME=/opt/spark export PATH=$SPARK_HOME/bin:$PATH Install Jupyter Notebook Install Jupyter notebook: $ pip install jupyter You can run a regular jupyter notebook by typing: $ jupyter notebook Your first Python program on Spark Let’s check if PySpark is properly installed without using Jupyter Notebook first. You may need to restart your terminal to be able to run PySpark. Run: $ pyspark Welcome to ____ __ / __/__ ___ _____/ /__ _\ \/ _ \/ _ `/ __/ '_/ /__ / .__/\_,_/_/ /_/\_\ version 2.1.0 /_/ Using Python version 3.5.2 (default, Jul 2 2016 17:53:06) SparkSession available as 'spark'. >>> It seems to be a good start! Run the following program: (I bet you understand what it does!) import random num_samples = 100000000 def inside(p): x, y = random.random(), random.random() return x*x + y*y < 1 count = sc.parallelize(range(0, num_samples)).filter(inside).count() pi = 4 * count / num_samples print(pi) sc.stop() The output will probably be around 3.14 . PySpark in Jupyter There are two ways to get PySpark available in a Jupyter Notebook: Configure PySpark driver to use Jupyter Notebook: running pyspark will automatically open a Jupyter Notebook will automatically open a Jupyter Notebook Load a regular Jupyter Notebook and load PySpark using findSpark package First option is quicker but specific to Jupyter Notebook, second option is a broader approach to get PySpark available in your favorite IDE. Method 1 — Configure PySpark driver Update PySpark driver environment variables: add these lines to your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc ) file. export PYSPARK_DRIVER_PYTHON=jupyter export PYSPARK_DRIVER_PYTHON_OPTS='notebook' Restart your terminal and launch PySpark again: $ pyspark Now, this command should start a Jupyter Notebook in your web browser. Create a new notebook by clicking on ‘New’ > ‘Notebooks Python [default]’. Copy and paste our Pi calculation script and run it by pressing Shift + Enter. Jupyter Notebook: Pi Calculation script Done! You are now able to run PySpark in a Jupyter Notebook :) Method 2 — FindSpark package There is another and more generalized way to use PySpark in a Jupyter Notebook: use findSpark package to make a Spark Context available in your code. findSpark package is not specific to Jupyter Notebook, you can use this trick in your favorite IDE too. To install findspark: $ pip install findspark Launch a regular Jupyter Notebook: $ jupyter notebook Create a new Python [default] notebook and write the following script: import findspark findspark.init() import pyspark import random sc = pyspark.SparkContext(appName="Pi") num_samples = 100000000 def inside(p): x, y = random.random(), random.random() return x*x + y*y < 1 count = sc.parallelize(range(0, num_samples)).filter(inside).count() pi = 4 * count / num_samples print(pi) sc.stop() The output should be:

https://medium.com/sicara/get-started-pyspark-jupyter-guide-tutorial-ae2fe84f594f

['Charles Bochet']

2019-12-05 10:43:00.520000+00:00

['Data Engineering', 'Python', 'Big Data', 'Jupyter', 'Spark']

Title Get Started PySpark Jupyter Notebook 3 MinutesContent Install pySpark installing pySpark must Python Spark installed using Python 3 following example easily adapt Python 2 Go Python official website install also encourage set virtualenv install Spark make sure Java 8 higher installed computer visit Spark downloads page Select latest Spark release prebuilt package Hadoop download directly Unzip move opt folder tar xzf spark120binhadoop24tgz mv spark120binhadoop24 optspark120 Create symbolic link ln optspark120 optspark̀ way able download use multiple Spark version Finally tell bash zsh etc find Spark configure PATH variable adding following line bashrc zshrc file export SPARKHOMEoptspark export PATHSPARKHOMEbinPATH Install Jupyter Notebook Install Jupyter notebook pip install jupyter run regular jupyter notebook typing jupyter notebook first Python program Spark Let’s check PySpark properly installed without using Jupyter Notebook first may need restart terminal able run PySpark Run pyspark Welcome version 210 Using Python version 352 default Jul 2 2016 175306 SparkSession available spark seems good start Run following program bet understand import random numsamples 100000000 def insidep x randomrandom randomrandom return xx yy 1 count scparallelizerange0 numsamplesfilterinsidecount pi 4 count numsamples printpi scstop output probably around 314 PySpark Jupyter two way get PySpark available Jupyter Notebook Configure PySpark driver use Jupyter Notebook running pyspark automatically open Jupyter Notebook automatically open Jupyter Notebook Load regular Jupyter Notebook load PySpark using findSpark package First option quicker specific Jupyter Notebook second option broader approach get PySpark available favorite IDE Method 1 — Configure PySpark driver Update PySpark driver environment variable add line bashrc zshrc file export PYSPARKDRIVERPYTHONjupyter export PYSPARKDRIVERPYTHONOPTSnotebook Restart terminal launch PySpark pyspark command start Jupyter Notebook web browser Create new notebook clicking ‘New’ ‘Notebooks Python default’ Copy paste Pi calculation script run pressing Shift Enter Jupyter Notebook Pi Calculation script Done able run PySpark Jupyter Notebook Method 2 — FindSpark package another generalized way use PySpark Jupyter Notebook use findSpark package make Spark Context available code findSpark package specific Jupyter Notebook use trick favorite IDE install findspark pip install findspark Launch regular Jupyter Notebook jupyter notebook Create new Python default notebook write following script import findspark findsparkinit import pyspark import random sc pysparkSparkContextappNamePi numsamples 100000000 def insidep x randomrandom randomrandom return xx yy 1 count scparallelizerange0 numsamplesfilterinsidecount pi 4 count numsamples printpi scstop output beTags Data Engineering Python Big Data Jupyter Spark

Our FAQs

Writers What happens when I submit my article to TDS? Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your article to our team! We will review it as soon as we can. If we believe that your article is excellent and ready to go, this is how you will be able to add your post to our publication. If “Towards Data Science” shows up after you click on “Add to publication” in the dropdown menu at the top of the page, that means we have added you as an author and are waiting for you to submit your article. Once you have submitted your article, it will be reviewed by an editor before a final decision is made. If we think that your article is interesting but needs to be improved, someone from our team will provide you with feedback directly on your submitted Medium article. Please note that we only respond to articles that were properly submitted using either our form or via an email that exactly follows the instructions listed here. We don’t respond to pitches or questions already answered in our FAQs or on our Contribute page. We also ignore articles that don’t comply with our rules. If you haven’t heard from us within the next five working days, please carefully check the article you submitted to our team. See if you can now submit it directly to TDS and look for any private notes from us that you may have missed. You should also make sure to check your spam folder. If you just can’t reach us, the best thing for you to do is submit your article to another publication. Although we’d love to, we can’t provide customized feedback to everyone because we simply receive too many submissions. You can learn more about our decision here and submit another post in a month.

https://medium.com/p/462571b65b35#bc29

['Tds Editors']

2020-11-19 01:16:58.476000+00:00

['Writers’ Guide', 'Tds Team', 'Writers Guide']

Title FAQsContent Writers happens submit article TDS Thank much taking time submit article team review soon believe article excellent ready go able add post publication “Towards Data Science” show click “Add publication” dropdown menu top page mean added author waiting submit article submitted article reviewed editor final decision made think article interesting need improved someone team provide feedback directly submitted Medium article Please note respond article properly submitted using either form via email exactly follows instruction listed don’t respond pitch question already answered FAQs Contribute page also ignore article don’t comply rule haven’t heard u within next five working day please carefully check article submitted team See submit directly TDS look private note u may missed also make sure check spam folder can’t reach u best thing submit article another publication Although we’d love can’t provide customized feedback everyone simply receive many submission learn decision submit another post monthTags Writers’ Guide Tds Team Writers Guide

Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm: 5 Ways to Recover Organic Reach

Ladies and gentlemen. We come together today to once again mourn the loss of Facebook organic reach, to share the grief all of us marketers feel. And perhaps, in that sharing, we can find the strength to look toward the future with some hope. Yes, organic reach on Facebook is abysmal and getting worse, thanks to the latest announcement from the social network that’s visited by more than a billion users every day. Facebook will show more funny videos and baby pictures posted by family and friends instead of news and other marketing content from brands, businesses, and publishers. How bad is organic engagement on Facebook? On average, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of less than 1 percent. Yikes. Every once in a while, one of your posts might still get tons of organic engagement. But it’s fast becoming mission impossible. Facebook: Unhackable. Facebook’s algorithm is powered by machine learning. While I don’t know the secret formula Facebook uses, we know from a computer-science perspective that machine-learning algorithms learn by testing and figuring out howpeople react to those tests. Bottom line: if people really love your content and engage with it, then they are more likely to see more of that type of content in the future. The reverse is also true — if you post garbage, and if people don’t engage with it, then those people are even less likely to see your stuff in the future. More engagement (i.e., shares, comments, Likes) means more visibility in Facebook’s news feed. Facebook’s algorithm is more likely to give more visibility to posts that resonate well, to audition it in front of more people. In fact, Facebook Ads, Google AdWords and even organic search work the same way. So what’s the solution? Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to mitigate the loss from the latest Facebook newsfeed algorithm. You must raise your organic engagement rates. Let’s meet your new weapons — the five crazy hacks that will help you do what’s said to be impossible: hack the Facebook newsfeed algorithm. Note: Some of these hacks involve spending a little bit of money. Others are totally free. All of them are totally worth your time. Facebook Newsfeed Hack #1: Preferred Audience Targeting Listen up: Preferred audience targeting is a brand new Facebook feature that works just like ad targeting, but for your organic posts. That’s right, this new feature lets you target your organic updates as if they were ads, for free.Facebook lets you target your update so only the people who are most likely to be interested in your update will see it. Here’s where the preferred audience targeting option can be found: This feature is so powerful because not everyone who follows your Facebook page is going to care about every single update you publish. If you want to start raising your organic engagement, you need to stop broadcasting to all of your followers and focus on those people who are most likely to engage with specific updates. Think about it. Why do people follow huge companies like IBM or GE? It could be for any number of reasons. Facebook’s preferred audiences feature is pure genius for companies that have a variety of products and divisions, or that operate in multiple countries. You can narrow the targeting based on users’ interests and locations to reach the people you really want without bothering the rest of your followers. This feature also has benefits for smaller companies and publishers. Take me for example. I post updates on a wide variety of topics, including online advertising, entrepreneurship, social media marketing, SEO, branding, andgrowth hacking. Preferred audience targeting allows me to decide who sees my posts — or who won’t see my post, using audience restrictions: Here’s another example. Let’s say you’re a French clothing retailer with locations in France, Poland, and Germany. You could make it so that only French-speaking millennial females who live near your locations will see your post announcing your latest deals. Remember: everybody who likes your page isn’t your target market. Plenty of random people will like your page over time, but then never engage with your updates, visit your website, or buy from you. If you can only reach 1 percent of your audience, you should more narrowly target the people who aretruly interested in what you have to offer. Giving people what they’re interested is what great marketing is all about — and, in the process, it will help you raise your Facebook engagement rate significantly. Facebook Newsfeed Hack #2: The Unicorn Detector Pyramid Scheme The Unicorn Detector Pyramid Scheme is the process you can use to separate your content unicorns from the donkeys. What is a content unicorn? Well, content becomes a unicorn when it is clearly among the top 1 to 2 percent of all of your content. These are your most rare and beautiful pieces of content that attract the most shares, engagement, and views. A content donkey, on the other hand, doesn’t stand out at all. At most, it’s average. Ninety-eight percent of your content will be donkeys that get average engagement — again, less than 1 percent is the average organic engagement on Facebook, which is insanely low, right? To raise your organic engagement rates on Facebook, you need to post fewer, but better updates. You can test out your content organically on Twitter.Here’s how it works. Post lots of stuff on Twitter — somewhere around 20 tweets per day. But imagine that every tweet has been infected with a virus, one that will ultimately kill them without the antidote within less than 24 hours. The only cure for these infected tweets? They need to get a significant number of retweets, clicks, likes, and replies. Examine your top tweets in Twitter Analytics. Those tweets with the most engagement — your top 5 or 10 percent — have survived! Your content that got the most engagement on Twitter is also highly likely to generate similar engagement on Facebook. Facebook Newsfeed Hack #3: Post Engagement Ads You can use Facebook’s Post Engagement Ads to give your posts a bit of a push. Yes, that means you’re spending a little money to “earn” some free reach in the news feed. For example, let’s say I posted the above update only on my wall. The engagement is going to be pretty low. Maybe a few hundred people will see it. So what happens if I spend just $20 to promote it? In this case, I paid for more than 4,400 impressions (clicks, follows, likes, etc.), but also got more than 1,000 organic engagements for free as a result. How? Whenever someone shares your promoted post, it results in more people seeing it organically in their newsfeeds and engaging with it. Facebook Newsfeed Hack #4: Add Engaged Followers Did you know there’s a way you can selectively invite people who have recently engaged with one of your Facebook posts to like your page? This is a valuable but little-known feature available to some (but not all) pages. You want people who engage with you to become part of your Facebook fan base. You know these people like you and are more likely to engage with your content because they’ve done so in the past. Here’s how you do it: Click on the names of the people who reacted to your post (liked, loved, etc.). You’ll see three types of buttons (Invite, Liked, Invited). Clicking on that Invite button will send an invitation to people who engaged with one of your Facebook posts to like your business page. Does it work? Yep. Between 15 to 20 percent of the people I invite to like my page are doing so. Oh, and did I mention it’s totally free? You can read more about the Facebook invite button here. If you want to further increase your Facebook following, you could run a remarketing and list-basedFacebook Fan / Page Promotion campaign, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t think it’s a good investment unless you have a ridiculously low number of followers. You’re better off doing nothing. Our goal is to increase engagement rates to increase earned organic engagement. Attracting the wrong types of fans could hurt, rather than help, your engagement rates. Facebook Newsfeed Hack #5: Use Video Content The decline of organic reach almost mirrors the rise of video on Facebook. Users watch more than 8 billion videos every day on the social network. And these videos are generating lots of engagement. Just look at this recent research from BuzzSumo, which examined the average total number of shares of Facebook videos: Facebook is doing its best to try to kill YouTube as the top platform for video. If you haven’t yet, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon. Stop sharing vanilla posts that get little to no engagement. Add some video into your marketing mix! That should help improve your organic engagement because engagement begets engagement. Closing Thoughts on the Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm Facebook organic reach is pretty terrible. That’s why you should start treating your organic Facebook posts more like a paid channel, where you have to pickier and optimize to maximize engagement, in the hopes of getting more earned organic engagement. We’ll never get back the Facebook organic reach we’ve lost over the past few years. However, these five hacks will help dramatically increase your organic engagement and mitigate your losses from the latest Facebook news feed change. Be a Unicorn in a Sea of Donkeys Get my very best Unicorn marketing & entrepreneurship growth hacks: 2. Sign up for occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news & tips via Facebook Messenger. About the Author Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey — provider of the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform. He’s also the founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. Originally published on Wordstream.com

https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/facebook-newsfeed-algorithm-5-ways-to-recover-organic-reach-5925adcc009

['Larry Kim']

2019-07-16 10:11:01.091000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Facebook', 'Social Media', 'Algorithms', 'Marketing']

Title Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm 5 Ways Recover Organic ReachContent Ladies gentleman come together today mourn loss Facebook organic reach share grief u marketer feel perhaps sharing find strength look toward future hope Yes organic reach Facebook abysmal getting worse thanks latest announcement social network that’s visited billion user every day Facebook show funny video baby picture posted family friend instead news marketing content brand business publisher bad organic engagement Facebook average it’s somewhere neighborhood le 1 percent Yikes Every one post might still get ton organic engagement it’s fast becoming mission impossible Facebook Unhackable Facebook’s algorithm powered machine learning don’t know secret formula Facebook us know computerscience perspective machinelearning algorithm learn testing figuring howpeople react test Bottom line people really love content engage likely see type content future reverse also true — post garbage people don’t engage people even le likely see stuff future engagement ie share comment Likes mean visibility Facebook’s news feed Facebook’s algorithm likely give visibility post resonate well audition front people fact Facebook Ads Google AdWords even organic search work way what’s solution mission choose accept mitigate loss latest Facebook newsfeed algorithm must raise organic engagement rate Let’s meet new weapon — five crazy hack help what’s said impossible hack Facebook newsfeed algorithm Note hack involve spending little bit money Others totally free totally worth time Facebook Newsfeed Hack 1 Preferred Audience Targeting Listen Preferred audience targeting brand new Facebook feature work like ad targeting organic post That’s right new feature let target organic update ad freeFacebook let target update people likely interested update see Here’s preferred audience targeting option found feature powerful everyone follows Facebook page going care every single update publish want start raising organic engagement need stop broadcasting follower focus people likely engage specific update Think people follow huge company like IBM GE could number reason Facebook’s preferred audience feature pure genius company variety product division operate multiple country narrow targeting based users’ interest location reach people really want without bothering rest follower feature also benefit smaller company publisher Take example post update wide variety topic including online advertising entrepreneurship social medium marketing SEO branding andgrowth hacking Preferred audience targeting allows decide see post — won’t see post using audience restriction Here’s another example Let’s say you’re French clothing retailer location France Poland Germany could make Frenchspeaking millennial female live near location see post announcing latest deal Remember everybody like page isn’t target market Plenty random people like page time never engage update visit website buy reach 1 percent audience narrowly target people aretruly interested offer Giving people they’re interested great marketing — process help raise Facebook engagement rate significantly Facebook Newsfeed Hack 2 Unicorn Detector Pyramid Scheme Unicorn Detector Pyramid Scheme process use separate content unicorn donkey content unicorn Well content becomes unicorn clearly among top 1 2 percent content rare beautiful piece content attract share engagement view content donkey hand doesn’t stand it’s average Ninetyeight percent content donkey get average engagement — le 1 percent average organic engagement Facebook insanely low right raise organic engagement rate Facebook need post fewer better update test content organically TwitterHere’s work Post lot stuff Twitter — somewhere around 20 tweet per day imagine every tweet infected virus one ultimately kill without antidote within le 24 hour cure infected tweet need get significant number retweets click like reply Examine top tweet Twitter Analytics tweet engagement — top 5 10 percent — survived content got engagement Twitter also highly likely generate similar engagement Facebook Facebook Newsfeed Hack 3 Post Engagement Ads use Facebook’s Post Engagement Ads give post bit push Yes mean you’re spending little money “earn” free reach news feed example let’s say posted update wall engagement going pretty low Maybe hundred people see happens spend 20 promote case paid 4400 impression click follows like etc also got 1000 organic engagement free result Whenever someone share promoted post result people seeing organically newsfeeds engaging Facebook Newsfeed Hack 4 Add Engaged Followers know there’s way selectively invite people recently engaged one Facebook post like page valuable littleknown feature available page want people engage become part Facebook fan base know people like likely engage content they’ve done past Here’s Click name people reacted post liked loved etc You’ll see three type button Invite Liked Invited Clicking Invite button send invitation people engaged one Facebook post like business page work Yep 15 20 percent people invite like page Oh mention it’s totally free read Facebook invite button want increase Facebook following could run remarketing listbasedFacebook Fan Page Promotion campaign wouldn’t recommend don’t think it’s good investment unless ridiculously low number follower You’re better nothing goal increase engagement rate increase earned organic engagement Attracting wrong type fan could hurt rather help engagement rate Facebook Newsfeed Hack 5 Use Video Content decline organic reach almost mirror rise video Facebook Users watch 8 billion video every day social network video generating lot engagement look recent research BuzzSumo examined average total number share Facebook video Facebook best try kill YouTube top platform video haven’t yet time jump bandwagon Stop sharing vanilla post get little engagement Add video marketing mix help improve organic engagement engagement begets engagement Closing Thoughts Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm Facebook organic reach pretty terrible That’s start treating organic Facebook post like paid channel pickier optimize maximize engagement hope getting earned organic engagement We’ll never get back Facebook organic reach we’ve lost past year However five hack help dramatically increase organic engagement mitigate loss latest Facebook news feed change Unicorn Sea Donkeys Get best Unicorn marketing entrepreneurship growth hack 2 Sign occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news tip via Facebook Messenger Author Larry Kim CEO MobileMonkey — provider World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform He’s also founder WordStream connect Facebook Messenger Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Originally published WordstreamcomTags Entrepreneurship Facebook Social Media Algorithms Marketing

‘Turning up the Heat’ A Story Device for Addressing Climate Change

‘Turning up the Heat’ A Story Device for Addressing Climate Change A Conventional Symbol Applied to a Novel Problem Photo by Aay Kay on Unsplash Hot weather — and the many ways we’ve learned to communicate it — has come to play many important roles in our stories. We often use Heat to build a juxtaposition of worlds, communicate a character’s disorientation, or symbolize an unavoidable reality demanding our attention. Juxtaposition: Florida Project gives us an example of Heat’s visual juxtaposition turned towards the film’s larger class critique. In Florida Project, we spend the whole movie focused on a motel community caked in constant Florida-style sweat, all while living next to the dream-like Disney World. The one time I distinctly remember characters without such apparent sweat is when a couple accidentally ends up at the motel during their honeymoon to Disney World. The couple was truly of some other world than our main characters, and it is self-evident that ending up in this motel was a big problem for them. So, as quickly as they enter the film they get the heck out of that motel. However, no one does class critique better than Parasite and Heat plays an important role in communicating the juxtaposition of Parasite’s upper and lower class worlds. The rich are well-dressed and picturesque with AC shielding them from sweat, but the poor do not have such luxuries. Instead, they wear noticeably old sweat-stained clothes as they huddle next to loud ineffective fans, using pizza boxes to fan themselves off. Disorientation: I tend to focus heavily on movies (It’s a blessing and a curse), but Heat has also been used in written stories. One of my first and most memorable experiences thinking of Heat in a story comes from reading Albert Camus’s The Stranger in a high school English class. Heat (and the baking sun) builds on the book's larger existential themes as it displays a disorienting reality for The Stranger’s main character Meursault: “The heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks; beads of sweat were gathering in my eyebrows. It was just the same sort of heat as at my mother’s funeral, and I had the same disagreeable sensations — especially in my forehead, where all the veins seemed to be bursting through the skin.” Unavoidable Reality: One of the most compelling uses of Heat I’ve seen recently is to symbolize an unavoidable reality. In this way, the Heat runs parallel to something else in the narrative which demands the characters’ attention. In a very physical sense, Heat is often a hard thing to avoid. I’ve experienced my fair share of scorching hot days, and if you don’t have AC, there’s just no avoiding the fact that you are going to be HOT when the planet says so. In this way, Heat serves as a very effective symbol to run parallel to all those other things our characters can’t escape either. Sydney Lumet’s film 12 Angry Men is a prime example of this. The story follows 12 jurors stuck in a deliberation room as they come to a unanimous decision regarding the guilt or innocence of a young kid charged with the murder of his father. All the while, each character becomes caked in more and more sweat as New York City sees a truly scorching day. Occasionally, their debate pauses as the characters are exhausted by the tension. Some jurors turn to small open windows for some breeze or go to the bathroom to wash off their face, but any attempt to find relief from the heat and tension of the deliberation room can only last for a short second. There’s no escaping the deliberation room and its oppressive Heat until every member faces the conflicting facts of their case and comes to a unanimous decision.

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/turning-up-the-heat-a-story-device-for-addressing-climate-change-998522d0350e

['Cameron Catanzano']

2020-11-22 17:51:11.928000+00:00

['Storytelling', 'Climate Change', 'Psychology', 'Film', 'Environment']

Title ‘Turning Heat’ Story Device Addressing Climate ChangeContent ‘Turning Heat’ Story Device Addressing Climate Change Conventional Symbol Applied Novel Problem Photo Aay Kay Unsplash Hot weather — many way we’ve learned communicate — come play many important role story often use Heat build juxtaposition world communicate character’s disorientation symbolize unavoidable reality demanding attention Juxtaposition Florida Project give u example Heat’s visual juxtaposition turned towards film’s larger class critique Florida Project spend whole movie focused motel community caked constant Floridastyle sweat living next dreamlike Disney World one time distinctly remember character without apparent sweat couple accidentally end motel honeymoon Disney World couple truly world main character selfevident ending motel big problem quickly enter film get heck motel However one class critique better Parasite Heat play important role communicating juxtaposition Parasite’s upper lower class world rich welldressed picturesque AC shielding sweat poor luxury Instead wear noticeably old sweatstained clothes huddle next loud ineffective fan using pizza box fan Disorientation tend focus heavily movie It’s blessing curse Heat also used written story One first memorable experience thinking Heat story come reading Albert Camus’s Stranger high school English class Heat baking sun build book larger existential theme display disorienting reality Stranger’s main character Meursault “The heat beginning scorch cheek bead sweat gathering eyebrow sort heat mother’s funeral disagreeable sensation — especially forehead vein seemed bursting skin” Unavoidable Reality One compelling us Heat I’ve seen recently symbolize unavoidable reality way Heat run parallel something else narrative demand characters’ attention physical sense Heat often hard thing avoid I’ve experienced fair share scorching hot day don’t AC there’s avoiding fact going HOT planet say way Heat serf effective symbol run parallel thing character can’t escape either Sydney Lumet’s film 12 Angry Men prime example story follows 12 juror stuck deliberation room come unanimous decision regarding guilt innocence young kid charged murder father character becomes caked sweat New York City see truly scorching day Occasionally debate pause character exhausted tension juror turn small open window breeze go bathroom wash face attempt find relief heat tension deliberation room last short second There’s escaping deliberation room oppressive Heat every member face conflicting fact case come unanimous decisionTags Storytelling Climate Change Psychology Film Environment

Books to Keep the BoogeyDudes Away: The October 2020 Brilliant Reading List (#5 Can Be Music to Your Soul)

The Princess Bride by William Goldman Be not fooled by the saccharine title of this classic novel, which was subtitled “a classic” before it was even written, according to the “translator/abridger” of the “original story.” And in case you haven’t figured it out by reading the book or from the sentence above, the “translator abridger of the original story” is none other than William Goldman himself, which right there already hints at what a rollicking, 4th-wall-breaking, semi-satirical fantasy-comedy The Princess Bride is. So if that sounds like the kind of novel that tickles your tailfeathers, then you have to give it a try! 😃 Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz I cracked open Quo Vadis on a Friday afternoon and some 8 hours later, realized that I had powered through the whole thing without stopping. Although it’s been a while since then, this historical novel set in Rome during the end of Emperor Nero’s reign shows the slow destruction of Rome, its persecution of early Christians, and the redemption of a young Roman soldier whose attraction to a young woman who is forbidden to him drives a deep, complex plot that is difficult to describe in a few simple lines. Quo Vadis was written in 1896 by Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, and became an international bestseller that was adapted to the screen multiple times. If you’re wondering what makes this novel so compelling, the best way to find out is to read it yourself. (Just make sure you have a lot of free time to read it all in a sitting or two, just in case 😉) Out of a Far Country by Christopher and Angela Yuan Out of a Far Country is a duo-autobiography (a duography?) written by a mother and son about a picture-perfect family on the verge of falling apart; a profligate son on the verge of destroying his life with parties, sex, and drugs; a hopeless mother on the verge of suicide… And a series of small, unwanted miracles that turned it all around. This is a true story that, to me, is one of the clearest pictures of what love really is: not mere indulgence, sexuality, emotion, feeling, or passion, but a genuine, self-sacrificing, truth-honoring, long-suffering attitude toward even undeserving “prodigals” who try to push it away. To this day, Christopher and his mother Angela and father Leon continue to share their experiences to audiences around the world, bringing hope for healing relationships to families that are hurting, just as theirs was. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen If you loved the cheeky humor, the hilarious characterizations, and ingenious plot of Jane Austen’s most famous work, Pride and Prejudice, then you’ll enjoy her other alliteratively titled novel, Sense and Sensibility. This story about two sisters, one logical and reserved, the other wild and passionate, and their challenging relationships with out-of-reach love interests includes such snarky, side-splitting lines as: “Mrs. Ferrars’ family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.” In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, [Edward] did not feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed his present engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he feared, might give a sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off as rapidly as before. Need I say more? 😉 Then Sings My Soul by Robert Morgan Then Sings My Soul is a collection of background stories about the great classic hymns of history. Some stories include: The story of a famous Baroque composer who wrote, in less than a month, a powerful, perennial composition still played hundreds of years after its creation The tale of the other, less famous song written by former slave-ship owner John Newton How a German nobleman with an odd-sounding name inspired a young woman to write and publish a poem which became a song, a hundred years later If you, like me, love history, music, and stories (especially true stories), or know someone who does, then this book is a must for your (or their) personal library!

https://medium.com/be-a-brilliant-writer/books-to-keep-the-boogeydudes-away-the-october-2020-brilliant-reading-list-5-is-music-to-your-7539779c6dfe

['Sarah Cy']

2020-10-29 18:57:32.899000+00:00

['Inspiration', 'Writing', 'Books', 'Reading', 'Music']

Title Books Keep BoogeyDudes Away October 2020 Brilliant Reading List 5 Music SoulContent Princess Bride William Goldman fooled saccharine title classic novel subtitled “a classic” even written according “translatorabridger” “original story” case haven’t figured reading book sentence “translator abridger original story” none William Goldman right already hint rollicking 4thwallbreaking semisatirical fantasycomedy Princess Bride sound like kind novel tickle tailfeathers give try 😃 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz cracked open Quo Vadis Friday afternoon 8 hour later realized powered whole thing without stopping Although it’s since historical novel set Rome end Emperor Nero’s reign show slow destruction Rome persecution early Christians redemption young Roman soldier whose attraction young woman forbidden drive deep complex plot difficult describe simple line Quo Vadis written 1896 Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz became international bestseller adapted screen multiple time you’re wondering make novel compelling best way find read make sure lot free time read sitting two case 😉 Far Country Christopher Angela Yuan Far Country duoautobiography duography written mother son pictureperfect family verge falling apart profligate son verge destroying life party sex drug hopeless mother verge suicide… series small unwanted miracle turned around true story one clearest picture love really mere indulgence sexuality emotion feeling passion genuine selfsacrificing truthhonoring longsuffering attitude toward even undeserving “prodigals” try push away day Christopher mother Angela father Leon continue share experience audience around world bringing hope healing relationship family hurting Sense Sensibility Jane Austen loved cheeky humor hilarious characterization ingenious plot Jane Austen’s famous work Pride Prejudice you’ll enjoy alliteratively titled novel Sense Sensibility story two sister one logical reserved wild passionate challenging relationship outofreach love interest includes snarky sidesplitting line “Mrs Ferrars’ family late exceedingly fluctuating many year life two son crime annihilation Edward week ago robbed one similar annihilation Robert left fortnight without resuscitation Edward one again” spite allowed live however Edward feel continuance existence secure till revealed present engagement publication circumstance feared might give sudden turn constitution carry rapidly Need say 😉 Sings Soul Robert Morgan Sings Soul collection background story great classic hymn history story include story famous Baroque composer wrote le month powerful perennial composition still played hundred year creation tale le famous song written former slaveship owner John Newton German nobleman oddsounding name inspired young woman write publish poem became song hundred year later like love history music story especially true story know someone book must personal libraryTags Inspiration Writing Books Reading Music

Our FAQs

Writers What happens when I submit my article to TDS? Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your article to our team! We will review it as soon as we can. If we believe that your article is excellent and ready to go, this is how you will be able to add your post to our publication. If “Towards Data Science” shows up after you click on “Add to publication” in the dropdown menu at the top of the page, that means we have added you as an author and are waiting for you to submit your article. Once you have submitted your article, it will be reviewed by an editor before a final decision is made. If we think that your article is interesting but needs to be improved, someone from our team will provide you with feedback directly on your submitted Medium article. Please note that we only respond to articles that were properly submitted using either our form or via an email that exactly follows the instructions listed here. We don’t respond to pitches or questions already answered in our FAQs or on our Contribute page. We also ignore articles that don’t comply with our rules. If you haven’t heard from us within the next five working days, please carefully check the article you submitted to our team. See if you can now submit it directly to TDS and look for any private notes from us that you may have missed. You should also make sure to check your spam folder. If you just can’t reach us, the best thing for you to do is submit your article to another publication. Although we’d love to, we can’t provide customized feedback to everyone because we simply receive too many submissions. You can learn more about our decision here and submit another post in a month.

https://medium.com/p/462571b65b35#1bcb

['Tds Editors']

2020-11-19 01:16:58.476000+00:00

['Writers’ Guide', 'Tds Team', 'Writers Guide']

Title FAQsContent Writers happens submit article TDS Thank much taking time submit article team review soon believe article excellent ready go able add post publication “Towards Data Science” show click “Add publication” dropdown menu top page mean added author waiting submit article submitted article reviewed editor final decision made think article interesting need improved someone team provide feedback directly submitted Medium article Please note respond article properly submitted using either form via email exactly follows instruction listed don’t respond pitch question already answered FAQs Contribute page also ignore article don’t comply rule haven’t heard u within next five working day please carefully check article submitted team See submit directly TDS look private note u may missed also make sure check spam folder can’t reach u best thing submit article another publication Although we’d love can’t provide customized feedback everyone simply receive many submission learn decision submit another post monthTags Writers’ Guide Tds Team Writers Guide

Addressing the Handover

I don’t like the word handover. In design circles it implies the end of involvement for one group and the start for another. Designers will create a suite of assets, whether it’s a style guide or page designs, and then hand those over to a developer to be coded. The designer dusts his hands and moves onto the next task, while the developer gets the design equivalent of a bucket of cold water to the face and is told to get cracking. For some reason, we expect developers to see all the countless micro-decisions the designer has made, understand the designer’s intent, and execute in accordance with it — even when the delivered files have unintentional discrepancies… (sorry designers, but you know it’s true). This traditional waterfall process is still ever present, and common amongst a lot of digital agencies. It’s another hangover from the old creative agency model. But even the often lauded agile method has limitations, and doesn’t solve the issue of asset handover and collaboration. Not fully. The main problem is that there is a gap between those who do the thinking and those who are responsible for the doing. We’re not really working as a team. Typically, there might be a group of strategists, responsible for setting up the vision or proposition for a project or product. Then there are designers who ideate concepts for an interface or design aesthetic. Then we have the developers who are responsible for bringing all of the above to fruition. Projects will often work their way through teams in this manner and in this order. It’s rare that you find a developer involved in the ideation process, rarer still to find them included in the strategic thinking. This is not how good teams work. The most effective teams have a shared understanding, language and goal. Sports teams are a great example of this. They can only be successful when they work together. They communicate often and openly, spending time getting to know how the other thinks and plays so that they can facilitate better for one another. They have a single purpose, and work together using each other’s individual skills to achieve a common goal — without a big handover. They are in-sync. Project teams are no different. We all have a common goal of creating a successful, useable and beautiful product for our client and the real people that use it, in the least stressful way possible. To do this we need to be inclusive, contributing to the entire project cycle through the lens of our individual disciplines. Only when we collaborate in this way will we be truly efficient and successful. This collaborative culture spells the beginning of the end for the unhelpful handover. The first step to greater collaboration across disciplines is understanding. It’s no longer viable for disciplines to be specialised in execution at the expense of understanding each other’s craft. I’m not saying that teams should be multi-disciplined in execution, in fact people who heavily differentiate their skills usually end up with one of them suffering as a result (jack of all trades, master of none). But like any great sports team, we need to have a clear understanding of how each other works and what we need from one another in order to do the best work we can. Fortunately, there are some simple steps that can help steer your project team in the right direction.

https://uxdesign.cc/addressing-the-handover-3f874e1e96d4

['Jonny Gibson']

2017-11-09 17:48:00.542000+00:00

['Development', 'Teamwork', 'Design', 'UX', 'Psychology']

Title Addressing HandoverContent don’t like word handover design circle implies end involvement one group start another Designers create suite asset whether it’s style guide page design hand developer coded designer dust hand move onto next task developer get design equivalent bucket cold water face told get cracking reason expect developer see countless microdecisions designer made understand designer’s intent execute accordance — even delivered file unintentional discrepancies… sorry designer know it’s true traditional waterfall process still ever present common amongst lot digital agency It’s another hangover old creative agency model even often lauded agile method limitation doesn’t solve issue asset handover collaboration fully main problem gap thinking responsible We’re really working team Typically might group strategist responsible setting vision proposition project product designer ideate concept interface design aesthetic developer responsible bringing fruition Projects often work way team manner order It’s rare find developer involved ideation process rarer still find included strategic thinking good team work effective team shared understanding language goal Sports team great example successful work together communicate often openly spending time getting know think play facilitate better one another single purpose work together using other’s individual skill achieve common goal — without big handover insync Project team different common goal creating successful useable beautiful product client real people use least stressful way possible need inclusive contributing entire project cycle lens individual discipline collaborate way truly efficient successful collaborative culture spell beginning end unhelpful handover first step greater collaboration across discipline understanding It’s longer viable discipline specialised execution expense understanding other’s craft I’m saying team multidisciplined execution fact people heavily differentiate skill usually end one suffering result jack trade master none like great sport team need clear understanding work need one another order best work Fortunately simple step help steer project team right directionTags Development Teamwork Design UX Psychology

Is geothermal energy everything that it is cracked up to be?

The principle of geothermal energy is very simple: hot water and steam from deep in the earth’s crust is used to drive turbines. It produces no harmful polluting gases and has the potential to become one of the main sources of renewable energy of the 21st century. The natural heat energy produced from the earth is called geothermal heat energy. The source of geothermal energy is the continuous heat flux flowing from the interior of the earth towards its surface. Geothermal power plants pipe hot water or steam through wells that sometimes reach deep down to reservoirs underground. The thermal energy is then converted into electricity using different technologies: Dry steam power plants extract very hot steam from reservoirs in the earth. The steam activates turbines that generate electricity. Geothermal flash steam power plants use water temperatures of a least 182°C and convert it to steam to drive generator turbines. When the steam cools, it condenses water which is injected back into the ground to be used again. Geothermal binary cycle power plants can use water temperature as low as 57°C. The thermal energy is used to heat a fluid that turns into steam at low temperatures. This steam is pushed through a turbine to generate electricity. The water never touches the fluid and is re-injected into the well, where it heats up again, closing the cycle. Pros and cons The geothermal resources of the earth are vast, clean and plentiful. Unlike most other renewable energy resources, geothermal energy is available throughout the year, has an inherent storage capability and is independent of weather conditions. Its storage capability makes it an ideal stabilizing energy, which can compensate for the fluctuating nature of other forms of renewable energy, originating from the sun or the wind. Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) systems store energy by pumping heat into an underground space. Thermal energy can be stored in boreholes, aquifers and caverns or pits. The storage medium is water but can also be molten salts, soil and rocks. Boreholes are man-made vertical heat exchangers that work to transfer heat between the energy carrier and the ground layers. Cost is one of the drawbacks of geothermal energy: plants are expensive to install and they are generally limited to locations where a combination of heat, permeability of the earth and flow make extraction economical for electricity generation. Geothermal energy resources differ from one geographic location to another, depending on depth, temperature and pressure, abundance of ground water and underground chemical composition. Geothermal energy resources typically vary in temperature from about 50 to 350°C. The high temperature geothermal resources (above 200°C) are generally found in volcanic regions and island chains. The medium temperature (between 150 and 200°C) and low temperature geothermal resources (under 150°C) exist in most continental regions and are fairly widespread. Low temperature resources are used directly for heating while the higher temperature ones are used for conversion into electricity. Another issue is the relative abundance of greenhouse gases (GHGs) below the surface of the earth, which can be released into the atmosphere through geothermal activity. However, since geothermal power plants do not burn fuel to generate electricity, the levels of air pollutants they emit are low compared to fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Geothermal power plants emit 97% less acid rain-causing sulfur compounds and about 99% less carbon dioxide than fossil fuel power plants of a similar size. Most geothermal power plants use scrubbers to remove the hydrogen sulfide naturally found in geothermal reservoirs and inject the geothermal steam and water that they use back into the earth. This recycling helps to renew the geothermal resource. From Germany and Turkey to Kenya As highlighted in the most recent REN 21 report, Turkey and Indonesia remained in the lead for new geothermal installations in 2019, followed closely by Kenya. Other countries that added new geothermal power plants in 2019 (or added capacity at existing facilities) were Costa Rica, Japan, Mexico, the United States and Germany. The top 10 countries with the largest stock of geothermal power capacity at the end of 2019 were the United States, Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey, New Zealand, Mexico, Kenya, Italy, Iceland and Japan. Several amongst them see geothermal electrical energy as one of the ways to meet their renewable energies target, in an attempt to align with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. For instance, the Indonesian government’s target for 23% renewables in the energy mix by 2025 assumes an installed geothermal power capacity of 7 GW (7% of the energy mix). Marit Brommer is the Executive Director of the International Geothermal Association (IGA). In an interview she gave to REN 21, she explains that the geothermal industry has a lot in common with the fossil fuel extraction business: the technologies used for extracting energy are similar, even if fossil fuel is extremely polluting and not renewable. As the price of oil has come down to historically low levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no longer covering the costs of drilling, etc…In her mind, it is an opportunity that oil companies, which are already investing in renewable energies, should be taking: use the technology they know and switch to producing clean and renewable geothermal energy. “The overlap between geothermal and oil and gas is in exploring, drilling and production. With this comes expert understanding of the earth’s sub-surface. It takes expert knowledge to find the right spots to drill, how to drill, what equipment is needed, and how to use it. During the current crisis, many skilled workers in oil and gas drilling companies are on standby. These workers could be re-deployed to the geothermal sector,” she argues. IEC expertise makes the difference For the geothermal industry to continue expanding everywhere around the world, the technology used must meet proper safety and performance benchmarks. IEC International Standards ensure that systems and devices employed are tested and meet the appropriate standards of quality and efficiency. IEC Technical Committee 5 develops specifications and standards for the rating and testing of steam turbines. In 2020, it released the second edition of a key standard specifying the requirements for steam turbines: IEC 60045–1, which now includes automation safety specifications. The standard can be used for geothermal steam turbines but also for turbines employed in concentrated solar power plants, another form of renewable energy.

https://medium.com/e-tech/is-geothermal-energy-everything-that-it-is-cracked-up-to-be-b1876b2c4181

[]

2020-08-14 14:21:24.852000+00:00

['Environment', 'Renewable Energy', 'Safety', 'Geothermal Power', 'Sustainability']

Title geothermal energy everything cracked beContent principle geothermal energy simple hot water steam deep earth’s crust used drive turbine produce harmful polluting gas potential become one main source renewable energy 21st century natural heat energy produced earth called geothermal heat energy source geothermal energy continuous heat flux flowing interior earth towards surface Geothermal power plant pipe hot water steam well sometimes reach deep reservoir underground thermal energy converted electricity using different technology Dry steam power plant extract hot steam reservoir earth steam activates turbine generate electricity Geothermal flash steam power plant use water temperature least 182°C convert steam drive generator turbine steam cool condenses water injected back ground used Geothermal binary cycle power plant use water temperature low 57°C thermal energy used heat fluid turn steam low temperature steam pushed turbine generate electricity water never touch fluid reinjected well heat closing cycle Pros con geothermal resource earth vast clean plentiful Unlike renewable energy resource geothermal energy available throughout year inherent storage capability independent weather condition storage capability make ideal stabilizing energy compensate fluctuating nature form renewable energy originating sun wind Underground thermal energy storage UTES system store energy pumping heat underground space Thermal energy stored boreholes aquifer cavern pit storage medium water also molten salt soil rock Boreholes manmade vertical heat exchanger work transfer heat energy carrier ground layer Cost one drawback geothermal energy plant expensive install generally limited location combination heat permeability earth flow make extraction economical electricity generation Geothermal energy resource differ one geographic location another depending depth temperature pressure abundance ground water underground chemical composition Geothermal energy resource typically vary temperature 50 350°C high temperature geothermal resource 200°C generally found volcanic region island chain medium temperature 150 200°C low temperature geothermal resource 150°C exist continental region fairly widespread Low temperature resource used directly heating higher temperature one used conversion electricity Another issue relative abundance greenhouse gas GHGs surface earth released atmosphere geothermal activity However since geothermal power plant burn fuel generate electricity level air pollutant emit low compared fossil fuel according International Energy Agency IEA Geothermal power plant emit 97 le acid raincausing sulfur compound 99 le carbon dioxide fossil fuel power plant similar size geothermal power plant use scrubber remove hydrogen sulfide naturally found geothermal reservoir inject geothermal steam water use back earth recycling help renew geothermal resource Germany Turkey Kenya highlighted recent REN 21 report Turkey Indonesia remained lead new geothermal installation 2019 followed closely Kenya country added new geothermal power plant 2019 added capacity existing facility Costa Rica Japan Mexico United States Germany top 10 country largest stock geothermal power capacity end 2019 United States Indonesia Philippines Turkey New Zealand Mexico Kenya Italy Iceland Japan Several amongst see geothermal electrical energy one way meet renewable energy target attempt align Paris Agreement Climate Change instance Indonesian government’s target 23 renewables energy mix 2025 assumes installed geothermal power capacity 7 GW 7 energy mix Marit Brommer Executive Director International Geothermal Association IGA interview gave REN 21 explains geothermal industry lot common fossil fuel extraction business technology used extracting energy similar even fossil fuel extremely polluting renewable price oil come historically low level COVID19 pandemic longer covering cost drilling etc…In mind opportunity oil company already investing renewable energy taking use technology know switch producing clean renewable geothermal energy “The overlap geothermal oil gas exploring drilling production come expert understanding earth’s subsurface take expert knowledge find right spot drill drill equipment needed use current crisis many skilled worker oil gas drilling company standby worker could redeployed geothermal sector” argues IEC expertise make difference geothermal industry continue expanding everywhere around world technology used must meet proper safety performance benchmark IEC International Standards ensure system device employed tested meet appropriate standard quality efficiency IEC Technical Committee 5 develops specification standard rating testing steam turbine 2020 released second edition key standard specifying requirement steam turbine IEC 60045–1 includes automation safety specification standard used geothermal steam turbine also turbine employed concentrated solar power plant another form renewable energyTags Environment Renewable Energy Safety Geothermal Power Sustainability

Does code need to be perfect?

Last month I had a conversation with the CEO of one of our clients. Their CTO and Head of Engineering asked us to help rework a part of their codebase. It had become impossible to add new functionality without breaking anything else and no one really knew how everything worked. While running stable and fast, this highly successful startup’s code is a big mess from a technical point of view. The CEO asked me why we need to make this effort since, from his perspective, there was no real issue, development just needed to be faster at delivering new features. In these cases I think there is a truth in both points of view. The engineers want to write perfect code using the latest techniques, make sure that the code is well documented so they can fully understand how everything works and that it has tests so they can easily update things later. Product owners on the other hand just want things to be done, fast and cheap, so they can ship new features or convince new clients. How can you make these conflicting views work together? Ignore the future, code for now Most product companies go through a few phases. Each of these phases require a different view on what “perfect” means. We could discuss long and hard about which phases exist, but for the sake of this article, I will just make the distinction between proof-of-concept code, MVP code and long-term code. Some examples of each to clarify. When fleshing out a new idea for a product, it doesn’t make sense to spend any time on writing code that is open for extension, fully tested and conforming to the latest coding standards. The goal is to make a proof of concept, for example by connecting a few APIs or trying out a new interface idea. It is very unlikely anyone will have to dive into this code again when the goal is achieved. When building a minimal viable product most people overestimate the need for good code. Every startup’s most important thing is to be out there with a nice looking, functional product. How it works under the hood doesn’t really matter. Until your MVP really gets traction you can run on shitty code or even do things manually to prove you have a product/market fit. Only once you nail it and the customers start flowing in, you should start caring about code, but up until then, you’re almost writing one-off code too. As soon as those hard earned customers start flowing in, you are most likely generating some revenue or have attracted outside money. Now is the right time to start thinking about clean, long-term code. This is the situation our client from the example in the introduction was in. Since your audience is most likely to grow a lot, you need to start considering performance, stability and availability a lot more. Your engineering team is also going to scale up. This will force you to implement coding standards, documentation standards and a bunch of other procedures and practices. You start to need perfect code. You can see in each of these examples a difference in the goal of the code and a difference in what “perfect” means in those situations. Perfect code does not exist Given these different phases a product can be in, a general definition of perfect code does not exist. We work for a wide variety of clients with an even wider variety of codebases. Some of those we have started, others originated from the client or another development agency. In some cases it is even a mix of our start, handed over to a client’s own development team for some time, but ending up with us again later on. This experience shows that each project is different, uses different technologies, has different coding styles or programming patterns, but also that most of these solutions may have been perfect at that time. Still, with these kinds of hand overs, engineers often complain about the work the other team did, it’s not perfect. In reality there is no such thing as the perfect way to do something. It might sounds strange, but programming is not an exact science. There are multiple ways to do things, which might all be valid. Dealing with non-perfect code There is however a very big difference between not perfect and bad. Think about the Pareto principle and Sufficient Design. Every programmer that is forced to work on a project with legacy code, an MVP or even an existing long-term product, will want to rewrite it. It puts them back in control and gives a feeling of security, working on something they understand instead of dealing with what they will most likely consider a big spaghetti with meatballs. Big rewrites from the ground up are however always a bad idea. You will lose a lot of business logic and knowledge while doing so. This is not necessary, things can be left untouched, and considered not perfect, but not bad either, if they match the following criteria (taken from this article): Does the code do what it is supposed to do? Is it correct, usable and efficient? Can it handle errors and bad data without crashing — or at least fail safely? Is it easy to debug? Is it easy and safe to change? The last one is probably the hardest one and the least likely. In those cases a developer can isolate parts of the code and make them abstract, then write a test to make sure it works like expected. If any changes are needed from then on, the tests allow to rewrite that specific part only, making it easier to debug and change code. When starting from scratch, extra care is needed. Of course any new project (or refactor of an existing part of a product) should be written properly: clean and readable code that follows some coding standard. The danger here is premature optimisation. Think about the current goal, not things like caching or overly complex database structures, avoid expensive technology or caring too much about performance. The less complex the code, the easier it is for new developers to get started. This is important in early stage startups, but also when working for clients; someone might need to take over the code one day.

https://medium.com/we-are-madewithlove/does-code-need-to-be-perfect-a53f36ad7163

['Andreas Creten']

2016-11-10 15:34:06.691000+00:00

['Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Agile', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup']

Title code need perfectContent Last month conversation CEO one client CTO Head Engineering asked u help rework part codebase become impossible add new functionality without breaking anything else one really knew everything worked running stable fast highly successful startup’s code big mess technical point view CEO asked need make effort since perspective real issue development needed faster delivering new feature case think truth point view engineer want write perfect code using latest technique make sure code well documented fully understand everything work test easily update thing later Product owner hand want thing done fast cheap ship new feature convince new client make conflicting view work together Ignore future code product company go phase phase require different view “perfect” mean could discus long hard phase exist sake article make distinction proofofconcept code MVP code longterm code example clarify fleshing new idea product doesn’t make sense spend time writing code open extension fully tested conforming latest coding standard goal make proof concept example connecting APIs trying new interface idea unlikely anyone dive code goal achieved building minimal viable product people overestimate need good code Every startup’s important thing nice looking functional product work hood doesn’t really matter MVP really get traction run shitty code even thing manually prove productmarket fit nail customer start flowing start caring code you’re almost writing oneoff code soon hard earned customer start flowing likely generating revenue attracted outside money right time start thinking clean longterm code situation client example introduction Since audience likely grow lot need start considering performance stability availability lot engineering team also going scale force implement coding standard documentation standard bunch procedure practice start need perfect code see example difference goal code difference “perfect” mean situation Perfect code exist Given different phase product general definition perfect code exist work wide variety client even wider variety codebases started others originated client another development agency case even mix start handed client’s development team time ending u later experience show project different us different technology different coding style programming pattern also solution may perfect time Still kind hand over engineer often complain work team it’s perfect reality thing perfect way something might sound strange programming exact science multiple way thing might valid Dealing nonperfect code however big difference perfect bad Think Pareto principle Sufficient Design Every programmer forced work project legacy code MVP even existing longterm product want rewrite put back control give feeling security working something understand instead dealing likely consider big spaghetti meatball Big rewrite ground however always bad idea lose lot business logic knowledge necessary thing left untouched considered perfect bad either match following criterion taken article code supposed correct usable efficient handle error bad data without crashing — least fail safely easy debug easy safe change last one probably hardest one least likely case developer isolate part code make abstract write test make sure work like expected change needed test allow rewrite specific part making easier debug change code starting scratch extra care needed course new project refactor existing part product written properly clean readable code follows coding standard danger premature optimisation Think current goal thing like caching overly complex database structure avoid expensive technology caring much performance le complex code easier new developer get started important early stage startup also working client someone might need take code one dayTags Software Engineering Software Development Agile Entrepreneurship Startup

Maintaining Your Streak is the Secret to Reaching Pretty Much Any Goal

My daughter, Ruby, hits up her three best friends in Reno every night on Snapchat before she goes to bed every night. They’re all on Pacific time, three hours earlier than we are here in Pennsylvania. They’re still doing their homework or maybe watching TV when she’s falling asleep. But she does…whatever fifteen year olds do on Snapchat. Sends them funny, filtered pictures. Makes jokes. Answers whatever they sent her last. She does it, even if she’s exhausted. Even if she’s been up all night with basketball and homework. Even if she’s sick. Even if she’s miserable for some reason. When her phone is out of commission, she scrambles to borrow mine or her dad’s. No matter what’s going on in her life, she’s touched all three of these friend via Snapchat every night since November 2018, when we moved. Because they have a streak and she doesn’t want to be the one to break it. Streaks are powerful motivators. Ruby wouldn’t really be less of a friend if she skipped sending a meme one night. She knows that. Her friends, who have known her since she was six years old, know that. Showing up every single day for each other, though, has kept them in touch with each other across 2500 miles for more than year. As I’m writing this post it’s 10:45 p.m. on a Wednesday night. I spent the day in Erie, ninety minutes from home, because I had a doctor’s appointment. I worked from a Panera. I had no time to write a blog post. But I made a commitment to a friend — we promised each other we’d write every day this week. And I’ve done it so far. I don’t want to be the one to break the streak. I wouldn’t be less of a writer if I skipped today and picked it up again tomorrow. My friend would forgive me. In fact, I’ve already whined to her and she’s already forgiven me. But I don’t want the blank space on my calendar. We’re Motivated by Gold Stars However metaphorical they may be. We want some proof we’re doing a good job. And we’ll work for it, if we’ve set ourselves up to get that proof. I’m writing this post at a quarter of eleven at night, because I want to feel like I’m keeping my commitment to myself. And because I want four days in a row of writing blog posts this week. And because I want to be able to report to my friend that I did it. That’s my gold star. But a literal star on my calendar helps. They’re not even gold. They’re just plain black ink. But they’re just as motivating as those little stickers were in kindergarten. I want to put one on my calendar today. And so here I am, writing. My three day streak . . . (photo: Author) What Will You Streak This Week? Pick a thing. Maybe it’s writing related. Maybe it’s exercise or going to bed on time or . . . really, it doesn’t matter. Just pick something. Likely it’ll be some kind of habit you either want to create (like me this week — I want to kickstart my habit of blogging every day) or break (maybe you want a streak of non-smoking days or something along those lines.) Stick a calendar on your wall where you’re going to see it often. And give yourself a star every day that you meet your goal. Aim for a two day streak first. That’s all, just two days. You can do just about anything twice in a row, right? Then aim for three days. Then four. Don’t think about forever. Or even the end of the week. Just two days. Then three. Then four. And when you hit a day like I did today — a day when it’s a quarter to eleven at night and you still haven’t earned your star — all you have to do is ask you’re self if you’ve got it in you to do your thing today. Not forever. Not all week. Just one more time. Today. What’s the minimum viable iteration of your task? Some days, you might just be able to squeak that out. The good news is, that counts. Give yourself a star. Streak maintained for one more day.

https://medium.com/the-write-brain/maintaining-your-streak-is-the-secret-to-reaching-pretty-much-any-goal-8368d165ad64

['Shaunta Grimes']

2020-02-20 04:19:52.325000+00:00

['Self', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

Title Maintaining Streak Secret Reaching Pretty Much GoalContent daughter Ruby hit three best friend Reno every night Snapchat go bed every night They’re Pacific time three hour earlier Pennsylvania They’re still homework maybe watching TV she’s falling asleep does…whatever fifteen year old Snapchat Sends funny filtered picture Makes joke Answers whatever sent last even she’s exhausted Even she’s night basketball homework Even she’s sick Even she’s miserable reason phone commission scramble borrow mine dad’s matter what’s going life she’s touched three friend via Snapchat every night since November 2018 moved streak doesn’t want one break Streaks powerful motivator Ruby wouldn’t really le friend skipped sending meme one night know friend known since six year old know Showing every single day though kept touch across 2500 mile year I’m writing post it’s 1045 pm Wednesday night spent day Erie ninety minute home doctor’s appointment worked Panera time write blog post made commitment friend — promised we’d write every day week I’ve done far don’t want one break streak wouldn’t le writer skipped today picked tomorrow friend would forgive fact I’ve already whined she’s already forgiven don’t want blank space calendar We’re Motivated Gold Stars However metaphorical may want proof we’re good job we’ll work we’ve set get proof I’m writing post quarter eleven night want feel like I’m keeping commitment want four day row writing blog post week want able report friend That’s gold star literal star calendar help They’re even gold They’re plain black ink they’re motivating little sticker kindergarten want put one calendar today writing three day streak photo Author Streak Week Pick thing Maybe it’s writing related Maybe it’s exercise going bed time really doesn’t matter pick something Likely it’ll kind habit either want create like week — want kickstart habit blogging every day break maybe want streak nonsmoking day something along line Stick calendar wall you’re going see often give star every day meet goal Aim two day streak first That’s two day anything twice row right aim three day four Don’t think forever even end week two day three four hit day like today — day it’s quarter eleven night still haven’t earned star — ask you’re self you’ve got thing today forever week one time Today What’s minimum viable iteration task day might able squeak good news count Give star Streak maintained one dayTags Self Productivity Creativity Life Lessons Writing

IBM Watson Discovery wins a finalist spot in Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation by Design Awards

IBM Watson Discovery wins a finalist spot in Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation by Design Awards This prestigious competition placed IBM Cloud & Data Platform alongside some of the most innovative design in our industry Our designers take on ambitious projects in order to solve complex problems. I see up close the talent, grit, and humility it takes to do that well. I’m excited to share that Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation by Design Awards honored Watson Discovery as a finalist in their user experience category. Innovation by Design embraces creative work at the intersection of design, business, and innovation. Several acclaimed designers, executives, and thought leaders sat on the jury this year to find and promote exceptional work in our industry. Entries are judged on the key ingredients of innovation: functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural impact, and business impact. We need innovative design more than ever, and the 2020 honorees have brought creativity, inventiveness, and humanity to address some of the world’s most pressing problems. — Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company Enterprise-scale findability Structure your data with ease IBM Watson Discovery is an AI search technology that retrieves specific answers to your questions while analyzing trends and relationships buried in enterprise data. Using cutting-edge natural language processing, allows employees to spend less time searching for information and more time acting on valuable insights. As IBM helps ushers its clients into the era of the cognitive enterprise, the Watson Discovery product team realized that data scientists and engineers can’t be the only ones who utilize AI. Shifting users meant shifting mindsets Learn more about how we help serve business users To further democratize the use of Watson Discovery, the product team shifted their mindset to center the business users in a user experience revamp. The needs, wants, and expectations of a business user acted as their guiding light the entire way. The US-based team visited clients in Japan in an effort to understand the needs of these business users, sitting side-by-side with them to see their current workflows firsthand. Through workshops, sponsor user feedback, and remote testing, they were able to piece together a clearer picture of “the business user” to see what Watson Discovery’s functionality could do for them. With a strong focus set in place, leadership trusted the team to carry out the strategy, while providing feedback through frequent meetings. To pull this massive effort off, they found ways to work with different squads from around the world. The end result brought a set of tools historically geared towards developers, data scientists, and AI engineers, right into the hands of the most underutilized user base: business users. To cater to their workflow, the out-of-box models retrieve pertinent information from the data and provide the user with a set of tools to customize their project. Business users can also react to changes and continuously iterate. This allows them to both meet their end goal and see small, valuable victories each step of the way. I’m so proud of this team for their excellent work — and excited that this competition’s prestigious jury gave them the recognition they deserve. Winning team Design lead: Kim Callery Design team: Adi Veerubholta, Farzana Sedillo, Mostyn Griffith, Becca Shuman, Jeremy Burton, Joanne Lo, Frances Kim, Nicole Black, Sam Pattnaik, Stephanie Brunner, and Zak Crapo

https://medium.com/design-ibm/ibm-watson-discovery-wins-a-finalist-spot-in-fast-companys-2020-innovation-by-design-awards-861e8a3408bf

['Arin Bhowmick']

2020-10-16 19:07:30.299000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Design', 'UX']

Title IBM Watson Discovery win finalist spot Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation Design AwardsContent IBM Watson Discovery win finalist spot Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation Design Awards prestigious competition placed IBM Cloud Data Platform alongside innovative design industry designer take ambitious project order solve complex problem see close talent grit humility take well I’m excited share Fast Company’s 2020 Innovation Design Awards honored Watson Discovery finalist user experience category Innovation Design embrace creative work intersection design business innovation Several acclaimed designer executive thought leader sat jury year find promote exceptional work industry Entries judged key ingredient innovation functionality originality beauty sustainability user insight cultural impact business impact need innovative design ever 2020 honoree brought creativity inventiveness humanity address world’s pressing problem — Stephanie Mehta editorinchief Fast Company Enterprisescale findability Structure data ease IBM Watson Discovery AI search technology retrieves specific answer question analyzing trend relationship buried enterprise data Using cuttingedge natural language processing allows employee spend le time searching information time acting valuable insight IBM help usher client era cognitive enterprise Watson Discovery product team realized data scientist engineer can’t one utilize AI Shifting user meant shifting mindset Learn help serve business user democratize use Watson Discovery product team shifted mindset center business user user experience revamp need want expectation business user acted guiding light entire way USbased team visited client Japan effort understand need business user sitting sidebyside see current workflow firsthand workshop sponsor user feedback remote testing able piece together clearer picture “the business user” see Watson Discovery’s functionality could strong focus set place leadership trusted team carry strategy providing feedback frequent meeting pull massive effort found way work different squad around world end result brought set tool historically geared towards developer data scientist AI engineer right hand underutilized user base business user cater workflow outofbox model retrieve pertinent information data provide user set tool customize project Business user also react change continuously iterate allows meet end goal see small valuable victory step way I’m proud team excellent work — excited competition’s prestigious jury gave recognition deserve Winning team Design lead Kim Callery Design team Adi Veerubholta Farzana Sedillo Mostyn Griffith Becca Shuman Jeremy Burton Joanne Lo Frances Kim Nicole Black Sam Pattnaik Stephanie Brunner Zak CrapoTags Machine Learning AI Artificial Intelligence Design UX

13 Games I Play to Continuously Crush My Writing Goals With Ease

13 Games I Play to Continuously Crush My Writing Goals With Ease Writing is hard, playing isn’t Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash Ugh. It happened again. Just before you slept yesterday, you were excited to wake up, brew your favorite coffee, and start writing a new article today. But today, you feel like sleeping. Writing doesn’t seem exciting anymore. It seems tedious. Not able to finish your writing goal today, worse, not even at least opening the doc to start writing, is sucking the energy out of you. You feel like you are procrastinating. You feel like you are missing something. You feel like you are a loser who doesn’t get things done. It just feels bad. You want to write, but you can’t. You are tense. You’re frustrated. You’re losing hope. But wait! This is actually a good thing — it’s a necessity for success. We can’t avoid it, nor skip it, and can’t even suppress it. It happens whenever it has to happen. I call this “The Writer’s Mind-Building Period.” This actually comes with a lot of benefits. A few are: You start to think more clearly when that period ends. Because you’re fresh, you’re fully energetic, and you’ve got a newer, better perspective now. You get more motivated to write and make up for your lost time. However, it comes with some drawbacks too: Laziness is addictive. You become addicted to that — not writing. You feel like giving up and you might, actually, give up even though you know that it’s a temporary period. The good news? That period will end whether you write or not. It just happens. So when that period comes, it’s better to write than to waste time, right? I play a few games and those help me get my writing tasks done really easily in those periods. It’s fun. Wanna try those? Cool. Let’s do it. Let’s make our writing journey fun. Remember, every writer is different. You have the choice to choose your own game (I’m a weird kind of writer, every game works for me in different scenarios.)

https://shajedulkarim.medium.com/13-games-i-play-to-continuously-crush-my-writing-goals-with-ease-bfd5528ba538

['Shajedul Karim']

2020-09-09 08:22:24.801000+00:00

['Writing Prompts', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Creativity', 'Writing Tips']

Title 13 Games Play Continuously Crush Writing Goals EaseContent 13 Games Play Continuously Crush Writing Goals Ease Writing hard playing isn’t Photo Erik Mclean Unsplash Ugh happened slept yesterday excited wake brew favorite coffee start writing new article today today feel like sleeping Writing doesn’t seem exciting anymore seems tedious able finish writing goal today worse even least opening doc start writing sucking energy feel like procrastinating feel like missing something feel like loser doesn’t get thing done feel bad want write can’t tense You’re frustrated You’re losing hope wait actually good thing — it’s necessity success can’t avoid skip can’t even suppress happens whenever happen call “The Writer’s MindBuilding Period” actually come lot benefit start think clearly period end you’re fresh you’re fully energetic you’ve got newer better perspective get motivated write make lost time However come drawback Laziness addictive become addicted — writing feel like giving might actually give even though know it’s temporary period good news period end whether write happens period come it’s better write waste time right play game help get writing task done really easily period It’s fun Wanna try Cool Let’s Let’s make writing journey fun Remember every writer different choice choose game I’m weird kind writer every game work different scenariosTags Writing Prompts Writing Marketing Creativity Writing Tips

Take Your Creativity to the Next Level

Take Your Creativity to the Next Level Learn the power of observation, imagination, and being present Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash What do you do when you feel like your creative well runs dry? Where do you turn to? Do you have the tools in place to help kick-start your creativity again? Learning to carefully observe the world around you, and to wield the power of your imagination — connecting dots, seeing patterns, linking ideas and more — while fully engaging in the moments around you can help you avoid that ugly feeling of coming up dry on ideas. More, it is a powerful way to reboot your creative energy and find new inspiration. Let’s dive in and take a closer look. Observation It sounds like a bullshit cliche, and maybe it’s been said enough to count as one, but the world we live in is absolutely overflowing with ideas. It takes a bit of practice, effort, and sometimes some sweat equity to see and appreciate these ideas, but the fact is, they’re all around us. Being able to pop the hood, take a closer look, tinker with the patterns and the rhythms of the world is our job as creatives. It’s also the starting place to discovering these ideas. Don’t just take note of the crooked tree with those sharp, angular branches clawing at the sky…tell me what kind of tree it is, what time of day, and most importantly, how do you feel seeing this? That’s the power of observation. Don’t just casually acknowledge the things that snag your attention, give them their due. Pay attention fully. Break down what you’re seeing, how it makes you feel, how it connects to other things you’ve seen, felt, and understood. Look for the details in the cracks. Try asking yourself: What’s the texture What color is it? What shade? How does it make me feel? What does it remind me of? If you had to describe this to someone who had never seen this before, how would you do that? Imagination But it’s not enough to just observe. You have to dig at what you’re seeing, feeling, experiencing too. You have to get at the “why” behind it, why did this thing capture your attention? What’s the connection? What’s the link? Use the power of your imagination to draw on other things you’ve seen, felt, and experienced that this reminds you of. Are there connections between these things? Is there a pattern, a series, some reason these repetitions are standing out to you? But also… Flip the script, what is this not at all like? What’s something this is starkly in contrast with that can help you describe it, sense it, experience it? What is it’s antithesis? And how does knowing it’s striking counterbalance help you see and experience this thing more closely? Engaging with the present moment And of course all of this requires you to be fully in the moment. But not just this moment, but also other moments where you’ve seen and experienced similar things (or their striking opposites). You have to ground yourself in these moments and become fully aware, fully connected, and fully immersed in the observation and its experience. Dig deeper, find the roots, draw everything you can from this. This is the beginning of powerful ideas that you’re getting at. Keep a journal You will need somewhere to record all of these observations and their connections, and one of the best places for this is a journal. It’s a great place to write what you’re seeing, experiencing, feeling, connecting with and more, and a great place to come back to and reflect on, to draw out those connections mentioned earlier. And remember, journals are more than their physical reality, at least it has been my experience anyway. A journal can feel like a trigger element, the scribblings in between its pages awakens that dreaming part of your mind and can stir old memories back to the surface. It’s a powerful powerful tool and a very effective way to spark creativity. Some things to write in your journal that will help you with creativity: What you saw, heard, felt and experienced Why you think it stood out to you What it reminded you of Connections, patterns, personal and universal symbols you sense in what you experienced Your emotional responses to it Wrapping things up If you want to be more creative, you have to go deeper than just scratching the surface when you watch the world around you. You have to observe, and I mean really observe. It has to become a part of your autopilot as much as your conscious effort. You and your creativity are partners in this effort, and you have to develop a keen sense of partnership — synchronicity — with that inner self. Trust me, your soul will stir, you’ll sense the goose-flesh crawling, and you’ll feel the chill when your creativity wants you to notice something. You just have to learn to be in tune, paying attention and ready to receive. Ultimately, if you want to be more creative, practice creativity. It sounds painfully simple and obvious, and in so many ways it can be, but it’s also a complex effort that will require your continued pursuit. But you can get there, and with time and learning the power of observation, imagination, and engagement with your present moments, you will.

https://medium.com/swlh/take-your-creativity-to-the-next-level-71c5f02a51a3

['Gregory D. Welch']

2020-01-03 11:13:20.511000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Writing', 'Inspiration', 'Creativity']

Title Take Creativity Next LevelContent Take Creativity Next Level Learn power observation imagination present Photo Kelly Sikkema Unsplash feel like creative well run dry turn tool place help kickstart creativity Learning carefully observe world around wield power imagination — connecting dot seeing pattern linking idea — fully engaging moment around help avoid ugly feeling coming dry idea powerful way reboot creative energy find new inspiration Let’s dive take closer look Observation sound like bullshit cliche maybe it’s said enough count one world live absolutely overflowing idea take bit practice effort sometimes sweat equity see appreciate idea fact they’re around u able pop hood take closer look tinker pattern rhythm world job creatives It’s also starting place discovering idea Don’t take note crooked tree sharp angular branch clawing sky…tell kind tree time day importantly feel seeing That’s power observation Don’t casually acknowledge thing snag attention give due Pay attention fully Break you’re seeing make feel connects thing you’ve seen felt understood Look detail crack Try asking What’s texture color shade make feel remind describe someone never seen would Imagination it’s enough observe dig you’re seeing feeling experiencing get “why” behind thing capture attention What’s connection What’s link Use power imagination draw thing you’ve seen felt experienced reminds connection thing pattern series reason repetition standing also… Flip script like What’s something starkly contrast help describe sense experience it’s antithesis knowing it’s striking counterbalance help see experience thing closely Engaging present moment course requires fully moment moment also moment you’ve seen experienced similar thing striking opposite ground moment become fully aware fully connected fully immersed observation experience Dig deeper find root draw everything beginning powerful idea you’re getting Keep journal need somewhere record observation connection one best place journal It’s great place write you’re seeing experiencing feeling connecting great place come back reflect draw connection mentioned earlier remember journal physical reality least experience anyway journal feel like trigger element scribblings page awakens dreaming part mind stir old memory back surface It’s powerful powerful tool effective way spark creativity thing write journal help creativity saw heard felt experienced think stood reminded Connections pattern personal universal symbol sense experienced emotional response Wrapping thing want creative go deeper scratching surface watch world around observe mean really observe become part autopilot much conscious effort creativity partner effort develop keen sense partnership — synchronicity — inner self Trust soul stir you’ll sense gooseflesh crawling you’ll feel chill creativity want notice something learn tune paying attention ready receive Ultimately want creative practice creativity sound painfully simple obvious many way it’s also complex effort require continued pursuit get time learning power observation imagination engagement present moment willTags Self Improvement Productivity Writing Inspiration Creativity

This Is How To Plan A Day.

I am going out of town with my family tomorrow. I have a lot to get done before we step on the plane. I woke up with my mind spinning on repeat: work, write, errands, kids, meals, cleaning, dog. All the things I want or need to do today. Over and over. I knew I was overwhelmed by this day. So I planned it out. And now I know, I have 1 1/2 hours to write this morning. Plus a cushion later tonight to re-read and edit. And I know exactly when I am doing all my other tasks. And which nagging little activities don’t really need to get done today. The best part of planning the day is that I am not wasting time with anxiety about when I will get it all done. Because I already know. Here is how I do it: Make a List I wrote down all the crazy things that were in my head. It actually wasn’t as much as I thought. When you think of the same things over and over, it feels like the tornado from the Wizard of Oz. When you write them down on a piece of paper, you realize the volume of your to-do’s amounts to a strong breeze. Here’s the kicker: the list only took me a minute or two. I did come back to it a few minutes later to make sure I didn’t miss anything. But making the list takes no time at all. Because it was right on the tip of my brain already. Decide How Long Each Thing Takes Some things on your list will take 15 minutes or less. I group those things together. In my case, its things like putting the mail on hold while we are out of town. Little odds and ends. I will group those things together. Then there are longer things. Writing. Finishing up the last pieces of a consulting project. Those each need at least an hour if not several hours. Because I only have one work project left, I know that I can spend the whole “work” time slot on the one thing, which helps. So, I wrote down on my list how long each thing will take. And grouped together the shorter items that I can do in the same location. Again, this step only took me a few minutes. Determine The Open Time Slots of The Day Right now, I have a few hours that are open. At 4p, I have to pick my kids up from camp. We usually hang out after camp or school and then have dinner between 5:30–6p. My kids have been going to bed pretty late, around 9p. But after dinner my husband usually does something with them, like throw a baseball. So, I know that 4–7p will not be a good time for tasks, because I will be with my family. But after 7p, I have some “wiggle room” for things that are not quite done. That means I need to get the bulk of my activities done between now and 3:45p (when I need to leave the house for camp pickup). That still gives me 6 hours to complete everything. Six hours sounds like a lot of time. Once again, this step only took me a few minutes. Schedule Each Activity Finally, I figure out the best time slot for each activity. For me, whatever feels most urgent or necessary, I schedule it first. Today, its all the little odds and ends that I need to do. Most of them involve computer tasks and phone calls. So, I will do those first. All together, they should take about an hour. So, I’ll plan for 1 hour and 15 minutes, just in case. You never know how long I might be on hold. Next, I want to finish that work project. It isn’t actually due until next week, but I know I don’t want to work on it on vacation. So, I will finish it today and not have to worry about it. It should take about 2 hours. I will do that next. I plan 20 minutes for lunch. After that, I will do some writing. I want to be “in the moment” when on vacation with my family, so I am unsure about my writing frequency next week. I want to finish a piece today. I will spend 1.5 hours working on my writing. And then if needed, re-read, revise, and edit after 7p this evening. With the goal of publishing tonight or tomorrow. For writing, I also need to set a timer. Writing puts me in a deep state of “flow”, where I am engaged and lose track of time. So, I set a timer on my phone and go ahead and write. I don’t have to keep looking at the clock. I know that my phone will tell me when I need to move to the next task. Finally, its all the errands that take me out of the house. I have about an hour left for those, and can pick my my kids on the way home from them. As I put the schedule together, I realize that an hour might not be enough time to complete all the errands. So I plan to first do the errands that I should do without my kids. For errands like a trip to Target, I can bring my kids along after I pick them up. We should still be home by 5p, plenty of time for dinner. Which reminds me, there is no time for me today to cook dinner. So I need to plan to either pick something up or find a decent order-in option. But, I know that is the case, and dinner won’t surprise me at the end of the day. This part took me a little longer. Its a little bit like putting a puzzle together. But it was still less than 15 minutes. Take a Deep Breath. Then Execute. And there is my day. From beginning to end, the entire day took about 20 minutes to schedule. And now I don’t have to spend time worrying about it. I know exactly what I can and can’t do, and when. I know that there is time to get it all done. And anything that didn’t make this list can wait until after vacation. Most important, this day no longer overwhelms me. My mind is not racing. I can focus on execution.

https://medium.com/swlh/this-is-how-to-plan-a-day-94dc24135e1f

['Deb Knobelman']

2018-08-03 19:16:09.019000+00:00

['Mental Health', 'Productivity', 'Time Management', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Self Improvement']

Title Plan DayContent going town family tomorrow lot get done step plane woke mind spinning repeat work write errand kid meal cleaning dog thing want need today knew overwhelmed day planned know 1 12 hour write morning Plus cushion later tonight reread edit know exactly task nagging little activity don’t really need get done today best part planning day wasting time anxiety get done already know Make List wrote crazy thing head actually wasn’t much thought think thing feel like tornado Wizard Oz write piece paper realize volume todo’s amount strong breeze Here’s kicker list took minute two come back minute later make sure didn’t miss anything making list take time right tip brain already Decide Long Thing Takes thing list take 15 minute le group thing together case thing like putting mail hold town Little odds end group thing together longer thing Writing Finishing last piece consulting project need least hour several hour one work project left know spend whole “work” time slot one thing help wrote list long thing take grouped together shorter item location step took minute Determine Open Time Slots Day Right hour open 4p pick kid camp usually hang camp school dinner 530–6p kid going bed pretty late around 9p dinner husband usually something like throw baseball know 4–7p good time task family 7p “wiggle room” thing quite done mean need get bulk activity done 345p need leave house camp pickup still give 6 hour complete everything Six hour sound like lot time step took minute Schedule Activity Finally figure best time slot activity whatever feel urgent necessary schedule first Today little odds end need involve computer task phone call first together take hour I’ll plan 1 hour 15 minute case never know long might hold Next want finish work project isn’t actually due next week know don’t want work vacation finish today worry take 2 hour next plan 20 minute lunch writing want “in moment” vacation family unsure writing frequency next week want finish piece today spend 15 hour working writing needed reread revise edit 7p evening goal publishing tonight tomorrow writing also need set timer Writing put deep state “flow” engaged lose track time set timer phone go ahead write don’t keep looking clock know phone tell need move next task Finally errand take house hour left pick kid way home put schedule together realize hour might enough time complete errand plan first errand without kid errand like trip Target bring kid along pick still home 5p plenty time dinner reminds time today cook dinner need plan either pick something find decent orderin option know case dinner won’t surprise end day part took little longer little bit like putting puzzle together still le 15 minute Take Deep Breath Execute day beginning end entire day took 20 minute schedule don’t spend time worrying know exactly can’t know time get done anything didn’t make list wait vacation important day longer overwhelms mind racing focus executionTags Mental Health Productivity Time Management Entrepreneurship Self Improvement

Our FAQs

Writers What happens when I submit my article to TDS? Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your article to our team! We will review it as soon as we can. If we believe that your article is excellent and ready to go, this is how you will be able to add your post to our publication. If “Towards Data Science” shows up after you click on “Add to publication” in the dropdown menu at the top of the page, that means we have added you as an author and are waiting for you to submit your article. Once you have submitted your article, it will be reviewed by an editor before a final decision is made. If we think that your article is interesting but needs to be improved, someone from our team will provide you with feedback directly on your submitted Medium article. Please note that we only respond to articles that were properly submitted using either our form or via an email that exactly follows the instructions listed here. We don’t respond to pitches or questions already answered in our FAQs or on our Contribute page. We also ignore articles that don’t comply with our rules. If you haven’t heard from us within the next five working days, please carefully check the article you submitted to our team. See if you can now submit it directly to TDS and look for any private notes from us that you may have missed. You should also make sure to check your spam folder. If you just can’t reach us, the best thing for you to do is submit your article to another publication. Although we’d love to, we can’t provide customized feedback to everyone because we simply receive too many submissions. You can learn more about our decision here and submit another post in a month.

https://medium.com/p/462571b65b35#2a0e

['Tds Editors']

2020-11-19 01:16:58.476000+00:00

['Writers’ Guide', 'Tds Team', 'Writers Guide']

Title FAQsContent Writers happens submit article TDS Thank much taking time submit article team review soon believe article excellent ready go able add post publication “Towards Data Science” show click “Add publication” dropdown menu top page mean added author waiting submit article submitted article reviewed editor final decision made think article interesting need improved someone team provide feedback directly submitted Medium article Please note respond article properly submitted using either form via email exactly follows instruction listed don’t respond pitch question already answered FAQs Contribute page also ignore article don’t comply rule haven’t heard u within next five working day please carefully check article submitted team See submit directly TDS look private note u may missed also make sure check spam folder can’t reach u best thing submit article another publication Although we’d love can’t provide customized feedback everyone simply receive many submission learn decision submit another post monthTags Writers’ Guide Tds Team Writers Guide

Depth-First Search vs. Breadth-First Search in Python

Let’s begin with tree traversal first. What does it even mean to traverse a tree? Since trees are a type of graph, tree traversal or tree search is a type of graph traversal. However, traversing through a tree is a little different from the more broad process of traversing through a graph. Traversing a tree is usually known as checking (visiting) or updating each node in the tree exactly once, without repeating any node. Because all nodes are connected via edges (links), we always start from the root (head) node. That is, we cannot randomly access a node in a tree. There are three ways which we use to traverse a tree: Preorder traversal Inorder traversal Postorder traversal Preorder traversal In preorder traversal, we are reading the data at the node first, then moving on to the left subtree, and then to the right subtree. As such, the nodes that we visit (and as we print out their data), follow that pattern: first we print out the root node’s data, then the data from the left subtree, and then the data from the right subtree. Algorithm: Until all nodes are traversed Step 1 − Visit the root node Step 2 − Recursively traverse left subtree Step 3 − Recursively traverse the right subtree. We start from the root node, and following preorder traversal, we first visit node one itself and then move to its left subtree. The left subtree is also a traversed preorder. The process goes on until all the nodes are visited. The output of the preorder traversal of this tree will be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Inorder traversal In inorder traversal, we are following the path down to the leftmost leaf, and then making our way back to the root node, before following the path down to the rightmost leaf. Algorithm Until all nodes are traversed Step 1 − Recursively traverse left subtree Step 2 − Visit the root node Step 3 − Recursively traverse the right subtree. In-order Traversal We start from the root node 4, and following inorder traversal, we move to its left subtree. The left subtree is also traversed inorder. The process goes on until all the nodes are visited. Postorder traversal Finally, in postorder traversal, we visit the left node reference first, then the right node, and then, if none exists, we read the data of the node we are currently on. We end up reading the root node at the end of the traversal (after visiting all the nodes in the left subtree and the right subtree). Algorithm Until all nodes are traversed Step 1 − Recursively traverse left subtree. Step 2 − Recursively traverse the right subtree. Step 3 − Visit the root node. Postorder Traversal We start from the root node 7, and following postorder traversal, we first visit the left subtree. The left subtree is also traversed postorder. The process goes on until all the nodes are visited. We have learned that the order of the node in which we visit is essential. Based on the order traversal, we classify the different traversal algorithms. There are two main techniques that we can lean on to traverse and visit each node in the tree only once: we can go wide or go deep. The more common terms to describe these two options are breadth-first search and depth-first search, and they are probably exactly what we would expect them to be. Depth-First Search (DFS) In a DFS, we always explore the deepest node; that is, we go one path as deep as possible, and if we hit the dead end, we back up and try a different path until we reach the end. Note: The DFS uses a stack to remember where it should go when it reaches a dead end. In DFS, we have to traverse a whole branch of the tree and traverse the adjacent nodes. So for keep tracking on the current node, it requires last in first out approach which can be implemented by the stack, after it reaches the depth of a node then all the nodes will be popped out of the stack. Next, it searches for adjacent nodes which are not visited yet. If it was implemented with the queue, which is first in first out approach, we could not reach the depth before that it would dequeue the current node. The depth-first search is like walking through a corn maze. You explore one path, hit a dead end, and go back and try a different one. We use a simple binary tree here to illustrate that idea. Starting from the source node A, we keep moving to the adjacent nodes A to B to D, where we reach the farthest level. Then we backtrack to the previous node B and pick an adjacent node. Once again, we probe till the most distant level where we hit the desired node E. Let’s break down those steps. We first initialize the stack and visited array. Push node A (root node) to the stack We mark node A as visited and explore any unvisited adjacent node from A. We have two nodes, and we can pick any of them. For this example, we shall take the node in alphabetical order. We mark B as visited and explore any unvisited adjacent node from B. Both D and E are adjacent to B, we push them into the stack. We visit D and mark it as visited. Here D does not have any unvisited adjacent node. So, no node is pushed into the stack. We check the stack top for return to the previous node — E and check if it has any unvisited nodes. As E does not have any unvisited adjacent node, we keep popping the stack until we find a node with an unvisited adjacent node. In this case, there’s none, and we keep popping until the stack is empty. Advantages: DFS on a binary tree generally requires less memory than breadth-first. DFS can be easily implemented with recursion. Disadvantages: DFS doesn’t necessarily find the shortest path to a node, while the BFS does. DFS in Python We are representing the tree in code using an adjacency list via Python Dictionary. Each vertex has a list of its adjacent nodes stored. graph = { 'A' : ['B','C'], 'B' : ['D', 'E'], 'C' : [], 'D' : [], 'E' : [] } Next, we set visited = set() to keep track of visited nodes. Given the adjacency list and a starting node A, we can find all the nodes in the tree using the following recursive depth-first search function in Python. dfs function follows the algorithm: 1. We first check if the current node is unvisited — if yes, it is appended in the visited set. 2. Then for each neighbor of the current node, the dfs function is invoked again. 3. The base case is invoked when all the nodes are visited. The function then returns. def dfs(visited, graph, node): if node not in visited: print (node) visited.add(node) for neighbor in graph[node]: dfs(visited, graph, neighbor) Breadth-First Search In BFS, we search through all the nodes in the tree by casting a wide net, that is, we traverse through one entire level of children nodes first, before moving on to traverse through the grandchildren nodes. And we traverse through an entire level of grandchildren nodes before going on to traverse through great-grandchildren nodes. BFS explores the closest nodes first and then moves outwards away from the source. Given this, we want to use a data structure that, when queried, gives us the oldest element, based on the order they were inserted. A queue is what we need in this case since it is first-in-first-out(FIFO). Let’s see if queues can help us out with our BFS implementation. We use a simple binary tree here to illustrate how the algorithm works. Starting from the source node A, we keep exploring down the branches in an ordered fashion, that is, from A to B to C where level completes. Then we go to the next level and explore D and E. We first initialize the queue and a visited array. We start with visiting A (root node). We mark A as visited and explore unvisited adjacent nodes from A. In this example, we have two nodes, and we can pick any of them. We shall take the node in alphabetical order and enqueue them into the queue. Next, we mark B as visited and enqueue D and E, which are unvisited adjacent node from B, into the queue. Now, C is left with no unvisited adjacent nodes. We mark D as visited and dequeue it. We keep on dequeuing to get all unvisited nodes. When the queue gets emptied, the program is over. Advantages: BFS is simple to implement. BFS can be applied to any search problem. BFS does not suffer from any potential infinite loop problem compared to DFS. The infinite loop problem may cause the computer to crash, whereas DFS goes deep down searching. BFS will always find the shortest path if the weight on the links are uniform. So BFS is complete and optimal. Disadvantages: As discussed, memory utilization is poor in BFS, so we can say that BFS needs more memory than DFS. BFS is a ‘blind’ search; that is, the search space is enormous. The search performance will be weak compared to other heuristic searches. BFS in Python We are representing the tree in code using an adjacency list via Python Dictionary. Each vertex has a list of its adjacent nodes stored. graph = { 'A' : ['B','C'], 'B' : ['D', 'E'], 'C' : [], 'D' : [], 'E' : [] } Next, we set visited = [] to keep track of visited nodes. we set queue = [] to keep track of nodes currently in the queue Given the adjacency list and a starting node A, we can find all the nodes in the tree using the following recursive breadth-first search function in Python. bfs function follows the algorithm: 1. We first check and append the starting node to the visited list and the queue. 2. Then, while the queue contains elements, it keeps taking out nodes from the queue, appends the neighbors of that node to the queue if they are unvisited, and marks them as visited. 3. We continue until the queue is empty. def bfs(visited, graph, node): visited.append(node) queue.append(node) while queue: s = queue.pop(0) print (s, end = " ") for neighbor in graph[s]: if neighbor not in visited: visited.append(neighbor) queue.append(neighbor) The code in this note is available on Github. BFS vs. DFS So far, we understand the differences between DFS and BFS. It is interesting to know when it’s more practical to use one over the other? At the early stage of taking an algorithm class, I faced this problem as well. Hopefully, this answer could explain things well. If we know a solution is not far from the root of the tree, BFS might be better. If the tree is very deep and solutions are rare, DFS might take an extremely long time, but BFS could be faster. If the tree is very wide, a BFS might need too much memory to be completely impractical. If solutions are frequent but located deep in the tree, BFS could be impractical. In general, usually, we would want to use: BFS — when we want to find the shortest path from a particular source node to a specific destination. (Or more generally, the smallest number of steps to reach the end state from a given initial state.) DFS — when we want to exhaust all possibilities and check which one is the best/count the number of all possible ways. either BFS or DFS — when we just want to check connectedness between two nodes on a given graph. (Or more generally, whether we could reach a given state to another.) Quick summary That’s it! In this note, we learned all the theories and understand the two popular search algorithms — DFS, BFS down to the core. We also know how to implement them in Python. It’s time to see the information transfer from the note to the real world; you should start your first coding assignment immediately. It’s way more exciting than my note. Never stop learning! Resource: The searching algorithm seems to come up quite often in coding interviews, and it can be hard to wrap your head around it at first. Once you learn the fundamentals, you must practice coding skills if you are eager to learn more about how the algorithm works and the different search strategies, you can get started with excellent the links below.

https://medium.com/nothingaholic/depth-first-search-vs-breadth-first-search-in-python-81521caa8f44

['Xuankhanh Nguyen']

2020-08-06 15:58:44.993000+00:00

['Programming', 'Algorithms', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python']

Title DepthFirst Search v BreadthFirst Search PythonContent Let’s begin tree traversal first even mean traverse tree Since tree type graph tree traversal tree search type graph traversal However traversing tree little different broad process traversing graph Traversing tree usually known checking visiting updating node tree exactly without repeating node node connected via edge link always start root head node cannot randomly access node tree three way use traverse tree Preorder traversal Inorder traversal Postorder traversal Preorder traversal preorder traversal reading data node first moving left subtree right subtree node visit print data follow pattern first print root node’s data data left subtree data right subtree Algorithm node traversed Step 1 − Visit root node Step 2 − Recursively traverse left subtree Step 3 − Recursively traverse right subtree start root node following preorder traversal first visit node one move left subtree left subtree also traversed preorder process go node visited output preorder traversal tree 1234567 Inorder traversal inorder traversal following path leftmost leaf making way back root node following path rightmost leaf Algorithm node traversed Step 1 − Recursively traverse left subtree Step 2 − Visit root node Step 3 − Recursively traverse right subtree Inorder Traversal start root node 4 following inorder traversal move left subtree left subtree also traversed inorder process go node visited Postorder traversal Finally postorder traversal visit left node reference first right node none exists read data node currently end reading root node end traversal visiting node left subtree right subtree Algorithm node traversed Step 1 − Recursively traverse left subtree Step 2 − Recursively traverse right subtree Step 3 − Visit root node Postorder Traversal start root node 7 following postorder traversal first visit left subtree left subtree also traversed postorder process go node visited learned order node visit essential Based order traversal classify different traversal algorithm two main technique lean traverse visit node tree go wide go deep common term describe two option breadthfirst search depthfirst search probably exactly would expect DepthFirst Search DFS DFS always explore deepest node go one path deep possible hit dead end back try different path reach end Note DFS us stack remember go reach dead end DFS traverse whole branch tree traverse adjacent node keep tracking current node requires last first approach implemented stack reach depth node node popped stack Next search adjacent node visited yet implemented queue first first approach could reach depth would dequeue current node depthfirst search like walking corn maze explore one path hit dead end go back try different one use simple binary tree illustrate idea Starting source node keep moving adjacent node B reach farthest level backtrack previous node B pick adjacent node probe till distant level hit desired node E Let’s break step first initialize stack visited array Push node root node stack mark node visited explore unvisited adjacent node two node pick example shall take node alphabetical order mark B visited explore unvisited adjacent node B E adjacent B push stack visit mark visited unvisited adjacent node node pushed stack check stack top return previous node — E check unvisited node E unvisited adjacent node keep popping stack find node unvisited adjacent node case there’s none keep popping stack empty Advantages DFS binary tree generally requires le memory breadthfirst DFS easily implemented recursion Disadvantages DFS doesn’t necessarily find shortest path node BFS DFS Python representing tree code using adjacency list via Python Dictionary vertex list adjacent node stored graph BC B E C E Next set visited set keep track visited node Given adjacency list starting node find node tree using following recursive depthfirst search function Python dfs function follows algorithm 1 first check current node unvisited — yes appended visited set 2 neighbor current node dfs function invoked 3 base case invoked node visited function return def dfsvisited graph node node visited print node visitedaddnode neighbor graphnode dfsvisited graph neighbor BreadthFirst Search BFS search node tree casting wide net traverse one entire level child node first moving traverse grandchild node traverse entire level grandchild node going traverse greatgrandchildren node BFS explores closest node first move outwards away source Given want use data structure queried give u oldest element based order inserted queue need case since firstinfirstoutFIFO Let’s see queue help u BFS implementation use simple binary tree illustrate algorithm work Starting source node keep exploring branch ordered fashion B C level completes go next level explore E first initialize queue visited array start visiting root node mark visited explore unvisited adjacent node example two node pick shall take node alphabetical order enqueue queue Next mark B visited enqueue E unvisited adjacent node B queue C left unvisited adjacent node mark visited dequeue keep dequeuing get unvisited node queue get emptied program Advantages BFS simple implement BFS applied search problem BFS suffer potential infinite loop problem compared DFS infinite loop problem may cause computer crash whereas DFS go deep searching BFS always find shortest path weight link uniform BFS complete optimal Disadvantages discussed memory utilization poor BFS say BFS need memory DFS BFS ‘blind’ search search space enormous search performance weak compared heuristic search BFS Python representing tree code using adjacency list via Python Dictionary vertex list adjacent node stored graph BC B E C E Next set visited keep track visited node set queue keep track node currently queue Given adjacency list starting node find node tree using following recursive breadthfirst search function Python bfs function follows algorithm 1 first check append starting node visited list queue 2 queue contains element keep taking node queue appends neighbor node queue unvisited mark visited 3 continue queue empty def bfsvisited graph node visitedappendnode queueappendnode queue queuepop0 print end neighbor graph neighbor visited visitedappendneighbor queueappendneighbor code note available Github BFS v DFS far understand difference DFS BFS interesting know it’s practical use one early stage taking algorithm class faced problem well Hopefully answer could explain thing well know solution far root tree BFS might better tree deep solution rare DFS might take extremely long time BFS could faster tree wide BFS might need much memory completely impractical solution frequent located deep tree BFS could impractical general usually would want use BFS — want find shortest path particular source node specific destination generally smallest number step reach end state given initial state DFS — want exhaust possibility check one bestcount number possible way either BFS DFS — want check connectedness two node given graph generally whether could reach given state another Quick summary That’s note learned theory understand two popular search algorithm — DFS BFS core also know implement Python It’s time see information transfer note real world start first coding assignment immediately It’s way exciting note Never stop learning Resource searching algorithm seems come quite often coding interview hard wrap head around first learn fundamental must practice coding skill eager learn algorithm work different search strategy get started excellent link belowTags Programming Algorithms Data Science Artificial Intelligence Python

Noam Chomsky Has Weighed In On A.I. Where Do You stand?

Noam Chomsky on Artificial Intelligence| Towards AI STRINGER Mexico / Reuters There is a core A.I. question. Can we create cognition? Is there a path by which our machines can possess any true understanding? Our best A.I. efforts are still stored mannikins. They create a lifelike illusion but there is no life behind the blank stares. We have technology that looks like the thought but in actuality, is not. Are we on the right path? If not, what is the path? Last May, Noam Chomsky spoke on this issue at an MIT symposium. It is highly critical of the current directions in A.I. It’s a terrific read in The Atlantic. In fairness, here is a rebuttal by Google’s director of research, Peter Norvig. There are two basic schools of thought on A.I. and the road to cognition. Statistical Big Data — This approach makes use of some intense mathematics to sift through large amounts of data to recognize complex patterns. It can look at a picture and say that it is more likely to be a cat than a goldfish. Combined with cloud infrastructures and lots of computers, you get Siri and Facebook can recognize your friends in that beach photo. This is a simplified summary of how this works. Bio-Based — This approach says that all earth-based intelligence, from worm to man, has certain organizational and structural features that can be understood and machine implemented. It can only be understood by looking at how earth brains are wired. This understanding will lead to a mechanical recreation of cognition. Let’s use biology and neuroscience to crack this code. The contrasting arguments look something like this. Statistical Big Data Our AI is inspired and works much like nature. It is a parallel set of nodes (neurons) arranged in a network each processing small aspects of the larger whole. True, it is not a model for cognition yet, but it’s early. Give the technology time to grow and mature. It provides the best path for the emergent behavior of cognition. We are doing things that seemed impossible a decade ago. Watch what happens in the next decade. Bio-Based Current commercial neural net technology does not, in anyway model cognition. It does not, cannot and will not. While inspired by natural neural networks, they work nothing like brains (including ours) that are found in nature. The path to cognition lay in structuring these networks to work more closely like real brains. There is a chasm that won’t be crossed. We are being fooled by mathematical trickery and that Google server that is recognizing pictures of kittens has no idea what a kitten is, and never will. Nature provides excellent, fully functional models for cognition. Let’s get back to nature, do some more science and figure this out. Where do you stand?

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/noam-chomsky-has-weighed-in-on-a-i-where-do-you-stand-f478d1b0e0ea

['Dan Lovy']

2019-05-07 21:15:45.676000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI']

Title Noam Chomsky Weighed AI standContent Noam Chomsky Artificial Intelligence Towards AI STRINGER Mexico Reuters core AI question create cognition path machine posse true understanding best AI effort still stored mannikin create lifelike illusion life behind blank stare technology look like thought actuality right path path Last May Noam Chomsky spoke issue MIT symposium highly critical current direction AI It’s terrific read Atlantic fairness rebuttal Google’s director research Peter Norvig two basic school thought AI road cognition Statistical Big Data — approach make use intense mathematics sift large amount data recognize complex pattern look picture say likely cat goldfish Combined cloud infrastructure lot computer get Siri Facebook recognize friend beach photo simplified summary work BioBased — approach say earthbased intelligence worm man certain organizational structural feature understood machine implemented understood looking earth brain wired understanding lead mechanical recreation cognition Let’s use biology neuroscience crack code contrasting argument look something like Statistical Big Data AI inspired work much like nature parallel set node neuron arranged network processing small aspect larger whole True model cognition yet it’s early Give technology time grow mature provides best path emergent behavior cognition thing seemed impossible decade ago Watch happens next decade BioBased Current commercial neural net technology anyway model cognition cannot inspired natural neural network work nothing like brain including found nature path cognition lay structuring network work closely like real brain chasm won’t crossed fooled mathematical trickery Google server recognizing picture kitten idea kitten never Nature provides excellent fully functional model cognition Let’s get back nature science figure standTags Machine Learning Neural Networks Technology Artificial Intelligence AI

Recognising Joy

Many years ago I watched a strange and beautiful Japanese movie ‘After Life’ in which the characters were asked to choose one moment from their lives, one memory, that they could choose to relive forever after their death. Their ‘afterlife’ would consist of just this one crystalline image, something that they could recall with the utmost clarity, and nothing else for the rest of time. This choice — which you can imagine was the hardest one most of them had ever made — was their task over the course of a week. They had to recall one moment of perfect happiness, which the team helping them would then recreate on film, before they could take it and move on to eternity. After I saw this movie it stayed with me for the longest time, because you see I couldn’t imagine what that moment would be for me. I was relatively young when I saw the movie and hadn’t yet had my daughter, so had no idea what it might feel like to hold my own child. My relationship with my husband was good, but it had not had the best of starts and I had few happy romantic memories from first meeting him. I was close to my family, but we were also kind of dysfunctional, so a lot of my early memories were tinged with stuff that happened later, and so spoiled what might have been warm rose-tinted recollections of childhood. As time went on and I considered it again and again over the years, I realised that there had actually been very few times in my life that I experienced real happiness as the state of mind — free of worry, entirely present and full of joy — that I understood it to be. So I began to try and figure out what the formula for happiness might be for me. I could think of a handful of times in my life where I’d felt something akin to joy, so I began to write about each of them. Describing in great detail all of the sounds, smells and texture of those moments I remembered, in the vague hope that by doing what the movie had suggested — recreating it creatively — I would discover the magical formula for what had evoked that very particular feeling. There was a moment in the back of a jeep on a deserted country road in Israel, during the three months I was travelling there when I was 20. It was just after nightfall, and I remembered so clearly staring out through the canvas flaps at the night sky full of stars, the voices of my friends who were sat with me in the back, the sound of the crickets in the leaves at the side of the road. We had been hitch-hiking back from the southern part of the country to our kibbutz in the north and been offered a lift by some friendly locals, and in that moment — just as the jeep pulled away to take us home — I felt the clearest most palpable sense of happiness I’d ever felt. It was so deep and profound in that second that I felt as if I’d been slapped off my feet by a gentle wave. The next was from the year I was 30. I’d decided — on the spur of the moment around my birthday — to go on holiday alone to Italy for a week, with some vague plan of travelling in a triangle from Bergamot, across to Venice and then down to Bologna and back over the course of seven days. I scared the shit out of myself on that trip several times, getting lost in the days before GPS, being scammed by unscrupulous taxi drivers, but then — in Venice — there was a moment that made the whole trip worth it. Early one morning (it may even have been my birthday morning) I got up early and walked along the Grand Canal with my sketch book, and on my route passed a small bakery that had just opened. I went inside and bought myself two apricot pastries and then walked on to a small piazza where the sun was just starting to flood the cobbles. I sat down with my sketchbook, opened the paper bag and sat and ate one of the pastries on the marble steps of a church. As I watched the stones turn first pale cream and then gold and a soft warm breeze moved the leaves in the surrounding trees, I remember that my throat had suddenly clenched tight with tears. Not because I was overcome with beauty in that lonely place, but with the realisation that — even as I recognised it — the utter joy I’d felt for just a split second was already passing. The next moment I recognised was two years later. I was in Kyoto in Japan, about halfway through a three-week honeymoon with my husband that we’d been planning for the last decade. Kyoto was everything I’d imagined it would be, beautiful ancient buildings and winding streets juxtaposed with all the sleek modernity of Japan, and I was literally thrumming with excitement about being there at last. In a small backstreet market, wandering away from my husband, I found a store that sold nothing but gift wrapping. Every single wall and surface was covered with the most exquisite printed papers and fabrics, and the smell inside was delicious and intoxicating, a mixture of sandalwood and the street-food cooked in sesame oil drifting in from the alley. I remember very specifically that, as I drew a sheet of red gilded paper off one of the shelves to look at, it was almost as if a tiny bell had been struck. Everything around me in that moment came suddenly and immediately into sharp focus, and I was filled with a sudden deep sense of calm. And the thought that accompanied the calm was such a simple one that, when I think back to it now, it almost seems ridiculous. The thought I had in that moment was “everything is as it should be”, and even as I type that now I feel a tightness in my chest, tears in my eyes. I have written about all these moments over the years — in my quest to find a common theme, my own personal formula for happiness — without a great deal of success. What I have noticed though is that that my recognising of them as they happen has become that much better as a result. And I had a thought the other day, that that feeling of sadness I had in Venice was a good example of how we spoil joy for ourselves by anticipating its loss at almost the same moment we begin to feel it. We’re so busy trying to grab onto the snowflake we don’t even think about the fact that in the very act of grabbing and holding we’re already destroying: melting something that is — by its very nature — fragile, beautiful and transitory. I have a story that, by remembering and describing all these beautiful colourful snapshots of happiness, I will become better at just seeing them as they happen. Observing with wonder, rather than reeling with the thought that I’m experiencing something miraculous and — very possibly — melting the snowflake before it even lands. My hope is that, by noticing these moments of joy as they happen, allowing them more and more, I can string them together like beads. Make a whole necklace of moments so that, when the time comes and I’m asked to choose, instead of having to search for them I’ll be spoiled for choice. This isn’t the usual kind of post I make, but I made it in the hope that someone out there will read it and sit down and describe in detail their own personal moment of joy for themselves. And if you feel so moved to send it to me afterwards, then I’d really love to hear it. ……………… Law Turley is a BACP Registered Integrative Therapist and Certified Radical Honesty Trainer living and working in the south west of the UK.

https://lawturley.medium.com/recognising-joy-ce048085a606

['Law Turley']

2020-08-11 09:03:36.794000+00:00

['Joy', 'Creativity', 'Happiness', 'Self-awareness', 'Memories']

Title Recognising JoyContent Many year ago watched strange beautiful Japanese movie ‘After Life’ character asked choose one moment life one memory could choose relive forever death ‘afterlife’ would consist one crystalline image something could recall utmost clarity nothing else rest time choice — imagine hardest one ever made — task course week recall one moment perfect happiness team helping would recreate film could take move eternity saw movie stayed longest time see couldn’t imagine moment would relatively young saw movie hadn’t yet daughter idea might feel like hold child relationship husband good best start happy romantic memory first meeting close family also kind dysfunctional lot early memory tinged stuff happened later spoiled might warm rosetinted recollection childhood time went considered year realised actually time life experienced real happiness state mind — free worry entirely present full joy — understood began try figure formula happiness might could think handful time life I’d felt something akin joy began write Describing great detail sound smell texture moment remembered vague hope movie suggested — recreating creatively — would discover magical formula evoked particular feeling moment back jeep deserted country road Israel three month travelling 20 nightfall remembered clearly staring canvas flap night sky full star voice friend sat back sound cricket leaf side road hitchhiking back southern part country kibbutz north offered lift friendly local moment — jeep pulled away take u home — felt clearest palpable sense happiness I’d ever felt deep profound second felt I’d slapped foot gentle wave next year 30 I’d decided — spur moment around birthday — go holiday alone Italy week vague plan travelling triangle Bergamot across Venice Bologna back course seven day scared shit trip several time getting lost day GPS scammed unscrupulous taxi driver — Venice — moment made whole trip worth Early one morning may even birthday morning got early walked along Grand Canal sketch book route passed small bakery opened went inside bought two apricot pastry walked small piazza sun starting flood cobble sat sketchbook opened paper bag sat ate one pastry marble step church watched stone turn first pale cream gold soft warm breeze moved leaf surrounding tree remember throat suddenly clenched tight tear overcome beauty lonely place realisation — even recognised — utter joy I’d felt split second already passing next moment recognised two year later Kyoto Japan halfway threeweek honeymoon husband we’d planning last decade Kyoto everything I’d imagined would beautiful ancient building winding street juxtaposed sleek modernity Japan literally thrumming excitement last small backstreet market wandering away husband found store sold nothing gift wrapping Every single wall surface covered exquisite printed paper fabric smell inside delicious intoxicating mixture sandalwood streetfood cooked sesame oil drifting alley remember specifically drew sheet red gilded paper one shelf look almost tiny bell struck Everything around moment came suddenly immediately sharp focus filled sudden deep sense calm thought accompanied calm simple one think back almost seems ridiculous thought moment “everything be” even type feel tightness chest tear eye written moment year — quest find common theme personal formula happiness — without great deal success noticed though recognising happen become much better result thought day feeling sadness Venice good example spoil joy anticipating loss almost moment begin feel We’re busy trying grab onto snowflake don’t even think fact act grabbing holding we’re already destroying melting something — nature — fragile beautiful transitory story remembering describing beautiful colourful snapshot happiness become better seeing happen Observing wonder rather reeling thought I’m experiencing something miraculous — possibly — melting snowflake even land hope noticing moment joy happen allowing string together like bead Make whole necklace moment time come I’m asked choose instead search I’ll spoiled choice isn’t usual kind post make made hope someone read sit describe detail personal moment joy feel moved send afterwards I’d really love hear ……………… Law Turley BACP Registered Integrative Therapist Certified Radical Honesty Trainer living working south west UKTags Joy Creativity Happiness Selfawareness Memories

How Neural Networks Work

How Neural Networks Work Understand what’s happening inside a neural network Image by the author This article is part of a series that explains neural networks without the math. The first part is here. The next part is here. You can also get the whole series as a book. The basic structure of a simulated neuron In the first part of this introduction, we talked about what an artificial neuron is. Artificial neurons are inspired by biological nerve cells, and transmit a signal from their “input side” (dendrites) to their “output side” (the axon): Image by the author The axon at the end divides into terminal branches, which connect to other dendrites (of many other such neurons), creating a network of billions of connected neurons. What makes an artificial neuron more than just a connecting cable is the ability of the neuron to decide whether it should actually propagate a signal down its axon or not. In artificial neurons, the “cell body” (usually just a function in a programming language) will first weigh and then add up its inputs and, if they add up to more than a set threshold value, fire a signal down its axon. If the sum of the weighted inputs doesn’t exceed the threshold value, the neuron will stay silent and not fire a signal to the neurons that are connected at its terminal branches: Image by the author By connecting many such units in multiple layers with each other, we get an artificial neural network: Image by the author The weights between the inputs and the summing function can change, and represent the actual “learned” content of the network. All the information that the network has is stored in these weights. We will see in a moment how this works in detail. Read on! A neuron for a logical ‘or’ Let us have a look at a few very simple neural networks so that we can see what happens inside them. These networks don’t do anything overly exciting, but they are easy to understand, and they do demonstrate the basic principles behind neural networks. First, we want to have a look at a neuron that works as a logical or. The logical or operation has two inputs, A and B, and one output. Consider a sentence like “If it is Saturday or very hot, I will go to the beach.” The two inputs are “it is Saturday” and “it is very hot”. The output is “I will go to the beach”. Each of the two input conditions can be true or false independently of the other. So it might be Saturday and very hot, or Saturday and not very hot, or not Saturday and not very hot. All in all, we have four possible combinations of input patterns, and for each, we have one desired output. If it is not Saturday and not very hot, I will not go to the beach. If it is not Saturday but very hot, I will go to the beach. If it is Saturday but not very hot, I will go to the beach. If is Saturday and very hot, I will go to the beach. So in three of the four cases, I will go to the beach (so my output will be true). In one of the four, namely, if both conditions are false, then I will not go to the beach. We can express the truth of the conditions either with the symbols T and F (for “true” and “false”) or just with 1 (true) and 0 (false). To summarise: if either A or B is true, then the output of this logical operation should also be true. The output will also be true if only one of A and B is true. The output will only be false if both A and B are false. The following table shows what we want to achieve. Input A Input B Output ------- ------- ------ 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 ---------------------- In order to build this as a neural network, we will need just one neuron. This one neuron has two inputs: one for the value of A and one for the value of B. Remember that between each input and the neuron is also a synaptic weight, which is shown in the diagram below as a little red circle with a number in it. This number is the factor by which the synapse will multiply its input before it passes it on to the neuron. The neuron itself will add up its two inputs, and it will fire if the sum of the inputs is equal to or greater than 1. We say that the neuron has a threshold of 1.0. You can see this on the right side of the neuron below, right under the arrow that represents the neuron’s “axon”. Now, the question is: how can we set the values of the synaptic weights so that this neuron fulfils the function of a logical or as just described? Image by the author Obviously, if each synaptic weight has a value that is equal to or greater than 1, then each one of the inputs A and B will be able to make the neuron fire. Let’s say A is logically true, which we will express as an input of 1. B is false, which means that the input is 0. Now we have to multiply A (which is 1, because A is true) with the synaptic weight 1.1: 1 × 1.1 = 1.1 We have to multiply B (which is false, i.e. 0) with its synaptic weight (1.1) too, but because B is 0, the result of the operation will be 0. Now the neuron gets one input with the value 1.1, and one input with the value 0. Its threshold is 1; therefore, since one of the inputs is already greater than 1, the neuron will fire and will set its output to 1. This behaviour is exactly what we wanted! This neuron behaves like a logical or. You can check the other combinations of input values yourself to verify that this neuron would indeed work correctly in all four cases. By the way, the scary Greek ‘Σ’ letter (pronounced “sigma”) inside the neuron’s body just means “sum”. So the neuron is summing up its inputs at this point and checking whether the sum is greater than the threshold value or not. Calculating a logical ‘and’ Now let us consider another logical operation, the and. Take an example sentence like “If it is Saturday and very hot, then I will go to the beach.” This is different from before because now both conditions need to be fulfilled at the same time in order for me to go to the beach. Here is a truth table for an and: Input A Input B Output ------- ------- ------ 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 ---------------------- How do I have to set the synaptic weights so that our neuron now behaves as a logical and? Clearly, I will need to set the weights so that each one by itself is unable to make the neuron fire. That is, each synaptic weight should be less than the threshold; but the two synaptic weights, when added together, should give us a greater value than the threshold value 1. This means that I can take any value between 0.5 and 0.9 for the synaptic weights. I get the following diagram: Image by the author You can easily verify that this will behave like a logical and. Exclusive or not? Things become slightly more complicated if I want to create a neuron that encodes a logical exclusive or, or xor. An exclusive or is true only if either A or B is true, but not both. Here is a truth table for the xor operation: Input A Input B Output ------- ------- ------ 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 ---------------------- If you think about it for a moment, you will see that we cannot possibly achieve this result with a single neuron, because the weights would have to be greater than 1 so that each input can trigger the neuron alone and make it behave like an or. But if this was the case, then we could not get the right result for the last line where both inputs are 1, but the result is supposed to be 0. So here we really need three neurons. One will act as an or and will fire if either one of its inputs is true. The second neuron will only have the job of stopping the output from becoming 1 in the case that both inputs are true. Therefore, one neuron needs to have both synapses set to 1 or 1.1, so that it will fire like an or. The second neuron is actually encoding an and, and if it fires, it will produce a negative output of −2. In this way, in the last line of the truth table, the sum of these two outputs will be less than 1. So we need a third neuron, which will be the output neuron, and this will fire only if the sum of its inputs is greater or equal to 1: Image by the author You can imagine that we can make the processing that happens between input and output as complex as we like by adding more and more neurons. Each new layer of neurons enables us to model more complex mappings between input and output. Thanks for reading! In the next part, we will simulate neurons inside a spreadsheet, to see how exactly they work. Stay tuned.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-neural-networks-work-c34298a292df

['Moral Robots']

2020-10-11 02:30:44.185000+00:00

['Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Computer Science', 'Programming']

Title Neural Networks WorkContent Neural Networks Work Understand what’s happening inside neural network Image author article part series explains neural network without math first part next part also get whole series book basic structure simulated neuron first part introduction talked artificial neuron Artificial neuron inspired biological nerve cell transmit signal “input side” dendrite “output side” axon Image author axon end divide terminal branch connect dendrite many neuron creating network billion connected neuron make artificial neuron connecting cable ability neuron decide whether actually propagate signal axon artificial neuron “cell body” usually function programming language first weigh add input add set threshold value fire signal axon sum weighted input doesn’t exceed threshold value neuron stay silent fire signal neuron connected terminal branch Image author connecting many unit multiple layer get artificial neural network Image author weight input summing function change represent actual “learned” content network information network stored weight see moment work detail Read neuron logical ‘or’ Let u look simple neural network see happens inside network don’t anything overly exciting easy understand demonstrate basic principle behind neural network First want look neuron work logical logical operation two input B one output Consider sentence like “If Saturday hot go beach” two input “it Saturday” “it hot” output “I go beach” two input condition true false independently might Saturday hot Saturday hot Saturday hot four possible combination input pattern one desired output Saturday hot go beach Saturday hot go beach Saturday hot go beach Saturday hot go beach three four case go beach output true one four namely condition false go beach express truth condition either symbol F “true” “false” 1 true 0 false summarise either B true output logical operation also true output also true one B true output false B false following table show want achieve Input Input B Output 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 order build neural network need one neuron one neuron two input one value one value B Remember input neuron also synaptic weight shown diagram little red circle number number factor synapse multiply input pass neuron neuron add two input fire sum input equal greater 1 say neuron threshold 10 see right side neuron right arrow represents neuron’s “axon” question set value synaptic weight neuron fulfils function logical described Image author Obviously synaptic weight value equal greater 1 one input B able make neuron fire Let’s say logically true express input 1 B false mean input 0 multiply 1 true synaptic weight 11 1 × 11 11 multiply B false ie 0 synaptic weight 11 B 0 result operation 0 neuron get one input value 11 one input value 0 threshold 1 therefore since one input already greater 1 neuron fire set output 1 behaviour exactly wanted neuron behaves like logical check combination input value verify neuron would indeed work correctly four case way scary Greek ‘Σ’ letter pronounced “sigma” inside neuron’s body mean “sum” neuron summing input point checking whether sum greater threshold value Calculating logical ‘and’ let u consider another logical operation Take example sentence like “If Saturday hot go beach” different condition need fulfilled time order go beach truth table Input Input B Output 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 set synaptic weight neuron behaves logical Clearly need set weight one unable make neuron fire synaptic weight le threshold two synaptic weight added together give u greater value threshold value 1 mean take value 05 09 synaptic weight get following diagram Image author easily verify behave like logical Exclusive Things become slightly complicated want create neuron encodes logical exclusive xor exclusive true either B true truth table xor operation Input Input B Output 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 think moment see cannot possibly achieve result single neuron weight would greater 1 input trigger neuron alone make behave like case could get right result last line input 1 result supposed 0 really need three neuron One act fire either one input true second neuron job stopping output becoming 1 case input true Therefore one neuron need synapsis set 1 11 fire like second neuron actually encoding fire produce negative output −2 way last line truth table sum two output le 1 need third neuron output neuron fire sum input greater equal 1 Image author imagine make processing happens input output complex like adding neuron new layer neuron enables u model complex mapping input output Thanks reading next part simulate neuron inside spreadsheet see exactly work Stay tunedTags Neural Networks Artificial Intelligence AI Computer Science Programming

Visualizing your home temperature with MCU8266, MQTT and AWS

Let’s build an IoT, cloud-connected thermostat! We will go through a step-by-step process of building a thermostat and connecting it over MQTT to AWS cloud for processing and visualization. We will cover all aspects of this project — the circuit design, the application running on the board, the MQTT protocol, as well as all the AWS cloud components. In the end, we will produce a graph of temperature over time like the one below. Can you tell when I took the device to my bedroom downstairs? (You might think the readings are off, as the low 50s is a little chilly, but that’s a story for a different occasion 😊). Temperature graph in AWS Solution Overview There are two parts to this project— the device with the temperature sensor and the cloud platform processing the data. An application that runs on the device, periodically (every 5 minutes) sends temperature readings to the cloud, where it is stored, processed, and plotted on a diagram for visual analysis. High level architecture Device design Parts No soldering is required in this project and all the parts add up to ~30$ with plenty of spares for future projects. ESP8266 DevKit board (example) 10k Ohm NTC Thermistor (example) 10k Ohm Resistor (example) Breadboard. A mini 170 board works great (example) 1 x M-M jumper wire. They only sell packs, like this one. They’ll come in handy for future projects, though. (optional) USB Battery Pack (example) The centerpiece of the device is the ESP8266 NodeMCU DevKit board. ES8266 is a low-cost (~$4) compact WiFi-equipped microcontroller with low-energy consumption properties and a mini USB port. It is perfect for simple, battery-powered applications like this one. ESP8266 NodeMCU DevKit board Circuit Temperature calculation The temperature measurement will rely on the Steinhart-Hart equation, which models the relationship between temperature and resistance in a semiconductor, such as a thermistor. A thermistor is a resistor with variable resistance, heavily changing with temperature. To measure the thermistor’s resistance, we will combine it in series with a standard resistor, between the ground and a reference voltage. We will then use ESP8266’s built-in analog-digital converter (ADC) to measure the voltage on the thermistor. The circuit below depicts this configuration. Thermistor/resistor schematic There are 3 equations describing this circuit. Circuit equations The first one defines the relationship between voltage and resistance of the resistors in series, based on Ohm’s Law. The second one reflects the total voltage on the resistors, given they’re configured between the ground and the reference voltage of 3.3V, based on Kirchhoff’s circuit low. The last one defines the relationship between the ADC reading A and the voltage on the pin, which is the voltage of the thermistor. You can read more about the ADC calculation here. Combining these 3 equations, we get the following formula for the thermistor’s resistance: Thermistor’s resistance formula We can apply the Steinhart-Hart equation to calculate the temperature, which is: Steinhart-Hart equation for thermistor temperature Where T₀ is a reference temperature (25C⁰) at which the thermistor has a reference resistance of R₀ (10k Ohm). B is known as the thermistor’s coefficient and is a constant value of 3950. Circuit build-out We will replicate the schematic above on a breadboard. For now, don’t worry about the connection between the D0 and RST pins — we will cover this part later on. A complete breadboard setup looks like this: Let’s now work on the AWS side of the project, as some output parameters from this process will be necessary for configuring the application running on the device. AWS Cloud services The cloud architecture is composed of 3 main components: IoT Core, DynamoDB, and Sagemaker. The IoT Core service plays the role of a gateway receiving the stream of temperature readings from the device, DynamoDB provides a way to store them, and Sagemaker — to analyze them. AWS cloud architecture We will cover the important pieces of the AWS infrastructure and some of the configuration items, but don’t worry just yet about recreating them in the AWS console by hand, as we will later use a tool named terraform to spin it all up with a single command. MQTT Our device will connect to AWS over a protocol called MQTT. MQTT, a protocol originally developed by IBM in 1999 to monitor an oil pipeline in the desert, has been a go-to for IoT applications and is now a standard officially sanctioned by the Organization for Advancement of Structured Information (OASIS). This lightweight TCP/IP-based protocol intended for IoT communication is built on a pub/sub architecture and is characterized by a small client footprint and low bandwidth consumption thanks to its very little packet overhead, compared to HTTP. MQTT Architecture (image from mqtt.org) In the MQTT architecture, clients subscribe with the broker to a particular message topic that other clients can publish messages to. In our case, the device will be the client publishing readings to a topic and AWS will provide the broker. AWS IoT Core AWS IoT Core is a set of services dedicated to the integration of IoT devices to AWS cloud. The platform provides an MQTT broker, to which our device will connect and publish messages. Setting up IoT Core involves creating an IoT Thing Type, an IoT Thing, and an IoT Rule. The Thing represents a single device, with a dedicated certificate that our client will use to connect to the broker. The certificate is attached to an IAM (Identity Access Management) policy, that defines permission the client will have, allowing it to connect and publish to specific topics. Here are the important parts of the policy: { "Action": [ "iot:Publish" ], "Resource": "...:topic/tempReading/*" }, { "Action": "iot:Connect", "Resource": "...:client/esp8266*" } In a nutshell, this policy allows any client starting with the name ‘esp8266’ to connect and publish messages to topics starting with the name ‘tempReading/’. AWS IoT Rule and DynamoDB The next component in our architecture is the IoT Rule. This element defines actions for the incoming messages — effectively routing them to other AWS services. Our rule will forward the message for persistence in a DynamoDB table — a simple NoSQL document database by AWS. IoT Rule configuration Notice the timestamp() in the SQL statement — this will enrich all incoming messages with a field holding the current time. DynamoDB table AWS Sagemaker The final component of the cloud infrastructure is an instance of AWS Sagemaker. Sagemaker is an advanced service intended for Machine Learning purposes. We will use the Jupyter Notebook functionality to execute code analyzing and plotting the temperature readings. AWS Sagemaker Notebook instance We will use this instance to create a visualization of the temperature later in this article. Terraform We will use a configuration management tool called terraform to provision and configure all the above components and some miscellaneous elements like IAM roles and policies. Terraform allows for automated provisioning of resources across dozens of services like AWS through a practice called Infrastructure as Code, which enables configuration to be expressed through a high-level syntax. We will assume the reader is familiar with terraform basics. To get up to speed on those I recommend this quick tutorial or the official docs. First, let’s clone the git repository holding all the configuration and code needed for this project. Cloning into 'esp8266-mqtt-aws-iot-temperature'... ... Resolving deltas: 100% (22/22), done. ~ git clone https://github.com/danielsiwiec/esp8266-mqtt-aws-iot-temperature Cloning into 'esp8266-mqtt-aws-iot-temperature'......Resolving deltas: 100% (22/22), done. ~ Next, make sure your AWS access key and secret key are configured and saved in the ~/.aws/credentials file, as terraform will need these. You can follow this guide to get it all set up. It is also a good idea to tag the AWS resources you’re creating, for reference purposes. Edit the terraform/terraform.tfvars file with your custom tags, or remove the entries in it altogether leaving common_tag={} if you’re not interested in tagging your resources. We can now start the provisioning. Open your terminal in the folder you cloned and change to the terraform folder. The first time you run terraform, you need to initialize it. ~ cd terraform ~ terraform init Initializing the backend... Initializing provider plugins... - Finding latest version of hashicorp/aws... - Installing hashicorp/aws v3.22.0... - Installed hashicorp/aws v3.22.0 (signed by HashiCorp) ... Terraform has been successfully initialized! ... ~ This will take a few seconds, where terraform will download the AWS plugin. All you have to do now is kick off the provisioning with the apply command. When prompted, answer yes to accept the resources being provisioned. This operation will take about 3 minutes. Do you think you could beat that with manual provisioning through the AWS console? 😎 ~ terraform apply ... Plan: 14 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy. ... Enter a value: yes Apply complete! Resources: 7 added, 1 changed, 0 destroyed. Outputs: cert_pem = -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDWTCCAkGgAwIBAgIUTHFMBieJZAGgCgrD5RGX/xyPIRkwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL ... AcvMAdMIv56kfxLPQBSHG1i4NYX6+UmFZ+hZGfIUYRcDAxcdrSmK9+QOEOTD -----END CERTIFICATE----- iot_endpoint = a2XXXXXXX.iot.us-east-1.amazonaws.com private_key = -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEAy2gRySw4BIpGGuKBkAJmlNpZ4s6lUEH/hWglu/0/RTQWYgIp ... /lc1GMA+el2VqHSYu/ji8VLe/9NKP1jU+D7DBSmKeeEFY/vSiRdfRQ== -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- Let’s analyze the output of this command. 14 resources were provisioned (many of them being IAM resources, like roles, policies, and attachments). Among them — IoT Thing, DynamoDB, and Sagemaker. The creation of the last one was the longest and took about 3 minutes. We also have some outputs listed. These values are specifically requested in the terraform scripts to be printed out. Take note of their existence (iot_endpoint, cert_pem, and private_key) as we will use them soon, but don’t worry about saving them, we will always have access to them through the terraform output command. Note: Some of the AWS services, most notably the AWS Sagemaker are not cheap (around 6¢/h or $45 monthly). Once you’re done with this project, destroy all your assets with terraform destroy . You can always spin them back up with terraform apply . Device Application Now that our device build-out and cloud services are complete, we’ll switch our focus to the application running on the device. The default ESP8266 firmware allows the device to be programmed with the Arduino language, however, we will pick a more interesting alternative — MicroPython. MicroPython is a slimmed-down version of the Python 3 interpreter and runtime, which is optimized to run on bare metal. To use this, however, we will need to flash our board with special MicroPython firmware. Flashing the board The ESP8266 dev kit has a built-in micro USB port that we can use to connect the device to a computer. To flash the board we will use a Python tool by Espressif named esptool.py, which you can install with pip install esptool. First, let’s create a Python virtual environment, using Python’s built-in venv package, to separate this and other Python packages we will use from your system-wide packages. You will need Python 3.x for this. ~ python -m venv .venv ~ source .venv/bin/activate ~ python -m pip install --upgrade pip ~ pip install esptool Collecting esptool ... ... Successfully installed bitstring-3.1.7 cffi-1.14.4 cryptography-3.3.1 ecdsa-0.16.1 esptool-3.0 pycparser-2.20 pyserial-3.5 reedsolo-1.5.4 six-1.15.0 ~ esptool.py version esptool.py v3.0 3.0 If you can run the version command at the bottom, you’re good to go. Now, on to flashing! First, download the MicroPython firmware for the board from this location. Unless you’re feeling adventurous, I suggest you pick the recent stable version of the firmware, which at the time of writing this article, was v1.13. Download the .bin file and save it in a known location. The esptool will require two parameters: port and baud rate. The port parameter specifies the location where the device is mounted on your file system. In my case, it is /dev/cu.usbserial-0001. You can list the available serial ports in the following way: ~ ls -p /dev/cu* /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port /dev/cu.DanSiwiecsAirPods-Wirel /dev/cu.DansQC35-SPPDev /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 The second parameter, baud rate, defines the data transfer rate. If the rate is too high, the device won’t be able to ‘keep up’ and the transfer will get (quietly) corrupted. For the ESP8266, 921600 is a safe value. Let’s now erase the current firmware on the board, to make room for the new one we just downloaded. Note: For the remainder of this section, you will need to disconnect the D0 <-> RST jumper cable (red on the images above). Otherwise, esptool won’t be able to connect to the board. ~ esptool.py --port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 erase_flash esptool.py v3.0 Serial port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 Connecting.... Detecting chip type... ESP8266 Chip is ESP8266EX Features: WiFi Crystal is 26MHz MAC: 40:f5:20:2e:1e:5f Uploading stub... Running stub... Stub running... Erasing flash (this may take a while)... Chip erase completed successfully in 12.5s Hard resetting via RTS pin... Next, we will write the new firmware into the board: ~ esptool.py --port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 --baud 921600 write_flash --flash_size=detect 0 esp8266-20200911-v1.13.bin esptool.py v3.0 Serial port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 Connecting.... Detecting chip type... ESP8266 Chip is ESP8266EX Features: WiFi Crystal is 26MHz MAC: 40:f5:20:2e:1e:5f Uploading stub... Running stub... Stub running... Changing baud rate to 921600 Changed. Configuring flash size... Auto-detected Flash size: 4MB Flash params set to 0x0040 Compressed 638928 bytes to 419659... Wrote 638928 bytes (419659 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 6.1 seconds (effective 837.4 kbit/s)... Hash of data verified. Leaving... Hard resetting via RTS pin... Done! We can confirm our installation was successful using a remote MicroPython shell called rshell, which we can install with pip install rshell. ~ rshell -p /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 repl "~ print(\"hello world\")~" Using buffer-size of 32 Connecting to /dev/cu.usbserial-0001 (buffer-size 32)... Trying to connect to REPL connected Testing if ubinascii.unhexlify exists ... Y Retrieving root directories ... /boot.py/ Setting time ... Dec 20, 2020 10:32:50 Evaluating board_name ... pyboard Retrieving time epoch ... Jan 01, 2000 /Users/daniel.siwiec/workspace/private/projects/iot/esp8266-thermometer> Entering REPL. Use Control-X to exit. > MicroPython v1.13 on 2020-09-11; ESP module with ESP8266 Type "help()" for more information. >>> >>> print("hello world") hello world ~ The command above opens a Python REPL on the board, runs a command, in our case a ‘hello world’ print, and exits. If you see the above output, your firmware has been successfully written to the board. If there are errors, it’s possible the baud rate was too high, in which case you need to erase the flash again and try writing the firmware with a lower baud rate, like 115200. The application Let’s now dive into the MicroPython application running on the device. The overall structure of the app is very simple — there’s some setup code, which in our case is mostly establishing the WiFi connection and then there is the main loop, which executes the main functions of the application. We will walk through the important pieces of the code, which is available in full form here. Device Application structure Main Loop The main loop in this app measures the temperature and sends it over MQTT to AWS IoT Core. Main Loop code Temperature measurement As explained in the circuit section before, the temperature measurement is based on the thermistor’s resistance calculation and the Steinhart-Hart equation for semiconductor’s temperature. The code below is a direct implementation of the equations explained in the Circuit section earlier: Thermistor temperature calculation Deep Sleep Additionally, since this is a battery-powered device, it’s wise to utilize the ESP8266’s deep sleep feature which drastically reduces the power consumption by shutting down most of the device’s functions. In this mode, the ESP8266 draws around 20 uA, which would let it run for over 12 years on a 2200mAh battery I’m using. This is where the mysterious D0 <-> RST connection comes in — according to the ESP8266 pin-out, pin D0 provides a wake functionality, which sends a signal at a predefined time and by connecting it to the RST pin — allows us to bring the board out of the deep sleep mode. ESP8266 Deep Sleep & wake-up code MQTT MicroPython comes with a simple MQTT client. There are a few important parameters that need to be passed, so let’s walk through them. Below is a simplified code snippet that connects to the AWS MQTT broker and sends a message: MQTT connection code The important parts are connection parameters — client_id and mqtt_topic which need to reflect the IAM policy we created before, mqtt_host which AWS provisioned for us, and ssl_params that configure the certificate-based authentication required by the AWS IoT Core. These parameters will get automatically injected later on. Let’s now get the code ready to be uploaded to the device. All the necessary files are in the same repository we used for the AWS terraform setup. There are a few steps in this process. Fill out WiFi credentials The board needs internet connectivity to send messages to AWS. Open the app/props.json.tmpl file and fill out WiFi SID (network name) and password fields. Inject AWS IoT Core attributes The application will authenticate with the AWS IoT MQTT broker using a certificate. Remember those terraform outputs? This is where they come in handy. The output contained the certificate and private key needed for authentication. Both the certificate and private key need to be converted from PEM to DER format and saved to a file. Run make props in the main folder to fetch these values, convert them to DER format, and save them to files. This command will also inject the MQTT broker host endpoint into the properties file. Upload files to the board We’re now ready to upload the files to the board. We will use rshell (the same tool we used earlier to run REPL). Run this command: rshell -p /dev/cu.usbserial-001 cp app/* /pyboard/ . Replace the port with the one you used earlier. Let’s now confirm the application is running correctly on the device. The app makes a few print outs throughout its lifecycle. All these prints can be read from the board’s serial port. There are a few ways to read this data — Mac and Linux come with a tool called screen which will let us do this. To connect to the serial port execute screen /dev/cu.usbserial-001 115200 , substituting the port for yours, as earlier. Now press the RST button on the board, next to the USB port, previously disconnecting the RST<->D0 wire. You should see an output similar to the screen below. Don’t worry about the gibberish at the start of the output. Note: The ESP8266 is a very simple device, with an 80MHz CPU and 128kBytes of RAM. The SSL handshake involved in the AWS connection pushes the device to its limits and takes about a minute to complete. You can now reconnect the wire (it’ll be needed for the device wake-up) and exit the screen pressing Ctrl+A and typing :quit . It is important to exit the screen explicitly, rather than closing the terminal window, as otherwise it’ll keep the connection with the serial port open and will prevent you from reconnecting to it. Finally, let’s confirm the MQTT messages are landing in AWS. Go to the AWS console and open the IoT Core service. Select Test from the sidebar menu, enter the name of the topic (tempReading/bedroom) and click Subscribe to topic. Since our device sleeps for a few minutes after each message, you might need to wait a bit for the message to arrive. When it does, it should look like the screenshot below. MQTT message in AWS IoT test client You can also see the messages being persisted in the DynamoDB table: DynamoDB table populated with temperature readings When you get here, you now have an assembled device, with a temperature measuring code running on it and an AWS infrastructure to receive and persist the messages. The last element in the puzzle is visualizing the data. You can unplug the device from your laptop and swap in a USB battery pack. The one I used is an old 2200mAh and it lasted around 3 days. Jupyter Notebook Jupyter Notebook is an open-source project that provides a browser-based environment to run Python code, including visualizations. As AWS provides a ‘manged’ (created by AWS) Jupyter Notebook service, it is ideal for our use case to connect to the database containing the temperature reads and visualize it. Go to the Sagemaker service in the AWS console and select Notebook Instances in the left pane. Your window should look similar to this: AWS Sagemaker Notebook instance Open the temp-vis instance and click on Open Jupyter in the upper right corner. This should bring you to this screen: Now, click the upload button, select the assets/Temp Visualization.ipynb file and open it once it’s uploaded. Your screen should look like this: Now, select Cell->Run All from the menu at the top, and you should see the temperature graph over time at the bottom of the screen. Of course, your graph will start taking shape as more datapoint flow into the cloud. Congratulations! You now have a cloud-integrated IoT thermostat. Update: ESP32 I ended up upgrading the board from ESP8266 to ESP32. It’s a very similar chip with a more powerful processor. This helps reduce the SSL handshake from ~45 seconds down to 2. Additionally, the ESP32 has an internal wake connection, which removed the need for RST<->D0 connection. The few code changes need for ESP32 are at the same repository, in the esp32 branch. The final, soldered device looks like this: Front Back Note: All the code for this article can be found in my GitHub repository here. Thanks to Clayton Gibb and Amber Houle for providing feedback on this article.

https://medium.com/dan-on-coding/building-an-iot-thermostat-with-esp8266-python-and-aws-6b0555326dbe

['Dan Siwiec']

2020-12-27 23:21:39.123000+00:00

['Terraform', 'Python', 'AWS', 'IoT', 'Arduino']

Title Visualizing home temperature MCU8266 MQTT AWSContent Let’s build IoT cloudconnected thermostat go stepbystep process building thermostat connecting MQTT AWS cloud processing visualization cover aspect project — circuit design application running board MQTT protocol well AWS cloud component end produce graph temperature time like one tell took device bedroom downstairs might think reading low 50 little chilly that’s story different occasion 😊 Temperature graph AWS Solution Overview two part project— device temperature sensor cloud platform processing data application run device periodically every 5 minute sends temperature reading cloud stored processed plotted diagram visual analysis High level architecture Device design Parts soldering required project part add 30 plenty spare future project ESP8266 DevKit board example 10k Ohm NTC Thermistor example 10k Ohm Resistor example Breadboard mini 170 board work great example 1 x MM jumper wire sell pack like one They’ll come handy future project though optional USB Battery Pack example centerpiece device ESP8266 NodeMCU DevKit board ES8266 lowcost 4 compact WiFiequipped microcontroller lowenergy consumption property mini USB port perfect simple batterypowered application like one ESP8266 NodeMCU DevKit board Circuit Temperature calculation temperature measurement rely SteinhartHart equation model relationship temperature resistance semiconductor thermistor thermistor resistor variable resistance heavily changing temperature measure thermistor’s resistance combine series standard resistor ground reference voltage use ESP8266’s builtin analogdigital converter ADC measure voltage thermistor circuit depicts configuration Thermistorresistor schematic 3 equation describing circuit Circuit equation first one defines relationship voltage resistance resistor series based Ohm’s Law second one reflects total voltage resistor given they’re configured ground reference voltage 33V based Kirchhoff’s circuit low last one defines relationship ADC reading voltage pin voltage thermistor read ADC calculation Combining 3 equation get following formula thermistor’s resistance Thermistor’s resistance formula apply SteinhartHart equation calculate temperature SteinhartHart equation thermistor temperature T₀ reference temperature 25C⁰ thermistor reference resistance R₀ 10k Ohm B known thermistor’s coefficient constant value 3950 Circuit buildout replicate schematic breadboard don’t worry connection D0 RST pin — cover part later complete breadboard setup look like Let’s work AWS side project output parameter process necessary configuring application running device AWS Cloud service cloud architecture composed 3 main component IoT Core DynamoDB Sagemaker IoT Core service play role gateway receiving stream temperature reading device DynamoDB provides way store Sagemaker — analyze AWS cloud architecture cover important piece AWS infrastructure configuration item don’t worry yet recreating AWS console hand later use tool named terraform spin single command MQTT device connect AWS protocol called MQTT MQTT protocol originally developed IBM 1999 monitor oil pipeline desert goto IoT application standard officially sanctioned Organization Advancement Structured Information OASIS lightweight TCPIPbased protocol intended IoT communication built pubsub architecture characterized small client footprint low bandwidth consumption thanks little packet overhead compared HTTP MQTT Architecture image mqttorg MQTT architecture client subscribe broker particular message topic client publish message case device client publishing reading topic AWS provide broker AWS IoT Core AWS IoT Core set service dedicated integration IoT device AWS cloud platform provides MQTT broker device connect publish message Setting IoT Core involves creating IoT Thing Type IoT Thing IoT Rule Thing represents single device dedicated certificate client use connect broker certificate attached IAM Identity Access Management policy defines permission client allowing connect publish specific topic important part policy Action iotPublish Resource topictempReading Action iotConnect Resource clientesp8266 nutshell policy allows client starting name ‘esp8266’ connect publish message topic starting name ‘tempReading’ AWS IoT Rule DynamoDB next component architecture IoT Rule element defines action incoming message — effectively routing AWS service rule forward message persistence DynamoDB table — simple NoSQL document database AWS IoT Rule configuration Notice timestamp SQL statement — enrich incoming message field holding current time DynamoDB table AWS Sagemaker final component cloud infrastructure instance AWS Sagemaker Sagemaker advanced service intended Machine Learning purpose use Jupyter Notebook functionality execute code analyzing plotting temperature reading AWS Sagemaker Notebook instance use instance create visualization temperature later article Terraform use configuration management tool called terraform provision configure component miscellaneous element like IAM role policy Terraform allows automated provisioning resource across dozen service like AWS practice called Infrastructure Code enables configuration expressed highlevel syntax assume reader familiar terraform basic get speed recommend quick tutorial official doc First let’s clone git repository holding configuration code needed project Cloning esp8266mqttawsiottemperature Resolving delta 100 2222 done git clone httpsgithubcomdanielsiwiecesp8266mqttawsiottemperature Cloning esp8266mqttawsiottemperatureResolving delta 100 2222 done Next make sure AWS access key secret key configured saved awscredentials file terraform need follow guide get set also good idea tag AWS resource you’re creating reference purpose Edit terraformterraformtfvars file custom tag remove entry altogether leaving commontag you’re interested tagging resource start provisioning Open terminal folder cloned change terraform folder first time run terraform need initialize cd terraform terraform init Initializing backend Initializing provider plugins Finding latest version hashicorpaws Installing hashicorpaws v3220 Installed hashicorpaws v3220 signed HashiCorp Terraform successfully initialized take second terraform download AWS plugin kick provisioning apply command prompted answer yes accept resource provisioned operation take 3 minute think could beat manual provisioning AWS console 😎 terraform apply Plan 14 add 0 change 0 destroy Enter value yes Apply complete Resources 7 added 1 changed 0 destroyed Outputs certpem BEGIN CERTIFICATE MIIDWTCCAkGgAwIBAgIUTHFMBieJZAGgCgrD5RGXxyPIRkwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL AcvMAdMIv56kfxLPQBSHG1i4NYX6UmFZhZGfIUYRcDAxcdrSmK9QOEOTD END CERTIFICATE iotendpoint a2XXXXXXXiotuseast1amazonawscom privatekey BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEAy2gRySw4BIpGGuKBkAJmlNpZ4s6lUEHhWglu0RTQWYgIp lc1GMAel2VqHSYuji8VLe9NKP1jUD7DBSmKeeEFYvSiRdfRQ END RSA PRIVATE KEY Let’s analyze output command 14 resource provisioned many IAM resource like role policy attachment Among — IoT Thing DynamoDB Sagemaker creation last one longest took 3 minute also output listed value specifically requested terraform script printed Take note existence iotendpoint certpem privatekey use soon don’t worry saving always access terraform output command Note AWS service notably AWS Sagemaker cheap around 6¢h 45 monthly you’re done project destroy asset terraform destroy always spin back terraform apply Device Application device buildout cloud service complete we’ll switch focus application running device default ESP8266 firmware allows device programmed Arduino language however pick interesting alternative — MicroPython MicroPython slimmeddown version Python 3 interpreter runtime optimized run bare metal use however need flash board special MicroPython firmware Flashing board ESP8266 dev kit builtin micro USB port use connect device computer flash board use Python tool Espressif named esptoolpy install pip install esptool First let’s create Python virtual environment using Python’s builtin venv package separate Python package use systemwide package need Python 3x python venv venv source venvbinactivate python pip install upgrade pip pip install esptool Collecting esptool Successfully installed bitstring317 cffi1144 cryptography331 ecdsa0161 esptool30 pycparser220 pyserial35 reedsolo154 six1150 esptoolpy version esptoolpy v30 30 run version command bottom you’re good go flashing First download MicroPython firmware board location Unless you’re feeling adventurous suggest pick recent stable version firmware time writing article v113 Download bin file save known location esptool require two parameter port baud rate port parameter specifies location device mounted file system case devcuusbserial0001 list available serial port following way l p devcu devcuBluetoothIncomingPort devcuDanSiwiecsAirPodsWirel devcuDansQC35SPPDev devcuusbserial0001 second parameter baud rate defines data transfer rate rate high device won’t able ‘keep up’ transfer get quietly corrupted ESP8266 921600 safe value Let’s erase current firmware board make room new one downloaded Note remainder section need disconnect D0 RST jumper cable red image Otherwise esptool won’t able connect board esptoolpy port devcuusbserial0001 eraseflash esptoolpy v30 Serial port devcuusbserial0001 Connecting Detecting chip type ESP8266 Chip ESP8266EX Features WiFi Crystal 26MHz MAC 40f5202e1e5f Uploading stub Running stub Stub running Erasing flash may take Chip erase completed successfully 125s Hard resetting via RTS pin Next write new firmware board esptoolpy port devcuusbserial0001 baud 921600 writeflash flashsizedetect 0 esp826620200911v113bin esptoolpy v30 Serial port devcuusbserial0001 Connecting Detecting chip type ESP8266 Chip ESP8266EX Features WiFi Crystal 26MHz MAC 40f5202e1e5f Uploading stub Running stub Stub running Changing baud rate 921600 Changed Configuring flash size Autodetected Flash size 4MB Flash params set 0x0040 Compressed 638928 byte 419659 Wrote 638928 byte 419659 compressed 0x00000000 61 second effective 8374 kbit Hash data verified Leaving Hard resetting via RTS pin Done confirm installation successful using remote MicroPython shell called rshell install pip install rshell rshell p devcuusbserial0001 repl printhello world Using buffersize 32 Connecting devcuusbserial0001 buffersize 32 Trying connect REPL connected Testing ubinasciiunhexlify exists Retrieving root directory bootpy Setting time Dec 20 2020 103250 Evaluating boardname pyboard Retrieving time epoch Jan 01 2000 Usersdanielsiwiecworkspaceprivateprojectsiotesp8266thermometer Entering REPL Use ControlX exit MicroPython v113 20200911 ESP module ESP8266 Type help information printhello world hello world command open Python REPL board run command case ‘hello world’ print exit see output firmware successfully written board error it’s possible baud rate high case need erase flash try writing firmware lower baud rate like 115200 application Let’s dive MicroPython application running device overall structure app simple — there’s setup code case mostly establishing WiFi connection main loop executes main function application walk important piece code available full form Device Application structure Main Loop main loop app measure temperature sends MQTT AWS IoT Core Main Loop code Temperature measurement explained circuit section temperature measurement based thermistor’s resistance calculation SteinhartHart equation semiconductor’s temperature code direct implementation equation explained Circuit section earlier Thermistor temperature calculation Deep Sleep Additionally since batterypowered device it’s wise utilize ESP8266’s deep sleep feature drastically reduces power consumption shutting device’s function mode ESP8266 draw around 20 uA would let run 12 year 2200mAh battery I’m using mysterious D0 RST connection come — according ESP8266 pinout pin D0 provides wake functionality sends signal predefined time connecting RST pin — allows u bring board deep sleep mode ESP8266 Deep Sleep wakeup code MQTT MicroPython come simple MQTT client important parameter need passed let’s walk simplified code snippet connects AWS MQTT broker sends message MQTT connection code important part connection parameter — clientid mqtttopic need reflect IAM policy created mqtthost AWS provisioned u sslparams configure certificatebased authentication required AWS IoT Core parameter get automatically injected later Let’s get code ready uploaded device necessary file repository used AWS terraform setup step process Fill WiFi credential board need internet connectivity send message AWS Open apppropsjsontmpl file fill WiFi SID network name password field Inject AWS IoT Core attribute application authenticate AWS IoT MQTT broker using certificate Remember terraform output come handy output contained certificate private key needed authentication certificate private key need converted PEM DER format saved file Run make prop main folder fetch value convert DER format save file command also inject MQTT broker host endpoint property file Upload file board We’re ready upload file board use rshell tool used earlier run REPL Run command rshell p devcuusbserial001 cp app pyboard Replace port one used earlier Let’s confirm application running correctly device app make print out throughout lifecycle print read board’s serial port way read data — Mac Linux come tool called screen let u connect serial port execute screen devcuusbserial001 115200 substituting port earlier press RST button board next USB port previously disconnecting RSTD0 wire see output similar screen Don’t worry gibberish start output Note ESP8266 simple device 80MHz CPU 128kBytes RAM SSL handshake involved AWS connection push device limit take minute complete reconnect wire it’ll needed device wakeup exit screen pressing CtrlA typing quit important exit screen explicitly rather closing terminal window otherwise it’ll keep connection serial port open prevent reconnecting Finally let’s confirm MQTT message landing AWS Go AWS console open IoT Core service Select Test sidebar menu enter name topic tempReadingbedroom click Subscribe topic Since device sleep minute message might need wait bit message arrive look like screenshot MQTT message AWS IoT test client also see message persisted DynamoDB table DynamoDB table populated temperature reading get assembled device temperature measuring code running AWS infrastructure receive persist message last element puzzle visualizing data unplug device laptop swap USB battery pack one used old 2200mAh lasted around 3 day Jupyter Notebook Jupyter Notebook opensource project provides browserbased environment run Python code including visualization AWS provides ‘manged’ created AWS Jupyter Notebook service ideal use case connect database containing temperature read visualize Go Sagemaker service AWS console select Notebook Instances left pane window look similar AWS Sagemaker Notebook instance Open tempvis instance click Open Jupyter upper right corner bring screen click upload button select assetsTemp Visualizationipynb file open it’s uploaded screen look like select CellRun menu top see temperature graph time bottom screen course graph start taking shape datapoint flow cloud Congratulations cloudintegrated IoT thermostat Update ESP32 ended upgrading board ESP8266 ESP32 It’s similar chip powerful processor help reduce SSL handshake 45 second 2 Additionally ESP32 internal wake connection removed need RSTD0 connection code change need ESP32 repository esp32 branch final soldered device look like Front Back Note code article found GitHub repository Thanks Clayton Gibb Amber Houle providing feedback articleTags Terraform Python AWS IoT Arduino

8 Ways To Hack Your Nutrition. Research-based hacks and insights to…

There is a lot of information on food out there — like A LOT a lot. I know this because I write some of it, and certainly consume just as much, whether it’s through nutrition courses, diet and lifestyle books, or my favourite foodie recipe blogs. The tricky thing is that it can be impossibly hard to sift through the pages upon pages of information and decipher exactly what is going to benefit you most in the long-term. I emphasize the phrase ‘long-term’ here because healthy living is not, and will never be an over-night process, a quick fix, or a fad diet. “Of all the knowledge, that most worth having is knowledge about health! The first requisite of a good life is to be a healthy person.” — Herbert Spencer So, instead of making recommendations on what you should or should not be doing in your life, this article is designed to teach you how to do exactly what you’re currently doing — but better!

https://medium.com/beingwell/8-foods-facts-to-help-you-get-better-nutrition-with-less-effort-fe705693ee33

['Alexandra Walker-Jones']

2020-12-28 23:20:43.123000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Food', 'Lifestyle', 'Health', 'Nutrition']

Title 8 Ways Hack Nutrition Researchbased hack insight to…Content lot information food — like LOT lot know write certainly consume much whether it’s nutrition course diet lifestyle book favourite foodie recipe blog tricky thing impossibly hard sift page upon page information decipher exactly going benefit longterm emphasize phrase ‘longterm’ healthy living never overnight process quick fix fad diet “Of knowledge worth knowledge health first requisite good life healthy person” — Herbert Spencer instead making recommendation life article designed teach exactly you’re currently — betterTags Productivity Food Lifestyle Health Nutrition

7 Business Lessons You Can Learn from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos

7 Business Lessons You Can Learn from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Skill Development Expert Profile — Jeff Bezos Los Angeles Air Force Base Space and Missile System Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is now the world’s richest person. According to the Forbes real-time billionaires list, he is worth 185.2$ billion dollars at the time of writing, up 1.4$ billion from yesterday. Whether or not you think that’s a worthwhile goal is a separate issue. One thing is clear, though. We can all learn a lot about business from someone who has achieved something that impressive. Jeff Bezos has developed a unique ability to see the world clearly, and by navigating that world successfully, he has achieved things most people didn’t think possible. At any moment, Amazon has more than 600 million items for sale and more than three million vendors selling them. They control almost 40 per cent of all e-commerce in the United States, half of the cloud-computing industry, a third of the video-streaming market, and sell 42 per cent of all paper books. This piece will explore Bezos’ road to success through some of his most famous quotes and experiences. 1. Every business starts small ‘Big things start small.’ Bezos started Amazon by selling used books out of his garage. After receiving an order, Jeff would buy it in a thrift store and ship it to the customer. It was a cheap, low-risk model to find out if customers wanted their service. At this point, Bezos was obsessed with the growth of the internet. He studied the 20 largest mail-order companies and predicted that there would be a tsunami of change in how people would buy things. Jeff started with books, but his big goal was to become a store that would sell everything. Books were just a convenient product to test the model on. By combining the ideas of the internet and making the physical store digital, Amazon revolutionised how people bought goods and services. We no longer had to walk out our front door. 2. Always aim for excellence ‘Ideas are the easy part; execution is everything.’ One of Amazon’s secrets to success was their research on how people behave. They tracked every action. By understanding what people looked at, for how long and what we put in the basket but didn’t buy, they soon became experts at predicting what we hadn’t yet looked at but were most likely to buy. They were equally obsessed with every detail. Bezos wanted everything to go a little bit faster and to be done a little bit better. Any sort of sloppiness was unacceptable. By raising the standards to the almost unachievable, Jeff pushed Amazon to improve every thinkable detail, which allowed them to offer the lowest prices and fastest delivery on their products. 3. The customer comes first ‘Think about the customer, and then work from there.’ Bezos main aim was never to become a billionaire, but to produce a service that made life easier for others. Whenever Amazon received a customer complaint, they would do anything possible to improve the experience. This obsession about what the customer wanted was crucial to why people liked them and became loyal. Amazon created long-term loyalty by giving up short-term profitability. As an example, they started to give warnings when people put something in the shopping cart, that they had already purchased. People may have put it in by mistake, and Amazon allowed the customer to correct it. This option decreased the short-term sales, but increased customer satisfaction and the likelihood that someone would return and buy something in the future. 4. Focus on the things you can control ‘It’s impossible to imagine a future ten years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher; or I love Amazon, I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’’ Some businesses try to predict the future and guess what the market wants five or ten years from now. This is risky, as the future can be very unpredictable. Instead, Bezos tries to focus on the things that will not change. He knows that ten years from now, customers still want low prices, fast delivery and a vast selection. Putting in the effort to optimise these things will always be time well spent. 5. Think long-term ‘When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes.’ When making decisions, Bezos values long-term benefits over short-term costs. Amazon has several times launched efforts that have resulted in a short-term loss. They have, for example, guaranteed next-day delivery for any item over 25$ and launched the Prime service which guaranteed two-day delivery for any item. These sort of services were expensive to provide, but Amazon bet that it would lead to more content customers who would spend more in the long-run. Even though one service lost money, they earned it back somewhere else. By thinking long-term, they accomplished things that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Amazon only showed a profit nine years after it was established. Bezos still managed to convince share-holders of his long-term plan of taking market share. Their strategy was to lose money, to put other companies out of business who couldn’t afford to lose money. Their strategy was to dominate the market down the road. 6. Prioritise what’s important ‘I always make sure to get eight hours of sleep every night. I don’t want to risk making poor executive decisions because I am ‘tired or grouchy.’’ The world’s richest man sleeps eight hours a night, and only sets his first meeting at 10 am. This may sound lazy, but his priority is to eat breakfast with his kids and family and to be alert. In the early hours of the day, he likes to putter around the house, while drinking his coffee, staying in a relaxed mindset. This type of short-term relaxation can actually be long-term productive. By taking some time in the morning to thrive, you will be more ready to perform when it matters. At 10 am it’s all business, however. Bezos likes to make all the most important decisions before lunch, as the first half of the day is when we have the greatest capacity to make good decisions. By having a clear mind when the most critical decisions are made, you maximise your chances of daily success. 7. Have big goals ‘In space, there is enough room for a trillion humans. That could give us a thousand Mozart’s and a thousand Einstein’s.’ The next big goal for Bezos is to bring humans into space. He fears we will outgrow our planet and its limited resources, and that this will lead to rationing and starvation. Not a very encouraging future. Thus, he started the Blue Origin program to bring us into space. It may seem far-fetched, but until recently, our only method of buying a book was to walk into a store. Having a big dream is the big motivator to keep improving Amazon. Bezos is way past the point where earning more money matters to his life-quality. By having success in one area, he can fulfil his life-long dream. If you ever get the feeling that you’re only working for the money, it can be worthwhile to think of your purpose in life. If the money you earn in your job can help you fund projects that secure clean water or bring better education to more people, you may find a newfound drive to keep going. Take home message Bezos started Amazon from his garage and grew it to become the wealthiest person in the world. He was obsessed with detail and tried to measure and improve every possible component. The focus was on the customer experience, and he would go to great lengths to satisfy every customer. Instead of predicting the future, Bezos focused on improving the things that he knew people would want 5–10 years from now. Valuing long-term results over short-term profits is more likely to lead to success. By prioritising what’s important, you maximise your chances of making good decisions where they matter most. Finding your purpose is much more motivating than just having a goal to earn money. If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:

https://medium.com/skilluped/7-business-lessons-you-can-learn-from-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-86bf3d79e082

['Erik Hamre']

2020-11-19 01:12:04.697000+00:00

['Amazon', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration']

Title 7 Business Lessons Learn Amazon Founder Jeff BezosContent 7 Business Lessons Learn Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Skill Development Expert Profile — Jeff Bezos Los Angeles Air Force Base Space Missile System Center Public domain via Wikimedia Commons Jeff Bezos founder Amazon world’s richest person According Forbes realtime billionaire list worth 1852 billion dollar time writing 14 billion yesterday Whether think that’s worthwhile goal separate issue One thing clear though learn lot business someone achieved something impressive Jeff Bezos developed unique ability see world clearly navigating world successfully achieved thing people didn’t think possible moment Amazon 600 million item sale three million vendor selling control almost 40 per cent ecommerce United States half cloudcomputing industry third videostreaming market sell 42 per cent paper book piece explore Bezos’ road success famous quote experience 1 Every business start small ‘Big thing start small’ Bezos started Amazon selling used book garage receiving order Jeff would buy thrift store ship customer cheap lowrisk model find customer wanted service point Bezos obsessed growth internet studied 20 largest mailorder company predicted would tsunami change people would buy thing Jeff started book big goal become store would sell everything Books convenient product test model combining idea internet making physical store digital Amazon revolutionised people bought good service longer walk front door 2 Always aim excellence ‘Ideas easy part execution everything’ One Amazon’s secret success research people behave tracked every action understanding people looked long put basket didn’t buy soon became expert predicting hadn’t yet looked likely buy equally obsessed every detail Bezos wanted everything go little bit faster done little bit better sort sloppiness unacceptable raising standard almost unachievable Jeff pushed Amazon improve every thinkable detail allowed offer lowest price fastest delivery product 3 customer come first ‘Think customer work there’ Bezos main aim never become billionaire produce service made life easier others Whenever Amazon received customer complaint would anything possible improve experience obsession customer wanted crucial people liked became loyal Amazon created longterm loyalty giving shortterm profitability example started give warning people put something shopping cart already purchased People may put mistake Amazon allowed customer correct option decreased shortterm sale increased customer satisfaction likelihood someone would return buy something future 4 Focus thing control ‘It’s impossible imagine future ten year customer come say ‘Jeff love Amazon wish price little higher love Amazon wish you’d deliver little slowly’’ business try predict future guess market want five ten year risky future unpredictable Instead Bezos try focus thing change know ten year customer still want low price fast delivery vast selection Putting effort optimise thing always time well spent 5 Think longterm ‘When win Golden Globe help u sell shoes’ making decision Bezos value longterm benefit shortterm cost Amazon several time launched effort resulted shortterm loss example guaranteed nextday delivery item 25 launched Prime service guaranteed twoday delivery item sort service expensive provide Amazon bet would lead content customer would spend longrun Even though one service lost money earned back somewhere else thinking longterm accomplished thing otherwise wouldn’t possible Amazon showed profit nine year established Bezos still managed convince shareholder longterm plan taking market share strategy lose money put company business couldn’t afford lose money strategy dominate market road 6 Prioritise what’s important ‘I always make sure get eight hour sleep every night don’t want risk making poor executive decision ‘tired grouchy’’ world’s richest man sleep eight hour night set first meeting 10 may sound lazy priority eat breakfast kid family alert early hour day like putter around house drinking coffee staying relaxed mindset type shortterm relaxation actually longterm productive taking time morning thrive ready perform matter 10 it’s business however Bezos like make important decision lunch first half day greatest capacity make good decision clear mind critical decision made maximise chance daily success 7 big goal ‘In space enough room trillion human could give u thousand Mozart’s thousand Einstein’s’ next big goal Bezos bring human space fear outgrow planet limited resource lead rationing starvation encouraging future Thus started Blue Origin program bring u space may seem farfetched recently method buying book walk store big dream big motivator keep improving Amazon Bezos way past point earning money matter lifequality success one area fulfil lifelong dream ever get feeling you’re working money worthwhile think purpose life money earn job help fund project secure clean water bring better education people may find newfound drive keep going Take home message Bezos started Amazon garage grew become wealthiest person world obsessed detail tried measure improve every possible component focus customer experience would go great length satisfy every customer Instead predicting future Bezos focused improving thing knew people would want 5–10 year Valuing longterm result shortterm profit likely lead success prioritising what’s important maximise chance making good decision matter Finding purpose much motivating goal earn money enjoyed article may also likeTags Amazon Business Entrepreneurship Life Lessons Inspiration

Laser Waveguide Technology Could Divert Lightning Strikes

Lightning strikes start over 9,000 US wildfires and cause $5 billion in damages every single year — but a new laser system for creating artificial lightning channels hopes to change that. We’re joined by Dr. Jean-Claude Diels, Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Electrical Engineering at the University of New Mexico, who’s spent over three decades studying laser-induced lightning discharges with the goal of safely redirecting this powerful force of nature. Jean-Claude, welcome! You’ve done a lot of research into atmospheric lightning and the laser-stimulated conduction of air. Let me start by asking if you can give me an overview of your research, and I’d also like to ask what inspired you to focus on this area of study? Dr. Jean-Claude Diels, University of New Mexico (UNM) What inspired me? I used to fly small planes, and I got hit by lightning while flying, so I thought I should have my revenge. So far, I haven’t — and I’m up against stiff competition from European researchers with a level of funding in their project that’s considerably larger than what we have here. To give you an idea, the European Laser Lightning Rod group is planning a field experiment in Switzerland next summer with a grant of about 20 million euro, or around $24 million US dollars. Their laser alone will cost 2 million euros after it’s fully installed — more than my entire budget of $100 thousand dollars a year. They’re going to be difficult to compete with, but we have slightly different approaches, so I think my team has a shot. I’ve read that each lightning bolt contains up to 1 billion joules of energy, which leads me ask whether your focus is primarily on lightning safety or if you’re also considering power generation applications? The focus is on safety, which is a priority these days due to global climate change and the incredible number of forest fires that are occurring. There are also safety applications for protecting airports, launch pads, and maybe even golf courses. You might be surprised to learn that nearly 5% of all deaths by lightning happen on golf courses when electricity conducts down the club. An artist’s concept of a laser lightning rod on a tall building (EuroNews) Let’s talk about how this laser lightning rod works. In the past, your research involved using an ultraviolet laser to create a “wire in the sky” that safely directs lightning down an ionized air-channel to ground. Is that still the path you’re pursuing with your research? Creating an ionization channel in the air was our initial intent, but nobody has been successful in getting electricity to conduct down it over distances. Yes, we can ionize the air with a laser, but the ionization dissipates before we can trigger the lightning. It goes feet — but we need miles of range. So, how can we overcome this limitation? One solution appears to be using a laser to create ionization, which in turn creates a shockwave. Inside of that shockwave, you’ll have a column of rarified air, and because it’s at low pressure, you’ll have created an easier conduction path for the lightning. So, in other words, the laser is superheating the air to rarefy it rather than relying on ultraviolet photoionization of a conductive air channel? Yes, that is exactly the approach that the Europeans are trying to use. Now in my case, I’m trying to use the same rarefaction of air to create a waveguide for a multiple laser system that could still perhaps ionize a column of air. A schematic of the waveguide approach being used by Diels team. Would you envision the laser system being placed on tall buildings and other typical lightning targets to safely conduct this charge to ground? That’s indeed the approach because our laser-based systems are stationary and cannot be moved. Before this, the most successful approach was rocket-triggered lightning discharges. However, what goes up must come down, and you don’t want to have the spectacle of having a spent rocket and spools of discharge wire falling back to Earth on a city. I think this takes us into lasers: you’ve worked mostly with femtosecond-pulsed UV excimer lasers, right? Is that because these are the most efficient ionizers because each photon in the UV spectrum will ionize 1 air molecule? Yes. I began my work using excimer-gas lasers, but since then I’ve changed to a type of solid-state laser that’s still in the ultraviolet range. The advantage of ultraviolet lasers isn’t only the single-photon ionization process, though. Most researchers are using infrared lasers, but each pulse of light in that spectrum makes little filaments of only 1 millijoule, while in the ultraviolet, the filaments created can be up to 1 joule each. The European experiment using infrared lasers was able to generate about 1 joule of energy altogether by producing thousands of tiny filaments, but it still creates the desired rarefaction in air, so their team is counting on that to direct the lightning. A 1kHz filamenting laser installed by Clemens Herkommer for the European LLR project. (Twitter) So, it comes back to rarefying the air then, and not simply ionizing it. It sounds like rarefaction is the key. Yes. The past experiments we did showed that the delay between the laser and the lightning was considerably more than the time that it takes for the ionization to dissipate, making this approach unsuccessful. Since single-beam ionization hasn’t worked, there are currently two other approaches being tried. The first involves creating a rarified air-channel, which is what the Europeans are attempting, and then there’s my approach, which combines what I call a “waveguide in the sky” with a multiple-beam laser assembly, which I believe will create a continuous conductor where a single beam would not. The difference between the ultraviolet and infrared approach is that the infrared laser makes thousands of tiny millijoule-energy filaments, whereas the UV approach essentially produces fewer, larger filaments averaging around 0.2 Joule energy per filament. After getting the laser in place, we need to project a focused, high-intensity beam over a long distance, perhaps around 10 kilometers. The classical solution is to use a huge aperture lens, but given the size required that isn’t very practical. However, there are other ways to focus our beam. One of those involves dynamic focusing — or manipulating the laser so that the beam becomes shorter and shorter, and ultimately compresses to a high enough density to create an ionized air channel. Alternatively, there’s also something called an acoustic waveguide, in which the filament creates an acoustic wave that you can use as a waveguide up to one hundred microseconds. An analysis of the ultrashort pulses used by Diels to generate filamentation. In the case of the acoustic waveguide, you have to use a very high repetition rate laser to sustain a conductive air channel. My goal is to do this at a frequency of 50 kilohertz using a laser that is frequency triple-compressed, generating a beam that creates filaments of 300 millijoules at 107 picoseconds in the UV. This is the system we have for our attempt at laser-induced discharge using a laboratory on the roof of our building. Our laser is inside the building, but we can send the beam up from the lab to the roof, and from there we can direct the beam to a rooftop lab, to the top of a nearby mountain, or to any other targets that are accessible in our line of sight. With our experimental apparatus, we are creating a lightning channel by superheating the air inside the filament, which produces a 40-micron channel within 300 nanoseconds. This channel is essentially an acoustic shockwave that becomes permanent at a repetition-rate over 10 kilohertz, and our apparatus is designed to achieve a rate of 50 kilohertz. For this test, we built a laser out of parts salvaged from the trashcan at the Air Force research lab in Albuquerque, where we found five laser skeletons that met our specifications. It was a challenging task to build one laser out of five skeletons, but it’s working now and produces an 80 Watt beam at 50 kilohertz that is pumping an amplifier for the filamenting laser. Before we go further, could you describe for us what you mean by the term filament? Could we describe this as a channel in the air that the beam is traveling down as it propagates? Yes, filamentation is the propagation of the beam through the air without diffraction. Now, during our early attempts to create a single-beam ionization channel, we found that sending the laser beam to a distance of even one kilometer leads it to spread out too much. For instance, if you start with a one-millimeter diameter beam, it will spread out to a few meters after one kilometer, and the energy is totally dissipated in the air. However, if you have a high enough beam intensity, the air will begin to act as a lens, and the laser beam will self-focus. At that point, when the air starts to ionize, the electrons tend to counteract that focusing and this creates what is essentially a waveguide in the air. This initial channel only lasts for a few microseconds, but it creates an acoustic shock wave when it dissipates that continues to act as a waveguide and lasts for a much longer period of time. This is the effect we’re trying to exploit by taking our repetition rate to 50 kilohertz. So, what you’re describing sounds like a waveguide made out of shockwaves. In this case, is the filament itself a shockwave? Yes, but keep in mind there are two filaments: the first is self-focusing weakly ionized air, and the second is a shockwave with a longer duration. These two continue in a cycle at 50 kilohertz, one creating the other, and the result is a stable conduction path through the air. Now I haven’t touched much on your teaching work, but I understand that you’ve graduated over 50 students with specialization in various areas related to high-speed pulsed lasers. Are any of your students following in your footsteps in terms of your work with lightning and atmospheric conductivity? One of my students went to work for a project in Romania, the Extreme Light Infrastructure, which boasts having the largest laser in the world. His budget just to build the laser was 310 million euros. The US is trying to compete by giving $10 million to the University of Michigan, but this is kind of ridiculous proportion. Altogether, the total budget for the Extreme Light Infrastructure project is 855 million euros, and we’re not going to effectively compete with that on a budget of $10 million. The Extreme Light Infrastructure beamlines building, boasting the world’s most powerful laser. (ELI) So, your student is working on a project in Romania, and then you also mentioned another European team. Can you tell me about them? Yes. Now, this team has a really huge facility. You see the gigantic building once the French team is making a laser it’s a French & Swiss team. They’re making a laser of that they plan to bring to a peak in the Alps. You can learn more about them on their website, which is online at http://llr-fet.eu/ You’re working with solid-state lasers now, right? Back in the old days, I understand this research was done with massive excimer gas lasers, but if I understand things correctly you’re working with something like a 355-nanometer solid-state laser, right? Yes. Solid-state lasers can be considerably smaller than gas lasers, and if you want to build a device that you can move to the top of a mountain, it needs to be as small and compact as possible. However, excimer gas-lasers are still used in some cases. For example, there’s an institute in Moscow is doing similar research with a gigantic excimer laser that takes up a whole building — but the Russians are not applying this research to lightning like my team or the Europeans are. How will you identify where the lightning is in order to point the laser at it? I understand that the laser creates a conduction path, but in order for conduction to happen you need to know where the lightning originates. Do you have a way to identify where to shoot the laser in the clouds? Identifying where to send the beam is something that will require a large, multidisciplinary team. This is a resource that the European project has, and they’re well-positioned to design equipment to detect where the lighting is going to start. However, this is an area that still requires a lot more research before we fully understand it. You can’t simply shoot a laser into the nearest cloud and expect results. Clouds are big, and we don’t know exactly where the field strength will be highest in them. We still need to find better ways to measure that. About Our Guest Jean-Claude Diels received a Ph.D. degree in 1973 from the University of Brussels, Belgium, for his research on coherent pulse propagation performed at the University of California, Berkeley, under advisement of Prof. E. L. Hahn. He is currently Professor of physics and electrical engineering at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He has graduated over 50 students in various areas including coherent interactions, ultrashort pulse generation and diagnostics, nonlinear propagation of intense pulses, and laser-induced discharges. He co-authored with Wolfgang Rudolph the graduate textbook Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena: Fundamentals, Techniques and Applications on a Femtosecond Time Scale and with Ladan Arrisian the book, Lasers: The Power and Precision of Light, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the laser, and published 5 book chapters. Dr. Diels has been honored with a fellowship in the Optical Society of America, and is the recipient of the 51st Annual Research Lecturer Award (April 2006), and of the 2006 Engineering Excellence Award of the Optical Society of America. You can learn more about him online at his website.

https://medium.com/swlh/laser-waveguide-technology-could-divert-lightning-strikes-65d0238cff4c

['Tim Ventura']

2020-10-05 10:20:37.277000+00:00

['Science', 'Technology', 'Physics', 'Weather', 'Lightning']

Title Laser Waveguide Technology Could Divert Lightning StrikesContent Lightning strike start 9000 US wildfire cause 5 billion damage every single year — new laser system creating artificial lightning channel hope change We’re joined Dr JeanClaude Diels Professor Physics Astronomy Electrical Engineering University New Mexico who’s spent three decade studying laserinduced lightning discharge goal safely redirecting powerful force nature JeanClaude welcome You’ve done lot research atmospheric lightning laserstimulated conduction air Let start asking give overview research I’d also like ask inspired focus area study Dr JeanClaude Diels University New Mexico UNM inspired used fly small plane got hit lightning flying thought revenge far haven’t — I’m stiff competition European researcher level funding project that’s considerably larger give idea European Laser Lightning Rod group planning field experiment Switzerland next summer grant 20 million euro around 24 million US dollar laser alone cost 2 million euro it’s fully installed — entire budget 100 thousand dollar year They’re going difficult compete slightly different approach think team shot I’ve read lightning bolt contains 1 billion joule energy lead ask whether focus primarily lightning safety you’re also considering power generation application focus safety priority day due global climate change incredible number forest fire occurring also safety application protecting airport launch pad maybe even golf course might surprised learn nearly 5 death lightning happen golf course electricity conduct club artist’s concept laser lightning rod tall building EuroNews Let’s talk laser lightning rod work past research involved using ultraviolet laser create “wire sky” safely directs lightning ionized airchannel ground still path you’re pursuing research Creating ionization channel air initial intent nobody successful getting electricity conduct distance Yes ionize air laser ionization dissipates trigger lightning go foot — need mile range overcome limitation One solution appears using laser create ionization turn creates shockwave Inside shockwave you’ll column rarified air it’s low pressure you’ll created easier conduction path lightning word laser superheating air rarefy rather relying ultraviolet photoionization conductive air channel Yes exactly approach Europeans trying use case I’m trying use rarefaction air create waveguide multiple laser system could still perhaps ionize column air schematic waveguide approach used Diels team Would envision laser system placed tall building typical lightning target safely conduct charge ground That’s indeed approach laserbased system stationary cannot moved successful approach rockettriggered lightning discharge However go must come don’t want spectacle spent rocket spool discharge wire falling back Earth city think take u laser you’ve worked mostly femtosecondpulsed UV excimer laser right efficient ionizers photon UV spectrum ionize 1 air molecule Yes began work using excimergas laser since I’ve changed type solidstate laser that’s still ultraviolet range advantage ultraviolet laser isn’t singlephoton ionization process though researcher using infrared laser pulse light spectrum make little filament 1 millijoule ultraviolet filament created 1 joule European experiment using infrared laser able generate 1 joule energy altogether producing thousand tiny filament still creates desired rarefaction air team counting direct lightning 1kHz filamenting laser installed Clemens Herkommer European LLR project Twitter come back rarefying air simply ionizing sound like rarefaction key Yes past experiment showed delay laser lightning considerably time take ionization dissipate making approach unsuccessful Since singlebeam ionization hasn’t worked currently two approach tried first involves creating rarified airchannel Europeans attempting there’s approach combine call “waveguide sky” multiplebeam laser assembly believe create continuous conductor single beam would difference ultraviolet infrared approach infrared laser make thousand tiny millijouleenergy filament whereas UV approach essentially produce fewer larger filament averaging around 02 Joule energy per filament getting laser place need project focused highintensity beam long distance perhaps around 10 kilometer classical solution use huge aperture lens given size required isn’t practical However way focus beam One involves dynamic focusing — manipulating laser beam becomes shorter shorter ultimately compress high enough density create ionized air channel Alternatively there’s also something called acoustic waveguide filament creates acoustic wave use waveguide one hundred microsecond analysis ultrashort pulse used Diels generate filamentation case acoustic waveguide use high repetition rate laser sustain conductive air channel goal frequency 50 kilohertz using laser frequency triplecompressed generating beam creates filament 300 millijoules 107 picosecond UV system attempt laserinduced discharge using laboratory roof building laser inside building send beam lab roof direct beam rooftop lab top nearby mountain target accessible line sight experimental apparatus creating lightning channel superheating air inside filament produce 40micron channel within 300 nanosecond channel essentially acoustic shockwave becomes permanent repetitionrate 10 kilohertz apparatus designed achieve rate 50 kilohertz test built laser part salvaged trashcan Air Force research lab Albuquerque found five laser skeleton met specification challenging task build one laser five skeleton it’s working produce 80 Watt beam 50 kilohertz pumping amplifier filamenting laser go could describe u mean term filament Could describe channel air beam traveling propagates Yes filamentation propagation beam air without diffraction early attempt create singlebeam ionization channel found sending laser beam distance even one kilometer lead spread much instance start onemillimeter diameter beam spread meter one kilometer energy totally dissipated air However high enough beam intensity air begin act lens laser beam selffocus point air start ionize electron tend counteract focusing creates essentially waveguide air initial channel last microsecond creates acoustic shock wave dissipates continues act waveguide last much longer period time effect we’re trying exploit taking repetition rate 50 kilohertz you’re describing sound like waveguide made shockwaves case filament shockwave Yes keep mind two filament first selffocusing weakly ionized air second shockwave longer duration two continue cycle 50 kilohertz one creating result stable conduction path air haven’t touched much teaching work understand you’ve graduated 50 student specialization various area related highspeed pulsed laser student following footstep term work lightning atmospheric conductivity One student went work project Romania Extreme Light Infrastructure boast largest laser world budget build laser 310 million euro US trying compete giving 10 million University Michigan kind ridiculous proportion Altogether total budget Extreme Light Infrastructure project 855 million euro we’re going effectively compete budget 10 million Extreme Light Infrastructure beamlines building boasting world’s powerful laser ELI student working project Romania also mentioned another European team tell Yes team really huge facility see gigantic building French team making laser it’s French Swiss team They’re making laser plan bring peak Alps learn website online httpllrfeteu You’re working solidstate laser right Back old day understand research done massive excimer gas laser understand thing correctly you’re working something like 355nanometer solidstate laser right Yes Solidstate laser considerably smaller gas laser want build device move top mountain need small compact possible However excimer gaslasers still used case example there’s institute Moscow similar research gigantic excimer laser take whole building — Russians applying research lightning like team Europeans identify lightning order point laser understand laser creates conduction path order conduction happen need know lightning originates way identify shoot laser cloud Identifying send beam something require large multidisciplinary team resource European project they’re wellpositioned design equipment detect lighting going start However area still requires lot research fully understand can’t simply shoot laser nearest cloud expect result Clouds big don’t know exactly field strength highest still need find better way measure Guest JeanClaude Diels received PhD degree 1973 University Brussels Belgium research coherent pulse propagation performed University California Berkeley advisement Prof E L Hahn currently Professor physic electrical engineering University New Mexico Albuquerque graduated 50 student various area including coherent interaction ultrashort pulse generation diagnostics nonlinear propagation intense pulse laserinduced discharge coauthored Wolfgang Rudolph graduate textbook Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena Fundamentals Techniques Applications Femtosecond Time Scale Ladan Arrisian book Lasers Power Precision Light celebrating 50th anniversary laser published 5 book chapter Dr Diels honored fellowship Optical Society America recipient 51st Annual Research Lecturer Award April 2006 2006 Engineering Excellence Award Optical Society America learn online websiteTags Science Technology Physics Weather Lightning

Allocate AWS Costs with Resource Tags

When you start having many projects — each with different environments — in your AWS account, it is very important to have an overview of the costs by project (and/or environment). Under AWS Cost Management / Cost Explorer is possible to view reports and aggregate costs by Services and you can set up many different filters to have a more granular view. The one filter I find more useful is by Tag. Assuming you are deploying your serverless infrastructure via CloudFormation ( directly, or through AWS SAM or Serverless framework) you are immediately able to Filter costs by Tag using the auto-generated Cloudformation:StackName ( which is the name you assign to the service in the yml file). Often though this is not enough, because maybe your infrastructure is split into multiple separate stacks. In some of our recent projects for example we have : a React frontend which we deploy to S3 and serve with a CloudFront Distribution ( which handles caching for us ) + Route53 for the domain name. which we deploy to and serve with a ( which handles caching for us ) + for the domain name. a RestAPI which relies on API Gateway and many different Lambdas which read and write to DynamoDB , and make use of SQS . which relies on and many different which read and write to , and make use of . a Cognito User Pool to handle the Authentication to the FrontEnd and allows it to make calls to the RestAPI. to handle the Authentication to the FrontEnd and allows it to make calls to the RestAPI. some additional CloudFront distributions (+ Route53 ) to expose some specific endpoints of the RestAPI to a 3rd party ( not the Cognito Authorized frontend ) and deal with caching based on query parameters. That means that these 4 components of the Architecture are described with different cloud formation stacks (in some case we don’t even have a stack because we created the resources via AWS CLI or CDK, or forgive me, directly with the AWS UI Console). The simple filter by stack name, therefore, is not enough. This does not mean you can not monitor the costs of the entire Application/Project. Many AWS services support user-generated tags, therefore it is possible to assign the same tag to resources from different services to indicate that the resources are related. For example, you could assign the same tag to an API Gateway stage that you assign to a CloudWatch Events rule. User-generated tags are simple key-value pairs assigned to the resource you are creating ( or have already created ). As usual, the quickest and easy approach could be adding them for each resource directly in the UIConsole: but this is definitely something you don’t want to do for anything else than a quick test or prototype project. Also adding tags with the AWS CLI is quick and easy, just check the docs for the CLI for your resource. ( unfortunately, the right way of passing the tags is slightly different from a resource to another). For example to add tags for a Cognito User Pool is just: aws cognito-idp tag-resource --resource-arn YOUR_USER_POOL_ARN --tags Project=PROJECT_NAME,Environment=YOUR_ENV but for S3 you need to pass a TagSet: # add cost allocation tags export tagSet="TagSet=[{Key=Project,Value=$PROJECT},{Key=Environment,Value=$YOUR_ENV}]" aws s3api put-bucket-tagging --bucket $S3_BUCKET_NAME --tagging=$tagSet and for CloudFront the tags are defined in an Array called Items. You can, therefore, create a JSON file and use that. # in tags.json { "Items": [ { "Key": "Project", "Value":"cap" }, { "Key": "Environment", "Value": "dev" } ] } aws cloudfront tag-resource --resource arn:aws:cloudfront::Q1W2E3R4T5:distribution/Q1W2E3R4T5Y6 --tags file://tags.json tags.json And the examples and differences could go on. As you see, a better and more maintainable approach is defining your tags along with the resource in your Infrastructure As Code ( be it Terraform, SAM or Serverless). With serverless framework it is as simple as adding this snippet to the provider section of your serverless.yml: stackTags: Project: PROJECT_NAME Environment: YOUR_STAGE/ENV Everything will work out of the box for your Lambdas and for DynamoDb, but again, you might need some adjustments for Cognito, SQS, S3 and API Gateway. For example for Cognito you need to specify them in the Cognito User Pool properties: UserPoolTags: {'Project': '${self:provider.stackTags.Project}', "Environment": '${self:provider.stackTags.Environment}'} For SQS is instead you have to specify key-value pairs under the properties of your Queue. Properties: Tags: - Key: Project Value: ${self:service} - Key: Environment Value: ${self:provider.stage} If you have many queues in your serverless.yml it could make sense to create a Custom Variable and refer to it in each queue. custom: sqsTags: - Key: Project Value: ${self:service} - Key: Environment Value: ${self:provider.stage} // and then in SQS block: Properties Tags: ${self:custom.sqsTags} As soon as we did that, with just one more google search we found out that there is a plugin to simplify the script. This has brought us to another plugin needed to tag the ApiGateway (which as you can see by the source code, I guess it’s clearly forked by the SQS one). In the serverless world, things change fast and it seems that at least for the API Gateway that plugin is not necessary anymore and we can just use the stackTags that come with the framework (alone or together with another node tags that allow customizing even more the API Resources. Honestly, though, I haven't yet figure out what is the difference between using stackTags and tags. It seems that the tags added with the tags node are added to the APIS/Stages/Configure Tags (together with the stackTags), while the stackTags are added only to APIS/Settings/Configure Tags. If you are interested in more granularity in that tagging you might want to check out the API Gateway Resources That Can Be Tagged AWS Resource Groups and Tag Editor Something that I really found useful while working on Cost Allocation Tags is the Tag Editor and Resource Group section of the UI Console. Tag editor allows you to select all the resources you have in your account, filter them and edit directly their tags. Resource groups allows you to have an aggregated view of all the resources under specific tags. These 2 tools are very handy to have an overview of the tags that you have applied and make sure all the different resources from different stacks will belong nicely together when it comes to the Cost Reports. Unfortunately, CloudFront distributions are not supported( yet ) in the Resource Groups (outside us-east-1) but you still can add tags directly to them. They will not be shown in the Tagged Resource Groups, but they will in the Cost Reports. Err on the side of using too many tags rather than too few. As you saw you can play around a lot and customize the tagging for each service. You can set the Tags at the provider level, or at the resource level. And of course, you can do both. One of the suggestions from AWS in regards to tagging is to be as precise and granular as you like, it is better to have too many tags than too few and this is why they set a rather high limitation of 50 tags for each resource, you will have plenty of room to customize and be specific your tags! As with many things AWS as soon as you start working on something, you realize there is an enourmous amout of stuff that you do NOT know ( and that’s never good for your Imposter Syndrome.. ). In the end Tagging resources for Costs Allocation is very simple, but it is only one aspect, because for example you could use tags to grant access to resources ( constraining IAM permissions by specific tags). If you want to know more you can start reading this page Something else you might want to check out is the version of AWS CLI you have installed on your machine, recently I wasted good 20 minutes trying to figure out why aws cognito-identity tag-resource --resource-arn arn:aws:cognito-identity:my_region:my_account:identitypool/my_region:my_identity_pool_id --tags MyTagKey=MyTagValue wasn't working: I was getting the error response Argument Operation: Invalid Choice despite apparently everything being exactly as described here I then run pip3 install --upgrade awscli and notice that my aws cli was updated from 1.16.70 to 1.16.283. (quite a big jump of patches) and then magically list-tags-for-resource and tag-resource where finally available. Photo by David Carboni on Unsplash

https://dvddpl.medium.com/allocate-aws-costs-with-resource-tags-277de240487f

['Davide De Paolis']

2019-11-21 10:03:42.531000+00:00

['Serverless', 'Software Engineering', 'AWS', 'Infrastructure As Code']

Title Allocate AWS Costs Resource TagsContent start many project — different environment — AWS account important overview cost project andor environment AWS Cost Management Cost Explorer possible view report aggregate cost Services set many different filter granular view one filter find useful Tag Assuming deploying serverless infrastructure via CloudFormation directly AWS SAM Serverless framework immediately able Filter cost Tag using autogenerated CloudformationStackName name assign service yml file Often though enough maybe infrastructure split multiple separate stack recent project example React frontend deploy S3 serve CloudFront Distribution handle caching u Route53 domain name deploy serve handle caching u domain name RestAPI relies API Gateway many different Lambdas read write DynamoDB make use SQS relies many different read write make use Cognito User Pool handle Authentication FrontEnd allows make call RestAPI handle Authentication FrontEnd allows make call RestAPI additional CloudFront distribution Route53 expose specific endpoint RestAPI 3rd party Cognito Authorized frontend deal caching based query parameter mean 4 component Architecture described different cloud formation stack case don’t even stack created resource via AWS CLI CDK forgive directly AWS UI Console simple filter stack name therefore enough mean monitor cost entire ApplicationProject Many AWS service support usergenerated tag therefore possible assign tag resource different service indicate resource related example could assign tag API Gateway stage assign CloudWatch Events rule Usergenerated tag simple keyvalue pair assigned resource creating already created usual quickest easy approach could adding resource directly UIConsole definitely something don’t want anything else quick test prototype project Also adding tag AWS CLI quick easy check doc CLI resource unfortunately right way passing tag slightly different resource another example add tag Cognito User Pool aws cognitoidp tagresource resourcearn YOURUSERPOOLARN tag ProjectPROJECTNAMEEnvironmentYOURENV S3 need pas TagSet add cost allocation tag export tagSetTagSetKeyProjectValuePROJECTKeyEnvironmentValueYOURENV aws s3api putbuckettagging bucket S3BUCKETNAME taggingtagSet CloudFront tag defined Array called Items therefore create JSON file use tagsjson Items Key Project Valuecap Key Environment Value dev aws cloudfront tagresource resource arnawscloudfrontQ1W2E3R4T5distributionQ1W2E3R4T5Y6 tag filetagsjson tagsjson example difference could go see better maintainable approach defining tag along resource Infrastructure Code Terraform SAM Serverless serverless framework simple adding snippet provider section serverlessyml stackTags Project PROJECTNAME Environment YOURSTAGEENV Everything work box Lambdas DynamoDb might need adjustment Cognito SQS S3 API Gateway example Cognito need specify Cognito User Pool property UserPoolTags Project selfproviderstackTagsProject Environment selfproviderstackTagsEnvironment SQS instead specify keyvalue pair property Queue Properties Tags Key Project Value selfservice Key Environment Value selfproviderstage many queue serverlessyml could make sense create Custom Variable refer queue custom sqsTags Key Project Value selfservice Key Environment Value selfproviderstage SQS block Properties Tags selfcustomsqsTags soon one google search found plugin simplify script brought u another plugin needed tag ApiGateway see source code guess it’s clearly forked SQS one serverless world thing change fast seems least API Gateway plugin necessary anymore use stackTags come framework alone together another node tag allow customizing even API Resources Honestly though havent yet figure difference using stackTags tag seems tag added tag node added APISStagesConfigure Tags together stackTags stackTags added APISSettingsConfigure Tags interested granularity tagging might want check API Gateway Resources Tagged AWS Resource Groups Tag Editor Something really found useful working Cost Allocation Tags Tag Editor Resource Group section UI Console Tag editor allows select resource account filter edit directly tag Resource group allows aggregated view resource specific tag 2 tool handy overview tag applied make sure different resource different stack belong nicely together come Cost Reports Unfortunately CloudFront distribution supported yet Resource Groups outside useast1 still add tag directly shown Tagged Resource Groups Cost Reports Err side using many tag rather saw play around lot customize tagging service set Tags provider level resource level course One suggestion AWS regard tagging precise granular like better many tag set rather high limitation 50 tag resource plenty room customize specific tag many thing AWS soon start working something realize enourmous amout stuff know that’s never good Imposter Syndrome end Tagging resource Costs Allocation simple one aspect example could use tag grant access resource constraining IAM permission specific tag want know start reading page Something else might want check version AWS CLI installed machine recently wasted good 20 minute trying figure aws cognitoidentity tagresource resourcearn arnawscognitoidentitymyregionmyaccountidentitypoolmyregionmyidentitypoolid tag MyTagKeyMyTagValue wasnt working getting error response Argument Operation Invalid Choice despite apparently everything exactly described run pip3 install upgrade awscli notice aws cli updated 11670 116283 quite big jump patch magically listtagsforresource tagresource finally available Photo David Carboni UnsplashTags Serverless Software Engineering AWS Infrastructure Code

Getting Started with Plot.ly

Getting Started with Plot.ly A Guided Walkthrough for Powerful Visualizations in Python Authors: Elyse Lee and Ishaan Dey Matplotlib is alright, Seaborn is great, but Plot.ly? That’s on an entirely new level. Plot.ly offers more than your average graph by providing options for full interactivity and many editing tools. Differentiated from the others by having options to have graphs in offline and online mode, it is also equipped with a robust API that when set up will work seamlessly to have the graphs displayed in a web browser as well as the ability for saving a local copy. One of the only frustration you’ll come across is dealing with many options to figure out the tools you want to use for your plots. Overview We’ll start with the basics of setting up plot.ly in Python. After that, we’ll get started with some basic visualizations ranging from typical box & whisker plots to choropleth maps, with code breakdowns along the way. We’ve made all visualizations in this guide using the Zillow Economics Dataset, which contains time-series data from 1996 to 2017 on various housing metrics aggregated by location. If you’re interested in the full code for this post, check out the GitHub link below; otherwise, all the code used to create the visualizations will be included for each visualization. Our hope is that by the end, you’ll have developed a basic intuition for how the plotly API works, as well as a feel for the generalizable framework you can apply towards your own projects. You can find a link to a plotly cheatsheet here, and if you’re interested in fine tuning any of the parameters used for the visualization, you can access the documentation using the help() function. For more details on all types of plots and parameters, here is a link to more information on Plotly’s Python open source graphing library. Setting Up Plotly is a platform that runs on JSON, a format in which parameters are passed to the plotly API in dictionary formats. We can access this API in python using the plot.ly package. To install the package, open up terminal and type $ pip install plotly or $ sudo pip install plotly . Plotly’s graphs are hosted using an online web service, so you’ll first have to setup a free account online to store your plots. To retrieve your personal API key, follow the link here: https://plot.ly/settings/api#/. Once you’ve done so, you can begin setting up plotly with the set_credential_files() function, as shown below. import plotly plotly.tools.set_credentials_file(username=’YourAccountName’, api_key=’YourAPIKey’)`` Plotting Online & Offline When displaying visualizations on plotly, both the plot and data are saved to your plotly account. Without paying for more space in cloud, you’ll have a maximum of 25 plots that can be stored on the cloud, but these images can easily be stored locally and deleted when making space for more. There are two main ways to display plotly plots. If you’re using Jupyter Notebook or another interactive python environment (files with the .ipynb extension), the py.iplot() function displays the plots in the output below the cell. py.plot() , on the other hand, returns a url that can be saved, and also opens using the default web browser. The Plotly offline mode also enables you to save graphs locally. To plot offline, you can use plotly.offline.plot() or plotly.offline.iplot() . Again, the iplot() function is used for Jupyter notebook, and will display the plots within the notebook. plot() creates an HTML page that is saved locally to be opened in a web browser. Basic Structure As we mentioned before, all plot.ly visualizations are created using Json structure which are list of parameters to be modified using API, so essentially you’ll see the parameters and general structure to make each plot which if you learn one, you can make the rest. import plotly.plotly as py import plotly.graph_objs as go import plotly.plotly as py : This has the functions for communicating with the plotly servers import plotly.graph_objs as go : This has the functions for generating graph objects. This is a useful module for calling help on to see all the attributes taken as parameters of an object. There are also different useful methods of the object available such as the update method that can be used to update the plot object to add more information onto it. Generalized Structure The graph_objs class contains several structures that are consistent across visualizations made in plot.ly, regardless of type. We begin with trace , which can be thought of as an individual layer that contains the data and specifications for how the data should be plotted (i.e. lines, markers, chart type). Here’s an example of the structure of trace: trace1 = { "x": ["2017-09-30", "2017-10-31", "2017-11-30", ...], "y": [327900.0, 329100.0, 331300.0, ...], "line": { "color": "#385965", "width": 1.5 }, "mode": "lines", "name": "Hawaii", "type": "scatter", } As you can see, trace is a dictionary of parameters of the data to be plotted, as well as information about the color and line types. We can compile several traces by appending them to a list, which we’ll call data . The order of traces in the list determine the order in which they’re laid onto the final plot. Typically, data should look something like this: data = [trace1, trace2, trace3, trace4] layout = go.Layout() : This object is used for the layout of the data including how it looks and changeable features such as title, axis titles, font, and spacing. Just like trace , it is a dictionary of dictionaries. layout = { "showlegend": True, "title": {"text": "Zillow Home Value Index for Top 5 States"}, "xaxis": { "rangeslider": {"visible": True}, "title": {"text": "Year from 1996 to 2017"}, "zeroline": False }, "yaxis": { "title": {"text": "ZHVI BottomTier"}, "zeroline": False } } We can finally compile the data and the layout using the go.Figure() function, which eventually gets passed to the plotting function that we choose. fig = go.Figure(data = data, layout = layout) Bar Chart go.Bar() creates a bar chart type figure. Within the go.Layout() function, we can specify important information such as barmode = “group” , which groups the different bars for each year together, labels for the x and y axes, and a title for the full graph. Line Plot go.Scatter() instantiates a trace of scatter type, as opposed to a bar chart or other form. We can change the mode of the marker using the mode parameter. Even though we are using a scatter plot, we can generate a scatter plot which creates lines and markers (points) on the lines. mode = “lines+markers” Time Series Line Plot Here, we’ve added a range slider that adjusts the domain of data that can be included in the main plot using the rangeslider parameter. We’ve also passed a colors dictionary containing a unique color for each state. To do so, we used the seaborn color_palette() function, specified the color range, as well as the number of discrete values we need from the distribution. Because plot.ly will not accept RGB tuples, we can convert the output to HEX codes using the as_hex() function. Multiple Scatter Plots To create this layout, instead of appending the traces to a single dictionary, we create subplots using the make_subplots() function, and add the trace to a specific location on the grid using the append_trace() function. Choropleth Map With the choropleth, we can take a shortcut using the figure factory class, which contains a set of functions to easily plot more complex figures such geographical maps. import plotly.figure_factory as ff From the ff.create_choropleth() function, we pass a set of FIPS values, or geographical identification codes specific to each county, city, or state, where the values (ZHVI_BottomTier) correspond to the data to be assigned to that region. Final Thoughts As depicted from the examples of different types of graphs above, Plot.ly is a powerful tool for developing both visually pleasing and comprehensible plots for a wide range of audiences. It has many benefits including being widely accessible with having both offline and online modes, and containing functions that can display generated graphs in the notebook and in a web browser. With extra advantages in interactivity, Plotly is a great alternative to Matplotlib and Seaborn, and can boost impact for presentation. Let us know if you have any questions!

https://towardsdatascience.com/getting-started-with-plot-ly-3c73706a837c

['Ishaan Dey']

2019-06-14 19:04:29.685000+00:00

['Data Visualization', 'Plotly', 'Data Science', 'Python']

Title Getting Started PlotlyContent Getting Started Plotly Guided Walkthrough Powerful Visualizations Python Authors Elyse Lee Ishaan Dey Matplotlib alright Seaborn great Plotly That’s entirely new level Plotly offer average graph providing option full interactivity many editing tool Differentiated others option graph offline online mode also equipped robust API set work seamlessly graph displayed web browser well ability saving local copy One frustration you’ll come across dealing many option figure tool want use plot Overview We’ll start basic setting plotly Python we’ll get started basic visualization ranging typical box whisker plot choropleth map code breakdown along way We’ve made visualization guide using Zillow Economics Dataset contains timeseries data 1996 2017 various housing metric aggregated location you’re interested full code post check GitHub link otherwise code used create visualization included visualization hope end you’ll developed basic intuition plotly API work well feel generalizable framework apply towards project find link plotly cheatsheet you’re interested fine tuning parameter used visualization access documentation using help function detail type plot parameter link information Plotly’s Python open source graphing library Setting Plotly platform run JSON format parameter passed plotly API dictionary format access API python using plotly package install package open terminal type pip install plotly sudo pip install plotly Plotly’s graph hosted using online web service you’ll first setup free account online store plot retrieve personal API key follow link httpsplotlysettingsapi you’ve done begin setting plotly setcredentialfiles function shown import plotly plotlytoolssetcredentialsfileusername’YourAccountName’ apikey’YourAPIKey’ Plotting Online Offline displaying visualization plotly plot data saved plotly account Without paying space cloud you’ll maximum 25 plot stored cloud image easily stored locally deleted making space two main way display plotly plot you’re using Jupyter Notebook another interactive python environment file ipynb extension pyiplot function display plot output cell pyplot hand return url saved also open using default web browser Plotly offline mode also enables save graph locally plot offline use plotlyofflineplot plotlyofflineiplot iplot function used Jupyter notebook display plot within notebook plot creates HTML page saved locally opened web browser Basic Structure mentioned plotly visualization created using Json structure list parameter modified using API essentially you’ll see parameter general structure make plot learn one make rest import plotlyplotly py import plotlygraphobjs go import plotlyplotly py function communicating plotly server import plotlygraphobjs go function generating graph object useful module calling help see attribute taken parameter object also different useful method object available update method used update plot object add information onto Generalized Structure graphobjs class contains several structure consistent across visualization made plotly regardless type begin trace thought individual layer contains data specification data plotted ie line marker chart type Here’s example structure trace trace1 x 20170930 20171031 20171130 3279000 3291000 3313000 line color 385965 width 15 mode line name Hawaii type scatter see trace dictionary parameter data plotted well information color line type compile several trace appending list we’ll call data order trace list determine order they’re laid onto final plot Typically data look something like data trace1 trace2 trace3 trace4 layout goLayout object used layout data including look changeable feature title axis title font spacing like trace dictionary dictionary layout showlegend True title text Zillow Home Value Index Top 5 States xaxis rangeslider visible True title text Year 1996 2017 zeroline False yaxis title text ZHVI BottomTier zeroline False finally compile data layout using goFigure function eventually get passed plotting function choose fig goFiguredata data layout layout Bar Chart goBar creates bar chart type figure Within goLayout function specify important information barmode “group” group different bar year together label x ax title full graph Line Plot goScatter instantiates trace scatter type opposed bar chart form change mode marker using mode parameter Even though using scatter plot generate scatter plot creates line marker point line mode “linesmarkers” Time Series Line Plot we’ve added range slider adjusts domain data included main plot using rangeslider parameter We’ve also passed color dictionary containing unique color state used seaborn colorpalette function specified color range well number discrete value need distribution plotly accept RGB tuples convert output HEX code using ashex function Multiple Scatter Plots create layout instead appending trace single dictionary create subplots using makesubplots function add trace specific location grid using appendtrace function Choropleth Map choropleth take shortcut using figure factory class contains set function easily plot complex figure geographical map import plotlyfigurefactory ff ffcreatechoropleth function pas set FIPS value geographical identification code specific county city state value ZHVIBottomTier correspond data assigned region Final Thoughts depicted example different type graph Plotly powerful tool developing visually pleasing comprehensible plot wide range audience many benefit including widely accessible offline online mode containing function display generated graph notebook web browser extra advantage interactivity Plotly great alternative Matplotlib Seaborn boost impact presentation Let u know questionsTags Data Visualization Plotly Data Science Python

The Snowman

It was one of those magical days. The kids had a snow day and I decided to blow off work. So, we spent the day outside. There were snowball fights and sledding after I spent approximately four hours shoveling. The showcase of course was the Snowman. We spent the afternoon on him. Three nearly perfect spheres of snow in three different sizes stacked on top of each other. My wife brought out a baby carrot for the nose. I had no idea where to get coal so the kids dug in the yard to find some frozen gravel which became the eyes and mouth. Then, all it took was some buttons, an old hat and scarf, and some well placed sticks. The youngest had just seen Frosty the Snowman and was half convinced that he would come to life when we put the hat on. She was disappointed when he didn’t. And now we were in the house. The kids were playing some video game and I was dicking around on my phone like a modern Norman Rockwell painting. There was even hot cocoa. I went to let the dog in and happened to pass by the front window that overlooked the front yard. A flash on movement caught my eye. “Honey did you see that?” “See what?” “The snowman. I swear it’s head turned,” “You’re ridiculous.” “No I swear.” “Whatever you say.” I stood there watching the snowman for 15 minutes, and I swear it was turning its head slightly to see if I was still watching him. But soon it was time for bed, and I forgot about the weird feeling. Until the next day I was walking out to work and as I opened my car door I was hit in the back with a snowball. I spun around and the street was quiet. It was 5:00 am the street was dark. I waited but still nothing. Later that day, I picked the kids up from school and there was a puddle of water in the kitchen. At first I thought the dog had an accident, but realized it was just…water. “Where’d this come from?” But the kids just shrugged. “Maybe Muffin spilled her water again?” one of them said. “From other room?” Again they just shrugged. At that age that was about the extent of their communication skills. So I cleaned it up. I looked back out front and the snowman was still there, but I swore he was in a slightly different spot. Again, it slipped to the back of my mind as I had other things to do. But that night, I felt cold air on my face. I woke up and I heard the bedroom door shut. I sprang up and when my feet hit the floor they were wet. I was standing in another puddle. I sprinted downstairs to look out the window. But the snowman was there. Though, I could swear there was the slightest trail in the snow. I tried to wake my wife up but she was having none of it. “Honey,” I whispered. “I swear to god you say something else about the snowman I’m leaving you.” “Ugh fine.” “You’re crazy.” “It’s alive babe.” “Whatever go to sleep.” The next day, nothing happened, and I was slightly relieved because there was supposed to be a warm spell. So my snowman worries were over. I went to bed. And I awoke to the same cold air I felt the other night. And something being pushed on my face. My eyes popped open to see what the snowman trying to smother with his scarf. I tried to fight him off, but soon it went dark. I woke up to more cold air. So, so cold. I realized I was standing in my front yard but when I tried to walk back in the house I couldn’t move. I was able to see and turn my head slightly. But the horror came when I saw that I was no longer in my body. I was made of snow. My arms were sticks, and my nose a carrot. It got worse as I saw my family leaving the house in the morning. I could see my old body moving just fine. What happened? But my body turned and I saw the same wicked grin that was on the snowman’s face the night before. Oh god. He switched our bodies. I tried to move but nothing. I tried to scream, to say anything, but there was only silence. I was stuck in a frozen body as the sun rose and I could already feel my body starting to melt.

https://medium.com/the-inkwell/the-snowman-4ef92500f4b1

['Matthew Donnellon']

2020-11-28 04:17:24.882000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Short Story', 'Life', 'Books', 'Fiction']

Title SnowmanContent one magical day kid snow day decided blow work spent day outside snowball fight sledding spent approximately four hour shoveling showcase course Snowman spent afternoon Three nearly perfect sphere snow three different size stacked top wife brought baby carrot nose idea get coal kid dug yard find frozen gravel became eye mouth took button old hat scarf well placed stick youngest seen Frosty Snowman half convinced would come life put hat disappointed didn’t house kid playing video game dicking around phone like modern Norman Rockwell painting even hot cocoa went let dog happened pas front window overlooked front yard flash movement caught eye “Honey see that” “See what” “The snowman swear it’s head turned” “You’re ridiculous” “No swear” “Whatever say” stood watching snowman 15 minute swear turning head slightly see still watching soon time bed forgot weird feeling next day walking work opened car door hit back snowball spun around street quiet 500 street dark waited still nothing Later day picked kid school puddle water kitchen first thought dog accident realized just…water “Where’d come from” kid shrugged “Maybe Muffin spilled water again” one said “From room” shrugged age extent communication skill cleaned looked back front snowman still swore slightly different spot slipped back mind thing night felt cold air face woke heard bedroom door shut sprang foot hit floor wet standing another puddle sprinted downstairs look window snowman Though could swear slightest trail snow tried wake wife none “Honey” whispered “I swear god say something else snowman I’m leaving you” “Ugh fine” “You’re crazy” “It’s alive babe” “Whatever go sleep” next day nothing happened slightly relieved supposed warm spell snowman worry went bed awoke cold air felt night something pushed face eye popped open see snowman trying smother scarf tried fight soon went dark woke cold air cold realized standing front yard tried walk back house couldn’t move able see turn head slightly horror came saw longer body made snow arm stick nose carrot got worse saw family leaving house morning could see old body moving fine happened body turned saw wicked grin snowman’s face night Oh god switched body tried move nothing tried scream say anything silence stuck frozen body sun rose could already feel body starting meltTags Creativity Short Story Life Books Fiction

Before It Goes

a part-time writer’s frustration is the state of brimming with ideas threatening to disappear you searching for nooks and crannies of time in the workday’s drudgery everything is drudgery, after all, compared to writing to jot it down, the brilliance that has possessed you.

https://medium.com/meri-shayari/before-it-goes-1cd271aa22f9

['Rebeca Ansar']

2019-10-30 15:01:01.640000+00:00

['Writing', 'Creativity', 'Poetry', 'Ideas', 'Writer']

Title GoesContent parttime writer’s frustration state brimming idea threatening disappear searching nook cranny time workday’s drudgery everything drudgery compared writing jot brilliance possessed youTags Writing Creativity Poetry Ideas Writer

How the Kardashev Scale Will Determine Our Future

One of the most fascinating theories regarding space is that of the Kardashev scale. Meant to describe what alien civilizations would look like, it labels our own in comparison to what may be in the cosmos. What is the Kardashev Scale? Proposed originally by Russian astrophysicist, Nikolai Kardashev, this scale measures potential civilizations by energy output in 3 stages. He believed that a civilization is measured on a cosmic level by its’ energy usage and the technology it uses. According to Kardashev, these two aspects ran parallel to one another. As more energy is produced, higher levels of technology are needed to produce it. Therefore, a society that has a high energy output must have matching technology. In other words, more energy output = more technologically advanced. Here’s the sad part…humans aren’t even on this scale yet. We still harvest most of our energy from dead animals, plants, and the Earth itself. Society as we know it is a Type 0 civilization. Ouch. Current estimates on when we may even be promoted onto the scale aren’t for another few hundred years. That being said, what does each stage of the Kardashev Scale mean and how is it applicable to our future? Type I Civilization This relatively low-level civilization that we have almost achieved is characterized by one that harnesses the complete energy of its’ neighboring star. Basically solar power. Essentially, natural disasters can be converted into energy rather than destruction by civilizations of this caliber. Our energy production would need to be 100,000 times what it is now to achieve this. Yeah, that’s the low level of this scale…start imagining the rest. A very important characteristic, and perhaps why we haven’t achieved it, is that a Type I civilization has the ability to store enough energy for its’ growing population. In other words, overpopulation is no longer a problem. The entire planets’ resources would be utilized for energy and the light from our star as well. While it may sound extremely far fetched, energy production is largely exponential and one or two large breakthroughs could help us achieve this stage. Type II Civilization This form of civilization is similar to Type I in the sense that a civilization of this rank controls the energy from its’ star. However, it goes beyond just converting solar energy. Type II civilizations have the ability to directly manipulate their star and convert its’ energy to something more powerful than anything we’ve seen. An idea would be a device that can capture the energy released from fusion which powers stars. This energy could then theoretically be transferred back to a home planet for use. If gathered this way, the energy would be far more powerful than any form of solar energy we have seen. Having the ability to actually manipulate a star means that all-natural universal disasters would no longer pose a threat to the planet. The capability of celestial manipulation means that any asteroid on a collision path with us could be vaporized, for example. We are an estimated 1000–2000 years away from this level of technology, provided we don’t wipe ourselves out first. Type III Civilization Finally, we get to the big dogs of the universe. Advanced civilizations of this level have harnessed all the energy available from their galaxy in a sustainable way. Complete colonization and the energy gathered from hundreds of millions of stars power a civilization of this magnitude. A society this advanced is at least a million years ahead of us in development. One of the only ways society would successfully reach this point is by overcoming light-speed travel, which may entail using wormholes or some other form of travel. The technology used by a society such as this would most likely appear as magic to us at our current level. Truthfully, if beings of this strength came across us they would probably terraform our world due to our low development. It’s worth noting that in recent years, researches have extended the scale by two notches: Type IV and Type V. Universal and Multiversal civilizations, respectively, these groups would transcend time and space as we know it. Given that civilizations of those types aren’t even comprehensible, scientists haven’t officially added them to the scale. The truth of the matter is that we are a Type 0. We’ve wasted centuries fighting one another for resources, attempting to beat one another when we really should have been collaborating. Any hope we have of advancing into the stars and onto the scale requires that we work together. Achieving a Type I civilization would put an end to our resource use and overpopulation problems, but only if we can put our differences aside. The future of our society depends on it. We’ll see how it all plays out.

https://medium.com/predict/how-the-kardashev-scale-will-determine-our-future-723706cf33c1

['Trevor Mahoney']

2019-11-23 22:45:30.352000+00:00

['Astronomy', 'Space', 'Ideas', 'Science', 'Future']

Title Kardashev Scale Determine FutureContent One fascinating theory regarding space Kardashev scale Meant describe alien civilization would look like label comparison may cosmos Kardashev Scale Proposed originally Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev scale measure potential civilization energy output 3 stage believed civilization measured cosmic level its’ energy usage technology us According Kardashev two aspect ran parallel one another energy produced higher level technology needed produce Therefore society high energy output must matching technology word energy output technologically advanced Here’s sad part…humans aren’t even scale yet still harvest energy dead animal plant Earth Society know Type 0 civilization Ouch Current estimate may even promoted onto scale aren’t another hundred year said stage Kardashev Scale mean applicable future Type Civilization relatively lowlevel civilization almost achieved characterized one harness complete energy its’ neighboring star Basically solar power Essentially natural disaster converted energy rather destruction civilization caliber energy production would need 100000 time achieve Yeah that’s low level scale…start imagining rest important characteristic perhaps haven’t achieved Type civilization ability store enough energy its’ growing population word overpopulation longer problem entire planets’ resource would utilized energy light star well may sound extremely far fetched energy production largely exponential one two large breakthrough could help u achieve stage Type II Civilization form civilization similar Type sense civilization rank control energy its’ star However go beyond converting solar energy Type II civilization ability directly manipulate star convert its’ energy something powerful anything we’ve seen idea would device capture energy released fusion power star energy could theoretically transferred back home planet use gathered way energy would far powerful form solar energy seen ability actually manipulate star mean allnatural universal disaster would longer pose threat planet capability celestial manipulation mean asteroid collision path u could vaporized example estimated 1000–2000 year away level technology provided don’t wipe first Type III Civilization Finally get big dog universe Advanced civilization level harnessed energy available galaxy sustainable way Complete colonization energy gathered hundred million star power civilization magnitude society advanced least million year ahead u development One way society would successfully reach point overcoming lightspeed travel may entail using wormhole form travel technology used society would likely appear magic u current level Truthfully being strength came across u would probably terraform world due low development It’s worth noting recent year research extended scale two notch Type IV Type V Universal Multiversal civilization respectively group would transcend time space know Given civilization type aren’t even comprehensible scientist haven’t officially added scale truth matter Type 0 We’ve wasted century fighting one another resource attempting beat one another really collaborating hope advancing star onto scale requires work together Achieving Type civilization would put end resource use overpopulation problem put difference aside future society depends We’ll see play outTags Astronomy Space Ideas Science Future

I’m No Longer a Developer

I’m No Longer a Developer A path to being a software engineer Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash People, organizations, companies, and even nations are all dependent on software. The process of developing, deploying, upgrading, and even the decommissioning of software all can include costly exercises that can hold real life-threatening consequences. Projects have budgets, users have requirements, requirements change, technical solutions are plentiful, all solutions are not equal in outcome, and this is why software engineers are important. Simply being a good developer does not equate to being a great software engineer. If you have studied computer science or attended developer boot camps, most likely you have more skills you must have or obtain in order to truly fulfill the role of being a software engineer. In this article, we will introduce additional reasons why software engineering is important, the scope of a developer vs the scope of a software engineer in order to clarify areas that might exist between the two, and how developers unknowingly transition into being a software engineer. What costs more the hardware or the software? Like all professions in this world, cost plays a big role in determining how we operate. The amount of economic impact we have in the daily functions we execute in our professions often determines the training we must have before being allowed to perform those functions and often determines the number of precautions we put in place to prevent us from making mistakes while executing those functions. Software always dominates the cost of your average PC when compared to hardware. There is a longer life cycle for software, where hardware for the user is complete, software needs to be updated for applications and even to improve the performance of the hardware itself. According to Bloomberg reports the iPhone X with 64 gigabytes of storage cost about $370.25 to make and it’s being sold a little under $1000. Although that figure does not include manufacturing and software it aids in giving us an idea of what software adds to the cost of the product. Developer vs Software Engineer Software engineering is centered around all of the methods, tools, and theoretical practices centered around the software development process where developers are focused on implementing customer requirements by writing lines of code. In other words, software engineering includes all facets of software production. Both developers and software engineers should be well organized and use systematic approaches to delivering solutions, but the shortfalls or accomplishments of a software engineer will surely have a greater impact on the product and the organization it resides in. It helps if both developers and software engineers have some form of computer science background, but it is by no means a requirement. For developers, a strong understanding of computer science fundamentals can be sufficient in some positions, for software engineers computer science fundamentals are not sufficient for being successful. Software engineers also need to have stronger soft skills similar to successful project managers and product owners. The cost of the development process, product specifications, validation, and evolution are all in-scope for the software engineer. Although this can vary based on team or company size, in general, software engineers are rarely writing code if any at all. To get a better understanding of the scope of a software engineering, the ACM, IEEE-CS approved the following eight principles that software engineers shall adhere to: 1. PUBLIC — Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest. 2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER — Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest. 3. PRODUCT — Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible. 4. JUDGMENT — Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment. 5. MANAGEMENT — Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance. 6. PROFESSION — Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest. 7. COLLEAGUES — Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues. 8. SELF — Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession. Sorry, Your No Longer a Developer Photo by Mason Kimbarovsky on Unsplash Most Computer Science programs ensure to embedded great theoretical understanding in their students before they graduate and move into the professional world. Depending on the number of hands-on practical implementations of those concepts you were able to perform, you may or may not have a steep learning curve in adjusting from school problems to the real problems of the world. This may include simply learning how to integrating functionality into a large code base that is not yours, or even the art of testing your code without being able to simply compile what you have just implemented to see if it works, like you would on a simple school CS assignment. Soon after mastering the professional requirements of being a developer, you start to gain more responsibilities, attend more meetings, and eventually start writing less code as you soon find yourself in meetings with more customers, management, and business colleagues. You have proven that you can not only write code, but you can also clearly provide the pros and cons of different decisions for your non-technical leadership. You have officially passed the skills obtained through your computer science degree, boot camp training, and early carrier. You must now accept that in reality, you have a decision to make. Do you really want to ask for less responsibility so you can return to just being a developer? Do you accept the challenge and write less code? Do you find another job and start this process over just so you can be a developer once more? All companies do not follow this same progression based on their size and philosophy, but this is a reality that many well-spoken developers may soon find themselves in. Many very talented software engineers would love to be just a developer, is there anything wrong with that?

https://medium.com/dev-genius/im-no-longer-a-developer-35e2c5b8eb90

['Terrence Pugh']

2020-07-01 15:23:13.865000+00:00

['Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Development', 'Careers', 'Programming']

Title I’m Longer DeveloperContent I’m Longer Developer path software engineer Photo Austin Distel Unsplash People organization company even nation dependent software process developing deploying upgrading even decommissioning software include costly exercise hold real lifethreatening consequence Projects budget user requirement requirement change technical solution plentiful solution equal outcome software engineer important Simply good developer equate great software engineer studied computer science attended developer boot camp likely skill must obtain order truly fulfill role software engineer article introduce additional reason software engineering important scope developer v scope software engineer order clarify area might exist two developer unknowingly transition software engineer cost hardware software Like profession world cost play big role determining operate amount economic impact daily function execute profession often determines training must allowed perform function often determines number precaution put place prevent u making mistake executing function Software always dominates cost average PC compared hardware longer life cycle software hardware user complete software need updated application even improve performance hardware According Bloomberg report iPhone X 64 gigabyte storage cost 37025 make it’s sold little 1000 Although figure include manufacturing software aid giving u idea software add cost product Developer v Software Engineer Software engineering centered around method tool theoretical practice centered around software development process developer focused implementing customer requirement writing line code word software engineering includes facet software production developer software engineer well organized use systematic approach delivering solution shortfall accomplishment software engineer surely greater impact product organization resides help developer software engineer form computer science background mean requirement developer strong understanding computer science fundamental sufficient position software engineer computer science fundamental sufficient successful Software engineer also need stronger soft skill similar successful project manager product owner cost development process product specification validation evolution inscope software engineer Although vary based team company size general software engineer rarely writing code get better understanding scope software engineering ACM IEEECS approved following eight principle software engineer shall adhere 1 PUBLIC — Software engineer shall act consistently public interest 2 CLIENT EMPLOYER — Software engineer shall act manner best interest client employer consistent public interest 3 PRODUCT — Software engineer shall ensure product related modification meet highest professional standard possible 4 JUDGMENT — Software engineer shall maintain integrity independence professional judgment 5 MANAGEMENT — Software engineering manager leader shall subscribe promote ethical approach management software development maintenance 6 PROFESSION — Software engineer shall advance integrity reputation profession consistent public interest 7 COLLEAGUES — Software engineer shall fair supportive colleague 8 SELF — Software engineer shall participate lifelong learning regarding practice profession shall promote ethical approach practice profession Sorry Longer Developer Photo Mason Kimbarovsky Unsplash Computer Science program ensure embedded great theoretical understanding student graduate move professional world Depending number handson practical implementation concept able perform may may steep learning curve adjusting school problem real problem world may include simply learning integrating functionality large code base even art testing code without able simply compile implemented see work like would simple school CS assignment Soon mastering professional requirement developer start gain responsibility attend meeting eventually start writing le code soon find meeting customer management business colleague proven write code also clearly provide pro con different decision nontechnical leadership officially passed skill obtained computer science degree boot camp training early carrier must accept reality decision make really want ask le responsibility return developer accept challenge write le code find another job start process developer company follow progression based size philosophy reality many wellspoken developer may soon find Many talented software engineer would love developer anything wrong thatTags Software Development Software Engineering Development Careers Programming

AWS Encryption SDK in Baby Steps

How to protect customer data from physical and applicative data breaches is a challenge that every developer will face sooner than later. When developing a cloud application based on AWS, the responsibility of protecting customer data is shared between the AWS infrastructure and the application developer. The AWS infrastructure supplies the infrastructure for encryption at rest, against physical data breaches and data protection in transit, while the application developer implements a Client side encryption. In reality, designing a client side encryption solution is a challenging task with lots of considerations to take care of, like managing the encryption keys’ lifecycle, complying with encryption industry standards, choosing the encryption library, etc. Luckily, AWS developed an open source solution — the AWS Encryption SDK that applies encryption industry best practices and innovations, while hiding most of the complexity in a simple set of APIs and configurations. In addition, the SDK integrates natively with the AWS Key management service.

https://medium.com/cyberark-engineering/aws-encryption-sdk-in-baby-steps-a2a5a99cea24

['Albert Niderhofer']

2020-10-07 07:33:17.907000+00:00

['Aws Sdk', 'Python', 'Encryption', 'AWS']

Title AWS Encryption SDK Baby StepsContent protect customer data physical applicative data breach challenge every developer face sooner later developing cloud application based AWS responsibility protecting customer data shared AWS infrastructure application developer AWS infrastructure supply infrastructure encryption rest physical data breach data protection transit application developer implement Client side encryption reality designing client side encryption solution challenging task lot consideration take care like managing encryption keys’ lifecycle complying encryption industry standard choosing encryption library etc Luckily AWS developed open source solution — AWS Encryption SDK applies encryption industry best practice innovation hiding complexity simple set APIs configuration addition SDK integrates natively AWS Key management serviceTags Aws Sdk Python Encryption AWS

4 Books to Help You Become a Seasoned Python Programmer

4 Books to Help You Become a Seasoned Python Programmer A review of some of the best Python books Photo by Link Hoang on Unsplash. I know, I know. The internet has been around for many years, so why on earth are there people who still want to read books? There are tons of free resources online. Who is “stupid” enough to pay $30-40 or even more to buy a book on programming? I’m one of the “stupid” people who have bought many books on Python to improve my coding skills, and they have benefited my work as a scientist whose job has lots of coding requirements. In this article, I’d like to share four Python books that I find to be more useful than others. Disclaimer: I’m providing Amazon links to these books for your convenience. They’re not affiliate links and I have no conflicts of interest to declare. The discussion of these books is solely based on my personal learning experience.

https://medium.com/better-programming/4-books-to-help-you-become-a-seasoned-python-programmer-7dea2fade7ed

['Yong Cui']

2020-10-14 15:05:30.663000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Software Development', 'Programming']

Title 4 Books Help Become Seasoned Python ProgrammerContent 4 Books Help Become Seasoned Python Programmer review best Python book Photo Link Hoang Unsplash know know internet around many year earth people still want read book ton free resource online “stupid” enough pay 3040 even buy book programming I’m one “stupid” people bought many book Python improve coding skill benefited work scientist whose job lot coding requirement article I’d like share four Python book find useful others Disclaimer I’m providing Amazon link book convenience They’re affiliate link conflict interest declare discussion book solely based personal learning experienceTags Machine Learning Python Artificial Intelligence Software Development Programming

Things to Consider When Choosing a Component Library

Things to Consider When Choosing a Component Library A wrong choice can lead to bad, hacky code Photo by Oliver Roos on Unsplash Modern UIs are composed of multiple components. Popular component libraries include components like: Buttons Forms: input fields, select elements, checkboxes, radio buttons Dialogs, modals, and popovers Cards Tabs Some of the most important things to consider when picking a component library: Maintainability: Who are the people behind the library? Is it a company, a group of passionate open-source contributors, or a one-man army? Flexibility: To what degree can this library be customized to your needs? Ease of use: How difficult is it to use and integrate this library into a project? Popularity: Is this library used by millions of developers or just a few developers in one company? Dependencies: How much does this library depend on other third-party libraries? Documentation and resources: Where and how can I get tutorials and other information about this library? In this post, I want to take a closer look at this with a real-life example. The project will be an Angular web application and I’ll use the following component libraries: Angular Material: A framework that contains material design components for Angular. Bootstrap 4: The most popular CSS framework, originally created by Twitter. ngx-bootstrap: An implementation of the popular Bootstrap framework which is intended for Angular applications. Nebular: A customizable Angular UI Library with multiple components, themes, and further feature modules like Auth and Security. While we’re taking a closer look at component libraries many of these aspects apply to libraries and frameworks in general.

https://medium.com/better-programming/things-to-consider-when-choosing-a-component-library-5c864de6d693

['Ali Kamalizade']

2020-07-21 20:43:15.946000+00:00

['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'React', 'Angular', 'Software Engineering']

Title Things Consider Choosing Component LibraryContent Things Consider Choosing Component Library wrong choice lead bad hacky code Photo Oliver Roos Unsplash Modern UIs composed multiple component Popular component library include component like Buttons Forms input field select element checkboxes radio button Dialogs modal popover Cards Tabs important thing consider picking component library Maintainability people behind library company group passionate opensource contributor oneman army Flexibility degree library customized need Ease use difficult use integrate library project Popularity library used million developer developer one company Dependencies much library depend thirdparty library Documentation resource get tutorial information library post want take closer look reallife example project Angular web application I’ll use following component library Angular Material framework contains material design component Angular Bootstrap 4 popular CSS framework originally created Twitter ngxbootstrap implementation popular Bootstrap framework intended Angular application Nebular customizable Angular UI Library multiple component theme feature module like Auth Security we’re taking closer look component library many aspect apply library framework generalTags Programming JavaScript React Angular Software Engineering

For The Love Of A Cam Girl

For The Love Of A Cam Girl Grant Amato stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his family. They did everything possible to keep him out of jail and he thanked them with bullets. Grant Amato | Source: publicpolicerecord.com The Amato family was an American success story. Chad and Margaret had three boys; Jason, Cody, and Grant. They lived in a beautiful home in Chuluota, Florida, and were a tight familial unit. Chad was employed as a pharmacist and also worked on computers. He strove to provide his family with a comfortable life. Margaret loved horses, especially ones that were abused or left for dead. She would go to the stable daily to work with a horse that she rescued and never gave up on it no matter how many times it bucked her. The three boys got along with each other well, with Cody and Grant being each other’s best friend and the closest in age. The Amato’s loved football and often went to Florida Gators games together. From the outside looking in, they were the ideal happy family. When Grant and Cody were in high school they became interested in health and wellness. They joined the school’s weightlifting team and would push each other in the gym. After high school, Grant joined Cody at the University of Central Florida and this is when life began to drastically change for Grant and the whole Amato family. Problems Grant and Cody Amato were on the same career path. They both were going to go through nursing school then anesthesiology school. After they graduated, the plan was for Cody and Grant to buy matching BMWs and eventually their parent’s house. Chad and Margaret had bought a house in Tennessee that they were going to retire to. Cody stuck to the plan, Grant had his difficulties. He was able to finish his nursing requirements but failed out of anesthesiology school. Still, he landed a nursing job. It didn’t last long. Grant was suspended while an investigation began into him stealing and improperly administering medication. The company he worked for had him arrested and subsequently fired. Somehow the charges were dropped, possibly from Cody paying $8,000 for his brother’s lawyer. Out of work, Grant retreated to his bedroom in his parent’s house. Initially, he would mostly play video games and live stream. He wanted to become popular on the gaming streaming site Twitch and use that for his source of income. When Grant wasn’t gaming or live-streaming, he watched porn. Through his pornographic excursions, he met a Bulgarian cam girl named Silvie and became infatuated with her. The Catalyst Silvie was gorgeous, with her long dark hair, beautiful figure, and exotic Eastern European dialect. Grant was in love and obsessed. Silvie | Source: screenshot Social Evil TV on YouTube According to Michael Williams’ Orlando Sentinel article, “Obsession, money, lies tore Grant Amato’s family apart. A jury will decide whether he killed them,” Grant began to steal money from his father and Cody to pay for Silvie’s virtual company. He would spend up to four hours a night watching Silvie do what cam girls do. The site used a token system to buy time with their models. Grant typically bought 5,000 tokens at a time which cost $600. Silvie’s shows cost 90 tokens per minute. If he watched for four hours, that added up to 21,600 tokens and roughly $2,500. His desperation to keep Silvie in his life made him resort to thieving from the people who loved him. The young man also needed to keep up the facade he portrayed when interacting with Silvie as someone rich and successful. He would send her lingerie and sex toys to use during her performances as well as extra cash aside from the tokens. Grant stole credit cards from his father and Cody that would quickly get maxed out. When these transactions were first discovered, Grant explained that he needed the money to promote himself on Twitch. The two of them expected that he was lying, but Grant felt no need to stop because he knew they would never press charges. The Ultimatum The amount of money that Grant stole from his family became astronomical. Between his father and brother, he had taken about $200,000 in a span of months. Vulnerable Silvie | Source: screenshot from That Chapter on YouTube But the family protected their youngest member and continued to live as his hostages. Cody went above and beyond normal brethren duties. He shelled out $10,000 so he and Grant could go on an already planned trip to Japan. He hoped the vacation would allow Grant to clear his head. After the 10-day trip, they could seek treatment and therapy for the troubled man. When the brothers returned home, the tension between Grant and his father increased. Chad Amato was becoming impatient with Grant’s inability to find a job. The stress he experienced from seeing his retirement being handed over to a woman his son had never even met in person was too much to contain and he rode Grant hard to turn his life around. After one argument, Grant walked out of the house. His family reported him missing and told the police that he was extremely depressed. Grant went to the home of his aunt, Donna Amato, and was allowed to stay over. She noticed that something was wrong with her nephew. Then she started seeing bizarre charges in her bank account and thought that she had been hacked, but figured out that they were from Grant. Chad and Margaret begged Donna not to press charges and Cody even promised to cover all the money stolen by his brother. In Williams’ article, he said that Chad broke down during one phone call, the only time Donna Amato had heard her brother-in-law cry in the 27 years she knew him. Chad explained that he had to remortgage his house to cover $150,000 of Grant’s debt. One day the family surprised Grant and took him to a rehab facility. Cody footed the bill to the tune of $15,000. After a couple of weeks, Grant was allowed to return home, but there were strict rules with a zero-tolerance policy. The requirements were: Grant had to get a job, he could not get online at night, he couldn’t have a cell phone, he could not contact Silvie, he had to go to therapy, and the family was done covering any of Grant’s debts. Chad had let another fraudulent line of credit go through and it was the last straw. The End The rules meant almost nothing to Grant as he never faced real consequences. He was able to con his mother into letting him use her phone to contact Silvie. According to Williams’ article, when Chad became aware of this, he grabbed his son by the shirt, told him to pack his things and get out of the house. He was no longer welcome. On January 24, 2019, when Grant was supposed to be gathering his belongings to move, he decided on a different plan. While his mother worked on the computer, Grant walked up behind her and shot her in the head. He then waited for his father to get home. Chad Amato carried a gun on him, so Grant knew he needed to sneak up on him. When his father arrived home and walked into the kitchen, Grant shot him twice in the head. Two down, one to go. The finale was Cody. He was the key piece of Grant’s twisted plot. When Cody got out of his nursing shift and went home, he had no idea what he was walking into. Cody came inside the house and was immediately shot in the head. Cody Amato’s lifeless body | Source: screenshot from That Chapter on YouTube Grant then attempted to stage the scene to give the impression that Cody had killed their parents then turned the gun on himself. After a full day of murder, Grant went to a hotel. The next day when Cody failed to show up for work, his coworkers became worried when they could not contact him, so they alerted the police. When the cops got to the home and could not get any response from banging on the door and blowing an air horn, they went inside to discover the gruesome scene. They tracked down Grant and took him in for questioning. The Aftermath Authorities found several pictures on Grant’s computer of credit cards belonging to his parents, Cody, and various members of the extended Amato family. Grant Amato was questioned and interviewed. Three hours into the interrogation he hadn’t even asked what happened to his family or why he was there. When confronted with pictures of his dead family Grant teared up, but claimed he had nothing to do with it. Towards the end of the long interrogation, the police had Grant’s oldest brother Jason come and talk to him. Grant didn’t budge. He wouldn’t come clean and was arrested on three charges of first-degree murder. Grant Amato in court | Source: screenshot from That Chapter on YouTube Grant lied during questioning and during the hearings. None of it worked and on July 31, 2019, jurors found Grant guilty of all three counts of first-degree murder. He received a life sentence for each. The depths of loneliness can take people to a place they never imagined. Between pornography and virtual dating, Grant Amato finally found something and someone that made him feel good about himself. He knew the cam girl game was all about money, but still wanted to believe someone as beautiful as Silvie liked him for more than just his cash and gifts even though he could only talk to her by spending money. Obsession is powerful. Grant’s infatuation made him throw away the only people who loved him. Within a matter of months, Silvie became the only thing that mattered to him. His parents gave him an amazing life full of privileges that many American kids don’t experience. He took advantage of his brother and only friend’s generosity, then used him as a pawn in an attempt to implicate him in the murders. Cody spent countless days and tens of thousands of dollars to try and help his little brother and was discarded like trash for his 30 plus years of loyalty. The Amato’s were incredibly compassionate people whose lives ended in heartbreaking fashion. Their unwavering love for their son couldn’t compete with his desire for a young vixen with a sexy accent.

https://medium.com/crimebeat/for-the-love-of-a-cam-girl-9e8e83805ead

['Aj Wiseman']

2020-12-13 18:14:58.377000+00:00

['Social Media', 'True Crime', 'Psychology', 'Society', 'Addiction']

Title Love Cam GirlContent Love Cam Girl Grant Amato stole hundred thousand dollar family everything possible keep jail thanked bullet Grant Amato Source publicpolicerecordcom Amato family American success story Chad Margaret three boy Jason Cody Grant lived beautiful home Chuluota Florida tight familial unit Chad employed pharmacist also worked computer strove provide family comfortable life Margaret loved horse especially one abused left dead would go stable daily work horse rescued never gave matter many time bucked three boy got along well Cody Grant other’s best friend closest age Amato’s loved football often went Florida Gators game together outside looking ideal happy family Grant Cody high school became interested health wellness joined school’s weightlifting team would push gym high school Grant joined Cody University Central Florida life began drastically change Grant whole Amato family Problems Grant Cody Amato career path going go nursing school anesthesiology school graduated plan Cody Grant buy matching BMWs eventually parent’s house Chad Margaret bought house Tennessee going retire Cody stuck plan Grant difficulty able finish nursing requirement failed anesthesiology school Still landed nursing job didn’t last long Grant suspended investigation began stealing improperly administering medication company worked arrested subsequently fired Somehow charge dropped possibly Cody paying 8000 brother’s lawyer work Grant retreated bedroom parent’s house Initially would mostly play video game live stream wanted become popular gaming streaming site Twitch use source income Grant wasn’t gaming livestreaming watched porn pornographic excursion met Bulgarian cam girl named Silvie became infatuated Catalyst Silvie gorgeous long dark hair beautiful figure exotic Eastern European dialect Grant love obsessed Silvie Source screenshot Social Evil TV YouTube According Michael Williams’ Orlando Sentinel article “Obsession money lie tore Grant Amato’s family apart jury decide whether killed them” Grant began steal money father Cody pay Silvie’s virtual company would spend four hour night watching Silvie cam girl site used token system buy time model Grant typically bought 5000 token time cost 600 Silvie’s show cost 90 token per minute watched four hour added 21600 token roughly 2500 desperation keep Silvie life made resort thieving people loved young man also needed keep facade portrayed interacting Silvie someone rich successful would send lingerie sex toy use performance well extra cash aside token Grant stole credit card father Cody would quickly get maxed transaction first discovered Grant explained needed money promote Twitch two expected lying Grant felt need stop knew would never press charge Ultimatum amount money Grant stole family became astronomical father brother taken 200000 span month Vulnerable Silvie Source screenshot Chapter YouTube family protected youngest member continued live hostage Cody went beyond normal brother duty shelled 10000 Grant could go already planned trip Japan hoped vacation would allow Grant clear head 10day trip could seek treatment therapy troubled man brother returned home tension Grant father increased Chad Amato becoming impatient Grant’s inability find job stress experienced seeing retirement handed woman son never even met person much contain rode Grant hard turn life around one argument Grant walked house family reported missing told police extremely depressed Grant went home aunt Donna Amato allowed stay noticed something wrong nephew started seeing bizarre charge bank account thought hacked figured Grant Chad Margaret begged Donna press charge Cody even promised cover money stolen brother Williams’ article said Chad broke one phone call time Donna Amato heard brotherinlaw cry 27 year knew Chad explained remortgage house cover 150000 Grant’s debt One day family surprised Grant took rehab facility Cody footed bill tune 15000 couple week Grant allowed return home strict rule zerotolerance policy requirement Grant get job could get online night couldn’t cell phone could contact Silvie go therapy family done covering Grant’s debt Chad let another fraudulent line credit go last straw End rule meant almost nothing Grant never faced real consequence able con mother letting use phone contact Silvie According Williams’ article Chad became aware grabbed son shirt told pack thing get house longer welcome January 24 2019 Grant supposed gathering belonging move decided different plan mother worked computer Grant walked behind shot head waited father get home Chad Amato carried gun Grant knew needed sneak father arrived home walked kitchen Grant shot twice head Two one go finale Cody key piece Grant’s twisted plot Cody got nursing shift went home idea walking Cody came inside house immediately shot head Cody Amato’s lifeless body Source screenshot Chapter YouTube Grant attempted stage scene give impression Cody killed parent turned gun full day murder Grant went hotel next day Cody failed show work coworkers became worried could contact alerted police cop got home could get response banging door blowing air horn went inside discover gruesome scene tracked Grant took questioning Aftermath Authorities found several picture Grant’s computer credit card belonging parent Cody various member extended Amato family Grant Amato questioned interviewed Three hour interrogation hadn’t even asked happened family confronted picture dead family Grant teared claimed nothing Towards end long interrogation police Grant’s oldest brother Jason come talk Grant didn’t budge wouldn’t come clean arrested three charge firstdegree murder Grant Amato court Source screenshot Chapter YouTube Grant lied questioning hearing None worked July 31 2019 juror found Grant guilty three count firstdegree murder received life sentence depth loneliness take people place never imagined pornography virtual dating Grant Amato finally found something someone made feel good knew cam girl game money still wanted believe someone beautiful Silvie liked cash gift even though could talk spending money Obsession powerful Grant’s infatuation made throw away people loved Within matter month Silvie became thing mattered parent gave amazing life full privilege many American kid don’t experience took advantage brother friend’s generosity used pawn attempt implicate murder Cody spent countless day ten thousand dollar try help little brother discarded like trash 30 plus year loyalty Amato’s incredibly compassionate people whose life ended heartbreaking fashion unwavering love son couldn’t compete desire young vixen sexy accentTags Social Media True Crime Psychology Society Addiction

How to Configure AWS Route 53

by Serguey Martinez, Staff Engineer Photo by Procreator UX Design Studio If your architecture is based on microservices it’s a really good idea to buy a domain in Route 53 and make the connections with API gateway so that you can enjoy URL’s like: dev.mydomain.com/docs dev.mydomain.com/microservice-basePath dev.mydomain.com/another-microservice-basePath prod.mydomain.com/docs prod.mydomain.com/microservice-basePath prod.mydomain.com/another-microservice-basePath In this quick tutorial, I’m going to show you how to configure AWS Route 53. The first step is to buy a domain: Next, go to AWS certificate manager and request certificates for the subdomains that you will need. Heads up that AWS requires you to have TLS encryption. So, choose the email owner to verify the certs: Then, wait for them to get issued… Once you have the certificates issued let’s go to API gateway -> custom domains -> create . The domain name here should be something like dev.mydomain.com or api.example.com depending on the certificates you requested. Choose the appropriate certificate and create the custom domain: You can map now which API rest will handle which basePath. In the example below if we try to access the URL https://dev.mydomain.com/docs it will delegate the request to swagger-dev API: In this case, swagger-dev has the following structure. Remember that if you are mapping X basepath in this case docs , then you don't need to create another X basepath in the API where the requests are being delegated. The last step consists of creating a record in Route 53 hosted zones. Whenever you buy a domain a hosted zone is created for you automatically. You can see your name servers (NS) and start of authority (SOA). On very rare occasions you have to touch those configurations — be careful not to do it now. Go to Route53 -> hosted zones -> your domain -> create record -> simple routing . As the record name you should put the name of the subdomain: api , dev , etc. In route traffic to , choose the API gateway alias you created in custom domains for a specific service: Summary We just created the recommended flow that will support a microservices development with Route 53 and API gateway. Due to the limit of cloud formation resources set to 200 we can split our services into microservices with dedicated business logic.

https://medium.com/tribalscale/how-to-configure-aws-route-53-c8fa99ce66fb

['Serguey Arellano Martínez']

2020-12-02 21:34:07.907000+00:00

['Aws Route53', 'AWS', 'How To', 'Microservices', 'Tutorial']

Title Configure AWS Route 53Content Serguey Martinez Staff Engineer Photo Procreator UX Design Studio architecture based microservices it’s really good idea buy domain Route 53 make connection API gateway enjoy URL’s like devmydomaincomdocs devmydomaincommicroservicebasePath devmydomaincomanothermicroservicebasePath prodmydomaincomdocs prodmydomaincommicroservicebasePath prodmydomaincomanothermicroservicebasePath quick tutorial I’m going show configure AWS Route 53 first step buy domain Next go AWS certificate manager request certificate subdomains need Heads AWS requires TLS encryption choose email owner verify cert wait get issued… certificate issued let’s go API gateway custom domain create domain name something like devmydomaincom apiexamplecom depending certificate requested Choose appropriate certificate create custom domain map API rest handle basePath example try access URL httpsdevmydomaincomdocs delegate request swaggerdev API case swaggerdev following structure Remember mapping X basepath case doc dont need create another X basepath API request delegated last step consists creating record Route 53 hosted zone Whenever buy domain hosted zone created automatically see name server NS start authority SOA rare occasion touch configuration — careful Go Route53 hosted zone domain create record simple routing record name put name subdomain api dev etc route traffic choose API gateway alias created custom domain specific service Summary created recommended flow support microservices development Route 53 API gateway Due limit cloud formation resource set 200 split service microservices dedicated business logicTags Aws Route53 AWS Microservices Tutorial

Building a Design System Package With Storybook, TypeScript, and React in 15 Minutes

Building a Design System Package With Storybook, TypeScript, and React in 15 Minutes A design system will make you more productive and help you build new features and components faster Background photo by Nils Johan Gabrielsen on Unsplash. When building out a UI component library for my own work, I ran into a couple of pain points while searching for how to create a simple workflow that “just works.” Most tutorials I saw for TypeScript component libraries made use of build tools (which at times caused headaches) and my current job took the opposite extreme of publishing the UI component library as TypeScript and relying on individual projects to transpile it to JavaScript directly from the library itself (if you are from my company… you didn’t read anything).

https://medium.com/better-programming/building-a-design-system-package-with-storybook-typescript-and-react-in-15-minutes-b5fd5711339e

["Dennis O'Keeffe"]

2020-12-07 18:17:52.020000+00:00

['Programming', 'React', 'Typescript', 'Design Systems', 'JavaScript']

Title Building Design System Package Storybook TypeScript React 15 MinutesContent Building Design System Package Storybook TypeScript React 15 Minutes design system make productive help build new feature component faster Background photo Nils Johan Gabrielsen Unsplash building UI component library work ran couple pain point searching create simple workflow “just works” tutorial saw TypeScript component library made use build tool time caused headache current job took opposite extreme publishing UI component library TypeScript relying individual project transpile JavaScript directly library company… didn’t read anythingTags Programming React Typescript Design Systems JavaScript

Monitor your infrastructure with InfluxDB and Grafana on Kubernetes

Grafana in action — Learn how to set it up in your AWS cloud Monitoring your infrastructure and applications is a must-have if you play your game seriously. Overseeing your entire landscape, running servers, cloud spends, VMs, containers, and the applications inside are extremely valuable to avoid outages or to fix things quicker. We, at Starschema, rely on open source tools like InfluxDB, Telegraf, Grafana, and Slack to collect, analyze, and react to events. In this blog series, I will show you how we built our monitoring infra to monitor our Cloud infrastructure, applications like Tableau Server and Deltek Maconomy, data pipelines in Airflow among others. In this part, we will build up the basic infrastructure monitoring with InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana on Amazon’s managed Kubernetes service: AWS EKS. Create a new EKS Kubernetes cluster In case you have an EKS cluster already, just skip this part. I assume you have a properly set up aws cli on your computer, if not, then please, do it, it will be a life-changer. Anyway, first, install eksctl which will help you to manage your AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service clusters and will save tons of time by not requiring to rely on the AWS Management Console. Also, you will need kubectl , too. First, create new a Kubernetes cluster in AWS using eksctl without a nodegroup: eksctl create cluster --name "StarKube" --version 1.18 --region=eu-central-1 --without-nodegroup I used eu-central-1 region, but you can pick another one that is closer to you. After the command completes, add a new nodegroup to the freshly created cluster that uses only one availability zone (AZ): eksctl create nodegroup --cluster=StarKube --name=StarKube-default-ng --nodes-min 1 --nodes-max 4 --node-volume-size=20 --ssh-access --node-zones eu-central-1b --asg-access --tags "Maintainer=tfoldi" --node-labels "ngrole=default" --managed The reason why I created a single AZ nodegroup is to be able to use EBS backed persistent volumes along with EC2 autoscaling groups. On multi-AZ node groups with autoscaling, newly created nodes can be in a different zone, without access to the existing persistent volumes (which are AZ specific). More info about this here. TL;DR use single-zone nodegroups if you have EBS PersistentVolumeClaims. If things are fine, you should see a node in your cluster: $ kubectl get nodes AGE VERSION ip-192-168-36-245.eu-central-1.compute.internal Ready <none> 16s v1.18.9-eks-d1db3c Create a namespace for monitoring apps Kubernetes namespaces are isolated units inside the cluster. To create our own monitoring namespace we should simply execute: kubectl create namespace monitoring For our convenience, let’s use the monitoring namespace as the default one: kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=monitoring Install InfluxDB on Kubernetes Influx is a time-series database, with easy to use APIs and good performance. If you are not familiar with time-series databases, it is time to learn: they support special query languages designed to work with time-series data, or neat functions like downsampling and retention. To install an application to our Kubernetes system, usually we (Optional) Create the necessary secrets as an Opaque Secret (to store sensitive configurations) (Optional) Create a ConfigMap to store non-sensitive configurations (Optional) Create a PersistentVolumeClaim to store any persistent data (think of volumes for your containers) Create a Deployment or DaemonSet file to specify the container-related stuff like what we are going to run. (Optional) Create a Service file explaining how we are going to access the Deployment As stated, the first thing we need to do is to define our Secrets : usernames and passwords we want to use for our database. kubectl create secret generic influxdb-creds \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_DB=monitoring \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_USER=user \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD=<password> \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_READ_USER=readonly \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD=<password> \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_ADMIN_USER=root \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_ADMIN_USER_PASSWORD=<password> \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_HOST=influxdb \ --from-literal=INFLUXDB_HTTP_AUTH_ENABLED=true Next, create some persistent storage to store the database itself: --- apiVersion: v1 kind: PersistentVolumeClaim metadata: namespace: monitoring labels: app: influxdb name: influxdb-pvc spec: accessModes: - ReadWriteOnce resources: requests: storage: 5Gi If you are new to Kubernetes, the way to execute these files is to call kubectl apply -f <filename> , in our case kubectl apply -f influxdb-pvc.yml . Now, let’s create the Deployment , that defines what containers we need and how: --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: namespace: monitoring labels: app: influxdb name: influxdb spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: influxdb template: metadata: labels: app: influxdb spec: containers: - envFrom: - secretRef: name: influxdb-creds image: docker.io/influxdb:1.8 name: influxdb volumeMounts: - mountPath: /var/lib/influxdb name: var-lib-influxdb volumes: - name: var-lib-influxdb persistentVolumeClaim: claimName: influxdb-pvc It will create a single pod (since replicas=1 ), passing our influxdb-creds as environmental variables and influxdb-pvc PersistentVolumeClaim to obtain 5GB storage for the database files. If all good, we should see something like: [tfoldi@kompi]% kubectl get pods -l app=influxdb NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE influxdb-7f694df996-rtdcz 1/1 Running 0 16m After we defined what we want to run, it’s time for how to access it? This where Service definition comes into the picture. Let’s start with a basic LoadBalancer service: apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: labels: app: influxdb name: influxdb namespace: monitoring spec: ports: - port: 8086 protocol: TCP targetPort: 8086 selector: app: influxdb type: LoadBalancer It tells that our pod’s 8088 port should be available thru an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB). With kubectl get service , we should see the external-facing host:port (assuming we want to monitor apps outside from our AWS internal network). $ kubectl get service/influxdb NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE influxdb LoadBalancer 10.100.15.18 ade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f-2034222208.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com 8086:30651/TCP 18h curl http://ade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f-2034222208.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com:8086/ping This is great, but instead of HTTP , we might want to use HTTPS . To do that, we need our SSL certification in ACM with the desired hostname. We can either do it by generating a new certificate (requires Route53 hosted zones) or upload our external SSL certificate. Amazon Issued SSL Certs are great but require Route 53 hosted zones. Alternatively, you can import existing SSL certificates. If we have our certificate in ACM, we should add it to the Service file: apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: annotations: # Note that the backend talks over HTTP. service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-backend-protocol: http # TODO: Fill in with the ARN of your certificate. service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-cert: arn:aws:acm:{region}:{user id}:certificate/{id} # Only run SSL on the port named "https" below. service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-ports: "https" labels: app: influxdb name: influxdb namespace: monitoring spec: ports: - port: 8086 targetPort: 8086 name: http - port: 443 name: https targetPort: 8086 selector: app: influxdb type: LoadBalancer After executing this file, we can see that our ELB listens on two ports: [tfoldi@kompi]% kubectl get services/influxdb NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE influxdb LoadBalancer 10.100.15.18 ade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f-2034222208.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com 8086:30651/TCP,443:31445/TCP 18h SSL is properly configured, the only thing is missing to add an A or CNAME record pointing to EXTERNAL-IP . We all set, our database is running, and it is available on both HTTP and HTTPS protocols. Installing Telegraf on Kubernetes We need some data to validate our installation, and by the way, we already have a system to monitor: our very own Kube cluster and its containers. To do this, we will install Telegraf on all nodes and ingest cpu, IO, docker metrics into our InfluxDB. Telegraf has tons of plugins to collect data from almost everything: infrastructure elements, log files, web apps, and so on. The configuration will be stored as ConfigMap , this is what we are going to pass to our containers: kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: telegraf namespace: monitoring labels: k8s-app: telegraf data: telegraf.conf: |+ [global_tags] env = "EKS eu-central" [agent] hostname = "$HOSTNAME" [[outputs.influxdb]] urls = [" database = "$INFLUXDB_DB" # required apiVersion: v1kind: ConfigMapmetadata:name: telegrafnamespace: monitoringlabels:k8s-app: telegrafdata:telegraf.conf: |+[global_tags]env = "EKS eu-central"[agent]hostname = "$HOSTNAME"[[outputs.influxdb]]urls = [" http://$INFLUXDB_HOST:8086/ "] # requireddatabase = "$INFLUXDB_DB" # required timeout = "5s" username = "$INFLUXDB_USER" password = "$INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD" [[inputs.cpu]] percpu = true totalcpu = true collect_cpu_time = false report_active = false [[inputs.disk]] ignore_fs = ["tmpfs", "devtmpfs", "devfs"] [[inputs.diskio]] [[inputs.kernel]] [[inputs.mem]] [[inputs.processes]] [[inputs.swap]] [[inputs.system]] [[inputs.docker]] endpoint = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock" To run our Telegraf data collector on all nodes of our Kubernetes cluster, we should use DaemonSet instead of Deployments . apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: DaemonSet metadata: name: telegraf namespace: monitoring labels: k8s-app: telegraf spec: selector: matchLabels: name: telegraf template: metadata: labels: name: telegraf spec: containers: - name: telegraf image: docker.io/telegraf:1.5.2 env: - name: HOSTNAME valueFrom: fieldRef: fieldPath: spec.nodeName - name: "HOST_PROC" value: "/rootfs/proc" - name: "HOST_SYS" value: "/rootfs/sys" - name: INFLUXDB_USER valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: influxdb-creds key: INFLUXDB_USER - name: INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: influxdb-creds key: INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD - name: INFLUXDB_HOST valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: influxdb-creds key: INFLUXDB_HOST - name: INFLUXDB_DB valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: influxdb-creds key: INFLUXDB_DB volumeMounts: - name: sys mountPath: /rootfs/sys readOnly: true - name: proc mountPath: /rootfs/proc readOnly: true - name: docker-socket mountPath: /var/run/docker.sock - name: utmp mountPath: /var/run/utmp readOnly: true - name: config mountPath: /etc/telegraf terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30 volumes: - name: sys hostPath: path: /sys - name: docker-socket hostPath: path: /var/run/docker.sock - name: proc hostPath: path: /proc - name: utmp hostPath: path: /var/run/utmp - name: config configMap: name: telegraf Please note that this will use the same influxdb-creds secret definition to connect to our database. If all good, we should see our telegraf agent running: $ kubectl get pods -l name=telegraf NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE telegraf-mrgrg 1/1 Running 0 18h To check the log messages from the telegraf pod, simply execute kubectl logs <podname> . You should not see any error messages. Set up Grafana in Kubernetes This will be the fun part, finally, we should be able to see some of the data we collected (and remember, we will add everything). Grafana is a cool, full-featured data visualization for time-series datasets. Let’s start with the usual username and password combo as a secret. kubectl create secret generic grafana-creds \ --from-literal=GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=admin \ --from-literal=GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin123 Add 1GB storage to store the dashboards: apiVersion: v1 kind: PersistentVolumeClaim metadata: name: graf-data-dir-pvc spec: accessModes: - ReadWriteOnce resources: requests: storage: 1Gi Define the deployment. As Grafana docker runs as 472 uid:gid, we have to mount the persistent volume with fsGroup: 472 . apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: namespace: monitoring labels: app: grafana name: grafana spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: grafana template: metadata: labels: app: grafana spec: containers: - envFrom: - secretRef: name: grafana-creds image: docker.io/grafana/grafana:7.3.3 name: grafana volumeMounts: - name: data-dir mountPath: /var/lib/grafana/ securityContext: fsGroup: 472 volumes: - name: data-dir persistentVolumeClaim: claimName: graf-data-dir-pvc Finally, let’s expose it in the same way we did with InfluxDB: apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: annotations: service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-backend-protocol: http service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-cert: arn:aws:acm:eu-central-1:<account>:certificate/<certid> service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-ssl-ports: "https" labels: app: grafana name: grafana namespace: monitoring spec: ports: - port: 443 name: https targetPort: 3000 selector: app: grafana type: LoadBalancer Voila, we should have our Grafana up and running. Let’s check the ELB address with kubectl get services , point a nice hostname to its hostname/IP, and we are good to go. If all set, we should see something like: I am glad that you made it here, now let’s log on! Use the username/password combination you defined earlier, and see the magic. Home screen for our empty Grafana Define database connection to InfluxDB Why this can be done programatically, to keep this post short (it’s already way too long), let’s do it from the UI. Click on the gear icon, data source, Add data source: You know where should you click Select InfluxDB: Add http://influxdb:8066/ as URL, and set up your user or readonly influxdb user. Adding our first Grafana Dashboard Our telegraf agent is loading some data, there is no reason to not look at it. We can import existing, community-built dashboards such as this one: https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/928. Click on + sign on the side bar, then Import. In the import screen add the number of this dashboard (928). After importing, we should immediately see our previously collected data, in live: This is really cool Feel free to start building your own dashboards, it is way easier than you think. Next steps In the next blog, I will show how to monitor our (and our customers) Tableau Server, and how to set up data-driven email/slack alerts in no time.

https://medium.com/starschema-blog/monitor-your-infrastructure-with-influxdb-and-grafana-on-kubernetes-a299a0afe3d2

['Tamas Foldi']

2020-11-22 15:54:00.989000+00:00

['Kubernetes', 'Influxdb', 'Aws Eks', 'Data Engineering', 'Grafana']

Title Monitor infrastructure InfluxDB Grafana KubernetesContent Grafana action — Learn set AWS cloud Monitoring infrastructure application musthave play game seriously Overseeing entire landscape running server cloud spends VMs container application inside extremely valuable avoid outage fix thing quicker Starschema rely open source tool like InfluxDB Telegraf Grafana Slack collect analyze react event blog series show built monitoring infra monitor Cloud infrastructure application like Tableau Server Deltek Maconomy data pipeline Airflow among others part build basic infrastructure monitoring InfluxDB Telegraf Grafana Amazon’s managed Kubernetes service AWS EKS Create new EKS Kubernetes cluster case EKS cluster already skip part assume properly set aws cli computer please lifechanger Anyway first install eksctl help manage AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service cluster save ton time requiring rely AWS Management Console Also need kubectl First create new Kubernetes cluster AWS using eksctl without nodegroup eksctl create cluster name StarKube version 118 regioneucentral1 withoutnodegroup used eucentral1 region pick another one closer command completes add new nodegroup freshly created cluster us one availability zone AZ eksctl create nodegroup clusterStarKube nameStarKubedefaultng nodesmin 1 nodesmax 4 nodevolumesize20 sshaccess nodezones eucentral1b asgaccess tag Maintainertfoldi nodelabels ngroledefault managed reason created single AZ nodegroup able use EBS backed persistent volume along EC2 autoscaling group multiAZ node group autoscaling newly created node different zone without access existing persistent volume AZ specific info TLDR use singlezone nodegroups EBS PersistentVolumeClaims thing fine see node cluster kubectl get node AGE VERSION ip19216836245eucentral1computeinternal Ready none 16 v1189eksd1db3c Create namespace monitoring apps Kubernetes namespaces isolated unit inside cluster create monitoring namespace simply execute kubectl create namespace monitoring convenience let’s use monitoring namespace default one kubectl config setcontext current namespacemonitoring Install InfluxDB Kubernetes Influx timeseries database easy use APIs good performance familiar timeseries database time learn support special query language designed work timeseries data neat function like downsampling retention install application Kubernetes system usually Optional Create necessary secret Opaque Secret store sensitive configuration Optional Create ConfigMap store nonsensitive configuration Optional Create PersistentVolumeClaim store persistent data think volume container Create Deployment DaemonSet file specify containerrelated stuff like going run Optional Create Service file explaining going access Deployment stated first thing need define Secrets usernames password want use database kubectl create secret generic influxdbcreds fromliteralINFLUXDBDBmonitoring fromliteralINFLUXDBUSERuser fromliteralINFLUXDBUSERPASSWORDpassword fromliteralINFLUXDBREADUSERreadonly fromliteralINFLUXDBUSERPASSWORDpassword fromliteralINFLUXDBADMINUSERroot fromliteralINFLUXDBADMINUSERPASSWORDpassword fromliteralINFLUXDBHOSTinfluxdb fromliteralINFLUXDBHTTPAUTHENABLEDtrue Next create persistent storage store database apiVersion v1 kind PersistentVolumeClaim metadata namespace monitoring label app influxdb name influxdbpvc spec accessModes ReadWriteOnce resource request storage 5Gi new Kubernetes way execute file call kubectl apply f filename case kubectl apply f influxdbpvcyml let’s create Deployment defines container need apiVersion appsv1 kind Deployment metadata namespace monitoring label app influxdb name influxdb spec replica 1 selector matchLabels app influxdb template metadata label app influxdb spec container envFrom secretRef name influxdbcreds image dockerioinfluxdb18 name influxdb volumeMounts mountPath varlibinfluxdb name varlibinfluxdb volume name varlibinfluxdb persistentVolumeClaim claimName influxdbpvc create single pod since replicas1 passing influxdbcreds environmental variable influxdbpvc PersistentVolumeClaim obtain 5GB storage database file good see something like tfoldikompi kubectl get pod l appinfluxdb NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE influxdb7f694df996rtdcz 11 Running 0 16m defined want run it’s time access Service definition come picture Let’s start basic LoadBalancer service apiVersion v1 kind Service metadata label app influxdb name influxdb namespace monitoring spec port port 8086 protocol TCP targetPort 8086 selector app influxdb type LoadBalancer tell pod’s 8088 port available thru Elastic Load Balancer ELB kubectl get service see externalfacing hostport assuming want monitor apps outside AWS internal network kubectl get serviceinfluxdb NAME TYPE CLUSTERIP EXTERNALIP PORTS AGE influxdb LoadBalancer 101001518 ade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f2034222208eucentral1elbamazonawscom 808630651TCP 18h curl httpade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f2034222208eucentral1elbamazonawscom8086ping great instead HTTP might want use HTTPS need SSL certification ACM desired hostname either generating new certificate requires Route53 hosted zone upload external SSL certificate Amazon Issued SSL Certs great require Route 53 hosted zone Alternatively import existing SSL certificate certificate ACM add Service file apiVersion v1 kind Service metadata annotation Note backend talk HTTP servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancerbackendprotocol http TODO Fill ARN certificate servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancersslcert arnawsacmregionuser idcertificateid run SSL port named http servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancersslports http label app influxdb name influxdb namespace monitoring spec port port 8086 targetPort 8086 name http port 443 name http targetPort 8086 selector app influxdb type LoadBalancer executing file see ELB listens two port tfoldikompi kubectl get servicesinfluxdb NAME TYPE CLUSTERIP EXTERNALIP PORTS AGE influxdb LoadBalancer 101001518 ade3d20c142394935a9dd33c336b3a0f2034222208eucentral1elbamazonawscom 808630651TCP44331445TCP 18h SSL properly configured thing missing add CNAME record pointing EXTERNALIP set database running available HTTP HTTPS protocol Installing Telegraf Kubernetes need data validate installation way already system monitor Kube cluster container install Telegraf node ingest cpu IO docker metric InfluxDB Telegraf ton plugins collect data almost everything infrastructure element log file web apps configuration stored ConfigMap going pas container kind ConfigMap metadata name telegraf namespace monitoring label k8sapp telegraf data telegrafconf globaltags env EKS eucentral agent hostname HOSTNAME outputsinfluxdb url database INFLUXDBDB required apiVersion v1kind ConfigMapmetadataname telegrafnamespace monitoringlabelsk8sapp telegrafdatatelegrafconf globaltagsenv EKS eucentralagenthostname HOSTNAMEoutputsinfluxdburls httpINFLUXDBHOST8086 requireddatabase INFLUXDBDB required timeout 5 username INFLUXDBUSER password INFLUXDBUSERPASSWORD inputscpu percpu true totalcpu true collectcputime false reportactive false inputsdisk ignorefs tmpfs devtmpfs devfs inputsdiskio inputskernel inputsmem inputsprocesses inputsswap inputssystem inputsdocker endpoint unixvarrundockersock run Telegraf data collector node Kubernetes cluster use DaemonSet instead Deployments apiVersion appsv1 kind DaemonSet metadata name telegraf namespace monitoring label k8sapp telegraf spec selector matchLabels name telegraf template metadata label name telegraf spec container name telegraf image dockeriotelegraf152 env name HOSTNAME valueFrom fieldRef fieldPath specnodeName name HOSTPROC value rootfsproc name HOSTSYS value rootfssys name INFLUXDBUSER valueFrom secretKeyRef name influxdbcreds key INFLUXDBUSER name INFLUXDBUSERPASSWORD valueFrom secretKeyRef name influxdbcreds key INFLUXDBUSERPASSWORD name INFLUXDBHOST valueFrom secretKeyRef name influxdbcreds key INFLUXDBHOST name INFLUXDBDB valueFrom secretKeyRef name influxdbcreds key INFLUXDBDB volumeMounts name sys mountPath rootfssys readOnly true name proc mountPath rootfsproc readOnly true name dockersocket mountPath varrundockersock name utmp mountPath varrunutmp readOnly true name config mountPath etctelegraf terminationGracePeriodSeconds 30 volume name sys hostPath path sys name dockersocket hostPath path varrundockersock name proc hostPath path proc name utmp hostPath path varrunutmp name config configMap name telegraf Please note use influxdbcreds secret definition connect database good see telegraf agent running kubectl get pod l nametelegraf NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE telegrafmrgrg 11 Running 0 18h check log message telegraf pod simply execute kubectl log podname see error message Set Grafana Kubernetes fun part finally able see data collected remember add everything Grafana cool fullfeatured data visualization timeseries datasets Let’s start usual username password combo secret kubectl create secret generic grafanacreds fromliteralGFSECURITYADMINUSERadmin fromliteralGFSECURITYADMINPASSWORDadmin123 Add 1GB storage store dashboard apiVersion v1 kind PersistentVolumeClaim metadata name grafdatadirpvc spec accessModes ReadWriteOnce resource request storage 1Gi Define deployment Grafana docker run 472 uidgid mount persistent volume fsGroup 472 apiVersion appsv1 kind Deployment metadata namespace monitoring label app grafana name grafana spec replica 1 selector matchLabels app grafana template metadata label app grafana spec container envFrom secretRef name grafanacreds image dockeriografanagrafana733 name grafana volumeMounts name datadir mountPath varlibgrafana securityContext fsGroup 472 volume name datadir persistentVolumeClaim claimName grafdatadirpvc Finally let’s expose way InfluxDB apiVersion v1 kind Service metadata annotation servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancerbackendprotocol http servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancersslcert arnawsacmeucentral1accountcertificatecertid servicebetakubernetesioawsloadbalancersslports http label app grafana name grafana namespace monitoring spec port port 443 name http targetPort 3000 selector app grafana type LoadBalancer Voila Grafana running Let’s check ELB address kubectl get service point nice hostname hostnameIP good go set see something like glad made let’s log Use usernamepassword combination defined earlier see magic Home screen empty Grafana Define database connection InfluxDB done programatically keep post short it’s already way long let’s UI Click gear icon data source Add data source know click Select InfluxDB Add httpinfluxdb8066 URL set user readonly influxdb user Adding first Grafana Dashboard telegraf agent loading data reason look import existing communitybuilt dashboard one httpsgrafanacomgrafanadashboards928 Click sign side bar Import import screen add number dashboard 928 importing immediately see previously collected data live really cool Feel free start building dashboard way easier think Next step next blog show monitor customer Tableau Server set datadriven emailslack alert timeTags Kubernetes Influxdb Aws Eks Data Engineering Grafana

Making Grids in Python

Making Grids in Python Hip to be square Photo by the author. At some point, you might need to make a grid or grid-like visual structure for a project or coding interview question (mazes, search). A grid is also the foundation for placing objects on a canvas surface in an orderly manner and more complex cases like isometric views and tiled games. This article is meant to take us both from zero grids to Intermediate Gridology in a hopefully painless way. Note: The code and concepts discussed here are somehow interchangeable between languages, but some languages provide a better native experience and primitives are needed for grids. Python is notorious for not having a native/simple GUI solution, so I’ll use the next best thing: pygame (install it if you want to code along): pip install pygame Or: python3 -m pip install pygame==2.0.0 Pygame is not really a GUI library but rather a simple game engine you can install and understand in a few minutes and then adapt to your GUI or language of choice. See the following section for a crash-course snippet…

https://medium.com/better-programming/making-grids-in-python-7cf62c95f413

['Keno Leon']

2020-11-16 16:55:25.220000+00:00

['Programming', 'Python', 'Coding', 'Data Science', 'Software Engineering']

Title Making Grids PythonContent Making Grids Python Hip square Photo author point might need make grid gridlike visual structure project coding interview question maze search grid also foundation placing object canvas surface orderly manner complex case like isometric view tiled game article meant take u zero grid Intermediate Gridology hopefully painless way Note code concept discussed somehow interchangeable language language provide better native experience primitive needed grid Python notorious nativesimple GUI solution I’ll use next best thing pygame install want code along pip install pygame python3 pip install pygame200 Pygame really GUI library rather simple game engine install understand minute adapt GUI language choice See following section crashcourse snippet…Tags Programming Python Coding Data Science Software Engineering

Only God Is an Atheist

1. The boy with horns I’ve known about the two horns growing out of the top of my head since about middle school. The one on the right comes to a sharper point than the other. My pediatrician, as far as I could tell, didn’t seem too worried or repulsed. Just a misshapen skull. Nothing a good haircut can’t disguise. As long as you can hide your horns, you can blend right in with the gen pop. Typically, they’re known as cutaneous horns, which can look like tusks, bones, or tree limbs sprouting from a human skull. Mine are subcutaneous, just below the skin. If you were to shave my head, you’d find two half-inch-wide by half-inch-tall nubs trying to push through. They’re located where my frontal lobe meets my parietal lobe, and I can trace a straight line directly up to them from the top of my ears. When I was a young hypochondriac, I thought they were cysts, but my doctor assured me they’re just abnormalities in my skull. Nothing to fear. I think it’s safe to say that every kid, even those to whom popularity comes as if by divine right, will at some point feel misunderstood and extraterrestrial. As a kid, my horns, despite their literal location, were the furthest things from my mind. By the end of middle school, there were plenty of other physical features that made me feel like an outsider: buck teeth, braces, a unibrow, puberty, and a mess of freckles that refused to disappear no matter what old wives tales promised about smearing lemon juice on the face. It wasn’t until a visit to the hair salon that I became acutely self-conscious of my horns. Haircuts almost always go the same way for me: Hairdressers run their hands through my hair and inadvertently grope the horns. Some gasp, while others go wide-eyed in the mirror. When I was too young to drive myself to the salon, they’d also make sure my mother knew her son had the Mark of the Beast. “Do they hurt?” they like to ask. There’s always been something somewhat sinister in the image of two of me, the real me and my reflection, grinning and blushing in the chair with a black cape draped around my body, saying, “Yeah, I know about the horns. No, they don’t hurt.” You might be wondering why I didn’t just stick to one hairdresser as soon as I found one who knew about my weird skull. The truth is that, as a child, I was on a quest to find a hairdresser who could duplicate a very specific haircut. Specifically, this haircut was inspired by the scene in Casper — the live-action film starring Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, and Devin Sawa — when Casper is temporarily transformed into a flesh-and-blood boy with a most righteous haircut, sculpted with gel into the shape of an M that arches atop his forehead. In 1998, I was gearing up to honor the Jewish ritual of one’s passage into adulthood: my bar mitzvah. For the event, I’d wear a suit, a yarmulke, and, for the first time, a tallit over my shoulders — a prayer shawl that’s essentially a sacred scarf only to be worn by those who complete this initiation. Thus, my ghost haircut had to be impeccable. The immortality of photo albums was a real concern even in seventh grade, well before the age of the hashtag. Photos had a shelf life of at least a thousand years in the homes of Jewish grandparents. 2. Finding MTV in the synagogue Casper, a dead boy stuck with his family in an old house, cut off from the world of the living, was not so dissimilar from me. In fact, I’d never related to a character more. I wasn’t dead, per se. But during those early years, we didn’t have a computer, the internet, or cable TV. So at school, I might as well have been dead. This wasn’t so much about my parents trying to cut my sisters and I off from the modern world — it was just our living situation on a farm in the middle of the woods. We didn’t even have an air conditioner until 10 years ago. The library of the temple where I studied Hebrew was a dark room filled with relics: ancient scrolls, shofars, candlesticks. These objects had survived invasions, fires, and death, passed in secret between believers and survivors, and preserved in glass. I certainly recognized their significance. I stared at them for years in that synagogue, and I held them in my hands at Sunday school to feel the weight of time, the word of God, and a people destroyed and regenerated. But there was something far more intriguing to me hiding in the corner of the library, especially when I was 12 going on 13: a television with access to MTV. By that time, MTV had been around for almost two decades. I’d caught clips here and there, and I knew what I was missing. I knew there were videos that went along with the songs I curated on my DIY mixtapes. But before I found that television, my only chance to hear any new music was on the radio — Hot 97, K104, and 92.3 K-ROCK. The disembodied voices of radio hosts offered my only connection to artists I became obsessed with — from Tupac, to TLC, to Ace of Base, to the Beastie Boys. The idea that the past, present, and future could be mapped out by something, or someone, far greater than me felt boring and limited. I’d soon start sneaking out of Shabbat services to catch music videos: Biggie, Third Eye Blind, the Spice Girls, Bone Thugs, Aaliyah, and the Cranberries. Seeing a music video would forever change the way I listened to a song. I studied music videos on an almost anthropological level. I, for sure, studied them closer than my Hebrew. The TV was my vessel to worlds I’d been so eager to explore, but my friends who had MTV at home seemed rather blasé about it. They could survive without it. For me, seeing the bright visuals that correlated with the songs I loved seemed as necessary as air and water. If a house of worship is supposed to be a kind of bridge to God, and ancient Hebrew a holy connection to your ancestral lineage, the sanctuary in which I was supposed to discover myself as an adult in the eyes of the Lord had instead become my place to experiment with new ways of interpreting the world. I studied MTV as if desperate to find something new to satisfy my hesitation about becoming a devoted member of a religion. There was a kid, just a few years older than me and born with a Biblical name, whose life I could clearly see mapped out from middle school to death. Law school, Volvo, and khakis… I needed otherwise. To my teenage self, any religion that seemed so sure of human existence likewise felt as sure about the trajectory of mankind. The idea that the past, present, and future could be mapped out by something, or someone, far greater than me felt boring and limited. Back at school, I was in no way immune to that particular solipsism that tends to manifest itself in the tender hearts of 13-year-olds: the idea that the whole world is working to destroy you and only you. My close friends in seventh grade joked that my bar mitzvah would really be a public circumcision hosted by a DJ, which was better than hearing jokes about my Jewish ancestors killing Jesus. But nowhere was my Judaism more controversial than among the puritanical lunch monitors. These women prowled the cafeteria like the Gestapo in gaucho pants. The most wicked ones made me eat my lunch when I was supposed to be fasting for holidays like Yom Kippur; there was no arguing with them. I dreaded these women more than the God of the Old Testament who, in the book of Job, swiftly murdered Job’s entire family, covered his body in boils, and killed all his livestock just to prove how loyal man can be to the Lord even in the face of absolute despair. After my mom had a talk with the school about not punishing me for fasting during certain holidays, I began to taunt the lunch monitors. I’d march into the cafeteria some days and make up my own Jewish holidays, just to tell those women I was fasting. There was nothing they could do about it. In a way, I welcomed their animosity. This was about the time I recognized in myself a fetish for rebellion. I was only eight when I sang, at the top of my lungs in the lunch line around Christmastime, “Joy to the world — your God is dead.” That one landed me in the principal’s office. I shudder to think what those women would’ve done if they ever found out about my horns. 3. Liberated by Marilyn Manson In seventh grade, in the temple library, I got my first look at a Marilyn Manson music video: It was his cover of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams.” I’d already heard the original but his depraved, distorted version awoke something in me. Manson’s image alone was confirmation that there might be others out there who understood what it was like to feel isolated from the modern world. He seemed to rejoice in the fact that life was a mad and ridiculous series of events. Here was this ghoulish, skeletal man covered in mud, riding a pig, and wearing a tattered wedding dress. He was smiling so wide and distantly that it was almost intimidating. I was hooked. MTV, through the grace of the temple, gave me a new icon. Self-righteous politicians and talking heads in the mainstream media told America to fear his music. Religious groups protested his concerts. (Shit, even a young Katy Perry picketed Manson concerts with her parents.) They said this man was an assault on the children of America; they warned that his music was causing widespread moral panic. It’s hard to imagine now, but this was back when the name Marilyn Manson had the power to shock people. How dare he sandwich the likeness of Marilyn Monroe with the savagery of Charles Manson? Manson performed bare-assed, in a black corset and thigh-highs, at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. He screamed at the audience that he could see them out there “trying your hardest not to be ugly… trying your hardest to earn your way into heaven.” His second album, Antichrist Superstar, celebrated the discovery of the individual and gave me a newfound courage to be myself, whoever that happened to be. I admired Manson because I believed he was exposing listeners to the idea that you should question what you believed and live your life accordingly. For example, “Get Your Gunn” is all about Dr. David Gunn, an OB-GYN in Atlanta who was murdered by an anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist. In 1999, Manson wrote in Rolling Stone that Gunn’s death “was the ultimate hypocrisy I witnessed growing up: that these people killed someone in the name of being ‘pro-life.’” What I gathered was someone telling me to keep curious. Question everything. I appreciated someone drawing back the curtain. In a 1997 appearance on the TV show Politically Incorrect, Manson said, “I want people to think about what they believe. I want them to consider if everything they’ve been taught, if that’s what they want to believe or if that’s what they’ve been told that they have to believe.” (This episode, for those interested, also featured a wonderful interaction between Manson and Florence Henderson — which, in itself, is the exact kind of balancing act of the American grotesque and beauty that gave birth to Manson’s persona.) Looking back, my Bar Mitzvah became more of a funeral for my faith than a promise to God. It wasn’t as if Manson offered me some life-changing epiphany when it came to faith and belief, but he did offer me the chance to feel confident about questioning what I’d already begun to suspect wasn’t entirely for me. At school, my Jewishness became an act of rebellion against the lunch monitors. At temple, my reluctance to worship in the way that was expected of me also became an act of rebellion. Outside the temple, I was the only Jew in school (aside from my little sisters). Inside the temple, I was the only metalhead, rap-loving Jew who’d found solace in music videos. So when I finally stood before my friends and family for my bar mitzvah on May 31, 1998, my father’s birthday, I felt like an impostor. I wore the suit. I recited the lines. I’d learned this new language to the best of my ability, and yet I was becoming the exact opposite of what I was supposed to be promising to God and family. Looking back, my bar mitzvah became more of a funeral for my faith than a promise to God. (Grandma, if you’re still reading this, please forgive me.) In the bar mitzvah photograph that still hangs in my parents’ hallway, everyone is dressed up, smiling at the camera, proud, and joyful. I’ve got my ghost haircut but my jacket’s missing, my tie is gone, and I’m looking off camera, squinting at something in the distance, something that no one else seems troubled by. Perhaps it’s a wonderful, lurking darkness, and perhaps I’m wondering what I’ll do now that I’ve shed this skin. Photos courtesy of the author 4. I’m not attached to your world Thus began my morning routine: Wake up and spike hair. Paint fingernails black. Snap on faux-leather studded bracelets. Put on three to five fake-silver rings with skulls, anarchy signs, and pentagrams. Step into a pair of JNCO jeans so wide they looked like a denim dress. Throw on long-sleeved, fishnet shirt. Layer black Marilyn Manson tee over the fishnet. Attach wallet to chain and clip to belt loop. Add two more chains that’d hang from waist to knees for no purpose other than aesthetics. The first goth I ever met was an Edgar Allan Poe impersonator. In fifth or sixth grade, we filed into the auditorium and watched a man in all black pretend to be a crazed-drunk, death-obsessed mad poet, flailing about the stage. This was where we typically sang Christmas carols for winter recitals. It’s possible that the goth aesthetic appealed to me because I felt like a teenage monstrosity; being goth gave me the ability to become the very monster I believed others saw in me. (Read: an embarrassing amount of teenage angst.) Being goth, if you ask me, isn’t about how you dress or what you listen to. It’s more about the willingness to accept the macabre, the unknown, and all the frights that come with being a human. It’s a way of becoming your very own memento mori. My parents were teenagers in 1969 when the Manson Family murders capped off what was already a violent decade. Three decades later, my parents had a teenage son who looked up to a man who took on Manson as a stage name, and whose followers adorned themselves with dark, occultist supplies. For their patience, my parents deserve a Nobel. High school yearbook photo of the author My father was disappointed, but also encouraging. This is a man who liked to remind us of his time at Catholic school, where punishment was doled out by ruthless nuns. Even though I was aware that he and my mom agreed to raise us in her faith, he’d share with me his own idea of a comprehensive, kind of multifaceted God — a powerful being, sure, but one that shifted shape from person to person depending on age, time, and background. Regardless of what I looked like, I still went to temple. There were endless amounts of blessed wine to sneak sips of behind the rabbi’s back. Plus, I had a crush on his daughter. The temple, maybe because it was fairly empty, felt like the place where I was most free of judgement. I also wasn’t going to give up my dose of MTV; after all, Marilyn Manson was speaking directly to me in that dark library. Only three months after my bar mitzvah, the very first episode of Total Request Live (TRL), hosted by Carson Daly, aired on September 14, 1998. It was the day before the release of Manson’s follow-up to Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals. Manson would be live on air to debate with youth pastors about the nature of his image, the meaning of his music, and how he may or may not have been a bad influence on listeners. Manson became my new, androgynous rabbi during this time. The streets were mobbed with fans in black when Manson went live. He had a new look: He’d mutated into this androgynous, Bowie-esque glam alien. Meanwhile, I’d become a vacuum of color: a metallic, sputnik-looking mall-goth (as, I’m sure, older, truer goths might’ve called me behind my back if they ever caught me walking out of Hot Topic). But that day I witnessed something far different from what I expected: an honest and open conversation between different types of people from various backgrounds and belief systems. Here were Christians sitting with the “antichrist,” having a genuine and respectful dialogue about art. As someone who’d become so eager to lob insults at anyone who was going to hate on Manson, my rage was deflated by everyone’s eloquence and respect. Manson might’ve performed beneath the banner of the ultimate freak of nature, but, after this TRL episode, it seemed clear to me that anyone was welcome under that banner, no matter what your affiliations were, so long as you could keep an open mind about people who differed from you. And, above all, you had to show some respect. Manson said himself that day on TRL, “As long as someone’s expressing themselves, I can’t hate them for it.” In a way, Manson became my new androgynous rabbi during this time. This isn’t to say I wasn’t already learning some morality at temple. The Ten Commandments have some obvious and valid core principles — don’t murder, don’t cheat, and love yourself and those around you in a way that will allow reciprocal love. I think I needed my time at the temple to truly appreciate this conversation between Manson and the pastors. I needed to know there was a choice, and that if you choose to believe in something you’re not obligated to obey it in strict accordance. It was okay to hold alternating, if not conflicting, views of the world. The temple helped me better understand both believers and non-believers. I’d opened both doors. 5. Manson’s downfall (and my own) I was 13 in 1998. Despite the Lewinsky scandal, the birth of Viagra, the United States Embassy bombings in Kenya, the popularity of the Furby, El Niño, the bomb that went off in an Alabama abortion clinic, and the murder of James Byrd, it felt like an okay time to be a teenager cut off from the news. I had friends, not all of whom were goth. But we were all, in some way, outsiders. As it tends to go, by virtue of becoming a cast of outsiders, we formed a tight group of curious kids who spent nights jumping in and out of shadows in our small town. We were the kind of kids who hung out in the cemetery after school, French kissing beneath the Virgin Mary on some poor soul’s headstone. But we didn’t know then what devastation waited just around the corner: the Columbine High School massacre was less than a year away. Among all the horrors that spilled out of that nightmare, we also did not yet know how the mass media would falsely accuse Marilyn Manson of inspiring the massacre. Misinformation spread fast. The news was quick to claim the attackers were fans of Manson. Almost immediately, the news spiraled out of control; it seemed everyone who’d never listened to him, outside the short clips news anchors played for shock value, found it pretty easy to blame him. It was almost as if Manson had predicted this type of smear campaign with the stories he’d been telling in his songs, about how the culture and the media exploit fame, TV, drugs, and violence. Everyone who liked Manson, or who looked like Manson, became a kind of pariah. A new Manson Family had emerged, a loose network of fans in black. Two months after Columbine, Manson wrote for Rolling Stone: “It is no wonder that kids are growing up more cynical; they have a lot of information in front of them. They can see that they are living in a world that’s made of bullshit. In the past, there was always the idea that you could turn and run and start something better. But now America has become one big mall, and because the Internet and all of the technology we have, there’s nowhere to run.” 6. A message in blood Sometime around the start of high school, a year after Columbine, I completely shaved off my eyebrows. It was an accident. I was trying to get rid of my unibrow with a razor and I did not yet know what tweezers could do. The razor slipped and took off half an eyebrow so I figured the best I could do to fix it was to shave them both off. Without eyebrows, I looked like I was in constant shock. The look, however, made sense with my whole goth aesthetic. I was working at the local hardware store, so I’d also been cutting all the chain I needed to wrap around my waist and hang from my wallet. When I walked through school, I must’ve looked like Marley’s ghost from A Christmas Carol whose heavy chains were “long and wound about him like a tail.” One day, in the great, big, white hallway right outside the high school gym, I found a pane of shattered glass. To this day, I do not know who shattered that glass. It was the kind of pebbled glass with chicken wire inside, so although it was shattered, the shards remained suspended in the air. When I saw the glass, I was curious. I decided to touch it. I wanted to see what would happen if I just pushed on it a little. Would it come falling down? It didn’t. But I must’ve cut my finger ever so slightly in the process. A very small bit of blood appeared. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to wipe it on the white walls. I wish I could say I stopped there but I can’t. I decided to write words like FUCK and SHIT and the letter X and an inverted cross or two. And, thanks to a true lack of imagination, I combined the words “die” and “evil” to form “dievil.” I hate to say that in the moment, I was very proud of this. The bleeding stopped and I walked to global studies class. I forgot all about my ghastly painting. The next morning when I got to school, the hallway was behind police tape. An officer took photographs of the wall. How long would it be until they found me? Any time the phone rang in a classroom, I jumped. If the police found my blood on a Tuesday morning, it took until Friday afternoon for the call to finally come. Some seventh graders came forward and pointed me out to the principal: freckles, spiked hair, and chains. Easy to identify. There was no use in denying it. It’d only been a little over a year or so since Columbine. I understand now how proximity in time to that massacre only added to the authorities’ dread. What they saw was a threat. What I saw, and knew to be true, was a really, absurdly, empty-headed and spontaneous act of stupidity. But I wasn’t done. Afraid of my parents, the police, and the principal, I blamed my actions on the music. They were so worried about “dievil.” What did it mean? I lied and said it was a Manson song. Of all the things, I blamed it on what I knew they expected me to blame it on. They already had a certain idea about me and I fed them exactly what they wanted to hear. I figured the punishment would be swift, but lean, if I just caved. The principal swore that I broke the glass to cut myself on purpose, as if I was performing some kind of satanic ritual outside the gymnasium after lunch. They believed I was in that hallway signing a death warrant in blood. The principal handed me 10 days of out of school suspension and the police walked me out of the school. Not long after, I received word that the superintendent wanted me expelled. I think she’d already written me off before she ever let me speak. I think her swift decision to rid the school of me was a knee-jerk reaction. My appearance, coupled with my actions, was alarming and, I get it: What I did was not only embarrassing but it scared a lot of people. Violence is everywhere and in one form or another, it always will be. I just didn’t know how to prove to the school, or my parents, that what I’d done was not a threat, only a perverse stunt. 7. Violence and a box-cutter I often think about what violence awaits me, those I love, or the world at large. It seems like you can’t even go outside anymore. How long have our flags been at half-mast? Three years ago, the summer my son was born, a young man from my town was in the produce aisle at a nearby grocery store when a stranger came up from behind him and, for no reason other than unhinged meanness, opened his throat with a box cutter. I did not know the victim personally but my proximity to this senselessness shook me. I remember sitting up in bed beside my sleeping and very pregnant wife, trying to make sense of such cruel violence. That next morning, June 12, we learned that 49 people were shot to death at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. I remember looking at my wife and wondering how the hell children could even be allowed outside on this maniacal planet. I marveled at how my grandparents raised children in the aftermath of world wars and atom bombs, and throughout the string of assassinations in the ’60s. I have no clue what the answers are. What I do know is that we can promote a better future by encouraging the next generations to really listen to each other, to be empathetic, to speak the truth, and to be open-minded, free-thinking people who cherish the planet and themselves. We’re quick to blame Islam, Christianity, video games, rap, heavy metal, sexual preferences, immigration, Twitter, or, well, you get the point. We’re quick to point the finger in the aftermath of violence. Being a fan of Marilyn Manson’s music has taught me to always distrust the media, or politicians, when it comes to blaming anybody, or any thing, other than the perpetrators of a violent act — unless, of course, it’s been explicitly incited by a specific person or group. I can’t tell you how many times, as a teen, I had to tell people much older than me that Manson had nothing to do with Columbine. I don’t remember what I wore when the superintendent beckoned me to her office for one last chance to say my piece before expulsion, but I imagine it was something like what a vampire might wear to a wedding. She said I should stop wearing black, that just the sight of me promoted violence. Her apathetic tone struck something open in me. “Speaking of violence,” I said, doing my best Manson. I felt like I had to redeem myself in the eyes of my friends who knew I’d blamed my actions on the music. I reminded the superintendent about “the mouth,” a Rolling Stones-style pair of big red lips that formed a window into the kitchen of the cafeteria. This was where you could order slushies. One popular order had a special name: It was every available flavor combined and the cafeteria called it “the suicide.” The suicide wasn’t a unique flavor to our school; kids liked to buy “suicides” at 7-Elevens, too. But I evoked it in the superintendent’s office to try to cancel out her argument that I was the only seemingly violent entity in the school. I reminded her that our school was selling suicides as much as she thought my appearance promoted it. I was back in school within a week. 8. My shadow, myself Four years after the incident outside the gymnasium, I was hired by the same principal who suspended me to be a substitute teacher at my old high school. Now I wore slacks, boat shoes, and colorful sweaters. Outwardly, I looked like the inverse of my previous high school incarnation — but this was only a costume. Mostly, I was an impostor trying to blend in. I walked with a cane because I’d recently broken my knee while singing on stage in my metal band. I still spent most of my weekends performing in dive bars and college towns, banging my head until it practically fell off and rolled into the crowd. My first job at school was to “shadow” a kid the school had deemed dangerous; they worried that he was a threat to himself and others. The student had been out of school for a few weeks due to the fact that he was caught trying to mutilate himself in class with a blade he’d picked up from the art supply room. Supposedly, he’d tried to castrate himself. Perhaps this was the school’s way of dealing revenge, but I felt rather at home with that student. Some teachers and students were openly repulsed by him. He’d sit alone at lunch. The kid couldn’t sleep due to night terrors, so he’d doze off during class. He didn’t talk much. And here I was following him around my old school, sitting in my old teachers’ classrooms. After a few weeks of silence, I learned he was a drummer. So, in a move to open some dialogue, I gave him a copy of Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” — the version from the Last Tour on Earth live album. That particular rendition ends with a drum solo that’s listed on the album as the “Hell Outro.” The kid dug it. He started speaking and he even kind of half-smiled. We sat together in the cafeteria for lunch, the mouth smiling back at us. I think he felt less alone. I wanted him to know it was okay to be himself — even if it felt impossible. Music has a way of helping us put into words whatever darkness has latched onto us. That semester, I watched as the kid became friends with other musicians. They talked about jamming and playing in the talent show. My first band started in that school. It was, go figure, a Marilyn Manson cover band. I sang. When we played at the talent show, we covered “The Nobodies” from Manson’s Holy Wood. I screamed and threw myself across the stage like that crazed Poe-impersonator. Someone’s mother shot up from her seat in the audience and started yelling that I was the devil. I was flattered. It’s kind of a family tradition, being called the devil. My family has been passing down a story since the 1940s: When my poppop, my mother’s father, was a teen, this little kid, a neighbor, ran up to him on the street and asked to see his horns. The kid had been told that all Jewish people had horns. Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish philosopher, wrote that the word “Satan” derives from the Hebrew root “to turn away.” To be honest, I turned away from my faith at 13. I’ve attempted prayer since then, sure, in the same way I’ve experimented with drugs. It’d be disingenuous to tell you that in times of profound grief, I haven’t revisited some of those passages I once studied, speaking those ancient words in an attempt to connect myself with the dead. My horns act as a physical reminder that I will never know all things. I wouldn’t discover Flannery O’Connor until college, but I’d find a kindred spirit in her when I did. She and Marilyn Manson have more in common than you might first believe. O’Connor was a devout Catholic and Manson has said he’s not atheist but spiritual. I, at the time of this writing, am a meandering agnostic. But I think we could all find common ground on the idea that you aren’t truly your best self, spiritual or not, unless you are relentlessly investigating your thoughts and beliefs and testing them within yourself and against the world, building a kind of immune system for everything you thought was true and good and just. Not unlike Marilyn Manson, O’Connor didn’t shy away from showing gruesome acts of violence in her art in an attempt, I think, to remind people we should be consistent in our pursuit to better ourselves and others. Both Manson and O’Connor promote the ideas of curiosity and introspection. I believe these are paramount to how one might orient themselves against their world and, hopefully, find even a little meaning. In her prayer journal, O’Connor wrote: “No one can be an atheist who does not know all things. Only God is an atheist. The devil is the greatest believer and he has his reasons.” My horns act as a physical reminder that I will never know all things. I find comfort in this, as not-knowing is an engine for unending curiosity. My horns are also a reminder that we’re all capable of varying degrees of bad behavior, that we all live with some amount of secret shame and confusion. They remind me to embrace the strangest, most freakish parts of humanity. My mom thinks my poppop willed these very real horns onto me. The horns, she says, weren’t noticeable when I was an infant. I’m told there was no sense of malevolence in the delivery room when I was born, either. The hospital staff did not freak as if they’d witnessed the birth of a human baby with, like, the head of a goat. If I arrived on Earth with horns, they went unnoticed for a few years. My guess is the small crests of bone rising up out of my skull — exactly where you’d expect devil horns to be — grew as I grew. In fact, they might still be growing.

https://humanparts.medium.com/onlygodisanatheist-70dbe5f2a6de

['Shane Cashman']

2019-10-03 15:59:49.844000+00:00

['Music', 'Religion', 'Culture', 'Identity', 'Writing']

Title God AtheistContent 1 boy horn I’ve known two horn growing top head since middle school one right come sharper point pediatrician far could tell didn’t seem worried repulsed misshapen skull Nothing good haircut can’t disguise long hide horn blend right gen pop Typically they’re known cutaneous horn look like tusk bone tree limb sprouting human skull Mine subcutaneous skin shave head you’d find two halfinchwide halfinchtall nub trying push They’re located frontal lobe meet parietal lobe trace straight line directly top ear young hypochondriac thought cyst doctor assured they’re abnormality skull Nothing fear think it’s safe say every kid even popularity come divine right point feel misunderstood extraterrestrial kid horn despite literal location furthest thing mind end middle school plenty physical feature made feel like outsider buck teeth brace unibrow puberty mess freckle refused disappear matter old wife tale promised smearing lemon juice face wasn’t visit hair salon became acutely selfconscious horn Haircuts almost always go way Hairdressers run hand hair inadvertently grope horn gasp others go wideeyed mirror young drive salon they’d also make sure mother knew son Mark Beast “Do hurt” like ask There’s always something somewhat sinister image two real reflection grinning blushing chair black cape draped around body saying “Yeah know horn don’t hurt” might wondering didn’t stick one hairdresser soon found one knew weird skull truth child quest find hairdresser could duplicate specific haircut Specifically haircut inspired scene Casper — liveaction film starring Christina Ricci Bill Pullman Devin Sawa — Casper temporarily transformed fleshandblood boy righteous haircut sculpted gel shape arch atop forehead 1998 gearing honor Jewish ritual one’s passage adulthood bar mitzvah event I’d wear suit yarmulke first time tallit shoulder — prayer shawl that’s essentially sacred scarf worn complete initiation Thus ghost haircut impeccable immortality photo album real concern even seventh grade well age hashtag Photos shelf life least thousand year home Jewish grandparent 2 Finding MTV synagogue Casper dead boy stuck family old house cut world living dissimilar fact I’d never related character wasn’t dead per se early year didn’t computer internet cable TV school might well dead wasn’t much parent trying cut sister modern world — living situation farm middle wood didn’t even air conditioner 10 year ago library temple studied Hebrew dark room filled relic ancient scroll shofar candlestick object survived invasion fire death passed secret believer survivor preserved glass certainly recognized significance stared year synagogue held hand Sunday school feel weight time word God people destroyed regenerated something far intriguing hiding corner library especially 12 going 13 television access MTV time MTV around almost two decade I’d caught clip knew missing knew video went along song curated DIY mixtapes found television chance hear new music radio — Hot 97 K104 923 KROCK disembodied voice radio host offered connection artist became obsessed — Tupac TLC Ace Base Beastie Boys idea past present future could mapped something someone far greater felt boring limited I’d soon start sneaking Shabbat service catch music video Biggie Third Eye Blind Spice Girls Bone Thugs Aaliyah Cranberries Seeing music video would forever change way listened song studied music video almost anthropological level sure studied closer Hebrew TV vessel world I’d eager explore friend MTV home seemed rather blasé could survive without seeing bright visuals correlated song loved seemed necessary air water house worship supposed kind bridge God ancient Hebrew holy connection ancestral lineage sanctuary supposed discover adult eye Lord instead become place experiment new way interpreting world studied MTV desperate find something new satisfy hesitation becoming devoted member religion kid year older born Biblical name whose life could clearly see mapped middle school death Law school Volvo khakis… needed otherwise teenage self religion seemed sure human existence likewise felt sure trajectory mankind idea past present future could mapped something someone far greater felt boring limited Back school way immune particular solipsism tends manifest tender heart 13yearolds idea whole world working destroy close friend seventh grade joked bar mitzvah would really public circumcision hosted DJ better hearing joke Jewish ancestor killing Jesus nowhere Judaism controversial among puritanical lunch monitor woman prowled cafeteria like Gestapo gaucho pant wicked one made eat lunch supposed fasting holiday like Yom Kippur arguing dreaded woman God Old Testament book Job swiftly murdered Job’s entire family covered body boil killed livestock prove loyal man Lord even face absolute despair mom talk school punishing fasting certain holiday began taunt lunch monitor I’d march cafeteria day make Jewish holiday tell woman fasting nothing could way welcomed animosity time recognized fetish rebellion eight sang top lung lunch line around Christmastime “Joy world — God dead” one landed principal’s office shudder think woman would’ve done ever found horn 3 Liberated Marilyn Manson seventh grade temple library got first look Marilyn Manson music video cover Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” I’d already heard original depraved distorted version awoke something Manson’s image alone confirmation might others understood like feel isolated modern world seemed rejoice fact life mad ridiculous series event ghoulish skeletal man covered mud riding pig wearing tattered wedding dress smiling wide distantly almost intimidating hooked MTV grace temple gave new icon Selfrighteous politician talking head mainstream medium told America fear music Religious group protested concert Shit even young Katy Perry picketed Manson concert parent said man assault child America warned music causing widespread moral panic It’s hard imagine back name Marilyn Manson power shock people dare sandwich likeness Marilyn Monroe savagery Charles Manson Manson performed bareassed black corset thighhighs 1997 MTV Video Music Awards screamed audience could see “trying hardest ugly… trying hardest earn way heaven” second album Antichrist Superstar celebrated discovery individual gave newfound courage whoever happened admired Manson believed exposing listener idea question believed live life accordingly example “Get Gunn” Dr David Gunn OBGYN Atlanta murdered antiabortion Christian fundamentalist 1999 Manson wrote Rolling Stone Gunn’s death “was ultimate hypocrisy witnessed growing people killed someone name ‘prolife’” gathered someone telling keep curious Question everything appreciated someone drawing back curtain 1997 appearance TV show Politically Incorrect Manson said “I want people think believe want consider everything they’ve taught that’s want believe that’s they’ve told believe” episode interested also featured wonderful interaction Manson Florence Henderson — exact kind balancing act American grotesque beauty gave birth Manson’s persona Looking back Bar Mitzvah became funeral faith promise God wasn’t Manson offered lifechanging epiphany came faith belief offer chance feel confident questioning I’d already begun suspect wasn’t entirely school Jewishness became act rebellion lunch monitor temple reluctance worship way expected also became act rebellion Outside temple Jew school aside little sister Inside temple metalhead raploving Jew who’d found solace music video finally stood friend family bar mitzvah May 31 1998 father’s birthday felt like impostor wore suit recited line I’d learned new language best ability yet becoming exact opposite supposed promising God family Looking back bar mitzvah became funeral faith promise God Grandma you’re still reading please forgive bar mitzvah photograph still hang parents’ hallway everyone dressed smiling camera proud joyful I’ve got ghost haircut jacket’s missing tie gone I’m looking camera squinting something distance something one else seems troubled Perhaps it’s wonderful lurking darkness perhaps I’m wondering I’ll I’ve shed skin Photos courtesy author 4 I’m attached world Thus began morning routine Wake spike hair Paint fingernail black Snap fauxleather studded bracelet Put three five fakesilver ring skull anarchy sign pentagram Step pair JNCO jean wide looked like denim dress Throw longsleeved fishnet shirt Layer black Marilyn Manson tee fishnet Attach wallet chain clip belt loop Add two chain that’d hang waist knee purpose aesthetic first goth ever met Edgar Allan Poe impersonator fifth sixth grade filed auditorium watched man black pretend crazeddrunk deathobsessed mad poet flailing stage typically sang Christmas carol winter recital It’s possible goth aesthetic appealed felt like teenage monstrosity goth gave ability become monster believed others saw Read embarrassing amount teenage angst goth ask isn’t dress listen It’s willingness accept macabre unknown fright come human It’s way becoming memento mori parent teenager 1969 Manson Family murder capped already violent decade Three decade later parent teenage son looked man took Manson stage name whose follower adorned dark occultist supply patience parent deserve Nobel High school yearbook photo author father disappointed also encouraging man liked remind u time Catholic school punishment doled ruthless nun Even though aware mom agreed raise u faith he’d share idea comprehensive kind multifaceted God — powerful sure one shifted shape person person depending age time background Regardless looked like still went temple endless amount blessed wine sneak sip behind rabbi’s back Plus crush daughter temple maybe fairly empty felt like place free judgement also wasn’t going give dose MTV Marilyn Manson speaking directly dark library three month bar mitzvah first episode Total Request Live TRL hosted Carson Daly aired September 14 1998 day release Manson’s followup Antichrist Superstar Mechanical Animals Manson would live air debate youth pastor nature image meaning music may may bad influence listener Manson became new androgynous rabbi time street mobbed fan black Manson went live new look He’d mutated androgynous Bowieesque glam alien Meanwhile I’d become vacuum color metallic sputniklooking mallgoth I’m sure older truer goth might’ve called behind back ever caught walking Hot Topic day witnessed something far different expected honest open conversation different type people various background belief system Christians sitting “antichrist” genuine respectful dialogue art someone who’d become eager lob insult anyone going hate Manson rage deflated everyone’s eloquence respect Manson might’ve performed beneath banner ultimate freak nature TRL episode seemed clear anyone welcome banner matter affiliation long could keep open mind people differed show respect Manson said day TRL “As long someone’s expressing can’t hate it” way Manson became new androgynous rabbi time isn’t say wasn’t already learning morality temple Ten Commandments obvious valid core principle — don’t murder don’t cheat love around way allow reciprocal love think needed time temple truly appreciate conversation Manson pastor needed know choice choose believe something you’re obligated obey strict accordance okay hold alternating conflicting view world temple helped better understand believer nonbeliever I’d opened door 5 Manson’s downfall 13 1998 Despite Lewinsky scandal birth Viagra United States Embassy bombing Kenya popularity Furby El Niño bomb went Alabama abortion clinic murder James Byrd felt like okay time teenager cut news friend goth way outsider tends go virtue becoming cast outsider formed tight group curious kid spent night jumping shadow small town kind kid hung cemetery school French kissing beneath Virgin Mary poor soul’s headstone didn’t know devastation waited around corner Columbine High School massacre le year away Among horror spilled nightmare also yet know mass medium would falsely accuse Marilyn Manson inspiring massacre Misinformation spread fast news quick claim attacker fan Manson Almost immediately news spiraled control seemed everyone who’d never listened outside short clip news anchor played shock value found pretty easy blame almost Manson predicted type smear campaign story he’d telling song culture medium exploit fame TV drug violence Everyone liked Manson looked like Manson became kind pariah new Manson Family emerged loose network fan black Two month Columbine Manson wrote Rolling Stone “It wonder kid growing cynical lot information front see living world that’s made bullshit past always idea could turn run start something better America become one big mall Internet technology there’s nowhere run” 6 message blood Sometime around start high school year Columbine completely shaved eyebrow accident trying get rid unibrow razor yet know tweezer could razor slipped took half eyebrow figured best could fix shave Without eyebrow looked like constant shock look however made sense whole goth aesthetic working local hardware store I’d also cutting chain needed wrap around waist hang wallet walked school must’ve looked like Marley’s ghost Christmas Carol whose heavy chain “long wound like tail” One day great big white hallway right outside high school gym found pane shattered glass day know shattered glass kind pebbled glass chicken wire inside although shattered shard remained suspended air saw glass curious decided touch wanted see would happen pushed little Would come falling didn’t must’ve cut finger ever slightly process small bit blood appeared reason thought good idea wipe white wall wish could say stopped can’t decided write word like FUCK SHIT letter X inverted cross two thanks true lack imagination combined word “die” “evil” form “dievil” hate say moment proud bleeding stopped walked global study class forgot ghastly painting next morning got school hallway behind police tape officer took photograph wall long would found time phone rang classroom jumped police found blood Tuesday morning took Friday afternoon call finally come seventh grader came forward pointed principal freckle spiked hair chain Easy identify use denying It’d little year since Columbine understand proximity time massacre added authorities’ dread saw threat saw knew true really absurdly emptyheaded spontaneous act stupidity wasn’t done Afraid parent police principal blamed action music worried “dievil” mean lied said Manson song thing blamed knew expected blame already certain idea fed exactly wanted hear figured punishment would swift lean caved principal swore broke glass cut purpose performing kind satanic ritual outside gymnasium lunch believed hallway signing death warrant blood principal handed 10 day school suspension police walked school long received word superintendent wanted expelled think she’d already written ever let speak think swift decision rid school kneejerk reaction appearance coupled action alarming get embarrassing scared lot people Violence everywhere one form another always didn’t know prove school parent I’d done threat perverse stunt 7 Violence boxcutter often think violence awaits love world large seems like can’t even go outside anymore long flag halfmast Three year ago summer son born young man town produce aisle nearby grocery store stranger came behind reason unhinged meanness opened throat box cutter know victim personally proximity senselessness shook remember sitting bed beside sleeping pregnant wife trying make sense cruel violence next morning June 12 learned 49 people shot death Pulse nightclub Orlando Florida remember looking wife wondering hell child could even allowed outside maniacal planet marveled grandparent raised child aftermath world war atom bomb throughout string assassination ’60s clue answer know promote better future encouraging next generation really listen empathetic speak truth openminded freethinking people cherish planet We’re quick blame Islam Christianity video game rap heavy metal sexual preference immigration Twitter well get point We’re quick point finger aftermath violence fan Marilyn Manson’s music taught always distrust medium politician come blaming anybody thing perpetrator violent act — unless course it’s explicitly incited specific person group can’t tell many time teen tell people much older Manson nothing Columbine don’t remember wore superintendent beckoned office one last chance say piece expulsion imagine something like vampire might wear wedding said stop wearing black sight promoted violence apathetic tone struck something open “Speaking violence” said best Manson felt like redeem eye friend knew I’d blamed action music reminded superintendent “the mouth” Rolling Stonesstyle pair big red lip formed window kitchen cafeteria could order slushies One popular order special name every available flavor combined cafeteria called “the suicide” suicide wasn’t unique flavor school kid liked buy “suicides” 7Elevens evoked superintendent’s office try cancel argument seemingly violent entity school reminded school selling suicide much thought appearance promoted back school within week 8 shadow Four year incident outside gymnasium hired principal suspended substitute teacher old high school wore slack boat shoe colorful sweater Outwardly looked like inverse previous high school incarnation — costume Mostly impostor trying blend walked cane I’d recently broken knee singing stage metal band still spent weekend performing dive bar college town banging head practically fell rolled crowd first job school “shadow” kid school deemed dangerous worried threat others student school week due fact caught trying mutilate class blade he’d picked art supply room Supposedly he’d tried castrate Perhaps school’s way dealing revenge felt rather home student teacher student openly repulsed He’d sit alone lunch kid couldn’t sleep due night terror he’d doze class didn’t talk much following around old school sitting old teachers’ classroom week silence learned drummer move open dialogue gave copy Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” — version Last Tour Earth live album particular rendition end drum solo that’s listed album “Hell Outro” kid dug started speaking even kind halfsmiled sat together cafeteria lunch mouth smiling back u think felt le alone wanted know okay — even felt impossible Music way helping u put word whatever darkness latched onto u semester watched kid became friend musician talked jamming playing talent show first band started school go figure Marilyn Manson cover band sang played talent show covered “The Nobodies” Manson’s Holy Wood screamed threw across stage like crazed Poeimpersonator Someone’s mother shot seat audience started yelling devil flattered It’s kind family tradition called devil family passing story since 1940s poppop mother’s father teen little kid neighbor ran street asked see horn kid told Jewish people horn Maimonides 12th century Jewish philosopher wrote word “Satan” derives Hebrew root “to turn away” honest turned away faith 13 I’ve attempted prayer since sure way I’ve experimented drug It’d disingenuous tell time profound grief haven’t revisited passage studied speaking ancient word attempt connect dead horn act physical reminder never know thing wouldn’t discover Flannery O’Connor college I’d find kindred spirit Marilyn Manson common might first believe O’Connor devout Catholic Manson said he’s atheist spiritual time writing meandering agnostic think could find common ground idea aren’t truly best self spiritual unless relentlessly investigating thought belief testing within world building kind immune system everything thought true good unlike Marilyn Manson O’Connor didn’t shy away showing gruesome act violence art attempt think remind people consistent pursuit better others Manson O’Connor promote idea curiosity introspection believe paramount one might orient world hopefully find even little meaning prayer journal O’Connor wrote “No one atheist know thing God atheist devil greatest believer reasons” horn act physical reminder never know thing find comfort notknowing engine unending curiosity horn also reminder we’re capable varying degree bad behavior live amount secret shame confusion remind embrace strangest freakish part humanity mom think poppop willed real horn onto horn say weren’t noticeable infant I’m told sense malevolence delivery room born either hospital staff freak they’d witnessed birth human baby like head goat arrived Earth horn went unnoticed year guess small crest bone rising skull — exactly you’d expect devil horn — grew grew fact might still growingTags Music Religion Culture Identity Writing

Was an Iranian Scientist Really Assassinated With an A.I. Weapon?

Was an Iranian Scientist Really Assassinated With an A.I. Weapon? A.I.-assisted weapons are proliferating quickly A funeral ceremony for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran, Iran, on November 30, 2020. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images OneZero’s General Intelligence is a roundup of the most important artificial intelligence and facial recognition news of the week. In late November, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated on a highway outside of Tehran. Iranian military and state-owned news outlets blame Israel for the attack but also claim that Fakhrizadeh was killed by an A.I.-controlled machine gun mounted to a Nissan truck. A deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards described the machine gun as “equipped with an intelligent satellite system which zoomed in on martyr Fakhrizadeh.” Little other information is known. Eyewitnesses and the scientist’s family contest claims that A.I. technology had anything to with the assassination, according to the New York Times. Instead, they say, the story of an A.I.-powered boogeyman is an attempt to save face after Iran’s failure to protect one of its top scientists. Surprising as it may be, this internet column about A.I. research doesn’t have the inside scoop as to whether international assassins used a robot. But we can shed light on how far-fetched this claim really is based on what we know about military robots. Unlike most of the A.I. research community, eager to post its latest work in conferences and public-facing repositories like arXiv, defense contractors are notoriously secretive about their R&D projects. In the United States, these projects can be branded as national security secrets to shield themselves from public records laws. This handy loophole is used to hide how sophisticated our military systems have become — in fact, $76 billion was spent on classified defense projects in 2020 alone. But we do know that hundreds of autonomous military systems already exist. A 2017 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) surveyed publicly available information to catalog 381 autonomous military systems, 175 of which were armed. “Autonomous military system” is a vague term that encompasses everything from a self-flying drone to record intelligence footage to a robotic gun. Self-guided missiles, autonomous submarines, and automatic missile defense systems all fall into this category. The word “autonomous” is also a gray area. For instance, the U.S. military is making an “optionally manned” turret that can allegedly identify and aim at an enemy while a human pulls the trigger. On the other end of the spectrum, suicide drones armed with explosives can be equipped to find their own target. Some of these weapons are used to guard military bases. The SIPRI report identified three stationary autonomous weapons used to guard tactical positions: a Samsung device called the SGR-A1, another device made by Israeli defense contractor Rafael called the Sentry Tech, and a third made by South Korean company DoDaam called the Super aEgis II. These automated turrets are equipped with cameras and infrared sensors that allow them to see and recognize the heat of human bodies. The Super aEgis II can allegedly detect and track human-sized targets from nearly two miles away, according to the SIPRI report. Other autonomous military systems are being deployed as mobile weapons, as detailed in a 2019 report from Pax, a Dutch humanitarian organization. An Estonian company called Milrem has been building a kind of autonomous mini-tank called THeMIS since 2014. The THeMIS isn’t a weapon itself but a mobile robot like Boston Dynamics’ robot dog except with tank treads instead of legs. Other companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and ST Engineering build autonomous and remotely operated weapons made to be carried into battle on top of a THeMIS robot. One of the first automated machine guns for the THeMIS was made by ST Engineering in 2016, formerly known as Singapore Technologies. The company has expanded its “remote weapon stations” to include seven kinds of weapons. All publicly available information says that A.I.-enhanced turrets for both defense and attack can be sold with some semblance of human control, whether that be literally controlling the machine from afar or simply designating what to attack. But much less is known about which weapons have full autonomous capabilities and how those systems function. In July 2020, Israeli company Smart Shooter unveiled a portable and autonomous weapon mounting system called Smash Hopper, which can aim and fire a gun either autonomously or controlled from a distant tablet computer. The whole thing weighs around 50 pounds, and there’s even a smaller version that folds up like a camera tripod. The existence of these kinds of autonomous weapons doesn’t mean they were involved in the killing of Fakhrizadeh, and there’s no hard evidence to suggest the Iranian military’s claims. The truck that allegedly held the automated weapon exploded at the scene. But the era of autonomous weapons has already begun, and countries like Britain are already sketching what an army of robots might look like in the future.

https://onezero.medium.com/was-an-iranian-scientist-assassinated-with-an-a-i-weapon-50ec9d5b1206

['Dave Gershgorn']

2020-12-11 14:52:37.512000+00:00

['General Intelligence', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Military', 'Machine Leraning']

Title Iranian Scientist Really Assassinated AI WeaponContent Iranian Scientist Really Assassinated AI Weapon AIassisted weapon proliferating quickly funeral ceremony Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Tehran Iran November 30 2020 Photo Anadolu AgencyGetty Images OneZero’s General Intelligence roundup important artificial intelligence facial recognition news week late November Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassinated highway outside Tehran Iranian military stateowned news outlet blame Israel attack also claim Fakhrizadeh killed AIcontrolled machine gun mounted Nissan truck deputy commander Iran’s Revolutionary Guards described machine gun “equipped intelligent satellite system zoomed martyr Fakhrizadeh” Little information known Eyewitnesses scientist’s family contest claim AI technology anything assassination according New York Times Instead say story AIpowered boogeyman attempt save face Iran’s failure protect one top scientist Surprising may internet column AI research doesn’t inside scoop whether international assassin used robot shed light farfetched claim really based know military robot Unlike AI research community eager post latest work conference publicfacing repository like arXiv defense contractor notoriously secretive RD project United States project branded national security secret shield public record law handy loophole used hide sophisticated military system become — fact 76 billion spent classified defense project 2020 alone know hundred autonomous military system already exist 2017 report Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI surveyed publicly available information catalog 381 autonomous military system 175 armed “Autonomous military system” vague term encompasses everything selfflying drone record intelligence footage robotic gun Selfguided missile autonomous submarine automatic missile defense system fall category word “autonomous” also gray area instance US military making “optionally manned” turret allegedly identify aim enemy human pull trigger end spectrum suicide drone armed explosive equipped find target weapon used guard military base SIPRI report identified three stationary autonomous weapon used guard tactical position Samsung device called SGRA1 another device made Israeli defense contractor Rafael called Sentry Tech third made South Korean company DoDaam called Super aEgis II automated turret equipped camera infrared sensor allow see recognize heat human body Super aEgis II allegedly detect track humansized target nearly two mile away according SIPRI report autonomous military system deployed mobile weapon detailed 2019 report Pax Dutch humanitarian organization Estonian company called Milrem building kind autonomous minitank called THeMIS since 2014 THeMIS isn’t weapon mobile robot like Boston Dynamics’ robot dog except tank tread instead leg company like Raytheon Lockheed Martin ST Engineering build autonomous remotely operated weapon made carried battle top THeMIS robot One first automated machine gun THeMIS made ST Engineering 2016 formerly known Singapore Technologies company expanded “remote weapon stations” include seven kind weapon publicly available information say AIenhanced turret defense attack sold semblance human control whether literally controlling machine afar simply designating attack much le known weapon full autonomous capability system function July 2020 Israeli company Smart Shooter unveiled portable autonomous weapon mounting system called Smash Hopper aim fire gun either autonomously controlled distant tablet computer whole thing weighs around 50 pound there’s even smaller version fold like camera tripod existence kind autonomous weapon doesn’t mean involved killing Fakhrizadeh there’s hard evidence suggest Iranian military’s claim truck allegedly held automated weapon exploded scene era autonomous weapon already begun country like Britain already sketching army robot might look like futureTags General Intelligence AI Artificial Intelligence Military Machine Leraning

Manipulating File Paths with Python

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash Python is a convenient language that’s often used for scripting, data science, and web development. In this article, we’ll look at how to read and write files with Python. Files and File Paths A file has a filename to reference the file. It also has a path to locate the file’s location. The path consists of the folder, they can be nested and they form the path. Backslash on Windows and Forward Slash on macOS and Linux In Windows, the path consists of backslashes. In many other operating systems like macOS and Linux, the path consists of forward slashes. Python’s standard pathlib library knows the difference and can sort them out accordingly. Therefore, we should use it to construct paths so that our program will run everywhere. For instance, we can import pathlib as follows and create a Path object as follows: from pathlib import Path path = Path('foo', 'bar', 'foo.txt') After running the code, path should be a Path object like the following if we’re running the program above on Linux or macOS: PosixPath('foo/bar/foo.txt') If we’re running the code above on Windows, we’ll get a WindowsPath object instead of a PosixPath object. Using the / Operator to Join Paths We can use the / operator to join paths. For instance, we can rewrite the path we had into the following code: from pathlib import Path path = Path('foo')/'bar'/'foo.txt' Then we get the same result as before. This will also work on Windows, macOS, and Linux since Python will sort out the path accordingly. What we shouldn’t use is the string’s join method because the path separator is different between Windows and other operating systems. For instance: path = '/'.join(['foo', 'bar', 'foo.txt']) isn’t going to work on Windows since the path has forward slash. The Current Working Directory We can get the current working directory (CWD), which is the directory the program is running on. We can change the CWD with the os.chdir function and get the current CWD with the Path.cwd function. For instance, we can write: from pathlib import Path import os print(Path.cwd()) os.chdir(Path('foo')/'bar') print(Path.cwd()) Then we get: /home/runner/AgonizingBasicSpecialist /home/runner/AgonizingBasicSpecialist/foo/bar as the output. As we can see, chdir changed the current working directory, so that we can use manipulate files in directories other than the ones that the program is running in. The Home Directory The home directory is the root directory of the profile folder of the user’s user account. For instance, we can write the following: from pathlib import Path path = Path.home() Then the value of path is something like PosixPath(‘/home/runner’) . Absolute vs. Relative Paths An absolute path is a path that always begins with the root folder. A relative is a path that’s relative to the program’s current working directory. For example, on Windows, C:\Windows is an absolute path. A relative path is something like .\foo\bar . It starts with a dot and foo is inside the current working directory. Creating New Folders Using the os.makedirs() Function We can make a new folder with the os.makedirs function. For instance, we can write: from pathlib import Path Path(Path.cwd()/'foo').mkdir() Then we make a foo directory inside our current working directory. Photo by Lili Popper on Unsplash Handling Absolute and Relative Paths We can check if a path is an absolute path with the is_absolute method. For instance, we can write: from pathlib import Path is_absolute = Path.cwd().is_absolute() Then we should see is_absolute being True since Path.cwd() returns an absolute path. We can call os.path.abspath to returns a string with of the absolute path of the path argument that we pass in. For instance, given that we have the directory foo in the current working directory, we can write: from pathlib import Path import os path = os.path.abspath(Path('./foo')) to get the absolute path of the foo folder. We then should get something like: '/home/runner/AgonizingBasicSpecialist/foo' as the value of path . os.path.isabs(path) is a method that returns True is a path that is absolute. The os.path.relpath(path, start) method will return a string of the relative path from the start path to path . If start isn’t provided, then the current working directory is used as the start path. For instance, if we have the folder /foo/bar in our home directory, then we can get the path of ./foo/bar relative to the home directory by writing: from pathlib import Path import os path = os.path.relpath(Path.home(), Path('./foo')/'bar') Then the path has the value ‘../../..’ . Conclusion We can use the path and os modules to construct and manipulate paths. Also, we can also use the / with Path objects to create a path that works with all operating systems. We can also path in paths to the Path function to construct paths. Python also has methods to check for relative and absolute paths and the os module can construct relative paths from 2 absolute paths. A note from Python In Plain English We are always interested in helping to promote quality content. If you have an article that you would like to submit to any of our publications, send us an email at [email protected] with your Medium username and we will get you added as a writer.

https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/manipulating-file-paths-with-python-72a76952b832

['John Au-Yeung']

2020-05-04 14:50:44.216000+00:00

['Programming', 'Technology', 'Python', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering']

Title Manipulating File Paths PythonContent Photo Viktor Talashuk Unsplash Python convenient language that’s often used scripting data science web development article we’ll look read write file Python Files File Paths file filename reference file also path locate file’s location path consists folder nested form path Backslash Windows Forward Slash macOS Linux Windows path consists backslashes many operating system like macOS Linux path consists forward slash Python’s standard pathlib library know difference sort accordingly Therefore use construct path program run everywhere instance import pathlib follows create Path object follows pathlib import Path path Pathfoo bar footxt running code path Path object like following we’re running program Linux macOS PosixPathfoobarfootxt we’re running code Windows we’ll get WindowsPath object instead PosixPath object Using Operator Join Paths use operator join path instance rewrite path following code pathlib import Path path Pathfoobarfootxt get result also work Windows macOS Linux since Python sort path accordingly shouldn’t use string’s join method path separator different Windows operating system instance path joinfoo bar footxt isn’t going work Windows since path forward slash Current Working Directory get current working directory CWD directory program running change CWD oschdir function get current CWD Pathcwd function instance write pathlib import Path import o printPathcwd oschdirPathfoobar printPathcwd get homerunnerAgonizingBasicSpecialist homerunnerAgonizingBasicSpecialistfoobar output see chdir changed current working directory use manipulate file directory one program running Home Directory home directory root directory profile folder user’s user account instance write following pathlib import Path path Pathhome value path something like PosixPath‘homerunner’ Absolute v Relative Paths absolute path path always begin root folder relative path that’s relative program’s current working directory example Windows CWindows absolute path relative path something like foobar start dot foo inside current working directory Creating New Folders Using osmakedirs Function make new folder osmakedirs function instance write pathlib import Path PathPathcwdfoomkdir make foo directory inside current working directory Photo Lili Popper Unsplash Handling Absolute Relative Paths check path absolute path isabsolute method instance write pathlib import Path isabsolute Pathcwdisabsolute see isabsolute True since Pathcwd return absolute path call ospathabspath return string absolute path path argument pas instance given directory foo current working directory write pathlib import Path import o path ospathabspathPathfoo get absolute path foo folder get something like homerunnerAgonizingBasicSpecialistfoo value path ospathisabspath method return True path absolute ospathrelpathpath start method return string relative path start path path start isn’t provided current working directory used start path instance folder foobar home directory get path foobar relative home directory writing pathlib import Path import o path ospathrelpathPathhome Pathfoobar path value ‘’ Conclusion use path o module construct manipulate path Also also use Path object create path work operating system also path path Path function construct path Python also method check relative absolute path o module construct relative path 2 absolute path note Python Plain English always interested helping promote quality content article would like submit publication send u email submissionsplainenglishio Medium username get added writerTags Programming Technology Python Software Development Software Engineering

How to Set Up Your Own PaaS Within Hours

How to Set Up Your Own PaaS Within Hours Five simple steps to quickly set up your very own private PaaS environment using available free open-source technologies Photo by Fotis Fotopoulos on Unsplash There are many useful and free open-source software on the Internet, we just need to know where to look. The PaaS setup that I’m going to recommend works well for private/on-premise setup as well. There’s no coding involved, just some CLI configurations. Having your own PaaS is useful if you’re running a team of engineers requiring flexibility, privacy, and data ownership. I mainly use it for rapid prototyping purposes and hosting my own suite of web applications with minimal traffic. I would not recommend this setup for production purposes with high load unless you really know what you’re doing. I’ll keep the article short and list down the high-level steps as the instructions on the websites are very easy to follow. I’ve done a couple of setups with minimal issues and they are usually done within a few hours. Assuming you’re starting from scratch with the intent to deploy in the cloud, here are the five simple steps: Setup a cloud account and rent a VM (e.g. AWS/EC2) Register a domain from a provider (e.g. AWS Route53) Set up the PaaS by following simple steps (CapRover) Create and deploy open-source applications out of the box (Wordpress, Jenkins, GitLab, and many more) Configure backups just in case Please note that I’m not paid in any way by any of the companies listed in this article. I’m recommending them soley based on positive experiences. #1: Setup a cloud account and rent a VM You’ll need a virtual machine to host the applications. There are a variety of cloud providers that you can choose from. Here are some of the popular ones with 1-year free-tier option(s)/credits: You can click on any of the above links to set up a new free account. After creating the account, provision a virtual machine—recommended server setup to be Ubuntu 18.04 with at least 1GB RAM. #2: Register a domain name Applications will be deployed under a sub-domain, e.g. appone.apps.domain.com, apptwo.apps.domain.com, etc. so it’s essential to have your own domain. Here are some websites which I’ve used for my domains: If you’re using a cloud provider, e.g. AWS/Azure, it may be more convenient to register your domain with them to have everything managed centrally. #3: Set up the PaaS This section forms the main bulk of the setup. Although there are a number of available open-source PaaS available, e.g. Dokku, CapRover, Flynn, etc. I’ll be using CapRover as an example. I’ll further break down this portion into four steps: The steps above should get your PaaS up and running. #4: Create and deploy applications Here comes the fun part. After logging into the CapRover dashboard, navigate to the Apps screen via “Apps” at the left sidebar. Click on the “One-Click Apps/Databases” button.

https://medium.com/the-internal-startup/how-to-set-up-your-own-paas-within-hours-83356523413d

['Jimmy Soh']

2020-06-24 00:58:38.258000+00:00

['Programming', 'Technology', 'Software Development', 'Startup', 'Software Engineering']

Title Set PaaS Within HoursContent Set PaaS Within Hours Five simple step quickly set private PaaS environment using available free opensource technology Photo Fotis Fotopoulos Unsplash many useful free opensource software Internet need know look PaaS setup I’m going recommend work well privateonpremise setup well There’s coding involved CLI configuration PaaS useful you’re running team engineer requiring flexibility privacy data ownership mainly use rapid prototyping purpose hosting suite web application minimal traffic would recommend setup production purpose high load unless really know you’re I’ll keep article short list highlevel step instruction website easy follow I’ve done couple setup minimal issue usually done within hour Assuming you’re starting scratch intent deploy cloud five simple step Setup cloud account rent VM eg AWSEC2 Register domain provider eg AWS Route53 Set PaaS following simple step CapRover Create deploy opensource application box Wordpress Jenkins GitLab many Configure backup case Please note I’m paid way company listed article I’m recommending soley based positive experience 1 Setup cloud account rent VM You’ll need virtual machine host application variety cloud provider choose popular one 1year freetier optionscredits click link set new free account creating account provision virtual machine—recommended server setup Ubuntu 1804 least 1GB RAM 2 Register domain name Applications deployed subdomain eg apponeappsdomaincom apptwoappsdomaincom etc it’s essential domain website I’ve used domain you’re using cloud provider eg AWSAzure may convenient register domain everything managed centrally 3 Set PaaS section form main bulk setup Although number available opensource PaaS available eg Dokku CapRover Flynn etc I’ll using CapRover example I’ll break portion four step step get PaaS running 4 Create deploy application come fun part logging CapRover dashboard navigate Apps screen via “Apps” left sidebar Click “OneClick AppsDatabases” buttonTags Programming Technology Software Development Startup Software Engineering

Interesting AI/ML Articles On Medium This Week (Dec 5)

Interesting AI/ML Articles On Medium This Week (Dec 5) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning articles that might have flown under your radar. We are officially in the last month of 2020, and what a crazy ride it has been. I have to say that amidst lockdown and a year of limited to no social activity, Medium has been, and continues to be a platform where you feel connected to different areas of the world. Medium is one of my source of connection to the world of Machine Learning. There’s no shortage of interesting AI/ML/DS articles written by machine practitioners and AI enthusiasts. Below are four articles that have mainly stuck out to me for either the high quality of the information provided or the relevance of the content of the article to ML practitioners. There is definitely an article or two with information that is of value to ML practitioners of different levels. Happy reading.

https://towardsdatascience.com/interesting-ai-ml-articles-on-medium-this-week-dec-5-a1ac1b8bad8c

['Richmond Alake']

2020-12-05 04:55:37.605000+00:00

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

Title Interesting AIML Articles Medium Week Dec 5Content Interesting AIML Articles Medium Week Dec 5 Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning article might flown radar officially last month 2020 crazy ride say amidst lockdown year limited social activity Medium continues platform feel connected different area world Medium one source connection world Machine Learning There’s shortage interesting AIMLDS article written machine practitioner AI enthusiast four article mainly stuck either high quality information provided relevance content article ML practitioner definitely article two information value ML practitioner different level Happy readingTags Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technology AI Data Science

Handling Outliers in Clusters using Silhouette Analysis

Handling Outliers in Clusters using Silhouette Analysis Identify and remove outliers in each cluster from K-Means clustering Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay The real-world data often has a lot of outlier values. The cause of outliers can be data corruption or failure to record data. The handling of outliers is very important during the data preprocessing pipeline as the presence of outliers can prevent the model to perform best. There are various strategies to handle outliers in the dataset. This article will cover how to handle outliers after clustering data into several clusters using Silhouette Analysis. Silhouette Analysis: The silhouette method is a method to find the optimal number of clusters and interpretation and validation of consistency within clusters of data. The silhouette method computes silhouette coefficients of each point that measure how much a point is similar to its own cluster compared to other clusters. by providing a succinct graphical representation of how well each object has been classified. The analysis of these graphical representations is called Silhouette Analysis. The silhouette value is a measure of how similar an object is to its own cluster (cohesion) compared to other clusters (separation). The value of the silhouette ranges between [1, -1]. Important Points: The Silhouette coefficient of +1 indicates that the sample is far away from the neighboring clusters. The Silhouette coefficient of 0 indicates that the sample is on or very close to the decision boundary between two neighboring clusters. Silhouette coefficient <0 indicates that those samples might have been assigned to the wrong cluster or are outliers. Computing Silhouette Coefficient: Steps to find the silhouette coefficient of an i’th point: Compute an (i): The average distance of that point with all other points in the same clusters. Compute b(i): The average distance of that point with all the points in the closest cluster to its cluster. Compute s(i) — silhouette coefficient or i’th point using below mentioned formula. (Image by Author), Diagramatic representation of a(i) and b(i) from the above-mentioned formula to compute silhouette coefficient — s(i) Find the optimal value of ‘k’ using Silhouette Analysis: Use the Silhouette Method to find the optimal number of clusters. It can also be found using the Elbow method, but the Silhouette Method is considered a better approach than the Elbow method. Read the below article to know more: (Image by Author), Left: Avg distance vs the number of clusters, Right: Silhouette score vs the number of clusters The silhouette plot displays a measure of how close each point in one cluster is to points in the neighboring clusters and thus provides a way to assess parameters like the number of clusters visually. Key Takeaways from Silhouette Analysis: From the silhouette line plot and silhouette analysis for different values of n_clusters, it is observed that n_cluster=3 is the best value of the number of clusters (k). In the above image for “silhouette analysis for KMeans clustering on sample data with n_clusters=3”, it is observed that all the clusters [0,1,2] have most of their points have silhouette coefficients more than average silhouette score. In the above image for “silhouette analysis for KMeans clustering on sample data with n_clusters=3”, it is observed that for cluster_label 2, there are few points that have negative silhouette coefficients, that can be considered as outliers. Also for cluster_label 1, some points have silhouette coefficients less than the average silhouette score, which are points on cluster boundaries away from its cluster center. To find the outliers, find the points that have a negative silhouette coefficient, and remove it. Points lying on the cluster boundaries away from its cluster center can also be removed to create a robust model, but it depends on the case study.

https://towardsdatascience.com/handling-outliers-in-clusters-using-silhouette-analysis-5a7d51118dac

['Satyam Kumar']

2020-10-21 02:23:47.081000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Education', 'Clustering']

Title Handling Outliers Clusters using Silhouette AnalysisContent Handling Outliers Clusters using Silhouette Analysis Identify remove outlier cluster KMeans clustering Image Gerd Altmann Pixabay realworld data often lot outlier value cause outlier data corruption failure record data handling outlier important data preprocessing pipeline presence outlier prevent model perform best various strategy handle outlier dataset article cover handle outlier clustering data several cluster using Silhouette Analysis Silhouette Analysis silhouette method method find optimal number cluster interpretation validation consistency within cluster data silhouette method computes silhouette coefficient point measure much point similar cluster compared cluster providing succinct graphical representation well object classified analysis graphical representation called Silhouette Analysis silhouette value measure similar object cluster cohesion compared cluster separation value silhouette range 1 1 Important Points Silhouette coefficient 1 indicates sample far away neighboring cluster Silhouette coefficient 0 indicates sample close decision boundary two neighboring cluster Silhouette coefficient 0 indicates sample might assigned wrong cluster outlier Computing Silhouette Coefficient Steps find silhouette coefficient i’th point Compute average distance point point cluster Compute bi average distance point point closest cluster cluster Compute si — silhouette coefficient i’th point using mentioned formula Image Author Diagramatic representation ai bi abovementioned formula compute silhouette coefficient — si Find optimal value ‘k’ using Silhouette Analysis Use Silhouette Method find optimal number cluster also found using Elbow method Silhouette Method considered better approach Elbow method Read article know Image Author Left Avg distance v number cluster Right Silhouette score v number cluster silhouette plot display measure close point one cluster point neighboring cluster thus provides way ass parameter like number cluster visually Key Takeaways Silhouette Analysis silhouette line plot silhouette analysis different value nclusters observed ncluster3 best value number cluster k image “silhouette analysis KMeans clustering sample data nclusters3” observed cluster 012 point silhouette coefficient average silhouette score image “silhouette analysis KMeans clustering sample data nclusters3” observed clusterlabel 2 point negative silhouette coefficient considered outlier Also clusterlabel 1 point silhouette coefficient le average silhouette score point cluster boundary away cluster center find outlier find point negative silhouette coefficient remove Points lying cluster boundary away cluster center also removed create robust model depends case studyTags Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Data Science Education Clustering

Interactive Data Visualization became much easier with help of Plotly-express.

Difference between Plotly and Plotly-express (in terms of plotting). Plotly Please Note: Plotly has been updated recently. Plotly as well as any sources from plotly updates frequently (as they are new libraries when compared to other libraries in python). Till Plotly 3, we have two modes in plotting with plotly (Online and Offline). Plotly online When plotting online, plot and data will be saved to your plotly’s cloud account. There are two methods to plot online. plotly.plot() — used to return the unique URL and optionally open the URL. plotly.iplot() — used when working in jupyter-notebook, to display the plot within the notebook. These both methods create a unique URL for the plot and save it in your plotly account and internet connection is required to use plotly online. Plotly offline Plotly offline, allows to create plots offline and save them locally (which doesn’t require any internet connection).There are two methods to plot offline. plotly.offline.plot() — used to create a standalone HTML, that is saved locally and opened inside your web browser. plotly.offline.iplot() — used when working offline in jupyter-notebook, to display the plot in the notebook. When we intend to use plotly.offline.iplot(), we need to run an additional step, i.e., plotly.offline.init_notebook_mode() at start of each session. From Plotly 4, (which is updated and recent version of Plotly) Fig-1 : plotly3_vs_4 Plotly 4 made life much easier as it is completely offline (So, there is NO plotly online from plotly 4). Whoever loves to work with plotly.offline in jupyter-notebook, they can avoid connection statement in their code (which includes connecting plotly in offline mode to their notebook ), now they can directly import plotly rather than importing plotly.offline. plotly.graph_objs — This has several functions, which is useful in generating graph objects. grpah_objs — It is a class, which contains several structures that are consistent across visualizations made in python regardless of type. From plotly 3 to plotly 4, plotly.graph_objs package has been aliased as plotly.graph_objects “because the latter is much easier to communicate verbally “— according to official documentation. Plotly Express Fig-2:Importing plotly express (careful with versions) Plotly Express was separately-installed using plotly_express package but it is now part of plotly. Plotly should be updated to plotly 4 before using it Or you will be encountered with error as shown in Fig-2. Comparing Scatter plot with plotly and plotly express Scatter plot allows the comparison of two variables for a set of data. Depending on the trend of the scatter plot, we could interpret a correlation. With Plotly: Fig-3:plotting between sepal_length and sepal_width Plotly follows a particular syntax as seen in Fig-3. Initially, a variable is to be created to assign a plot (Note:plot type should be given in the form of list, as shown in first line in Fig-3). In this case, we named it “data” (most followed notation), variable name can be of your choice. This “data” variable contains a plot type call. go.Scatter is one among many graph objects, each plot type has it’s own graph object. These objects typically accepts few parameters. For instance, scatter graph objects requires two mandatory parameters (assigning x-axis and y-axis). go.Layout(this is also one of the graph object), which is used to define layout for the plot. Then figure object from graph objects, is created to use both data and layout variables to plot. The dataset I have used is very famous and best known database to be found in the pattern recognition literature .This dataset contains 3 classes(Setosa, Versicolour, Virginica) of 50 instances each, where each class refers to a type of iris plant. In Fig-3, we have plotted all classes to find relation between (Sepal_length and Sepal_width). But, as all the datapoints are represented in same color, we are unable to draw any conclusions from the plot because plotly doesn’t give you hue in a plot (which is a parameter in seaborn). So, alternative to it is to either data should be plotted using grouped-by method or individual traces should be created for each class variables. Grouping by data to plot with variation in each class

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/interactive-data-visualization-became-much-easier-with-help-of-plotly-express-64c56e781b53

['Chamanth Mvs']

2020-10-06 02:07:34.860000+00:00

['Plotly Express', 'Plotly', 'Data Visualization', 'Python']

Title Interactive Data Visualization became much easier help PlotlyexpressContent Difference Plotly Plotlyexpress term plotting Plotly Please Note Plotly updated recently Plotly well source plotly update frequently new library compared library python Till Plotly 3 two mode plotting plotly Online Offline Plotly online plotting online plot data saved plotly’s cloud account two method plot online plotlyplot — used return unique URL optionally open URL plotlyiplot — used working jupyternotebook display plot within notebook method create unique URL plot save plotly account internet connection required use plotly online Plotly offline Plotly offline allows create plot offline save locally doesn’t require internet connectionThere two method plot offline plotlyofflineplot — used create standalone HTML saved locally opened inside web browser plotlyofflineiplot — used working offline jupyternotebook display plot notebook intend use plotlyofflineiplot need run additional step ie plotlyofflineinitnotebookmode start session Plotly 4 updated recent version Plotly Fig1 plotly3vs4 Plotly 4 made life much easier completely offline plotly online plotly 4 Whoever love work plotlyoffline jupyternotebook avoid connection statement code includes connecting plotly offline mode notebook directly import plotly rather importing plotlyoffline plotlygraphobjs — several function useful generating graph object grpahobjs — class contains several structure consistent across visualization made python regardless type plotly 3 plotly 4 plotlygraphobjs package aliased plotlygraphobjects “because latter much easier communicate verbally “— according official documentation Plotly Express Fig2Importing plotly express careful version Plotly Express separatelyinstalled using plotlyexpress package part plotly Plotly updated plotly 4 using encountered error shown Fig2 Comparing Scatter plot plotly plotly express Scatter plot allows comparison two variable set data Depending trend scatter plot could interpret correlation Plotly Fig3plotting sepallength sepalwidth Plotly follows particular syntax seen Fig3 Initially variable created assign plot Noteplot type given form list shown first line Fig3 case named “data” followed notation variable name choice “data” variable contains plot type call goScatter one among many graph object plot type it’s graph object object typically accepts parameter instance scatter graph object requires two mandatory parameter assigning xaxis yaxis goLayoutthis also one graph object used define layout plot figure object graph object created use data layout variable plot dataset used famous best known database found pattern recognition literature dataset contains 3 classesSetosa Versicolour Virginica 50 instance class refers type iris plant Fig3 plotted class find relation Sepallength Sepalwidth datapoints represented color unable draw conclusion plot plotly doesn’t give hue plot parameter seaborn alternative either data plotted using groupedby method individual trace created class variable Grouping data plot variation classTags Plotly Express Plotly Data Visualization Python

IBM-Oxford Team Uses Supercomputers to Design New Drugs Against COVID-19

By Katia Moskvitch With the second wave of COVID-19 gaining strength, researchers are in a race against time to find a treatment or a vaccine. One international team of scientists from IBM Research and Oxford University is trying to design molecules that would interfere with the molecular machinery of coronavirus, the virus that triggers the disease. If successful, such molecules could become the basis of a new drug to treat or slow COVID-19 infections. “We are blending techniques such as advanced machine learning, computer modelling and experimental measurements to accelerate the discovery of these new molecules,” says the lead researcher Jason Crain, IBM Research physicist and visiting professor at the University of Oxford. He details his team’s work in a recent COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium’s webinar. It’s still early days — the team is only four months into the project — but the researchers have already identified several compounds that look promising based on the computational modelling. The scientists now have to test them in a lab, says Crain, and the experiments will take several weeks. While the ongoing COVID-19-related work is new, Crain’s team has been for many years working on drug discovery, most recently in the area of antibiotic resistance. “We pivoted this earlier work, quickly adapting some of the fundamental methods we had previously developed, to address COVID-19,” Crain says. The biggest challenge for the team, just like for any other team searching for a new drug to halt the pandemic, is dealing with an immensely vast chemical space within which to identify new functional compounds. To address it, the researchers are combining cutting-edge AI methods with modelling on two supercomputers offered by the COVID-19 HPC Consortium — IBM Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Frontera at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Without these extra computing resources, Crain says, “the throughput of the computational screening stages would have been prohibitively slow.” After all, the computational modelling of a myriad of AI-generated candidate compounds is among the most demanding and time-consuming steps in the discovery pathway. Computer modelling on Summit and Frontera has allowed the team to screen compounds and reveal their mode of action at the molecular scale, so that they have to synthesize and test experimentally only the most promising ones. “Summit and Frontera allow us to perform calculations of how candidate drug molecules bind to viral proteins much faster than would have been possible otherwise,” says Crain. “The Consortium resources have allowed us to incorporate very HPC-intensive steps into the screening protocol, which is a very powerful approach but rarely possible to do.” The Consortium has also helped, says Crain, to bring together an international team of experts. “Some of the Oxford team, for example, have extensive experience in the structure of viral proteins, and techniques related to screening of candidate drugs,” he says. “The AI teams at IBM in New York and in the UK have been working on developing new methods that can ‘discover’ functional molecules — which may or may not have been made previously — very efficiently.” This article first appeared on the COVID-19 HPC Consortium blog

https://ibm-research.medium.com/global-ibm-oxford-team-uses-supercomputers-to-design-new-drugs-against-covid-19-6293ced5720a

['Inside Ibm Research']

2020-11-27 13:06:05.842000+00:00

['IBM', 'Technology', 'Covid 19', 'AI', 'Coronavirus']

Title IBMOxford Team Uses Supercomputers Design New Drugs COVID19Content Katia Moskvitch second wave COVID19 gaining strength researcher race time find treatment vaccine One international team scientist IBM Research Oxford University trying design molecule would interfere molecular machinery coronavirus virus trigger disease successful molecule could become basis new drug treat slow COVID19 infection “We blending technique advanced machine learning computer modelling experimental measurement accelerate discovery new molecules” say lead researcher Jason Crain IBM Research physicist visiting professor University Oxford detail team’s work recent COVID19 HighPerformance Computing Consortium’s webinar It’s still early day — team four month project — researcher already identified several compound look promising based computational modelling scientist test lab say Crain experiment take several week ongoing COVID19related work new Crain’s team many year working drug discovery recently area antibiotic resistance “We pivoted earlier work quickly adapting fundamental method previously developed address COVID19” Crain say biggest challenge team like team searching new drug halt pandemic dealing immensely vast chemical space within identify new functional compound address researcher combining cuttingedge AI method modelling two supercomputer offered COVID19 HPC Consortium — IBM Summit Oak Ridge National Laboratory Frontera Texas Advanced Computing Center Without extra computing resource Crain say “the throughput computational screening stage would prohibitively slow” computational modelling myriad AIgenerated candidate compound among demanding timeconsuming step discovery pathway Computer modelling Summit Frontera allowed team screen compound reveal mode action molecular scale synthesize test experimentally promising one “Summit Frontera allow u perform calculation candidate drug molecule bind viral protein much faster would possible otherwise” say Crain “The Consortium resource allowed u incorporate HPCintensive step screening protocol powerful approach rarely possible do” Consortium also helped say Crain bring together international team expert “Some Oxford team example extensive experience structure viral protein technique related screening candidate drugs” say “The AI team IBM New York UK working developing new method ‘discover’ functional molecule — may may made previously — efficiently” article first appeared COVID19 HPC Consortium blogTags IBM Technology Covid 19 AI Coronavirus

A Next Level Webpack Dashboard

A Next Level Webpack Dashboard Level up your webpack using webpack-dashboard Beautiful webpack dashboard inside the terminal Webpack-dashboard has over 13,000 stars on GitHub, yet I almost never encounter developer teams making use of the plugin. Why not take advantage of this great plugin? Note: Don’t forget you can pretend you work for NASA if someone shoulder peeks! When using webpack, especially for a dev server, you are probably used to seeing something like this — according to webpack-dashboard GitHub page. We’re all familiar with the webpack log above. Although sometimes I wonder — who exactly is this screen for? A vastly superior alien race? This is why the webpack log desperately needs a new friendlier UI, and webpack-dashboard does that. Webpack-Dashboard to the Rescue! This plugin improves your visuals for the webpack logs. Now when you run your dev server, you basically work at NASA.

https://medium.com/better-programming/webpack-dashboard-with-create-react-app-vue-cli-and-custom-configs-49166e1a69de

['Indrek Lasn']

2020-11-11 22:21:40.947000+00:00

['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Vuejs', 'React', 'Webpack']

Title Next Level Webpack DashboardContent Next Level Webpack Dashboard Level webpack using webpackdashboard Beautiful webpack dashboard inside terminal Webpackdashboard 13000 star GitHub yet almost never encounter developer team making use plugin take advantage great plugin Note Don’t forget pretend work NASA someone shoulder peek using webpack especially dev server probably used seeing something like — according webpackdashboard GitHub page We’re familiar webpack log Although sometimes wonder — exactly screen vastly superior alien race webpack log desperately need new friendlier UI webpackdashboard WebpackDashboard Rescue plugin improves visuals webpack log run dev server basically work NASATags Programming JavaScript Vuejs React Webpack

9 Healthy Foods You Should Eat Every Week

9 Healthy Foods You Should Eat Every Week And why they are so incredibly beneficial. Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash I’m sure everyone has heard the saying: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” While that rhyme might roll off the tongue with ease and get children more excited to eat their fruit, there isn’t a whole lot of truth to the saying. If you consume an apple every day, you will certainly provide your body with nutrients, but you won’t magically become immune to all illnesses and diseases like the phrase implies. Besides, if your diet consisted entirely of apples, you wouldn’t have any substantial sources of protein and healthy fat, and your diet would be severely unbalanced. If you want to boost your overall health, you don’t need to search for a single miracle superfood. In fact, there are many powerful foods that you should try to eat as often as possible. They will nourish your body correctly and provide you with ample energy. The following are nine foods you should attempt to eat each week (at a minimum). Some of them are foods I enjoy almost every single day.

https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/9-healthy-foods-you-should-eat-every-week-467b32e61acc

['Alyssa Atkinson']

2020-12-17 15:37:20.694000+00:00

['Health', 'Food', 'Fitness', 'Science', 'Lifestyle']

Title 9 Healthy Foods Eat Every WeekContent 9 Healthy Foods Eat Every Week incredibly beneficial Photo engin akyurt Unsplash I’m sure everyone heard saying “An apple day keep doctor away” rhyme might roll tongue ease get child excited eat fruit isn’t whole lot truth saying consume apple every day certainly provide body nutrient won’t magically become immune illness disease like phrase implies Besides diet consisted entirely apple wouldn’t substantial source protein healthy fat diet would severely unbalanced want boost overall health don’t need search single miracle superfood fact many powerful food try eat often possible nourish body correctly provide ample energy following nine food attempt eat week minimum food enjoy almost every single dayTags Health Food Fitness Science Lifestyle

Cheap Renewable Energy Has Arrived

Cheap Renewable Energy Has Arrived The cost of renewable energy is now on par with natural gas. Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash At a time when the only climate-related news that gets relayed paints a bleak picture of our future on this planet, it feels good to share a positive story about how far science has come in renewable energy. According to research conducted by the University of Calgary, the cost of renewable energy has dropped massively, such that it can now compete with natural gas. The age of affordable renewable energy has arrived. Over the last ten years, wind power costs have dropped by 70% and solar power costs have dropped by 90%. This decline in cost is dramatic and relates to how the levelized cost of wind and solar power is now similar to that of the marginal cost to run an efficient natural gas plant. Levelized cost is a measure that includes the cost of building and running power plants. Therefore, not only have renewable resources begun to match natural gas in price, they have actually become cheaper to operate than existing fossil fuel power plants. A report conducted a year ago by the Pembina Institute supports these claims. According to the study, renewable energy (including solar, wind, and battery storage) provided the same services to consumers as new fossil fuel power plants even during peak demand scenarios. This study was conducted in Alberta, Canada, which already has some of the lowest natural gas costs in the world. For renewable energy to compete with an already cheap competitor is incredible, and speaks to the innovation that has occurred in the last ten years in the renewable energy industry. Furthermore, the report discusses case studies from the United States that discovered how investment in renewable energy portfolios would save consumers over $29 billion a year and would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 100 million tons. The Pembina report goes on to describe how an analysis conducted by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that when compared to the energy generated at fossil fuel power plants, the cost of renewable energy was $9 to $24 less per megawatt-hour. After reviewing these findings, Pembina announced that these costs would drop further as the technology advanced, something that was proven by the report conducted by the University of Calgary back in November of this year. The University of Calgary found that the leading causes for the reduction in solar energy costs included “improvements in PV (photovoltaic) module prices, advancements in solar technology and an increase in global average capacity factor (actual energy production relative to potential).” Wind energy saw similar reductions in cost attributed to “lower turbine prices, more efficient operations, and maintenance, and a better global average capacity factor.” However, despite cost reductions, renewable energy sources still only account for 8.5% of the total global energy supply. This share in the total global energy supply is projected to increase due to increases in renewable energy investment that are outpacing investment in any other energy source by 7.6% per year. Furthermore, thanks to countries like China who are leading the world in solar panel production, the cost of manufacturing solar panels is quickly decreasing thanks to demand. Some hurdles remain in the way of renewable energy taking center stage though. First, renewable energy is notoriously intermittent, so to many consumers, it seems like lower-quality energy. To mitigate this issue, the University of Calgary suggests implementing improved storage technology in the form of batteries, compressed air, and pumped hydro for times of high energy demand or when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Second, there needs to be the ability to send energy to locations lacking in energy to improve and support a renewable energy-based power grid. Finally, the University of Calgary report suggests that low-carbon sources of energy will be required to support renewable energy. Having backup energy will be vital when dealing with transitioning to renewable energy and for supplying reliable electricity daily. While the report isn’t sure whether this supporting energy will come in the form of biomass, new nuclear reactors, or hydrogen-peaking plants, they conclude low-emission sources will need to be reliable in the next decade to support the switch to renewable energy.

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/cheap-renewable-energy-has-arrived-3ffbcc459566

['Madison Hunter']

2020-12-09 12:02:31.952000+00:00

['Energy', 'Sustainability', 'Climate Change', 'Technology', 'Science']

Title Cheap Renewable Energy ArrivedContent Cheap Renewable Energy Arrived cost renewable energy par natural gas Photo Science HD Unsplash time climaterelated news get relayed paint bleak picture future planet feel good share positive story far science come renewable energy According research conducted University Calgary cost renewable energy dropped massively compete natural gas age affordable renewable energy arrived last ten year wind power cost dropped 70 solar power cost dropped 90 decline cost dramatic relates levelized cost wind solar power similar marginal cost run efficient natural gas plant Levelized cost measure includes cost building running power plant Therefore renewable resource begun match natural gas price actually become cheaper operate existing fossil fuel power plant report conducted year ago Pembina Institute support claim According study renewable energy including solar wind battery storage provided service consumer new fossil fuel power plant even peak demand scenario study conducted Alberta Canada already lowest natural gas cost world renewable energy compete already cheap competitor incredible speaks innovation occurred last ten year renewable energy industry Furthermore report discus case study United States discovered investment renewable energy portfolio would save consumer 29 billion year would cut greenhouse gas emission 100 million ton Pembina report go describe analysis conducted Rocky Mountain Institute found compared energy generated fossil fuel power plant cost renewable energy 9 24 le per megawatthour reviewing finding Pembina announced cost would drop technology advanced something proven report conducted University Calgary back November year University Calgary found leading cause reduction solar energy cost included “improvements PV photovoltaic module price advancement solar technology increase global average capacity factor actual energy production relative potential” Wind energy saw similar reduction cost attributed “lower turbine price efficient operation maintenance better global average capacity factor” However despite cost reduction renewable energy source still account 85 total global energy supply share total global energy supply projected increase due increase renewable energy investment outpacing investment energy source 76 per year Furthermore thanks country like China leading world solar panel production cost manufacturing solar panel quickly decreasing thanks demand hurdle remain way renewable energy taking center stage though First renewable energy notoriously intermittent many consumer seems like lowerquality energy mitigate issue University Calgary suggests implementing improved storage technology form battery compressed air pumped hydro time high energy demand sun isn’t shining wind isn’t blowing Second need ability send energy location lacking energy improve support renewable energybased power grid Finally University Calgary report suggests lowcarbon source energy required support renewable energy backup energy vital dealing transitioning renewable energy supplying reliable electricity daily report isn’t sure whether supporting energy come form biomass new nuclear reactor hydrogenpeaking plant conclude lowemission source need reliable next decade support switch renewable energyTags Energy Sustainability Climate Change Technology Science

How to Improve Your Postpartum Anxiety with an App. Today.

Postpartum Anxiety What I didn’t know at the time was there is a completely different set of screening questions - with completely different symptoms - for postpartum anxiety (PPA) vs. postpartum depression. Symptoms like racing thoughts, irrational fear of harm coming to your child — with kitchen knives (I had that one!), constant worrying, OCD tendencies, feeling restless, trouble sleeping and eating. The kind of thoughts you don’t want to admit to yourself — let alone another human. And, after taking to google, I discovered I had all twelve of those PPA symptoms. And that 10% of postpartum women experience anxiety. That finally explained why all I could think about, all day long, was, “When was my daughter going to breastfeed next?” and “When did that mean she would nap?” and “What time would I finally get to sleep?” It was the most debilitating and annoying tape that played in my head. All. Day. Long. In fact, I was so incapacitated, not having a history of anxiety or depression, I hired another doula to teach me how to get out of the house with my baby. Sounds like a first world problem, I know. But, without her help, I might not be here to share this story with you. She came every morning for a week and we went on small outings — to Target, the park, on a hike and, for my last day, on a boat ride in the marina. That felt like mommy graduation. You see, I did not have a village where I live. You know, the village that it takes to raise a child. My family is all far away. My best friends aren’t close by. And most of my friends either don’t have kids or they already had them a decade ago. That’s what happens when you wait until you’re in your 40s to have a baby. Although it’s super common these days. So, I needed to create my own village. I put a super honest post on Facebook asking for company. I said, “I don’t want to isolate. Please come visit me!” And I had friends, acquaintances, moms I knew, moms I didn’t know, and even perfect strangers coming over to help me feel less lonely. Don’t get me wrong. I did get help. In many ways. I got diagnosed by a psychiatrist. I got on Lexapro. I went to a PPA support group. But I needed more to get me through the day. (If you are experiencing PPA or any type of anxiety, please get professional help. Call your doctor.)

https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/how-to-improve-your-postpartum-anxiety-with-an-app-today-84536b05d86c

['Katie Grant']

2020-10-30 14:33:54.075000+00:00

['Mental Health', 'Health', 'Postpartum Anxiety', 'Parenting', 'Life']

Title Improve Postpartum Anxiety App TodayContent Postpartum Anxiety didn’t know time completely different set screening question completely different symptom postpartum anxiety PPA v postpartum depression Symptoms like racing thought irrational fear harm coming child — kitchen knife one constant worrying OCD tendency feeling restless trouble sleeping eating kind thought don’t want admit — let alone another human taking google discovered twelve PPA symptom 10 postpartum woman experience anxiety finally explained could think day long “When daughter going breastfeed next” “When mean would nap” “What time would finally get sleep” debilitating annoying tape played head Day Long fact incapacitated history anxiety depression hired another doula teach get house baby Sounds like first world problem know without help might share story came every morning week went small outing — Target park hike last day boat ride marina felt like mommy graduation see village live know village take raise child family far away best friend aren’t close friend either don’t kid already decade ago That’s happens wait you’re 40 baby Although it’s super common day needed create village put super honest post Facebook asking company said “I don’t want isolate Please come visit me” friend acquaintance mom knew mom didn’t know even perfect stranger coming help feel le lonely Don’t get wrong get help many way got diagnosed psychiatrist got Lexapro went PPA support group needed get day experiencing PPA type anxiety please get professional help Call doctorTags Mental Health Health Postpartum Anxiety Parenting Life

Theories of Aging

Simple single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, such as bacteria are the earliest forms of life on earth, and still abundant today. Much later evolved the more complex, but still single celled organisms called eukaryotes. From those humble beginnings came the multi-cellular life forms called metazoans. All animal cells, including humans, are eukaryotic cells. Since they share a common origin, they bear a resemblance to each other. Many molecular mechanisms (genes, enzymes, etc.) and biochemical pathways are conserved throughout the evolution towards more complex organisms. Humans share approximately 98.8% of their genes with chimpanzees. This 1.2% genetic difference is enough to account for the differences between the two species. It may be even more surprising, however, to learn that organisms as far apart as yeast and humans have many genes in common. At least 20% of genes in humans that play a role in causing disease have counterparts in yeast. When scientists spliced over 400 different human genes into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, they found that a full 47% functionally replaced the yeast’s own genes. With more complex organisms, such as the mouse, we find even greater similarities. Of over 4,000 genes studied, less than ten were found to be different between humans and mice. Of all protein-coding genes — excluding the so-called “junk” DNA — the genes of mice and humans are 85% identical. Mice and humans are highly similar at the genetic level. Many aging related genes are conserved throughout species enabling scientists to study yeast and mice to learn important lessons for human biology. Many of the studies cited in this book involve organisms as diverse as yeast, rats, and rhesus monkeys, and all vary in the degree of their similarity to humans. Not every result necessarily applies to humans, but in most cases the results will be close enough that you can learn a great deal about aging from them. While it is ideal to have human studies, in many cases, these simply do not exist, forcing us to rely on animal studies. Theories of aging Disposable Soma The disposable soma theory of aging, proposed originally by University of Newcastle professor Thomas Kirkwood, holds that organisms have a limited finite amount of energy that may be used in either maintenance and repair of the body (soma), or in reproduction. Like antagonistic pleiotropy, there is a trade-off: if you allocate energy to maintenance and repair, then you have fewer resources for reproduction. Since evolution directs more energy towards reproduction, which helps propagate its genes to the next generation of organisms, the soma after reproduction is largely disposable. Why devote precious resources to living longer, which doesn’t help passing on the gene? In some cases, the best strategy may be to have as many offspring as possible, and then for the individual to die. The Pacific salmon is one such example, as it reproduces once in its life and then dies. The salmon expends all of its resources for reproduction, after which it tends “simply to fall apart”. If there’s little chance that a salmon would survive predators and other hazards to complete another round of reproduction, then evolution will not have shaped it to age more slowly. Mice reproduce quite prodigiously, reaching sexual maturity by two months of age. Subject to heavy predation, mice allocate more energy to reproduction than to fighting the deterioration of their bodies. On the other hand, a longer lifespan may allow development of better repair mechanisms. A 2 year-old mouse is elderly, while a 2-year-old elephant is just starting its life. More energy is devoted to growth, and elephants produce far less offspring. The gestation period of an elephant is 18–22 months, after which only 1 living offspring is produced. Mice produce up to 14 young in a litter, and can have 5 to 10 litters per year. While a useful framework, there are problems with the disposable soma theory. This theory would predict that deliberate calorie restriction, by limiting overall resources would result in less reproduction or a shorter life span. But calorie restricted animals, even to the point of near starvation, do not die younger — they live much longer. This effect is seen consistently in many different types of animals. In effect, depriving animals of food causes them to allocate more resources to fighting aging. Further, the female of most species live longer than males. Disposable soma would predict the opposite, since females are forced to devote much more energy to reproduction, and so would have less energy or resources to allocate to maintenance. Verdict: it fits some of the facts, but has some definite problems. It is either incomplete or incorrect. Free Radical Theory Biological processes generate free radicals, which are molecules that can damage surrounding tissues. Cells neutralize them with things like anti-oxidants, but this process is imperfect so damage accumulates over time, causing the effects of aging. Yet large-scale clinical research trials show that antioxidants vitamins like vitamin C or vitamin E may paradoxically increasedeath rates or result in worse health [13]. Some factors known to improve health or increase lifespan, such as calorie restriction and exercise, increase production of free radicals, which act as signals to upgrade its cellular defenses and energy-generating mitochondria. Antioxidants can abolish the health-promoting effects of exercise. Verdict on the free radical theory: unfortunately, a number of facts contradict it. It too is either incomplete or incorrect. Mitochondrial Theory of Aging Mitochondria are the parts of the cells (organelle) that generate energy so they are often called the powerhouses of the cell. They are subject to lots of damage so they must be recycled periodically and replaced to maintain peak efficiency. Cells undergo autophagy and mitochondria have a similar process of culling defective organelles for replacement called mitophagy. The mitochondria contain their own DNA, which accumulate damage over time. This leads to less efficient mitochondria, which in turn produce more damage in a vicious cycle. With adequate energy cells may die, a manifestation of aging. Muscle atrophy is related to high levels of mitochondrial damage. But in comparing energy production in mitochondria in young and old people, little difference was found. In mice, very high rates of mutation in mitochondrial DNA did not result in accelerated aging. Verdict: Interesting but research is very preliminary and ongoing. Arguments can be made both for and against it. Hormesis In 120 BC, Mithridates VI was heir to Pontus, a region in Asia Minor, now modern-day Turkey. During a banquet, his mother poisoned his father to ascend to the throne. Mithridates ran away and spent seven years in the wilderness. Paranoid about poisons, he chronically took small doses of poison to make himself immune. He returned as a man to overthrow his mother to claim his throne and became a very powerful king. During his reign, he opposed the Roman Empire, but was unable to hold them back. Prior to his capture, Mithridates decided to commit suicide by drinking poison. Despite large doses, he failed to die and the exact cause of his death is still unknown to this day. What doesn’t kill you, may make you stronger. Hormesis is the phenomenon in which low doses of stressors that are normally toxic instead strengthen the organism, and make it more resistant to higher doses of toxins or stressors. Hormesis itself is not a theory of aging, but has huge implications for other theories. The basic tenet of toxicology is ‘The dose makes the poison’. Low doses of ‘toxin’ may make you healthier. Exercise and calorie restriction are examples of hormesis. Exercise, for example puts stress on muscles causing the body to react by increasing strength. Weight bearing exercise puts stress on bones, which causes the body to react by increasing the strength of those bones. Being bed ridden or going into zero gravity, as with astronauts causes rapid weakening of the bones. Calorie restriction can be considered a stressor and causes a rise in cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone. This lowers inflammation and increases the production of heat shock proteins. Low levels of stress increases resistance to subsequent stressors. So, calorie restriction satisfies the requirements of hormesis. Because both exercise and calorie restriction are forms of stress, they involve the production of free radicals. Hormesis is not a rare phenomenon. Alcohol, for example, acts via hormesis. Moderate alcohol use is consistently associated with better health than complete abstention. But heavier drinkers have worse health, often developing liver disease. Exercise is well known to have beneficial health effects, but extreme exercise can worsen health by causing stress fractures. Even small doses of radiation can improve health where large doses will kill you. Some of the beneficial effects of certain foods may be due to hormesis. Polyphenols are compounds in fruits and vegetables, as well as coffee, chocolate, and red wine, and they improve health, possibly in part by acting as low-dose toxins. Why is hormesis important for aging? Other theories of aging presuppose that all damage is bad, and accumulates over time. But the phenomenon of hormesis shows the body has potent damage-repair capabilities that can be beneficial when activated. Take exercise as an example. Weight lifting causes microscopic tears in our muscles. That sounds pretty bad. But in the process of repair, our muscles become stronger. Gravity puts stress on our bones. Weight bearing exercise, such as running causes micro-fractures of our bones. In the process of repair, our bones become stronger. The opposite situation exists in the zero gravity of outer space. Without the stress of gravity, our bones become osteoporotic and weak. Not all damage is bad — small doses of damage are in fact good. What we are describing is a cycle of renewal. Hormesis allows breakdown of tissue like muscles or bones that are then rebuilt to better withstand the stress placed upon them. Muscles and bones grow stronger. But without breakdown and repair, you cannot get stronger. Growth vs. Longevity Hormesis, like the disposable soma theory, suggests that there exists a fundamental trade-off between growth and longevity. The larger and faster an organism grows, the faster it ages. Antagonistic pleiotropy may play a role, in that some genes that are beneficial in early life may be detrimental later. When you compare lifespans within the same species, such as mice [18], and dogs, smaller animals (less growth) live longer. Women, on average smaller than men, also live longer. Among men, shorter men live longer. Think about a person who is aged 100. Do you imagine a 6’6’’ man with 250 pounds of muscle, or a small woman? Obesity, caused by excessive growth of fat cells, is clearly correlated with poor health. Comparing across different species, however, larger animals live longer. Elephants, for example, live longer than mice. But this can be explained by the slower development of larger animals.[21]The relative lack of predators for large animals has meant that evolution has favored slower growth and slower aging. Small animals, for example bats, which have fewer predators than other animals the same size, also live longer. Aging isn’t deliberately programmed, but the same physiological mechanisms that drive growth also drive aging. Aging is simply the continuation of the same growth program and is driven by the same growth factors and nutrients. If you rev a car’s engine very quickly, you can reach high speeds, but continuing to rev the engine will also result in burnout. It’s the same essential program, but different timescales (short-term performance versus long-term longevity). All the theories of aging point out this essential tradeoff. This is powerful information because certain programs may be beneficial at certain times of our lives. During youth for example, we need to grow. During middle and older age, however, this high growth program may cause premature aging, and it would be more beneficial to slow growth. Since the foods we eat play a large role in this programming, we can make deliberate adjustments to our diet to preserve our lifespan as well as our ‘healthspan’. For more about healthy aging, check out my new book, The Longevity Solution.

https://drjasonfung.medium.com/theories-of-aging-440cf9916755

['Dr. Jason Fung']

2019-02-20 20:01:05.491000+00:00

['Longevity', 'Wellness', 'Aging', 'Health', 'Nutrition']

Title Theories AgingContent Simple singlecelled organism called prokaryote bacteria earliest form life earth still abundant today Much later evolved complex still single celled organism called eukaryote humble beginning came multicellular life form called metazoan animal cell including human eukaryotic cell Since share common origin bear resemblance Many molecular mechanism gene enzyme etc biochemical pathway conserved throughout evolution towards complex organism Humans share approximately 988 gene chimpanzee 12 genetic difference enough account difference two specie may even surprising however learn organism far apart yeast human many gene common least 20 gene human play role causing disease counterpart yeast scientist spliced 400 different human gene yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae found full 47 functionally replaced yeast’s gene complex organism mouse find even greater similarity 4000 gene studied le ten found different human mouse proteincoding gene — excluding socalled “junk” DNA — gene mouse human 85 identical Mice human highly similar genetic level Many aging related gene conserved throughout specie enabling scientist study yeast mouse learn important lesson human biology Many study cited book involve organism diverse yeast rat rhesus monkey vary degree similarity human every result necessarily applies human case result close enough learn great deal aging ideal human study many case simply exist forcing u rely animal study Theories aging Disposable Soma disposable soma theory aging proposed originally University Newcastle professor Thomas Kirkwood hold organism limited finite amount energy may used either maintenance repair body soma reproduction Like antagonistic pleiotropy tradeoff allocate energy maintenance repair fewer resource reproduction Since evolution directs energy towards reproduction help propagate gene next generation organism soma reproduction largely disposable devote precious resource living longer doesn’t help passing gene case best strategy may many offspring possible individual die Pacific salmon one example reproduces life dy salmon expends resource reproduction tends “simply fall apart” there’s little chance salmon would survive predator hazard complete another round reproduction evolution shaped age slowly Mice reproduce quite prodigiously reaching sexual maturity two month age Subject heavy predation mouse allocate energy reproduction fighting deterioration body hand longer lifespan may allow development better repair mechanism 2 yearold mouse elderly 2yearold elephant starting life energy devoted growth elephant produce far le offspring gestation period elephant 18–22 month 1 living offspring produced Mice produce 14 young litter 5 10 litter per year useful framework problem disposable soma theory theory would predict deliberate calorie restriction limiting overall resource would result le reproduction shorter life span calorie restricted animal even point near starvation die younger — live much longer effect seen consistently many different type animal effect depriving animal food cause allocate resource fighting aging female specie live longer male Disposable soma would predict opposite since female forced devote much energy reproduction would le energy resource allocate maintenance Verdict fit fact definite problem either incomplete incorrect Free Radical Theory Biological process generate free radical molecule damage surrounding tissue Cells neutralize thing like antioxidant process imperfect damage accumulates time causing effect aging Yet largescale clinical research trial show antioxidant vitamin like vitamin C vitamin E may paradoxically increasedeath rate result worse health 13 factor known improve health increase lifespan calorie restriction exercise increase production free radical act signal upgrade cellular defense energygenerating mitochondrion Antioxidants abolish healthpromoting effect exercise Verdict free radical theory unfortunately number fact contradict either incomplete incorrect Mitochondrial Theory Aging Mitochondria part cell organelle generate energy often called powerhouse cell subject lot damage must recycled periodically replaced maintain peak efficiency Cells undergo autophagy mitochondrion similar process culling defective organelle replacement called mitophagy mitochondrion contain DNA accumulate damage time lead le efficient mitochondrion turn produce damage vicious cycle adequate energy cell may die manifestation aging Muscle atrophy related high level mitochondrial damage comparing energy production mitochondrion young old people little difference found mouse high rate mutation mitochondrial DNA result accelerated aging Verdict Interesting research preliminary ongoing Arguments made Hormesis 120 BC Mithridates VI heir Pontus region Asia Minor modernday Turkey banquet mother poisoned father ascend throne Mithridates ran away spent seven year wilderness Paranoid poison chronically took small dos poison make immune returned man overthrow mother claim throne became powerful king reign opposed Roman Empire unable hold back Prior capture Mithridates decided commit suicide drinking poison Despite large dos failed die exact cause death still unknown day doesn’t kill may make stronger Hormesis phenomenon low dos stressor normally toxic instead strengthen organism make resistant higher dos toxin stressor Hormesis theory aging huge implication theory basic tenet toxicology ‘The dose make poison’ Low dos ‘toxin’ may make healthier Exercise calorie restriction example hormesis Exercise example put stress muscle causing body react increasing strength Weight bearing exercise put stress bone cause body react increasing strength bone bed ridden going zero gravity astronaut cause rapid weakening bone Calorie restriction considered stressor cause rise cortisol commonly known stress hormone lower inflammation increase production heat shock protein Low level stress increase resistance subsequent stressor calorie restriction satisfies requirement hormesis exercise calorie restriction form stress involve production free radical Hormesis rare phenomenon Alcohol example act via hormesis Moderate alcohol use consistently associated better health complete abstention heavier drinker worse health often developing liver disease Exercise well known beneficial health effect extreme exercise worsen health causing stress fracture Even small dos radiation improve health large dos kill beneficial effect certain food may due hormesis Polyphenols compound fruit vegetable well coffee chocolate red wine improve health possibly part acting lowdose toxin hormesis important aging theory aging presuppose damage bad accumulates time phenomenon hormesis show body potent damagerepair capability beneficial activated Take exercise example Weight lifting cause microscopic tear muscle sound pretty bad process repair muscle become stronger Gravity put stress bone Weight bearing exercise running cause microfractures bone process repair bone become stronger opposite situation exists zero gravity outer space Without stress gravity bone become osteoporotic weak damage bad — small dos damage fact good describing cycle renewal Hormesis allows breakdown tissue like muscle bone rebuilt better withstand stress placed upon Muscles bone grow stronger without breakdown repair cannot get stronger Growth v Longevity Hormesis like disposable soma theory suggests exists fundamental tradeoff growth longevity larger faster organism grows faster age Antagonistic pleiotropy may play role gene beneficial early life may detrimental later compare lifespan within specie mouse 18 dog smaller animal le growth live longer Women average smaller men also live longer Among men shorter men live longer Think person aged 100 imagine 6’6’’ man 250 pound muscle small woman Obesity caused excessive growth fat cell clearly correlated poor health Comparing across different specie however larger animal live longer Elephants example live longer mouse explained slower development larger animals21The relative lack predator large animal meant evolution favored slower growth slower aging Small animal example bat fewer predator animal size also live longer Aging isn’t deliberately programmed physiological mechanism drive growth also drive aging Aging simply continuation growth program driven growth factor nutrient rev car’s engine quickly reach high speed continuing rev engine also result burnout It’s essential program different timescales shortterm performance versus longterm longevity theory aging point essential tradeoff powerful information certain program may beneficial certain time life youth example need grow middle older age however high growth program may cause premature aging would beneficial slow growth Since food eat play large role programming make deliberate adjustment diet preserve lifespan well ‘healthspan’ healthy aging check new book Longevity SolutionTags Longevity Wellness Aging Health Nutrition

Is Six Feet of Social Distancing Always Necessary?

6 Feet Apart Is the Gold Standard, but Should It Be? Exploring the origins, and difficulties, of the 6-foot rule It may have been the most bizarre card game in history. Groups of men — some sick with the common cold, some healthy — sat around card tables for 12 hours, playing poker. The healthy men wore specially designed arm braces or plastic “collars” that allowed them to handle the cards and chips but made it impossible for them to touch their faces. The sick men were unencumbered and could freely touch the cards, the chips, or their own runny noses. The men were seated about 4.5 feet from one another. The gonzo poker game was organized by researchers at the University of Wisconsin Medical School for a 1987 study that sought to measure how viral pathogens pass among people via different routes of transmission. Since the healthy men couldn’t touch their faces, the only way they could get sick was by breathing in airborne virus particles expelled by their unwell poker buddies. Once this first part of experiment was over, the presumably cold virus–infested playing cards and chips that the sick men had handled were immediately transferred to a new lab room, where a fresh batch of healthy volunteers was waiting. These men played poker with the cards and chips for 12 hours and were directed to touch their faces every 15 minutes. So who got sick? Among the healthy men in the first part of the experiment — the ones who couldn’t touch their faces but were sitting close to ill people — more than half ended up coming down with the common cold. Among the men who had to play with the germ-ridden cards, none got sick. “These results point to aerosol transmission as the most important mechanism of natural spread,” the study authors wrote. That study is one of several older research efforts that — coupled with more recent work — have helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) create guidelines designed to stop the spread of viruses and other pathogens. Those guidelines form the foundation of the government’s current SARS-CoV-2 recommendations, including its advice to stay at least six feet away from other people. Three feet is the “area of defined risk” for health care workers exposed to patients who may carry an infectious disease. “These studies looked at how likely it was that someone infected would communicate [that infection] to others in a shared environment, and then how far apart people were who became infected,” says Julie Fischer, PhD, an adjunct professor of microbiology and immunology at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security. The results of these sorts of experiments are not always perfectly consistent, and most of the data is not specific to SARS-CoV-2. But Fischer says that the CDC’s guidelines are based on the best evidence to date and are designed to afford the public the greatest level of protection. But guidelines are not laws. And some organizations that are planning to reopen this fall — in particular, some schools — are discussing whether a full six feet of physical distance is necessary to keep people safe from Covid-19. Some experts also say that the question of “what is a safe distance?” and “what distance is safest?” may have two different answers. Balancing risks and benefits Back in June, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced that when classes resume this fall, student desks and seating would be spaced a minimum of three feet apart — not the six feet recommended by the CDC. The university said that its decision was based on input from infectious disease and public health experts. But the move triggered an immediate backlash among concerned students, their parents, and some faculty members. The school soon revised its policy to conform with the government’s six-foot guideline. While many observers may have wondered just what the university’s administrators were thinking, some who were close to the controversy say that the debate isn’t as clear-cut as one might assume. “The three-foot rule — that’s classically what’s considered the safe distance,” says Efraín Rivera-Serrano, PhD, a molecular virologist at UNC-Chapel Hill. He’s referring to long-standing infectious disease guidelines, produced by the CDC, that say three feet is the “area of defined risk” for health care workers exposed to patients who may carry an infectious disease. Rivera-Serrano says there’s no question that maintaining at least six feet of physical distance is optimal. But he points out that the World Health Organization, along with countries such as France and Denmark, have adhered to a one-meter (3.2 feet) physical distancing guideline throughout the pandemic. “Three feet should be enough, especially if [everyone is] wearing a mask,” he says. The question of “how much distance is enough?” is a challenging one for schools and other institutions or businesses that are attempting to balance public safety with reopening imperatives. Everyone agrees that more distance is better when it comes to reducing exposure risks. But classrooms do not have unlimited space, and as the distance between two people increases, the amount of added risk reduction falls. If people are wearing masks, it’s unclear whether there’s a large amount of additional risk reduction when people move from three feet to six feet. To illustrate this point, imagine that someone has tossed a water balloon up in the air. If the balloon lands and explodes within three feet of your legs, you’ll probably get hit with some droplets. The farther away you move, the lower your risk falls of being splashed. But at a certain point, the odds of any water hitting you become so small that putting more distance between yourself and the balloon doesn’t do much to lower your risk. The same basic rules apply to virus transmission. Rivera-Serrano says that when an infected person talks, sneezes, coughs, or even just breathes, that person expels droplets of saliva. The closer someone is to that person, the more likely they are to inhale one or more of those droplets. But if people are wearing masks, it’s unclear whether there’s a large amount of additional risk reduction when people move from three feet to six feet. To his point, a July study published in the Lancet looked at data related to SARS, MERS, and Covid-19. It found that people’s risk of infection dropped from 13% to 3% when they maintained at least three feet of physical distance. “[P]rotection was increased as distance was lengthened,” the authors of that study concluded. But graphs included in the study suggest that the magnitude of the risk reduction beyond three feet may be quite small. Rivera-Serrano says that whenever six feet or more of physical distancing is possible, people should follow that guideline. But he also says that if people maintain at least three feet of distance and are also wearing masks, it’s not yet clear whether the additional three feet of distance provides a significant added layer of protection — or, at least, one that is significant enough to keep a large percentage of U.S. students out of the classroom this fall. The origins of the six-foot rule As recently as the 1950s, health officials didn’t have a solid understanding of the ways in which common respiratory illnesses spread from person to person. That changed during the 1960s and 1970s when some pioneering research at the Common Cold Unit — a former initiative of the British Medical Research Council — revealed that close proximity to infected individuals, more so than touching infected surfaces, seemed to carry the greatest transmission risk. A later study of English school children, published in 1982, suggested that virus transmission was elevated when students sat three feet or less from one another. “These studies formed the foundation of the standards developed by CDC and [the National Institutes of Health] and used in health care facilities, which are that anything closer than three feet carries the most risk,” Georgetown’s Fischer explains. Before Covid-19, the three-foot guideline was still widely used in health care settings. So how did U.S. health authorities come up with the current six-foot recommendation? “During the SARS epidemic, epidemiologists realized that three feet might not be enough to prevent droplet transmission,” Fisher says. “There was evidence that health workers who had moved through spaces within about two meters, or six feet, of SARS patients had become infected.” SARS and Covid-19 are transmitted by related coronaviruses. Assuming that they are passed from person to person in similar ways, it follows that three feet might not be enough space to effectively lower the spread of SARS-CoV-2. But if everyone’s wearing masks, that could change the math. It’s uncertain how much added Covid-19 protection a person enjoys if they’re wearing a mask and they maintain six feet of distance from others, as opposed to three feet. “People love to think about things in absolutes, but in biology there are always exceptions. With distance and risk, it’s a continuum.” Experts say the answer likely depends on dozens of different variables. “We understand that unique air patterns, like the way air-conditioning flows, can make a big difference in how far droplets can move,” Fischer says. (At a restaurant in China, a person infected with Covid-19 sat close to an air-conditioning unit, which was believed to have carried the virus to diners sitting “downstream” in the path of the unit’s air flow.) Also, a person who is sneezing, as opposed to talking or breathing, may expel droplets much farther. When people are outdoors, Fischer says that several different factors — such as UV light or humidity — may cause virus droplets to degrade or fall to the ground more quickly than they would indoors, and so transmission may be less likely. But the risks associated with all these scenarios are “hard to quantify” and highly situation-dependent, she says. To sum all this up, public health authorities are doing their best to provide people easy-to-follow, evidence-supported guidelines that minimize the risk of virus spread. The best evidence to date suggests that maintaining six feet of physical distance is likely to be a highly effective way to reduce the odds of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. But some open questions remain, and debates about what distance is appropriate — especially when coupled with masks and instituted among low-risk groups — are sure to continue. “People love to think about things in absolutes, but in biology there are always exceptions,” Rivera-Serrano says. “With distance and risk, it’s a continuum.”

https://elemental.medium.com/six-feet-apart-is-the-gold-standard-but-should-it-be-3af48fe56ff0

['Markham Heid']

2020-07-31 14:14:44.265000+00:00

['Health', 'Pandemic', 'Covid 19', 'The Nuance', 'Coronavirus']

Title Six Feet Social Distancing Always NecessaryContent 6 Feet Apart Gold Standard Exploring origin difficulty 6foot rule may bizarre card game history Groups men — sick common cold healthy — sat around card table 12 hour playing poker healthy men wore specially designed arm brace plastic “collars” allowed handle card chip made impossible touch face sick men unencumbered could freely touch card chip runny nose men seated 45 foot one another gonzo poker game organized researcher University Wisconsin Medical School 1987 study sought measure viral pathogen pas among people via different route transmission Since healthy men couldn’t touch face way could get sick breathing airborne virus particle expelled unwell poker buddy first part experiment presumably cold virus–infested playing card chip sick men handled immediately transferred new lab room fresh batch healthy volunteer waiting men played poker card chip 12 hour directed touch face every 15 minute got sick Among healthy men first part experiment — one couldn’t touch face sitting close ill people — half ended coming common cold Among men play germridden card none got sick “These result point aerosol transmission important mechanism natural spread” study author wrote study one several older research effort — coupled recent work — helped Centers Disease Control Prevention CDC create guideline designed stop spread virus pathogen guideline form foundation government’s current SARSCoV2 recommendation including advice stay least six foot away people Three foot “area defined risk” health care worker exposed patient may carry infectious disease “These study looked likely someone infected would communicate infection others shared environment far apart people became infected” say Julie Fischer PhD adjunct professor microbiology immunology Georgetown University Center Global Health Science Security result sort experiment always perfectly consistent data specific SARSCoV2 Fischer say CDC’s guideline based best evidence date designed afford public greatest level protection guideline law organization planning reopen fall — particular school — discussing whether full six foot physical distance necessary keep people safe Covid19 expert also say question “what safe distance” “what distance safest” may two different answer Balancing risk benefit Back June University North Carolina Chapel Hill announced class resume fall student desk seating would spaced minimum three foot apart — six foot recommended CDC university said decision based input infectious disease public health expert move triggered immediate backlash among concerned student parent faculty member school soon revised policy conform government’s sixfoot guideline many observer may wondered university’s administrator thinking close controversy say debate isn’t clearcut one might assume “The threefoot rule — that’s classically what’s considered safe distance” say Efraín RiveraSerrano PhD molecular virologist UNCChapel Hill He’s referring longstanding infectious disease guideline produced CDC say three foot “area defined risk” health care worker exposed patient may carry infectious disease RiveraSerrano say there’s question maintaining least six foot physical distance optimal point World Health Organization along country France Denmark adhered onemeter 32 foot physical distancing guideline throughout pandemic “Three foot enough especially everyone wearing mask” say question “how much distance enough” challenging one school institution business attempting balance public safety reopening imperative Everyone agrees distance better come reducing exposure risk classroom unlimited space distance two people increase amount added risk reduction fall people wearing mask it’s unclear whether there’s large amount additional risk reduction people move three foot six foot illustrate point imagine someone tossed water balloon air balloon land explodes within three foot leg you’ll probably get hit droplet farther away move lower risk fall splashed certain point odds water hitting become small putting distance balloon doesn’t much lower risk basic rule apply virus transmission RiveraSerrano say infected person talk sneeze cough even breathes person expels droplet saliva closer someone person likely inhale one droplet people wearing mask it’s unclear whether there’s large amount additional risk reduction people move three foot six foot point July study published Lancet looked data related SARS MERS Covid19 found people’s risk infection dropped 13 3 maintained least three foot physical distance “Protection increased distance lengthened” author study concluded graph included study suggest magnitude risk reduction beyond three foot may quite small RiveraSerrano say whenever six foot physical distancing possible people follow guideline also say people maintain least three foot distance also wearing mask it’s yet clear whether additional three foot distance provides significant added layer protection — least one significant enough keep large percentage US student classroom fall origin sixfoot rule recently 1950s health official didn’t solid understanding way common respiratory illness spread person person changed 1960s 1970s pioneering research Common Cold Unit — former initiative British Medical Research Council — revealed close proximity infected individual touching infected surface seemed carry greatest transmission risk later study English school child published 1982 suggested virus transmission elevated student sat three foot le one another “These study formed foundation standard developed CDC National Institutes Health used health care facility anything closer three foot carry risk” Georgetown’s Fischer explains Covid19 threefoot guideline still widely used health care setting US health authority come current sixfoot recommendation “During SARS epidemic epidemiologist realized three foot might enough prevent droplet transmission” Fisher say “There evidence health worker moved space within two meter six foot SARS patient become infected” SARS Covid19 transmitted related coronaviruses Assuming passed person person similar way follows three foot might enough space effectively lower spread SARSCoV2 everyone’s wearing mask could change math It’s uncertain much added Covid19 protection person enjoys they’re wearing mask maintain six foot distance others opposed three foot “People love think thing absolute biology always exception distance risk it’s continuum” Experts say answer likely depends dozen different variable “We understand unique air pattern like way airconditioning flow make big difference far droplet move” Fischer say restaurant China person infected Covid19 sat close airconditioning unit believed carried virus diner sitting “downstream” path unit’s air flow Also person sneezing opposed talking breathing may expel droplet much farther people outdoors Fischer say several different factor — UV light humidity — may cause virus droplet degrade fall ground quickly would indoors transmission may le likely risk associated scenario “hard quantify” highly situationdependent say sum public health authority best provide people easytofollow evidencesupported guideline minimize risk virus spread best evidence date suggests maintaining six foot physical distance likely highly effective way reduce odds SARSCoV2 transmission open question remain debate distance appropriate — especially coupled mask instituted among lowrisk group — sure continue “People love think thing absolute biology always exceptions” RiveraSerrano say “With distance risk it’s continuum”Tags Health Pandemic Covid 19 Nuance Coronavirus

Grandma Wants Revenge on Reindeer Who Ran Her Over

Grandma Wants Revenge on Reindeer Who Ran Her Over After a heated Twitter feud, Santa, the reindeer, and Grandma have agreed to duke it out in a WWE match Photo made by author on Canva Pro Twitter has exploded over the chaos of the legal battles of Grandma suing reindeer who ran her over, Dusty. #TeamSanta #TeamDusty and #TeamGrandma become the top three trending hashtags on Christmas, in what becomes the most bitter and divisive Twitter topic since the 2020 election. The reason? Grandma wants revenge. About 50% of Twitter stands with Grandma, while 40% of Twitter thinks Dusty is the real victim. Santa, in his attempt to avoid all liability, blamed the accident all on Dusty. After the accident with Grandma, Dusty has had a broken leg which has twisted almost 90 degrees, and Dusty has had no funding from his abusive boss in paying for his medical bills. The National Reindeer Union has thrown their hat behind Dusty and started a GoFundMe to pay for his surgery. 10% of people on Twitter are still with Santa, equating him with God since he gives them whatever they want when they wish for it. Santa, a government employee, has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for corruption and embezzling funds. When Santa was confronted by the media, however, he doubled down on defending himself and equating himself with Jesus: “I give people their dreams, their presents, and all of a sudden they want to crucify me for not carrying a receipt? I may as well nail myself on the cross right now — a real ‘Christian’ wouldn’t turn his back on me.” Meanwhile, Grandma has banded with Cousin Mel to find justice and demand accountability for the reindeer’s hit and run. Cousin Mel said that if Grandma was hit by a car, it would have automatically involved the police and insurance companies. However, there’s all of a sudden an exception when it comes to reindeer. “A reindeer is actually more dangerous than a car,” Cousin Mel said. “They have antlers that, you know, can impale you.” Politicians across the board have been divided on the issue. Overwhelmingly, Donald Trump has thrown his hat behind Santa, tweeting that he deserved to be “PARDONED” for not doing anything wrong. Trump has also thrown his hat behind building a Santa brand of hotels and casinos to help raise money for his legal battles against Grandma and Dusty. While Santa’s support only comprises 10% of Twitter, his supporters are the most vocal, accusing the elite media of distorting the truth and claiming Santa is the only one who can tell the truth. Twitter has stepped up its moderation due to the viciousness of the Twitter battles. The company didn’t see anything wrong when Santa made death threats against Dusty, especially since Dusty doesn’t constitute an “individual or a group of people” in its guidelines and policies. Death threats against Santa and Grandma, however, have been banned and deleted off the platform, and Dusty’s attorney, Rudolph, has pledged to file suit against Twitter for selective enforcement. Outside of the courts, Twitter wanted to see more action. Since Cousin Mel’s house is undergoing the foreclosure process, and all parties have lost significant income from legal fees and litigation, all have agreed to extrajudicial justice. Vince McMahon at the WWE has announced a Triple Threat match between Grandma, Santa, and Dusty that will finally settle the argument between the three, with $2,000,000 in prize money. The event at Wrestlemania sold out within minutes. Vegas has betting lines for all three, with Santa coming in at -200, Dusty coming in at +50, and Grandma coming in at +150. When Grandma heard she was the favorite to lose the match, she felt offended. Behind the scenes, she’d been working on her wrestling moves with Grandpa, diving from the roof to elbow him in the chest, putting him in a chokehold that sends him into an asthma attack, and twisting his arm until his shoulder tears from his socket. She even has threatened to take away his medication if he reports her to authorities. Although she never expressed such violence earlier in her life, Grandma wants revenge against both Santa and Dusty, and she has never felt so alive. Grandpa, from his stretcher, has put all of his retirement funds on Grandma. “Once my wife has three cups of eggnog, you do not want to be in the same room as her,” he said.

https://medium.com/jane-austens-wastebasket/grandma-wants-revenge-on-reindeer-who-ran-her-over-54efc63d17e7

['Ryan Fan']

2020-12-24 06:11:36.566000+00:00

['Social Media', 'Satire', 'Humor', 'Books', 'Music']

Title Grandma Wants Revenge Reindeer Ran OverContent Grandma Wants Revenge Reindeer Ran heated Twitter feud Santa reindeer Grandma agreed duke WWE match Photo made author Canva Pro Twitter exploded chaos legal battle Grandma suing reindeer ran Dusty TeamSanta TeamDusty TeamGrandma become top three trending hashtags Christmas becomes bitter divisive Twitter topic since 2020 election reason Grandma want revenge 50 Twitter stand Grandma 40 Twitter think Dusty real victim Santa attempt avoid liability blamed accident Dusty accident Grandma Dusty broken leg twisted almost 90 degree Dusty funding abusive bos paying medical bill National Reindeer Union thrown hat behind Dusty started GoFundMe pay surgery 10 people Twitter still Santa equating God since give whatever want wish Santa government employee charged US Department Justice corruption embezzling fund Santa confronted medium however doubled defending equating Jesus “I give people dream present sudden want crucify carrying receipt may well nail cross right — real ‘Christian’ wouldn’t turn back me” Meanwhile Grandma banded Cousin Mel find justice demand accountability reindeer’s hit run Cousin Mel said Grandma hit car would automatically involved police insurance company However there’s sudden exception come reindeer “A reindeer actually dangerous car” Cousin Mel said “They antler know impale you” Politicians across board divided issue Overwhelmingly Donald Trump thrown hat behind Santa tweeting deserved “PARDONED” anything wrong Trump also thrown hat behind building Santa brand hotel casino help raise money legal battle Grandma Dusty Santa’s support comprises 10 Twitter supporter vocal accusing elite medium distorting truth claiming Santa one tell truth Twitter stepped moderation due viciousness Twitter battle company didn’t see anything wrong Santa made death threat Dusty especially since Dusty doesn’t constitute “individual group people” guideline policy Death threat Santa Grandma however banned deleted platform Dusty’s attorney Rudolph pledged file suit Twitter selective enforcement Outside court Twitter wanted see action Since Cousin Mel’s house undergoing foreclosure process party lost significant income legal fee litigation agreed extrajudicial justice Vince McMahon WWE announced Triple Threat match Grandma Santa Dusty finally settle argument three 2000000 prize money event Wrestlemania sold within minute Vegas betting line three Santa coming 200 Dusty coming 50 Grandma coming 150 Grandma heard favorite lose match felt offended Behind scene she’d working wrestling move Grandpa diving roof elbow chest putting chokehold sends asthma attack twisting arm shoulder tear socket even threatened take away medication report authority Although never expressed violence earlier life Grandma want revenge Santa Dusty never felt alive Grandpa stretcher put retirement fund Grandma “Once wife three cup eggnog want room her” saidTags Social Media Satire Humor Books Music

Exploring the question of whether submarines can swim

Exploring the question of whether submarines can swim An Argument for Verified Humans (Part I) As I read, I often get lost in the text, my thoughts diverging from the author’s words toward something related yet different. This process seems almost like a conversation between the author and me, with a person’s words provoking my response. At times, I enjoy this aspect of reading, but more often, it is quite distracting. Still, if I find the thoughts especially compelling (and if a pen is within reach), then I write them down in a place where they can be occasionally reviewed until I find them either ruinously obvious or oblivious to accepted fictions; less often, I build and branch until the original note takes on enough of its own life to become an article, a project, or a poem. Such was the case when I read the following paragraphs from Deep Learning with PyTorch¹ about a text response produced by OpenAI’s GPT-2 model (which has since been bested by GPT-3): That’s remarkably coherent for a machine, even if there isn’t a well-defined thesis behind the rambling. Even more impressively, the ability to perform these formerly human-only tasks is acquired through examples, rather than encoded by a human as a set of handcrafted rules. In a way, we’re learning that intelligence is a notion we often conflate with self-awareness, and self-awareness is definitely not required to successfully carry out these kinds of tasks. In the end, the question of computer intelligence might not even be important. Edsger W. Dijkstra found that the question of whether machines could think was “about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.” These few sentences have inspired in me a handful of tangents that I want to follow here to support propositions for (1) human verification on social media platforms and (2) transparency regarding the use of artificial intelligence in communication tasks. To do so, I will go over each bolded bit from above one by one, and to keep things interesting, I will not do so in order. Rather, can submarines think? I admit that I do not know the original context of Edsger Dijkstra’s quote (having only seen it applied in myriad secondhand contexts), and thus my understanding of its intentions may be limited. However, it seems as if the example aims to highlight the innate irrationality of any questions into machine thinking by drawing a comparison to the question of submarine swimming, which somehow seems more obviously unquestionable. I have two issues with Dijkstra’s quote: (1) it is entirely correct, as there is no true difference between a machine thinking and a submarine swimming; and (2) it stealthily cows the interpreter of the quote — perhaps unintentionally — into accepting the premise that submarines cannot swim, which, as I will argue, is not necessarily true. …suppose we build a submarine with arms to paddle and legs to kick, one that could navigate the murkiest depths without intervention and respond to danger in real time On the surface, there seems to be a fundamental difference between asking if a machine thinks and asking if a submarine swims, as swimming is a physical action undertaken by all sorts of creatures to maneuver through liquids, while thinking is a fairly mysterious cognitive experience that we assume is shared by beings who are similar to ourselves (i.e., other humans). However, upon diving deeper, one finds that these questions are essentially equivalent. Suppose I replaced “to maneuver through liquids” in the paragraph above with “who want to maneuver through liquids.” For all intents and purposes, these two phrases impart the same meaning; however, the second highlights a hidden cognitive component of swimming that suggests that the action is done with purpose. For example, in contrast to an actor swimming, an actor maneuvering through water without intention may be said to drift or to drown, depending primarily on the outcome, and an object controlled by a separate actor may be said to be driven or to be controlled (i.e., to be passive in its action). Therefore, a question of swimming is essentially equivalent to a question of thinking. Furthermore and interestingly, it seems as if the hidden component is more important than the cognitive component to the classification of a movement through water as swimming. For example, a person may be comfortable claiming that a fish swims, as even the most feebleminded of fish seems to have a certain amount of control over its cold-blooded body as it maneuvers through water. However, would it be correct to say that a eukaryote swims by the flick of a tiny flagellum? Perhaps yes, even still, as the thing, when viewed under the microscope, seems to just go without external manipulation. But a submarine? Well, we know that humans make submarines go, whether directly through steering or indirectly through programming, and so it does not seem as if a submarine swims. But suppose we build a submarine with arms to paddle and legs to kick, one that could navigate the murkiest depths without human intervention and respond to danger in real time? My guess: Not even then. The pointlessness of semantic arguments As discussed above, both questions referred to in the original comparison ask about the unseen processes undertaken by an actor; however, there is no reason why we cannot say that a submarine swims or that a machine thinks, other than a certain linguistic reluctance to do so. Specifically, whether a machine thinks depends on whether we find it appropriate to refer to the actions undertaken by a computer as “thinking,” and likewise for a submarine swimming. Thus, the questions are not worth asking — not because they are either true or false, but because they are entirely dependent on semantic interpretation and are thus neither true nor false. However, taken out of context, as the quote often is, it may seem as if, to be on the side of reason, one must agree with the premise that a submarine cannot swim, which could lead one to conclude — without doubt or ambivalence — that machines cannot think. Taken out of context…it may seem as if…a person must agree with the premise that a submarine cannot swim, which could cause the person to conclude that machines cannot think, which…is neither true nor false. Note that I am not claiming that Dijkstra wanted to bully anyone into admitting that a submarine cannot swim, nor am I disagreeing with his statement, as I believe his intention was rather to state the pointlessness of such semantic arguments when there are more interesting subjects on which to expend breath (or keystrokes). Even still, as I will discuss in the next part, machines have a certain non-negligible potential for deceptiveness when they are programmed to perform tasks that are inextricably linked to human cognition, such as those requiring human language to be wielded, as such tasks were (correctly) thought to be performed only by humans until recently.

https://medium.com/linguaphile/an-argument-for-verified-humans-part-i-2b4c987e462a

['Danielle Boccelli']

2020-12-20 03:18:30.680000+00:00

['AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Computer Science', 'NLP']

Title Exploring question whether submarine swimContent Exploring question whether submarine swim Argument Verified Humans Part read often get lost text thought diverging author’s word toward something related yet different process seems almost like conversation author person’s word provoking response time enjoy aspect reading often quite distracting Still find thought especially compelling pen within reach write place occasionally reviewed find either ruinously obvious oblivious accepted fiction le often build branch original note take enough life become article project poem case read following paragraph Deep Learning PyTorch¹ text response produced OpenAI’s GPT2 model since bested GPT3 That’s remarkably coherent machine even isn’t welldefined thesis behind rambling Even impressively ability perform formerly humanonly task acquired example rather encoded human set handcrafted rule way we’re learning intelligence notion often conflate selfawareness selfawareness definitely required successfully carry kind task end question computer intelligence might even important Edsger W Dijkstra found question whether machine could think “about relevant question whether Submarines Swim” sentence inspired handful tangent want follow support proposition 1 human verification social medium platform 2 transparency regarding use artificial intelligence communication task go bolded bit one one keep thing interesting order Rather submarine think admit know original context Edsger Dijkstra’s quote seen applied myriad secondhand context thus understanding intention may limited However seems example aim highlight innate irrationality question machine thinking drawing comparison question submarine swimming somehow seems obviously unquestionable two issue Dijkstra’s quote 1 entirely correct true difference machine thinking submarine swimming 2 stealthily cow interpreter quote — perhaps unintentionally — accepting premise submarine cannot swim argue necessarily true …suppose build submarine arm paddle leg kick one could navigate murkiest depth without intervention respond danger real time surface seems fundamental difference asking machine think asking submarine swim swimming physical action undertaken sort creature maneuver liquid thinking fairly mysterious cognitive experience assume shared being similar ie human However upon diving deeper one find question essentially equivalent Suppose replaced “to maneuver liquids” paragraph “who want maneuver liquids” intent purpose two phrase impart meaning however second highlight hidden cognitive component swimming suggests action done purpose example contrast actor swimming actor maneuvering water without intention may said drift drown depending primarily outcome object controlled separate actor may said driven controlled ie passive action Therefore question swimming essentially equivalent question thinking Furthermore interestingly seems hidden component important cognitive component classification movement water swimming example person may comfortable claiming fish swim even feebleminded fish seems certain amount control coldblooded body maneuver water However would correct say eukaryote swim flick tiny flagellum Perhaps yes even still thing viewed microscope seems go without external manipulation submarine Well know human make submarine go whether directly steering indirectly programming seem submarine swim suppose build submarine arm paddle leg kick one could navigate murkiest depth without human intervention respond danger real time guess even pointlessness semantic argument discussed question referred original comparison ask unseen process undertaken actor however reason cannot say submarine swim machine think certain linguistic reluctance Specifically whether machine think depends whether find appropriate refer action undertaken computer “thinking” likewise submarine swimming Thus question worth asking — either true false entirely dependent semantic interpretation thus neither true false However taken context quote often may seem side reason one must agree premise submarine cannot swim could lead one conclude — without doubt ambivalence — machine cannot think Taken context…it may seem if…a person must agree premise submarine cannot swim could cause person conclude machine cannot think which…is neither true false Note claiming Dijkstra wanted bully anyone admitting submarine cannot swim disagreeing statement believe intention rather state pointlessness semantic argument interesting subject expend breath keystroke Even still discus next part machine certain nonnegligible potential deceptiveness programmed perform task inextricably linked human cognition requiring human language wielded task correctly thought performed human recentlyTags AI Artificial Intelligence Data Science Computer Science NLP

Predicting American ICU Saturation During COVID-19

Like everybody else in the free world, I’m obsessed with coronavirus. You are too, that’s why you’re reading this. It conjures a lot of very interesting thoughts in my mind, like this one: Everyone’s yelling at everyone else about what the correct policy is, but the yelling isn’t ever going to stop because of the curious predicament in which public policy makers find themselves. If they institute Policy Measure X, and it still gets bad, then they will be publicly thrashed for not doing enough. If they institute Policy Measure X, and it turns out to be no big deal, then they will be publicly thrashed for overreacting. If they do nothing, and it’s bad, then they will be publicly thrashed for doing nothing. If they do nothing, and it’s no big deal, then they get to claim “I told you so.” The only choice they have of the four possible options that doesn’t get them thrashed is to stick their fingers in their ears and do nothing, and see what happens. This is obviously the wrong thing to do, but this sort of analysis is probably weighing on every policy maker’s minds right now, from the world leaders to the school boards. It’s a real pickle. I have no answers for that. It may in fact have been exactly what happened in Italy. I sat down at my desk on the morning of Saturday March 14th, 2020, and started digging into the numbers, to try and project when the United States medical system was going to reach the breaking point like Italy. I did it so I could tell my family members what to do. What I discovered was curious, and somewhat non-narrative, and has a little bit of hope buried in the fear, so I felt I’d share it. I did this because this graphic flipped past my feed: Reddit, the bastion gatekeeper of all academic sciences, propagated this very wrong chart. No we are absolutely NOT “11 days behind Italy.” This is a neat chart, that shows some interesting stuff, but it’s misleading in several ways and brings us to inaccurate conclusions. And since I’ve seen it being shared by a lot of pretty smart people, I figured I’d tear it apart and rebuild it properly. The implication of this graph is that we are going to be in the state that Italy’s in currently on March 22nd, with our ICU wards full and in triage, deciding who lives and who dies. That’s a bad conclusion because there’s a buried assumption in the graph that the United States has the same raw treatment capacity as Italy, without accounting for the relative population difference. This graph is not per capita. It also doesn’t account for the true treatment limits. We shouldn’t be looking at total number of ICU beds, even on a per capita basis. We should be looking at the total number of available ventilators per capita with which the very sick can be treated. That’s the hard deck for when triage begins, and the very hard decisions start to be made, about who to just let die. Gathering the Data For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the United States healthcare system, our core infrastructure for critical care is world class. What matters in this case, though, isn’t beds, it is hardware. Treatment for the worst cases of COVID-19 requires ventilation. Everything coming out of Italy right now in the media is one resonant cry, “we need ventilators.” They have mobilized their army to try and build more ventilators. The United States has approximately 170,000 available ventilators with which to treat COVID-19 extreme cases. That’s a ratio of about 52 ventilators per 100,000 population. Not a lot, but it’s significantly more than any country in Europe. Germany is one of the most well equipped countries in the EU in terms of critical care infrastructure, and it has 25,000 ventilators. That works out to be about 30 per 100,000 population. The United States has almost twice as many as Germany, and probably the highest number per capita in the world. How many does Italy have? From the same link, Italy has about half the critical care beds per citizen that Germany has. It’s hard to know if the per capita number of ventilators scales with beds by their neighbor, but if so, then they likely have somewhere around 15 per 100,000. But if that estimate were true, then Italy would have around 9,000 ventilators, and they only had 10,149 confirmed cases of any severity on March 11, when the media reports about Italian triage started filtering in. That estimate must be far too high, unless they are either over-ventilating everyone or their infection rate is being misreported by a factor of 20. If we were to presume that their confirmed case number reflected the actual infection rate, and they were only ventilating 5% of cases as China and other countries have done, then they would only need about 500 ventilators. That can’t be right. There are likely 3000 ventilators in Atlanta Georgia alone, based on US national averages. Of all the media sources I could find on the number of Italian ventilators, the only one that gave a number was this one, which quoted around 3,000. That’s not very many at all. That would be about 5 per 100,000, about a tenth what we have in the USA. Maybe that’s the right number. When we replicate the Reddit table above against World Health Organization (WHO) data, the data for Italy matches, but the data for the United States does not. It’s similar in some spots, but not in others, and doesn’t accurately represent the growth curves here. To be sure, some of our depressed numbers are absolutely related to poor testing procedures, but I’m not convinced Italy’s numbers don’t represent poor testing as well, given their reportedly early aloof attitude towards the disease. Let’s proceed presuming Italy early testing and USA early testing have the same sort of underlying failures, and do a real per capita, and per ventilator, comparison. here’s the reddit chart, fixed Presuming Italy met their triage boundary around the 11th of March, that would mean about 3.38 confirmed cases per ventilator if their ventilator supply was around 3000, and 1.11 cases per ventilator if their ventilator supply was around 9132. The 3.38 number makes more sense, because we know from Chinese experiences that not very many cases require ventilation. If true, that indicates that there was probably a tremendous per capita ventilator shortage in Italy prior to the outbreak, which is exacerbating their situation. Extrapolating from these numbers, and further presuming that Italian screening is equally bad to US screening, we should expect to get into the “triage apocalypse” here around when we have 3.38 confirmed cases per ventilator, which is 575 thousand cases, or a confirmed infection rate of 0.17%. That’s not very much. We are definitely going to hit the triage limit if we use Italy as a modeling template, just not this month. What Date is the Ventilator Apocalypse in the USA? This is very difficult to answer, because Italy’s numbers on which we’re building our model aren’t real infections, they’re just the number of confirmed infections. They’re bounded by the availability of their testing, as are ours. If we presume that the current cases aren’t testing limited, or that the ramp in increased testing over the infection here so far parallels the actual spread of the virus in an appropriate way, then we can use the last week’s rate of US propagation to project forward. That would be an increase of 1.33 times per day, or a doubling of cases every 2.4 days. We hit the limit somewhere about 20 days from now instead of 11 like the reddit graph is inferring. First or second week of April. Our cases may climb more rapidly than that, though, because our testing may ramp up faster than the disease ramps. And would this testing ramp be climbing faster, or less fast, than that in Italy, for our comparison to be useful? Once you throw testing uncertainty into the mix, the mathematics become basically undoable. If you throw in the fact that people in Italy literally kiss each other on the face when they meet, and are statistically the second worst nation in the EU at washing their hands, and are a more dense population than we are, the comparison becomes regressively undoable. We also just implemented some very significant social distancing protocols last week, once we started freaking out about Italy, that are hopefully going to change our infection curve away from a doubling every 2.4 days to a doubling across a much wider time frame. Geographical Variation of Critical Cases Different areas of the country have higher population densities than others, different age profiles, and different health characteristics. A GIS nerd with a statistics degree could punch out a map of that, especially if they’re at Harvard. Several days ago this study did exactly that, in attempting to map likely COVID-19 hot spots in the US. from the study, go read the study, it’s neat The study basically uses the Wuhan contagion curve and maps it over to our “old people ratio” (top map) and our “high blood pressure ratio” (bottom map) to see how bad it might get here, in terms of infections, if we end up progressing like Wuhan did. Their worst-case mapping is 5 per ten thousand population, or 50 per 100,000, at the peak. That’s not too far off our ventilator capacity, if every ventilator was dedicated to handling coronavirus. But maybe we have that many ventilators because we need that many ventilators for other reasons. Why was Wuhan so bad? from the study, but the little red line there is mine If the contagion curve does not get any worse than what China saw in Wuhan, we don’t exceed our national per capita ventilator capacity. But Wuhan also went into extreme lock down to manage that curve. It was bad in Wuhan in part because Wuhan’s critical care infrastructure was a lot worse than ours is. Like Italy, their per capita resource allocation (left side Y axis) towards treatment of things like this started very low, and all those instant “just add water” hospitals we watched them build on the news were not China exceeding US capacity, they were China climbing up to meet our capacity. But again, maybe we need the high capacity we have because we’re already using it? Perhaps our bloated healthcare infrastructure where everything is always over-treated to fleece the insurance companies for more revenue has inadvertently built in a buffer to where we can handle this? Many of the things that drive our healthcare costs up — over-treatment, treating everything as critical care, fear of being sued, cashing in on end of life care, and a fetish-like fixation on medical machinery, have pre-built an infrastructure unlike anywhere else in the world to handle COVID-19. The numbers seem to indicate that while this is very likely going to be bad, we have more critical care infrastructure than anyone else on the planet does. This does not mean ours won’t get overburdened, but it does mean our overburden limit is significantly higher than anywhere in Europe, especially Italy. That brings us to our final question — how much burden can we take? “Flattening the Curve,” with Numbers Finally Social distancing. Flattening the curve. These are the buzzwords. A few days ago HWFO published a piece about how best to visualize “flattening the curve,” by equating it to the rain. Summarized, that corollary goes like this. If you own twenty acres of undeveloped forest land, the water runs off it into the creek next door at a rate during a storm, which is mitigated by the trees, infiltration into the soil, and such. If you pave that land, none of the water makes it into the ground, it all flows off very quickly, and the creek that used to be able to convey the flow can no longer convey it. It floods, and flooding is bad, so you mitigate this somehow. You could either widen the creek, which isn’t often done, or you could hold all the flow back in a detention pond, which releases the water slowly so the creek can convey the water without flooding. Graphically, this: to discover who Big Joe is, read the prior article Turns into this: to discover why we’re talking about Dr. Seuss, you’ll need to ask my therapist if I had one …so you build a detention pond to prevent the flooding, and if you build it properly it turns your problem into this: much math, very engineer It’s a cool article. Share it with anyone who doesn’t understand “flattening the curve.” The problem with COVID-19 is a flooding problem. Coronavirus is going to pave the land and increase the number of rain drops (infected people) who end up in the creek (medical system), and you have capacity problems. “Flattening the curve” is just doing the same thing with infected people that we did with the rain with our detention pond. Like this: this is still unitless! The problem, as stated prior, was that the “flattening the curve” graphs didn’t have numbers on them. None of the ones in the media do either. To understand what needs to happen, we’d have to put numbers on them. Further, we don’t know that our curve and Italy’s curve are going to be comparable, nor that Italy’s dashed line is the same as our dashed line. A twitter thread expounding on this: Looking closely at Italy as we did above, we discover their dashed line is basically tied to their number of ventilators. They’re in triage at 3.38 confirmed cases (maybe) per ventilator, which would lead us to believe 30% of their (identified) cases need ventilation. This is far higher than the recent JAMA Clinical Update based on Chinese numbers, which indicated approximately 5% of proven infections require critical care. This could be for several reasons, but the two most likely are that either Italy is underreporting actual cases by a factor of six as compared to China, due to worse testing, or… Italy is having a hard time matching the ventilators they have with the cases that need them Our task in the USA is to make sure that we’re matching ventilators up with cases which need them as efficiently as possible, expand our number of ventilators, and figure out other ways we might be able to maximize ventilation, like kids or skinny people sharing a tube. (Maybe that works, maybe it doesn’t, I’m not a ventilation doctor) Raise our dashed line as high as we can, while squeezing as many people under it as possible. We know what our dashed line looks like today. 170,000 ventilators is the line. We know what our estimated cases look like. Between 70 million and 150 million cases is the estimate. Based on JAMA estimates, five percent of these will need ventilation, which is 3.5 million to 7.5 million Americans. These are the “area under the curve” in the prior graph. We have the treatment capacity to treat between 2.2% and 4.8% of the total number of people who will need critical care at any given time. How long someone must be ventilated is sketchy. The best information I can get currently comes from notes that MDs took in conferences that they propagated anonymously on the internet. These lead me to believe ten days is a good mean number, although I think if they had no triage-like resource restrictions they’d probably choose to do two weeks. If we take the low number, 70 million cases, and presume 5% need ventilation, that’s 3.5 million cases. At ten days each, with 170,000 ventilators, it would take 205 days to perfectly squeeze a perfectly flattened, perfectly square “curve” through that ventilation pipeline. For the 150 million cases scenario, it takes 441 days. A perfectly efficient “flattened curve,” like a big rectangle that starts tomorrow and rides the system’s capacity until everyone is treated, would probably treat everyone in around a year, depending on the breaks. That’s not going to happen though. We have no idea what our infection curve is going to look like, but if we take Wuhan’s infection curve, and scale it up to the “70 million cases” estimate, this is what we get: yay we finally put numbers on Greta Thunburg (and everyone else’s) graph How did I draw this? First, I picked scales for each axis and drew out a “perfect (rectangular) curve” to treat all patients from a 70 million case individual outbreak in the USA, for which 3.5 million need ventilators. That’s in blue. Then I traced the general shape of the Wuhan outbreak, and scaled it vertically until the area under it (which represents cases, in red) matched the blue area. If our outbreak follows a profile like Wuhan’s, we are likely to see 70% of critically infected people not get treatment. Maybe Wuhan isn’t the right curve to use. Here’s a gaussian distribution, a “bell curve,” for comparison, with a longer time to completion. this still sucks There’s no good way to know whether our infection curve is going to be steeper and uglier than Wuhan, or flatter and nicer, but the chances it gets under the 170,000 ventilator threshold are probably close to zero. It seems very likely to me that the United States will be in triage mode like Italy is now, if not in the late spring then certainly the summer, depending on how well our “social distancing” and voluntary quarantine measures work. And this is likely to happen no matter what sorts of governmental policies are laid out today, at any level. Social distancing and voluntary quarantine/isolation will help the problem, but will not solve it. Conclusion My father told me something on the phone today. He said that responsibility is a function of authority, not a consequence of blame. In his words, “if the bulldozer breaks down because the operator doesn’t change the oil, the dozer doesn’t get fixed by blaming the operator.” If things proceed like I think they will, and the country is as divided as I see it, lots of very angry people are going to be blaming each other for something that is probably impossible to stop. Every new ventilator that gets built in the next two months might save a dozen people. Every other improvement to the critical care infrastructure that happens in the next two months might have a similar effect. Every attempt to squash this curve might mean someone catches coronavirus in November instead of June, which might mean they get treated when they might not have otherwise. But it’s highly unlikely that anything can prevent people we know from dying in triage. People are not only going to die from this thing, they’re going to die because a doctor chose to save someone else. Probably with good reason. I’m telling the older, more infirm family members of mine to voluntarily quarantine themselves when ICUs are a week away from being full, and stay that way until treatment capacity opens back up.

https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/predicting-american-icu-saturation-during-covid-19-f45ec1672571

['Bj Campbell']

2020-04-14 14:08:34.169000+00:00

['Coronavirus', 'Covid 19', 'Health', 'Media Criticism', 'Random']

Title Predicting American ICU Saturation COVID19Content Like everybody else free world I’m obsessed coronavirus that’s you’re reading conjures lot interesting thought mind like one Everyone’s yelling everyone else correct policy yelling isn’t ever going stop curious predicament public policy maker find institute Policy Measure X still get bad publicly thrashed enough institute Policy Measure X turn big deal publicly thrashed overreacting nothing it’s bad publicly thrashed nothing nothing it’s big deal get claim “I told so” choice four possible option doesn’t get thrashed stick finger ear nothing see happens obviously wrong thing sort analysis probably weighing every policy maker’s mind right world leader school board It’s real pickle answer may fact exactly happened Italy sat desk morning Saturday March 14th 2020 started digging number try project United States medical system going reach breaking point like Italy could tell family member discovered curious somewhat nonnarrative little bit hope buried fear felt I’d share graphic flipped past feed Reddit bastion gatekeeper academic science propagated wrong chart absolutely “11 day behind Italy” neat chart show interesting stuff it’s misleading several way brings u inaccurate conclusion since I’ve seen shared lot pretty smart people figured I’d tear apart rebuild properly implication graph going state Italy’s currently March 22nd ICU ward full triage deciding life dy That’s bad conclusion there’s buried assumption graph United States raw treatment capacity Italy without accounting relative population difference graph per caput also doesn’t account true treatment limit shouldn’t looking total number ICU bed even per caput basis looking total number available ventilator per caput sick treated That’s hard deck triage begin hard decision start made let die Gathering Data wailing gnashing teeth United States healthcare system core infrastructure critical care world class matter case though isn’t bed hardware Treatment worst case COVID19 requires ventilation Everything coming Italy right medium one resonant cry “we need ventilators” mobilized army try build ventilator United States approximately 170000 available ventilator treat COVID19 extreme case That’s ratio 52 ventilator per 100000 population lot it’s significantly country Europe Germany one well equipped country EU term critical care infrastructure 25000 ventilator work 30 per 100000 population United States almost twice many Germany probably highest number per caput world many Italy link Italy half critical care bed per citizen Germany It’s hard know per caput number ventilator scale bed neighbor likely somewhere around 15 per 100000 estimate true Italy would around 9000 ventilator 10149 confirmed case severity March 11 medium report Italian triage started filtering estimate must far high unless either overventilating everyone infection rate misreported factor 20 presume confirmed case number reflected actual infection rate ventilating 5 case China country done would need 500 ventilator can’t right likely 3000 ventilator Atlanta Georgia alone based US national average medium source could find number Italian ventilator one gave number one quoted around 3000 That’s many would 5 per 100000 tenth USA Maybe that’s right number replicate Reddit table World Health Organization data data Italy match data United States It’s similar spot others doesn’t accurately represent growth curve sure depressed number absolutely related poor testing procedure I’m convinced Italy’s number don’t represent poor testing well given reportedly early aloof attitude towards disease Let’s proceed presuming Italy early testing USA early testing sort underlying failure real per caput per ventilator comparison here’s reddit chart fixed Presuming Italy met triage boundary around 11th March would mean 338 confirmed case per ventilator ventilator supply around 3000 111 case per ventilator ventilator supply around 9132 338 number make sense know Chinese experience many case require ventilation true indicates probably tremendous per caput ventilator shortage Italy prior outbreak exacerbating situation Extrapolating number presuming Italian screening equally bad US screening expect get “triage apocalypse” around 338 confirmed case per ventilator 575 thousand case confirmed infection rate 017 That’s much definitely going hit triage limit use Italy modeling template month Date Ventilator Apocalypse USA difficult answer Italy’s number we’re building model aren’t real infection they’re number confirmed infection They’re bounded availability testing presume current case aren’t testing limited ramp increased testing infection far parallel actual spread virus appropriate way use last week’s rate US propagation project forward would increase 133 time per day doubling case every 24 day hit limit somewhere 20 day instead 11 like reddit graph inferring First second week April case may climb rapidly though testing may ramp faster disease ramp would testing ramp climbing faster le fast Italy comparison useful throw testing uncertainty mix mathematics become basically undoable throw fact people Italy literally kiss face meet statistically second worst nation EU washing hand dense population comparison becomes regressively undoable also implemented significant social distancing protocol last week started freaking Italy hopefully going change infection curve away doubling every 24 day doubling across much wider time frame Geographical Variation Critical Cases Different area country higher population density others different age profile different health characteristic GIS nerd statistic degree could punch map especially they’re Harvard Several day ago study exactly attempting map likely COVID19 hot spot US study go read study it’s neat study basically us Wuhan contagion curve map “old people ratio” top map “high blood pressure ratio” bottom map see bad might get term infection end progressing like Wuhan worstcase mapping 5 per ten thousand population 50 per 100000 peak That’s far ventilator capacity every ventilator dedicated handling coronavirus maybe many ventilator need many ventilator reason Wuhan bad study little red line mine contagion curve get worse China saw Wuhan don’t exceed national per caput ventilator capacity Wuhan also went extreme lock manage curve bad Wuhan part Wuhan’s critical care infrastructure lot worse Like Italy per caput resource allocation left side axis towards treatment thing like started low instant “just add water” hospital watched build news China exceeding US capacity China climbing meet capacity maybe need high capacity we’re already using Perhaps bloated healthcare infrastructure everything always overtreated fleece insurance company revenue inadvertently built buffer handle Many thing drive healthcare cost — overtreatment treating everything critical care fear sued cashing end life care fetishlike fixation medical machinery prebuilt infrastructure unlike anywhere else world handle COVID19 number seem indicate likely going bad critical care infrastructure anyone else planet mean won’t get overburdened mean overburden limit significantly higher anywhere Europe especially Italy brings u final question — much burden take “Flattening Curve” Numbers Finally Social distancing Flattening curve buzzword day ago HWFO published piece best visualize “flattening curve” equating rain Summarized corollary go like twenty acre undeveloped forest land water run creek next door rate storm mitigated tree infiltration soil pave land none water make ground flow quickly creek used able convey flow longer convey flood flooding bad mitigate somehow could either widen creek isn’t often done could hold flow back detention pond release water slowly creek convey water without flooding Graphically discover Big Joe read prior article Turns discover we’re talking Dr Seuss you’ll need ask therapist one …so build detention pond prevent flooding build properly turn problem much math engineer It’s cool article Share anyone doesn’t understand “flattening curve” problem COVID19 flooding problem Coronavirus going pave land increase number rain drop infected people end creek medical system capacity problem “Flattening curve” thing infected people rain detention pond Like still unitless problem stated prior “flattening curve” graph didn’t number None one medium either understand need happen we’d put number don’t know curve Italy’s curve going comparable Italy’s dashed line dashed line twitter thread expounding Looking closely Italy discover dashed line basically tied number ventilator They’re triage 338 confirmed case maybe per ventilator would lead u believe 30 identified case need ventilation far higher recent JAMA Clinical Update based Chinese number indicated approximately 5 proven infection require critical care could several reason two likely either Italy underreporting actual case factor six compared China due worse testing or… Italy hard time matching ventilator case need task USA make sure we’re matching ventilator case need efficiently possible expand number ventilator figure way might able maximize ventilation like kid skinny people sharing tube Maybe work maybe doesn’t I’m ventilation doctor Raise dashed line high squeezing many people possible know dashed line look like today 170000 ventilator line know estimated case look like 70 million 150 million case estimate Based JAMA estimate five percent need ventilation 35 million 75 million Americans “area curve” prior graph treatment capacity treat 22 48 total number people need critical care given time long someone must ventilated sketchy best information get currently come note MDs took conference propagated anonymously internet lead believe ten day good mean number although think triagelike resource restriction they’d probably choose two week take low number 70 million case presume 5 need ventilation that’s 35 million case ten day 170000 ventilator would take 205 day perfectly squeeze perfectly flattened perfectly square “curve” ventilation pipeline 150 million case scenario take 441 day perfectly efficient “flattened curve” like big rectangle start tomorrow ride system’s capacity everyone treated would probably treat everyone around year depending break That’s going happen though idea infection curve going look like take Wuhan’s infection curve scale “70 million cases” estimate get yay finally put number Greta Thunburg everyone else’s graph draw First picked scale axis drew “perfect rectangular curve” treat patient 70 million case individual outbreak USA 35 million need ventilator That’s blue traced general shape Wuhan outbreak scaled vertically area represents case red matched blue area outbreak follows profile like Wuhan’s likely see 70 critically infected people get treatment Maybe Wuhan isn’t right curve use Here’s gaussian distribution “bell curve” comparison longer time completion still suck There’s good way know whether infection curve going steeper uglier Wuhan flatter nicer chance get 170000 ventilator threshold probably close zero seems likely United States triage mode like Italy late spring certainly summer depending well “social distancing” voluntary quarantine measure work likely happen matter sort governmental policy laid today level Social distancing voluntary quarantineisolation help problem solve Conclusion father told something phone today said responsibility function authority consequence blame word “if bulldozer break operator doesn’t change oil dozer doesn’t get fixed blaming operator” thing proceed like think country divided see lot angry people going blaming something probably impossible stop Every new ventilator get built next two month might save dozen people Every improvement critical care infrastructure happens next two month might similar effect Every attempt squash curve might mean someone catch coronavirus November instead June might mean get treated might otherwise it’s highly unlikely anything prevent people know dying triage People going die thing they’re going die doctor chose save someone else Probably good reason I’m telling older infirm family member mine voluntarily quarantine ICUs week away full stay way treatment capacity open back upTags Coronavirus Covid 19 Health Media Criticism Random

Purge your Followers, Bring an Instagram Account Back to Life

Purge your Followers, Bring an Instagram Account Back to Life You don't have to start from 0, but reviving an old Instagram account will take time Photo by Pagie Page on Unsplash Recently, someone asked me what would be the best way to grow an old, inactive account. As you already know, Instagram rewards consistency. This makes growing an inactive account harder. The followers you may be having on this account might never see your content again as the algorithm would push other accounts, more regular and consistent ones, that they follow. Growing an inactive account is a lot different than growing a new one. And for this reason, many people get discouraged after they try reposting on an older account. That’s partly why you will hear people say that they don’t like Instagram anymore, and why the free organic reach you get on TikTok is better. But here are some truths that are worth keeping in mind: Instagram still converts a lot more than TikTok. than TikTok. Growing an inactive account requires some prep work. You won’t get an incredible engagement overnight. So pay attention to what follows if you haven’t posted in a long time, or if you’re considering posting on an old account that you have. The first step would be to get rid of your inactive followers. Go through your existing followers and remove all the inactive, spammy, or fake accounts. You will probably end up purging 20 to 40% of your followers, but this will help you start with a cleaner account and a higher engagement rate. Then, go through your DMs and start engaging if you can. If you have conversations that you left pending or find ways to engage in any way with the existing messages you have, do it. Another good practice would be to notify your followers that you will start being active again. You can manually DM some of your followers and let them know. This will help the algorithm see some activity back, and you may even show on their feed. If you don’t know how to DM, start with your existing DMs. Reaching out to someone with whom you already had some contact will be easier. Finally, stick to a schedule. Be consistent and regular. Post regularly, even if it’s hard, even if you’re not getting the results you were expecting. Instagram is a patience game, and too many people give up before it pays off. Be gentle with yourself. Instagram is now a lot harder than it used to be when you had an account and were actively posting. There are other ways to bring an account back to life, and if you know some, I would love for you to share them with me to talk about it.

https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/purge-your-followers-bring-an-instagram-account-back-to-life-7d0732521438

['Charles Tumiotto Jackson']

2020-11-06 19:09:10.661000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Social Media', 'Instagram']

Title Purge Followers Bring Instagram Account Back LifeContent Purge Followers Bring Instagram Account Back Life dont start 0 reviving old Instagram account take time Photo Pagie Page Unsplash Recently someone asked would best way grow old inactive account already know Instagram reward consistency make growing inactive account harder follower may account might never see content algorithm would push account regular consistent one follow Growing inactive account lot different growing new one reason many people get discouraged try reposting older account That’s partly hear people say don’t like Instagram anymore free organic reach get TikTok better truth worth keeping mind Instagram still convert lot TikTok TikTok Growing inactive account requires prep work won’t get incredible engagement overnight pay attention follows haven’t posted long time you’re considering posting old account first step would get rid inactive follower Go existing follower remove inactive spammy fake account probably end purging 20 40 follower help start cleaner account higher engagement rate go DMs start engaging conversation left pending find way engage way existing message Another good practice would notify follower start active manually DM follower let know help algorithm see activity back may even show feed don’t know DM start existing DMs Reaching someone already contact easier Finally stick schedule consistent regular Post regularly even it’s hard even you’re getting result expecting Instagram patience game many people give pay gentle Instagram lot harder used account actively posting way bring account back life know would love share talk itTags Marketing Business Startup Social Media Instagram

How Unsplash Went From a Tumblr Page To Fully-Fledged Platform

How Unsplash Went From a Tumblr Page To Fully-Fledged Platform And how we can apply it to our projects. Photo by Rubén García on Unsplash You’ve heard of Unsplash, no doubt. The thumbnail of this very article is integrated straight into this post from the service. I searched it within the text editor and picked one I liked. Boom, my article now has a header. It wasn’t always this way. I couldn’t always type away and select an extremely high-quality photo straight from my text editor to be used completely royalty-free. It took a lot of work in the right places, over a lot of time. But before putting in all that work to turn this into what it is today, it had to start somewhere. And starting is where most founders screw up. Starting has the most amount of friction. And taking that first step to publish a piece of work might take a year, several developers, and a lot of anxiety. Unsplash, however, published its first version in 3 hours with $38. There was no umming and ahhing over the design. There was no unnecessary complexity. The first version was so basic that a teenager posting edgy content on the internet used the same technology — it was on Tumblr. The Original Unsplash on Tumblr | GIF adapted from Source This is the story of how Unsplash started and how you can use the same principles to launch practically any idea that comes to mind.

https://sahkilic.medium.com/how-unsplash-went-from-a-tumblr-page-to-fully-fledged-platform-a65e13169e27

['Sah Kilic']

2020-11-01 08:58:10.791000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Advice']

Title Unsplash Went Tumblr Page FullyFledged PlatformContent Unsplash Went Tumblr Page FullyFledged Platform apply project Photo Rubén García Unsplash You’ve heard Unsplash doubt thumbnail article integrated straight post service searched within text editor picked one liked Boom article header wasn’t always way couldn’t always type away select extremely highquality photo straight text editor used completely royaltyfree took lot work right place lot time putting work turn today start somewhere starting founder screw Starting amount friction taking first step publish piece work might take year several developer lot anxiety Unsplash however published first version 3 hour 38 umming ahhing design unnecessary complexity first version basic teenager posting edgy content internet used technology — Tumblr Original Unsplash Tumblr GIF adapted Source story Unsplash started use principle launch practically idea come mindTags Entrepreneurship Business Startup Technology Advice

Definitive Guide To Creating Profitable Online Courses

1. Pick A Topic Worth Paying For You don’t want a course that’s “nice to have.” If there’s a real demand for this knowledge or skill, people would be willing to pay good money for it. Nowadays, there’s a course for almost everything; cooking, dancing, even playing popular video games. You can create a course about anything. But I would stick to topics that people are used to paying for. Not many people will pay for a course that only gives inspiration. There are a million free YouTube videos for that. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: Don’t create something people can easily get for free. What Topics Should You Consider? I’ve seen courses on creating morning rituals. Maybe some people buy it, but it’s not something I would ever pay for myself. Why? You can learn about morning rituals from a simple 10-minute YouTube video. I actually created one: But that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of a course about a bigger topic. The video above is part of my course, Procrastinate Zero 2. Another example is note-taking. I wouldn’t create a course about that. Instead, it could be part of a course on improving your focus. Ask yourself this, when planning a topic: “Would I be willing to pay for this?” And more importantly, have you spent money on a course that’s similar? Compare note-taking to coding or cryptocurrencies. There are YouTube videos and free blogs about those topics. But it’s pretty much impossible to learn those skills in a short video or article. The best courses are about topics that require expertise and time to learn. That should narrow down the list of courses you should focus on. The next step is to apply marketing before you actually create your course. You want to build marketing into the creation process. Specify Your Course’s Focus Marketing is not only about creating awareness for your product or service. It’s mostly about getting in front of the right audience. Try to think ahead here. If someone comes to your website, they should know immediately if the course is for them, or not. Let’s say you’re a fitness coach. Do you teach functional strength training? Do you focus on losing weight? Or on bodybuilding? Etc. Who do you focus on? Athletes training for a competition? Moms who want to get in shape after pregnancy? Seniors who want to regulate their breathing? It all depends on your focus. And that focus makes your marketing strategy a lot easier. To do this, you’ll need to answer these two questions: 1. What does my course do? How can your target students use your course in their lives? What will this knowledge help your students get? This is trickier than it appears. A member of my online community recently mentioned he wanted to create a course on blockchain technology. He had a great presentation of his idea. But the missing aspect was a crystal-clear answer to the question, “Why would I want to learn this? What can I specifically do with the knowledge you’re teaching me? What actionable benefits can I get from this course?” It’s not about the knowledge you’re teaching. It’s all about what you get from applying that knowledge. It’s the benefits that make the course worth its price. If I don’t immediately see the course’s direct benefits (other than the awareness that I might find it useful in the future), it’s difficult to be convinced. Don’t continue with creating a course unless you have a clear and compelling answer to this question. Here’s an example from fitness YouTuber Mike Thurston. His course is primarily focused on building muscle mass. His promise is that you will look good. 2. Who is my course for? One of the best books on marketing I’ve read is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I highly recommend reading that book if you want to offer any type of product or service — especially online courses. One of their laws is “Focus.” It comes down to this: You’re better of creating a product for a specific audience. You should avoid creating a product that’s for everyone. So if someone asks you, “Who is your course for?” You should never say something like, “It’s for every entrepreneur.” Replace entrepreneur with any target audience. Here’s something that could make it easier for you. Target people that are currently a previous version of yourself. People struggling with the same things you did, before you actually did it yourself. Let’s say you want to create a course on Mindfulness. Maybe you were a corporate lawyer and you worked 12 hour days. You could create a course for people who have that same lifestyle right now. Show them how you overcame the challenges you faced in the past. All of this should help with picking a topic for a course that has the potential to sell. Once you’ve done this, it’s time to create the outline for your course. 2. Create an Online Course Outline Your course has a main goal. Maybe it’s to help people become more confident, or stop procrastinating, or create iOS apps. Your course should be a framework to achieve this main goal. A course outline helps organize your thoughts and planning. It’s your bird’s eye view. How do you create this outline? Break Down Your Course In Modules and Lessons To give you an example, I’ll be using one of my latest courses, digitalbusiness.school. The main goal of this course is to teach students how to create a sustainable and profitable online business. That’s what it does. Who’s it for? Entrepreneurs who are currently struggling to go full-time and make a good living. Once I had a good idea of those things, I listed all the steps prospective students needed to complete. Those steps are your modules. Then, I broke down the modules into specific lessons. How many modules do you need? It depends on your course and what you’re teaching. This course has 6 modules because they represent the 6 major steps entrepreneurs need to create a profitable online business. My writing course has only 3 modules, for example. But every module has more lessons compared to digitalbusiness.school. I wouldn’t get hung up on this topic. When you create the structure of your course, always think about the students — not what other courses do. Now, you want to break down your modules into lessons. Here’s what it looked like for module 1 of digitalbusiness.school. It’s just a Word or Google doc at this stage. But note that I also wrote a two-to-three-line description of each lesson. That helps you to get clear on what every lesson is about. MODULE 1: How to Build a Brand — a practical, hands-on approach to creating an effective and iconic personal brand Develop your competitive edge — Stand out in the market, and pick the right audience. — Stand out in the market, and pick the right audience. Test your business idea — Determine an idea’s business potential, even without an existing audience. — Determine an idea’s business potential, even without an existing audience. Craft your unique brand — project instant authority and create a compelling story that will make people buy. — project instant authority and create a compelling story that will make people buy. Design your brand identity like a pro — Concepts to remember and tools to use for a professionally appealing brand, even without a designer background. — Concepts to remember and tools to use for a professionally appealing brand, even without a designer background. Build a world-class website — the best website building platforms you can use, and which among them fits your business. Also includes a checklist of important website elements. Here’s what the final version of that looks like: We’ll get to the platform I use for online courses later. But for now, you want to focus on creating the best structure for your online course. I basically broke down the whole course before I started creating any material. Here’s the rest of the structure of digitalbusiness.school: MODULE 2: How to Position Products/Services — etc. MODULE 3: How to Build an Email List — etc. MODULE 4: How to Grow an Audience Without Ads — etc. MODULE 5: How to Launch a Product — etc. MODULE 6: How to Increase Profits Over Time — etc. Add Tools, Exercise, and Case Studies I always like to include a practical exercise for every lesson. I have to stress the idea of “practical” here. Remember: Your courses are only as good as how your students do. As the instructor, your main goal is to ensure students absorb your lessons and implement them easily. Even if you built your course well, if students fail to absorb and practice it, there’s no point. This is where exercises, tools, and case studies come in. They make learning more in-depth and practical. Why You Need Exercises Students should immediately practice what they learned. Learning is better when practiced. For digitalbusiness.school, I made sure that every lesson has an “action” that students can do at the end. Notice that the actions can be applied both by students who are currently building their online businesses, and those still in the planning stage. It depends on your topic. But it should quickly and conveniently help students apply their knowledge in the real world. Why You Need Tools What kind of tools do you need to apply the skill you’re teaching? For instance, my productivity course shares several apps and tools I use. In my writing course, I share my writing tools and apps. If you’re teaching website creation for beginners, you can direct your students to free or paid website and online course builders for professional-looking designs. In digitalbusiness.school, I showed how Kajabi hosts my online courses, ConvertKit manages my email-list, Ubersuggest analyses competition and SEO, and many more. You can also recommend helpful books and media. You can use affiliate links here, for additional income. But I recommend using free tools as much as possible. Only provide paid tools when they’re truly the best platform for the purpose. You don’t want to appear like you’re trying to sell at every turn. Why You Need A Case Study Can you include a real-life example in your course? If so, I highly recommend it. You can use social proof, testimonials, and other means to show credibility and authority. But the best way to prove that your course works is through a case study. There’s no better proof than that. A fitness coach can use “before” and “after” photos of people they’ve coached. A piano instructor can feature videos of her students’ successful recitals. For digitalbusiness.school, I used a case study around a community I created called The Sounding Board. To show that my course worked, I created The Sounding Board from scratch. I also documented my steps and results. Using all the lessons from my course, it took me roughly 3 weeks to create TSB from idea to launch. After the launch, TSB was generating $1,220 a month. Case studies like these will help your students to connect all the dots. 3. Test The Outline Okay, so you’ve finished the outline. You included all your ideas for exercises, tools, and potentially a case study. Do you immediately start creating your course? I’ve done that in the past and it was a huge mistake. You always run into certain issues you didn’t consider. The last thing you want is to reshoot your whole course after getting feedback from students. So get feedback on your course structure. Do this very early on, before you have any material. You can just get people’s feedback on whether your course is covering all challenges about the topic you’re covering. Ask anyone in your network who might be a good fit (avoid asking people who have no clue about what you’re teaching). You can also reach out to an online community of like-minded people who exchange business ideas regularly. It saves time and effort when you revise your course outline based on peoples’ feedback, before shooting your videos or making your module material. Who Should You Ask? I usually reach out to my readers and people in my network to schedule a video call. You can also ask acquaintances who fit your target audience. Then I ask them questions like: What’s your biggest challenge (regarding the course topic)? What things/actions/products have you tried to overcome that challenge in the past? What worked well? What didn’t work well? Have you bought an online course about this topic before? What do you think of my course structure? Are you missing anything? Would you add anything? Here’s something important to remember: Ask more about what they’ve done in the past, compared to what they think they’ll do. Actions speak much louder than words. Don’t go asking things like, “Do you think you’ll buy something like this?” It’s easy to be an imaginary buyer. “Sure, I’d buy that!” Well, when it’s crunch time, not everyone pulls out their card. Once you’ve tweaked your course outline, it’s time to start creating. But give this step enough time. I took about a month to tweak the outline for digitalbusiness.school. I listened to everyone I talked to and used that input to create something I thought would be the perfect outline. After that, it’s time to record your lessons. 4. Start Creating Your Online Course Content Here’s something I learned after making 6 profitable online courses: No matter how good you think your course is, there will STILL be things you’ve missed or need to improve, that only testers can point out. So you’re not done with testing yet! If you don’t address these concerns during course production, you’ll risk getting more refunds later. You want to create the best course you possibly can. Which leads us to the first point. Record One Module First I know it’s tempting to start creating, but don’t record the whole course at once. That’s a mistake I made with my first online course. I recorded the full course before asking for feedback. Turns out, I was missing exercises throughout the course. It was a lot of content, with no way for students to practice what they learned. So, I had to re-record all the videos to include exercises. Testers can tell you, in one module, what improvements your course needs. It could be your course content or your delivery. Just be open to feedback and try to improve. Have A High Production Value Look, you don’t have to hire a videographer to do this. In today’s age, you can produce your own high quality videos. Here are some guidelines that will help. Video I use a Canon 80D for recording video because it’s affordable and has great autofocus. There’s a 90D now as well. And there probably will be a newer version as well. I’m still sticking with 1080p videos for online courses. Especially if this is your first online course. These are my camera settings: 30 frames per second 50 shutter speed (for Europe, and 60 for USA, this depends on lighting frequencies and flickering) Automatic ISO Lowest possible Aperture setting if you want to blur the background Aperture of higher than 4 if you want the whole shot to be in focus But honestly, there’s no need to be super fussy about your camera. Keep it simple. Even an iPhone would do. Sound is more important. Sound Bad quality audio makes videos tough to consume. So make sure there’s no background noise, distracting sounds, and echoes in your videos. I recommend getting a simple lavalier microphone like Rode SmartLav. That’s the base level. Anything below that quality is not acceptable. Never use the on-board microphone of cameras. If you want to upgrade your mic, I recommend the Rode Link Filmmaker Kit. That’s the mic I currently use. Lighting I recommend investing in some decent studio lighting equipment as well. I’ve been using two softboxes for years now. I bought them once and they still work fine. But I would get LED lights now, they’re a bit more expensive but more practical. You can also use a ring light to keep things even simpler. Video Editing I use Final Cut Pro X on Mac for video editing, which I mostly do myself. Editing an online course is very simple. You only cut out the sections you’ve messed up. That’s all. If you have the time, just do it yourself. Any software will do. Online Course Platform I’ll cover this topic more in-depth later. But at this stage, you already want to pick an online course platform so you can upload your videos to it. That way you can easily share it with people who will test it for you. I use Kajabi for all my courses and the platform works very well. As for which course platform would suit your business and style best, you can read my Marketplace Vs Own Site pros and cons analysis later in the article. When You’re Done With Testing, Record The Rest I recommend keeping your videos relatively short and to the point. I would avoid one or two hour lessons. If it’s a simple topic, under 15 minutes is fine. Shorter videos also force you to be briefer and more effective with your points. Shooting videos can be draining, so take breaks in between. You want to look fresh and engaged in every lesson! When you’re done recording, it doesn’t make sense to ask for critical feedback. While feedback is here to help you, it’s the last thing you want to think about when you’re done. At this point, you’ve already done all the testing and you’ve made the best online course you could. 5. Design A Logo and Landing Page When you’ve actually created the course, it’s time to offer it online. When it comes to design, again, I like to keep things simple, but also consistent. Let’s start with the logo. If you’re selling online courses, you’re probably doing it on your own name. So I recommend one logo for your personal brand and one for your online course. But make sure they are the same style. Here’s an example of my course about digital business. It fits with the logo of my personal brand. I always want to keep things clean and if possible, I add an artistic touch to it — something I draw. It‘s all about the feeling that the logo gives you. This is very unpractical advice, I know. But when I was creating the digitalbusiness.school logo, I tried a lot of colors. I initially went with a bright blue color, but it didn’t fit with my overall design. I hardly ever use bight colors. So I went with this warmer blue tint. If you have an existing brand logo, then you can create your course logo based on it. If you’re just starting, or you want to re-brand, then the main question is, “What does [Your Brand] stand for?” If you’ve picked your topic right (see the first step in this article), and can identify what your course does and who it’s for, then branding becomes easier. Also, you don’t need to be a designer to create professional-looking logos. You can use Canva and other free platforms. You can also hire artists from Fiverr or Upwork. Create A Landing Page That Converts I must admit, a logo is nice. But it’s not the most important thing when it comes to selling your course. The landing page is more important. The landing page is where you’ll convince site visitors to buy your course, so it’s crucial to get this right. If you’re unsure how to start, you can use paid tools like LeadPages to make things easier. They offer a free trial you can use. To get some ideas and examples, you can also check out my landing pages. Just choose one of the courses. Here are the essential elements of a sales page that convert: Your logo A headline that captures the BIG idea An appealing image/video Body copy This section is critical. If visitors don’t like what they’re seeing, they’ll bounce. Here’s an example of the header section of digitalbusiness.school that performed well: Here’s what else you want to include on your landing page: Testimonials Client logos What the prospect gets (your offer) Guarantee (i.e. 30-day Money Back Guarantee, etc.) FAQs Contact Details/Chat Buy now section Your landing page can either be created within your website’s builder (like Kajabi, WordPress, etc.) or with your Marketplace platform. Which leads us to the next point. 6. Use The Right Online Course Platform Once your course videos are ready, you have two options to host your online course: Marketplaces like Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, etc. Your Own Site Here’s a short table to help you decide the best online course platforms. Marketplaces (Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, etc.)

https://dariusforoux.medium.com/definitive-guide-to-creating-profitable-online-courses-1a68786caaa3

['Darius Foroux']

2020-12-10 15:53:40.973000+00:00

['Business', 'Money', 'Marketing', 'Education', 'Startup']

Title Definitive Guide Creating Profitable Online CoursesContent 1 Pick Topic Worth Paying don’t want course that’s “nice have” there’s real demand knowledge skill people would willing pay good money Nowadays there’s course almost everything cooking dancing even playing popular video game create course anything would stick topic people used paying many people pay course give inspiration million free YouTube video Here’s simple rule thumb Don’t create something people easily get free Topics Consider I’ve seen course creating morning ritual Maybe people buy it’s something would ever pay learn morning ritual simple 10minute YouTube video actually created one doesn’t mean can’t part course bigger topic video part course Procrastinate Zero 2 Another example notetaking wouldn’t create course Instead could part course improving focus Ask planning topic “Would willing pay this” importantly spent money course that’s similar Compare notetaking coding cryptocurrencies YouTube video free blog topic it’s pretty much impossible learn skill short video article best course topic require expertise time learn narrow list course focus next step apply marketing actually create course want build marketing creation process Specify Course’s Focus Marketing creating awareness product service It’s mostly getting front right audience Try think ahead someone come website know immediately course Let’s say you’re fitness coach teach functional strength training focus losing weight bodybuilding Etc focus Athletes training competition Moms want get shape pregnancy Seniors want regulate breathing depends focus focus make marketing strategy lot easier you’ll need answer two question 1 course target student use course life knowledge help student get trickier appears member online community recently mentioned wanted create course blockchain technology great presentation idea missing aspect crystalclear answer question “Why would want learn specifically knowledge you’re teaching actionable benefit get course” It’s knowledge you’re teaching It’s get applying knowledge It’s benefit make course worth price don’t immediately see course’s direct benefit awareness might find useful future it’s difficult convinced Don’t continue creating course unless clear compelling answer question Here’s example fitness YouTuber Mike Thurston course primarily focused building muscle mass promise look good 2 course One best book marketing I’ve read 22 Immutable Laws Marketing Al Ries Jack Trout highly recommend reading book want offer type product service — especially online course One law “Focus” come You’re better creating product specific audience avoid creating product that’s everyone someone asks “Who course for” never say something like “It’s every entrepreneur” Replace entrepreneur target audience Here’s something could make easier Target people currently previous version People struggling thing actually Let’s say want create course Mindfulness Maybe corporate lawyer worked 12 hour day could create course people lifestyle right Show overcame challenge faced past help picking topic course potential sell you’ve done it’s time create outline course 2 Create Online Course Outline course main goal Maybe it’s help people become confident stop procrastinating create iOS apps course framework achieve main goal course outline help organize thought planning It’s bird’s eye view create outline Break Course Modules Lessons give example I’ll using one latest course digitalbusinessschool main goal course teach student create sustainable profitable online business That’s Who’s Entrepreneurs currently struggling go fulltime make good living good idea thing listed step prospective student needed complete step module broke module specific lesson many module need depends course you’re teaching course 6 module represent 6 major step entrepreneur need create profitable online business writing course 3 module example every module lesson compared digitalbusinessschool wouldn’t get hung topic create structure course always think student — course want break module lesson Here’s looked like module 1 digitalbusinessschool It’s Word Google doc stage note also wrote twotothreeline description lesson help get clear every lesson MODULE 1 Build Brand — practical handson approach creating effective iconic personal brand Develop competitive edge — Stand market pick right audience — Stand market pick right audience Test business idea — Determine idea’s business potential even without existing audience — Determine idea’s business potential even without existing audience Craft unique brand — project instant authority create compelling story make people buy — project instant authority create compelling story make people buy Design brand identity like pro — Concepts remember tool use professionally appealing brand even without designer background — Concepts remember tool use professionally appealing brand even without designer background Build worldclass website — best website building platform use among fit business Also includes checklist important website element Here’s final version look like We’ll get platform use online course later want focus creating best structure online course basically broke whole course started creating material Here’s rest structure digitalbusinessschool MODULE 2 Position ProductsServices — etc MODULE 3 Build Email List — etc MODULE 4 Grow Audience Without Ads — etc MODULE 5 Launch Product — etc MODULE 6 Increase Profits Time — etc Add Tools Exercise Case Studies always like include practical exercise every lesson stress idea “practical” Remember course good student instructor main goal ensure student absorb lesson implement easily Even built course well student fail absorb practice there’s point exercise tool case study come make learning indepth practical Need Exercises Students immediately practice learned Learning better practiced digitalbusinessschool made sure every lesson “action” student end Notice action applied student currently building online business still planning stage depends topic quickly conveniently help student apply knowledge real world Need Tools kind tool need apply skill you’re teaching instance productivity course share several apps tool use writing course share writing tool apps you’re teaching website creation beginner direct student free paid website online course builder professionallooking design digitalbusinessschool showed Kajabi host online course ConvertKit manages emaillist Ubersuggest analysis competition SEO many also recommend helpful book medium use affiliate link additional income recommend using free tool much possible provide paid tool they’re truly best platform purpose don’t want appear like you’re trying sell every turn Need Case Study include reallife example course highly recommend use social proof testimonial mean show credibility authority best way prove course work case study There’s better proof fitness coach use “before” “after” photo people they’ve coached piano instructor feature video students’ successful recital digitalbusinessschool used case study around community created called Sounding Board show course worked created Sounding Board scratch also documented step result Using lesson course took roughly 3 week create TSB idea launch launch TSB generating 1220 month Case study like help student connect dot 3 Test Outline Okay you’ve finished outline included idea exercise tool potentially case study immediately start creating course I’ve done past huge mistake always run certain issue didn’t consider last thing want reshoot whole course getting feedback student get feedback course structure early material get people’s feedback whether course covering challenge topic you’re covering Ask anyone network might good fit avoid asking people clue you’re teaching also reach online community likeminded people exchange business idea regularly save time effort revise course outline based peoples’ feedback shooting video making module material Ask usually reach reader people network schedule video call also ask acquaintance fit target audience ask question like What’s biggest challenge regarding course topic thingsactionsproducts tried overcome challenge past worked well didn’t work well bought online course topic think course structure missing anything Would add anything Here’s something important remember Ask they’ve done past compared think they’ll Actions speak much louder word Don’t go asking thing like “Do think you’ll buy something like this” It’s easy imaginary buyer “Sure I’d buy that” Well it’s crunch time everyone pull card you’ve tweaked course outline it’s time start creating give step enough time took month tweak outline digitalbusinessschool listened everyone talked used input create something thought would perfect outline it’s time record lesson 4 Start Creating Online Course Content Here’s something learned making 6 profitable online course matter good think course STILL thing you’ve missed need improve tester point you’re done testing yet don’t address concern course production you’ll risk getting refund later want create best course possibly lead u first point Record One Module First know it’s tempting start creating don’t record whole course That’s mistake made first online course recorded full course asking feedback Turns missing exercise throughout course lot content way student practice learned rerecord video include exercise Testers tell one module improvement course need could course content delivery open feedback try improve High Production Value Look don’t hire videographer today’s age produce high quality video guideline help Video use Canon 80D recording video it’s affordable great autofocus There’s 90D well probably newer version well I’m still sticking 1080p video online course Especially first online course camera setting 30 frame per second 50 shutter speed Europe 60 USA depends lighting frequency flickering Automatic ISO Lowest possible Aperture setting want blur background Aperture higher 4 want whole shot focus honestly there’s need super fussy camera Keep simple Even iPhone would Sound important Sound Bad quality audio make video tough consume make sure there’s background noise distracting sound echo video recommend getting simple lavalier microphone like Rode SmartLav That’s base level Anything quality acceptable Never use onboard microphone camera want upgrade mic recommend Rode Link Filmmaker Kit That’s mic currently use Lighting recommend investing decent studio lighting equipment well I’ve using two softboxes year bought still work fine would get LED light they’re bit expensive practical also use ring light keep thing even simpler Video Editing use Final Cut Pro X Mac video editing mostly Editing online course simple cut section you’ve messed That’s time software Online Course Platform I’ll cover topic indepth later stage already want pick online course platform upload video way easily share people test use Kajabi course platform work well course platform would suit business style best read Marketplace Vs Site pro con analysis later article You’re Done Testing Record Rest recommend keeping video relatively short point would avoid one two hour lesson it’s simple topic 15 minute fine Shorter video also force briefer effective point Shooting video draining take break want look fresh engaged every lesson you’re done recording doesn’t make sense ask critical feedback feedback help it’s last thing want think you’re done point you’ve already done testing you’ve made best online course could 5 Design Logo Landing Page you’ve actually created course it’s time offer online come design like keep thing simple also consistent Let’s start logo you’re selling online course you’re probably name recommend one logo personal brand one online course make sure style Here’s example course digital business fit logo personal brand always want keep thing clean possible add artistic touch — something draw It‘s feeling logo give unpractical advice know creating digitalbusinessschool logo tried lot color initially went bright blue color didn’t fit overall design hardly ever use bight color went warmer blue tint existing brand logo create course logo based you’re starting want rebrand main question “What Brand stand for” you’ve picked topic right see first step article identify course it’s branding becomes easier Also don’t need designer create professionallooking logo use Canva free platform also hire artist Fiverr Upwork Create Landing Page Converts must admit logo nice it’s important thing come selling course landing page important landing page you’ll convince site visitor buy course it’s crucial get right you’re unsure start use paid tool like LeadPages make thing easier offer free trial use get idea example also check landing page choose one course essential element sale page convert logo headline capture BIG idea appealing imagevideo Body copy section critical visitor don’t like they’re seeing they’ll bounce Here’s example header section digitalbusinessschool performed well Here’s else want include landing page Testimonials Client logo prospect get offer Guarantee ie 30day Money Back Guarantee etc FAQs Contact DetailsChat Buy section landing page either created within website’s builder like Kajabi WordPress etc Marketplace platform lead u next point 6 Use Right Online Course Platform course video ready two option host online course Marketplaces like Udemy Skillshare Coursera etc Site Here’s short table help decide best online course platform Marketplaces Udemy Skillshare Coursera etcTags Business Money Marketing Education Startup

This Mental Exercise Can Actually Make You Smarter

Examples — How to Think From First Principles Imagine your problem is to make an omelette. Using first-principles, you can break down your problem to its basic facts. Fact #1: I need eggs. Fact #2: I need a pan. Fact #3: I need oil. Fact #4: I need a heat source Just by listing the facts, you’re already halfway through solving your problem. Even if you don’t know how to cook, you made a serious step in the right direction. Now consider a more complicated challenge to illustrate the power of first-principles: lowering battery production cost. To make electric cars affordable, Elon Musk had to find ways to lower the cost of making batteries; the most expensive part of an electric vehicle. He reflects on this problem in an interview, wonderfully showing how to solve the issue using first-principles. Please pay close attention to what he says. First-principles is a physics way of looking at the world. You boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, "What are we sure is true?" and then reason up from there. Somebody can say "Battery packs are really expensive and that's just the way they will always be. Historically, it has cost $600 per kilowatt-hour, and so it’s not going to be much better than that in the future." With first principles, you block the noise and look for the absolute facts about this problem. Fact #1: A battery is made up of cobalt, nickel, aluminium, carbon, and some polymers for separation. Fact #2: If we buy every material on the London Metal Exchange, it’s going to cost us $80 per kilowatt-hour more or less. Now you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell. As a result you can have batteries that are much cheaper than anyone realises. Notice how Elon starts by boiling down the problem to its bare facts — principles first. Doing so, he’s immediately able to pinpoint an area in which his team can adjust to make cheaper batteries. That’s it. That’s how first-principles can solve tiny to huge problems: from prepping a dish to scaling a multibillion-dollar company. I’ll cover more real-world examples — from areas that might interest you — So you can clearly understand how to use this exercise in your life.

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/this-mental-exercise-can-actually-make-you-smarter-8997f2d7f5f1

['Younes Henni']

2020-12-29 20:32:40.080000+00:00

['Education', 'Learning', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Self Improvement']

Title Mental Exercise Actually Make SmarterContent Examples — Think First Principles Imagine problem make omelette Using firstprinciples break problem basic fact Fact 1 need egg Fact 2 need pan Fact 3 need oil Fact 4 need heat source listing fact you’re already halfway solving problem Even don’t know cook made serious step right direction consider complicated challenge illustrate power firstprinciples lowering battery production cost make electric car affordable Elon Musk find way lower cost making battery expensive part electric vehicle reflects problem interview wonderfully showing solve issue using firstprinciples Please pay close attention say Firstprinciples physic way looking world boil thing fundamental truth say sure true reason Somebody say Battery pack really expensive thats way always Historically cost 600 per kilowatthour it’s going much better future first principle block noise look absolute fact problem Fact 1 battery made cobalt nickel aluminium carbon polymer separation Fact 2 buy every material London Metal Exchange it’s going cost u 80 per kilowatthour le need think clever way take material combine shape battery cell result battery much cheaper anyone realises Notice Elon start boiling problem bare fact — principle first he’s immediately able pinpoint area team adjust make cheaper battery That’s That’s firstprinciples solve tiny huge problem prepping dish scaling multibilliondollar company I’ll cover realworld example — area might interest — clearly understand use exercise lifeTags Education Learning Productivity Creativity Self Improvement

Infrastructure as Code only works as Code…

The popular Serverless framework allows you to use YAML or JSON to describe and version your infrastructure configuration. The serverless.yml or serverless.json file stored at the project root is used by default to provision any project using this framework. This is no revolution in the IaC frameworks world, where most of them rely on declarative file syntaxes to describe infrastructure. However, a lesser known and recently introduced feature allows you to use a serverless.js or serverless.ts file as the default configuration file. In this article, I’ll describe the advantages of using such a format to build serverless applications faster and with a better developer experience. TL;DR You can use serverless.ts service file in the Serverless framework. You can benefit from: Types : you can use service file definition types to get quick feedback on available properties for each block. However, the framework is not written in TypeScript, and so the definitions can sometimes be outdated. Regular community maintenance is required. : you can use service file definition types to get quick feedback on available properties for each block. However, the framework is not written in TypeScript, and so the definitions can sometimes be outdated. Regular community maintenance is required. Imports : JavaScript file imports allow you to split the definition file into multiple files. This means you can have fine-grained function block definitions right next to your handler’s codebase. : JavaScript file imports allow you to split the definition file into multiple files. This means you can have fine-grained function block definitions right next to your handler’s codebase. References: you can write custom-made functions to build AWS intrinsic syntax and navigate easily through infrastructure definitions, dependency by dependency, using the native click and follow features of your IDE. TYPING The TypeScript and Serverless communities joined forces to lay the groundwork for Serverless framework types, which allow direct feedback when writing a Serverless service file. If you want to give it a try, just run serverless create --template aws-nodejs-typescript in a new directory (and make sure you’re using at least version 1.75 of Serverless framework to benefit from serverless.ts service file definition). The new Serverless type encloses all available configuration keys for the framework — which means you don’t need to go through the full serverless.yml configuration example to get the right syntax. VSCode type suggestion for Serverless service file As the framework evolves, all the definitions are maintained by the community within the DefinitelyTyped repository. Unlike the recently-added JSON schema validation, which was made directly within the framework source code, the definitions require constant improvement to follow the evolution of the service file definitions. Please report any issues you encounter, to make sure this definition stays up to date. IMPORTS JSON and YAML file formats cannot be split into multiple files. In order to avoid large service definition files when using those formats, Serverless came up with a dedicated variable resolver, allowing the use of the ${file(filepath)} function to import content from other files. This can be leverage for example for function definition. An all-in-one serverless.yml file containing the entire service definition: can be split in multiple files: The problem with this approach is that you rely on the string definition of the other files to be accurate. This can result in bugs when a file path contains a typo, or when the source file is moved. It also impacts developer experience, because those links cannot be resolved by your IDE of preference. Switching to JavaScript and TypeScript removes this issue. Dependent files are imported, and their links are usually dynamically updated whenever you change your project directory structure, thanks to your IDE. Any developer can click and follow referenced files to dive into specific service configuration blocks. Using the power of Javascript imports, we can now keep function definition much closer to function handler code for complex Serverless applications : As you see above, both function configuration and handler are within the same file. It considerably speeds up development, as no navigation is required between files to develop an end-to-end feature. Both execution context and instructions are located within the same easy-to-access file. REFERENCES You often need to inject specific attributes of provisioned infrastructure into other pieces of infrastructure within your application. For example, your Lambda handler’s code may rely on the DynamoDB table name to do the required feature. The usual way of doing this is to use AWS native intrinsic functions throughout your serverless.ts configuration file. You inject AWS CloudFormation native syntax blocks into your service file’s resources property, and those services are provisioned together with your functions. You can then use the Ref intrinsic function to inject the generated DynamoDB table as one of your lambda’s environment variables in create.ts . The problem with this syntax is the use of Ref with a string representing the provisioned DynamoDB table. There is no way for a developer going through the create function to easily trace back which resource is referenced in the handler’s environment. It is also quite easy to accidentally change this value without noticing its impact. You will not get any feedback saying you referenced a non-existing resource until you actually deploy to AWS. To make it more developer friendly, you can write a small service handling the AWS intrinsic function writing for you. This service actually use both your whole resources value as well as the AWS CloudFormation single resource itself, to generate the correct output Ref syntax: You can then use a much more natural syntax in your function configuration to let everyone know which definition you’re actually using the name of. It is also much easier to know which functions actually depends on the specified AWS resource, since your IDE can actively tell you all usage of the variable representing the MyTable resource. CONCLUSION Other IaC frameworks, such as the AWS CDK, have started using configuration syntax which allows a more functional definition of infrastructure. The use of JavaScript and TypeScript objects to power definitions of the Serverless framework opens up a new world of possibilities — with fewer text-defined options, fewer errors, and making it easier for developers to know the extent of usage of a specific infrastructure block.

https://medium.com/serverless-transformation/infrastructure-as-code-only-works-as-code-a8f0072b29cf

['Frédéric Barthelet']

2020-10-15 11:50:57.594000+00:00

['Infrastructure As Code', 'Serverless', 'AWS', 'Typescript', 'Serverless Architecture']

Title Infrastructure Code work Code…Content popular Serverless framework allows use YAML JSON describe version infrastructure configuration serverlessyml serverlessjson file stored project root used default provision project using framework revolution IaC framework world rely declarative file syntax describe infrastructure However lesser known recently introduced feature allows use serverlessjs serverlessts file default configuration file article I’ll describe advantage using format build serverless application faster better developer experience TLDR use serverlessts service file Serverless framework benefit Types use service file definition type get quick feedback available property block However framework written TypeScript definition sometimes outdated Regular community maintenance required use service file definition type get quick feedback available property block However framework written TypeScript definition sometimes outdated Regular community maintenance required Imports JavaScript file import allow split definition file multiple file mean finegrained function block definition right next handler’s codebase JavaScript file import allow split definition file multiple file mean finegrained function block definition right next handler’s codebase References write custommade function build AWS intrinsic syntax navigate easily infrastructure definition dependency dependency using native click follow feature IDE TYPING TypeScript Serverless community joined force lay groundwork Serverless framework type allow direct feedback writing Serverless service file want give try run serverless create template awsnodejstypescript new directory make sure you’re using least version 175 Serverless framework benefit serverlessts service file definition new Serverless type encloses available configuration key framework — mean don’t need go full serverlessyml configuration example get right syntax VSCode type suggestion Serverless service file framework evolves definition maintained community within DefinitelyTyped repository Unlike recentlyadded JSON schema validation made directly within framework source code definition require constant improvement follow evolution service file definition Please report issue encounter make sure definition stay date IMPORTS JSON YAML file format cannot split multiple file order avoid large service definition file using format Serverless came dedicated variable resolver allowing use filefilepath function import content file leverage example function definition allinone serverlessyml file containing entire service definition split multiple file problem approach rely string definition file accurate result bug file path contains typo source file moved also impact developer experience link cannot resolved IDE preference Switching JavaScript TypeScript remove issue Dependent file imported link usually dynamically updated whenever change project directory structure thanks IDE developer click follow referenced file dive specific service configuration block Using power Javascript import keep function definition much closer function handler code complex Serverless application see function configuration handler within file considerably speed development navigation required file develop endtoend feature execution context instruction located within easytoaccess file REFERENCES often need inject specific attribute provisioned infrastructure piece infrastructure within application example Lambda handler’s code may rely DynamoDB table name required feature usual way use AWS native intrinsic function throughout serverlessts configuration file inject AWS CloudFormation native syntax block service file’s resource property service provisioned together function use Ref intrinsic function inject generated DynamoDB table one lambda’s environment variable createts problem syntax use Ref string representing provisioned DynamoDB table way developer going create function easily trace back resource referenced handler’s environment also quite easy accidentally change value without noticing impact get feedback saying referenced nonexisting resource actually deploy AWS make developer friendly write small service handling AWS intrinsic function writing service actually use whole resource value well AWS CloudFormation single resource generate correct output Ref syntax use much natural syntax function configuration let everyone know definition you’re actually using name also much easier know function actually depends specified AWS resource since IDE actively tell usage variable representing MyTable resource CONCLUSION IaC framework AWS CDK started using configuration syntax allows functional definition infrastructure use JavaScript TypeScript object power definition Serverless framework open new world possibility — fewer textdefined option fewer error making easier developer know extent usage specific infrastructure blockTags Infrastructure Code Serverless AWS Typescript Serverless Architecture

How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” — Unknown. I’m an expert on how technology hijacks our psychological vulnerabilities. That’s why I spent the last three years as a Design Ethicist at Google caring about how to design things in a way that defends a billion people’s minds from getting hijacked. When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want to show you where it might do the opposite. Where does technology exploit our minds’ weaknesses? I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano. That’s me performing sleight of hand magic at my mother’s birthday party And this is exactly what product designers do to your mind. They play your psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in the race to grab your attention. I want to show you how they do it. Hijack #1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices Western Culture is built around ideals of individual choice and freedom. Millions of us fiercely defend our right to make “free” choices, while we ignore how those choices are manipulated upstream by menus we didn’t choose in the first place. This is exactly what magicians do. They give people the illusion of free choice while architecting the menu so that they win, no matter what you choose. I can’t emphasize enough how deep this insight is. When people are given a menu of choices, they rarely ask: “what’s not on the menu?” “why am I being given these options and not others?” “do I know the menu provider’s goals?” “is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?” (e.g. an overwhelmingly array of toothpastes) How empowering is this menu of choices for the need, “I ran out of toothpaste”? For example, imagine you’re out with friends on a Tuesday night and want to keep the conversation going. You open Yelp to find nearby recommendations and see a list of bars. The group turns into a huddle of faces staring down at their phones comparing bars. They scrutinize the photos of each, comparing cocktail drinks. Is this menu still relevant to the original desire of the group? It’s not that bars aren’t a good choice, it’s that Yelp substituted the group’s original question (“where can we go to keep talking?”) with a different question (“what’s a bar with good photos of cocktails?”) all by shaping the menu. Moreover, the group falls for the illusion that Yelp’s menu represents a complete set of choices for where to go. While looking down at their phones, they don’t see the park across the street with a band playing live music. They miss the pop-up gallery on the other side of the street serving crepes and coffee. Neither of those show up on Yelp’s menu. Yelp subtly reframes the group’s need “where can we go to keep talking?” in terms of photos of cocktails served. The more choices technology gives us in nearly every domain of our lives (information, events, places to go, friends, dating, jobs) — the more we assume that our phone is always the most empowering and useful menu to pick from. Is it? The “most empowering” menu is different than the menu that has the most choices. But when we blindly surrender to the menus we’re given, it’s easy to lose track of the difference: “Who’s free tonight to hang out?” becomes a menu of most recent people who texted us (who we could ping). “What’s happening in the world?” becomes a menu of news feed stories. “Who’s single to go on a date?” becomes a menu of faces to swipe on Tinder (instead of local events with friends, or urban adventures nearby). “I have to respond to this email.” becomes a menu of keys to type a response (instead of empowering ways to communicate with a person). All user interfaces are menus. What if your email client gave you empowering choices of ways to respond, instead of “what message do you want to type back?” (Design by Tristan Harris) When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications — it frames the experience of “waking up in the morning” around a menu of “all the things I’ve missed since yesterday.” (for more examples, see Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design talk) A list of notifications when we wake up in the morning — how empowering is this menu of choices when we wake up? Does it reflect what we care about? (from Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design Talk) By shaping the menus we pick from, technology hijacks the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs. Hijack #2: Put a Slot Machine In a Billion Pockets If you’re an app, how do you keep people hooked? Turn yourself into a slot machine. The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Why do we do this? Are we making 150 conscious choices? How often do you check your email per day? One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines: intermittent variable rewards. If you want to maximize addictiveness, all tech designers need to do is link a user’s action (like pulling a lever) with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable. Does this effect really work on people? Yes. Slot machines make more money in the United States than baseball, movies, and theme parks combined. Relative to other kinds of gambling, people get ‘problematically involved’ with slot machines 3–4x faster according to NYU professor Natasha Dow Schull, author of Addiction by Design. Image courtesy of Jopwell But here’s the unfortunate truth — several billion people have a slot machine their pocket: When we pull our phone out of our pocket, we’re playing a slot machine to see what notifications we got. When we pull to refresh our email, we’re playing a slot machine to see what new email we got. When we swipe down our finger to scroll the Instagram feed, we’re playing a slot machine to see what photo comes next. When we swipe faces left/right on dating apps like Tinder, we’re playing a slot machine to see if we got a match. When we tap the # of red notifications, we’re playing a slot machine to what’s underneath. Apps and websites sprinkle intermittent variable rewards all over their products because it’s good for business. But in other cases, slot machines emerge by accident. For example, there is no malicious corporation behind all of email who consciously chose to make it a slot machine. No one profits when millions check their email and nothing’s there. Neither did Apple and Google’s designers want phones to work like slot machines. It emerged by accident. But now companies like Apple and Google have a responsibility to reduce these effects by converting intermittent variable rewards into less addictive, more predictable ones with better design. For example, they could empower people to set predictable times during the day or week for when they want to check “slot machine” apps, and correspondingly adjust when new messages are delivered to align with those times. Hijack #3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI) Another way apps and websites hijack people’s minds is by inducing a “1% chance you could be missing something important.” If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because (aha, I win) you might miss something important: This keeps us subscribed to newsletters even after they haven’t delivered recent benefits (“what if I miss a future announcement?”) This keeps us “friended” to people with whom we haven’t spoke in ages (“what if I miss something important from them?”) This keeps us swiping faces on dating apps, even when we haven’t even met up with anyone in a while (“what if I miss that one hot match who likes me?”) This keeps us using social media (“what if I miss that important news story or fall behind what my friends are talking about?”) But if we zoom into that fear, we’ll discover that it’s unbounded: we’ll always miss something important at any point when we stop using something. There are magic moments on Facebook we’ll miss by not using it for the 6th hour (e.g. an old friend who’s visiting town right now). There are magic moments we’ll miss on Tinder (e.g. our dream romantic partner) by not swiping our 700th match. There are emergency phone calls we’ll miss if we’re not connected 24/7. But living moment to moment with the fear of missing something isn’t how we’re built to live. And it’s amazing how quickly, once we let go of that fear, we wake up from the illusion. When we unplug for more than a day, unsubscribe from those notifications, or go to Camp Grounded — the concerns we thought we’d have don’t actually happen. We don’t miss what we don’t see. The thought, “what if I miss something important?” is generated in advance of unplugging, unsubscribing, or turning off — not after. Imagine if tech companies recognized that, and helped us proactively tune our relationships with friends and businesses in terms of what we define as “time well spent” for our lives, instead of in terms of what we might miss. Hijack #4: Social Approval Easily one of the most persuasive things a human being can receive. We’re all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies. When I get tagged by my friend Marc, I imagine him making a conscious choice to tag me. But I don’t see how a company like Facebook orchestrated his doing that in the first place. Facebook, Instagram or SnapChat can manipulate how often people get tagged in photos by automatically suggesting all the faces people should tag (e.g. by showing a box with a 1-click confirmation, “Tag Tristan in this photo?”). So when Marc tags me, he’s actually responding to Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. But through design choices like this, Facebook controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their social approval on the line. Facebook uses automatic suggestions like this to get people to tag more people, creating more social externalities and interruptions. The same happens when we change our main profile photo — Facebook knows that’s a moment when we’re vulnerable to social approval: “what do my friends think of my new pic?” Facebook can rank this higher in the news feed, so it sticks around for longer and more friends will like or comment on it. Each time they like or comment on it, we’ll get pulled right back. Everyone innately responds to social approval, but some demographics (teenagers) are more vulnerable to it than others. That’s why it’s so important to recognize how powerful designers are when they exploit this vulnerability. Hijack #5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat) You do me a favor — I owe you one next time. You say, “thank you”— I have to say “you’re welcome.” You send me an email— it’s rude not to get back to you. You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. (especially for teenagers) We are vulnerable to needing to reciprocate others’ gestures. But as with Social Approval, tech companies now manipulate how often we experience it. In some cases, it’s by accident. Email, texting and messaging apps are social reciprocity factories. But in other cases, companies exploit this vulnerability on purpose. LinkedIn is the most obvious offender. LinkedIn wants as many people creating social obligations for each other as possible, because each time they reciprocate (by accepting a connection, responding to a message, or endorsing someone back for a skill) they have to come back to linkedin.com where they can get people to spend more time. Like Facebook, LinkedIn exploits an asymmetry in perception. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality, they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested contacts. In other words, LinkedIn turns your unconscious impulses (to “add” a person) into new social obligations that millions of people feel obligated to repay. All while they profit from the time people spend doing it. Imagine millions of people getting interrupted like this throughout their day, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, reciprocating each other — all designed by companies who profit from it. Welcome to social media. After accepting an endorsement, LinkedIn takes advantage of your bias to reciprocate by offering *four* additional people for you to endorse in return. Imagine if technology companies had a responsibility to minimize social reciprocity. Or if there was an independent organization that represented the public’s interests — an industry consortium or an FDA for tech — that monitored when technology companies abused these biases? Hijack #6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay YouTube autoplays the next video after a countdown Another way to hijack people is to keep them consuming things, even when they aren’t hungry anymore. How? Easy. Take an experience that was bounded and finite, and turn it into a bottomless flow that keeps going. Cornell professor Brian Wansink demonstrated this in his study showing you can trick people into keep eating soup by giving them a bottomless bowl that automatically refills as they eat. With bottomless bowls, people eat 73% more calories than those with normal bowls and underestimate how many calories they ate by 140 calories. Tech companies exploit the same principle. News feeds are purposely designed to auto-refill with reasons to keep you scrolling, and purposely eliminate any reason for you to pause, reconsider or leave. It’s also why video and social media sites like Netflix, YouTube or Facebook autoplay the next video after a countdown instead of waiting for you to make a conscious choice (in case you won’t). A huge portion of traffic on these websites is driven by autoplaying the next thing. Facebook autoplays the next video after a countdown Tech companies often claim that “we’re just making it easier for users to see the video they want to watch” when they are actually serving their business interests. And you can’t blame them, because increasing “time spent” is the currency they compete for. Instead, imagine if technology companies empowered you to consciously bound your experience to align with what would be “time well spent” for you. Not just bounding the quantity of time you spend, but the qualities of what would be “time well spent.” Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery Companies know that messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously (like email or any deferred inbox). Given the choice, Facebook Messenger (or WhatsApp, WeChat or SnapChat for that matter) would prefer to design their messaging system to interrupt recipients immediately (and show a chat box) instead of helping users respect each other’s attention. In other words, interruption is good for business. It’s also in their interest to heighten the feeling of urgency and social reciprocity. For example, Facebook automatically tells the sender when you “saw” their message, instead of letting you avoid disclosing whether you read it (“now that you know I’ve seen the message, I feel even more obligated to respond.”) By contrast, Apple more respectfully lets users toggle “Read Receipts” on or off. The problem is, maximizing interruptions in the name of business creates a tragedy of the commons, ruining global attention spans and causing billions of unnecessary interruptions each day. This is a huge problem we need to fix with shared design standards (potentially, as part of Time Well Spent). Hijack #8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons Another way apps hijack you is by taking your reasons for visiting the app (to perform a task) and make them inseparable from the app’s business reasons (maximizing how much we consume once we’re there). For example, in the physical world of grocery stores, the #1 and #2 most popular reasons to visit are pharmacy refills and buying milk. But grocery stores want to maximize how much people buy, so they put the pharmacy and the milk at the back of the store. In other words, they make the thing customers want (milk, pharmacy) inseparable from what the business wants. If stores were truly organized to support people, they would put the most popular items in the front. Tech companies design their websites the same way. For example, when you you want to look up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons), and that’s on purpose. Facebook wants to convert every reason you have for using Facebook, into their reason which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things. Instead, imagine if … Twitter gave you a separate way to post a tweet than having to see their news feed. Facebook gave a separate way to look up Facebook Events going on tonight, without being forced to use their news feed. Facebook gave you a separate way to use Facebook Connect as a passport for creating new accounts on 3rd party apps and websites, without being forced to install Facebook’s entire app, news feed and notifications. In a Time Well Spent world, there is always a direct way to get what you want separately from what businesses want. Imagine a digital “bill of rights” outlining design standards that forced the products used by billions of people to let them navigate directly to what they want without needing to go through intentionally placed distractions. Imagine if web browsers empowered you to navigate directly to what you want — especially for sites that intentionally detour you toward their reasons. Hijack #9: Inconvenient Choices We’re told that it’s enough for businesses to “make choices available.” “If you don’t like it you can always use a different product.” “If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.” “If you’re addicted to our app, you can always uninstall it from your phone.” Businesses naturally want to make the choices they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make harder. Magicians do the same thing. You make it easier for a spectator to pick the thing you want them to pick, and harder to pick the thing you don’t. For example, NYTimes.com lets you “make a free choice” to cancel your digital subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,” they send you an email with information on how to cancel your account by calling a phone number that’s only open at certain times. NYTimes claims it’s giving a free choice to cancel your account Instead of viewing the world in terms of availability of choices, we should view the world in terms of friction required to enact choices. Imagine a world where choices were labeled with how difficult they were to fulfill (like coefficients of friction) and there was an independent entity — an industry consortium or non-profit — that labeled these difficulties and set standards for how easy navigation should be. Hijack #10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies Facebook promises an easy choice to “See Photo.” Would we still click if it gave the true price tag? Lastly, apps can exploit people’s inability to forecast the consequences of a click. People don’t intuitively forecast the true cost of a click when it’s presented to them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small innocuous request to begin with (“just one click to see which tweet got retweeted”) and escalate from there (“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this trick. Imagine if web browsers and smartphones, the gateways through which people make these choices, were truly watching out for people and helped them forecast the consequences of clicks (based on real data about what benefits and costs it actually had?). That’s why I add “Estimated reading time” to the top of my posts. When you put the “true cost” of a choice in front of people, you’re treating your users or audience with dignity and respect. In a Time Well Spent internet, choices could be framed in terms of projected cost and benefit, so people were empowered to make informed choices by default, not by doing extra work. TripAdvisor uses a “foot in the door” technique by asking for a single click review (“How many stars?”) while hiding the three page survey of questions behind the click. Summary And How We Can Fix This Are you upset that technology hijacks your agency? I am too. I’ve listed a few techniques but there are literally thousands. Imagine whole bookshelves, seminars, workshops and trainings that teach aspiring tech entrepreneurs techniques like these. Imagine hundreds of engineers whose job every day is to invent new ways to keep you hooked. The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology that’s on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely. We need our smartphones, notifications screens and web browsers to be exoskeletons for our minds and interpersonal relationships that put our values, not our impulses, first. People’s time is valuable. And we should protect it with the same rigor as privacy and other digital rights. Tristan Harris was a Design Ethicist at Google until 2016 where he studied how technology restructures two billion people’s attention, wellbeing and behavior. For more resources on Time Well Spent and the Center for Humane Technology, see http://humanetech.com. UPDATE: The first version of this post lacked acknowledgements to those who inspired my thinking over many years including Joe Edelman, Aza Raskin, Raph D’Amico, Shaun Martin, Jonathan Harris and Damon Horowitz. My thinking on menus and choicemaking are deeply rooted in Joe Edelman’s work on Human Values and Choicemaking.

https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3

['Tristan Harris']

2019-10-16 01:30:35.132000+00:00

['Business', 'Startup', 'Time Well Spent', 'Psychology', 'Tech']

Title Technology Hijacking Mind — Magician Google Design EthicistContent Estimated reading time 15 minute “It’s easier fool people convince they’ve fooled” — Unknown I’m expert technology hijack psychological vulnerability That’s spent last three year Design Ethicist Google caring design thing way defends billion people’s mind getting hijacked using technology often focus optimistically thing u want show might opposite technology exploit minds’ weakness learned think way magician Magicians start looking blind spot edge vulnerability limit people’s perception influence people without even realizing know push people’s button play like piano That’s performing sleight hand magic mother’s birthday party exactly product designer mind play psychological vulnerability consciously unconsciously race grab attention want show Hijack 1 Control Menu Control Choices Western Culture built around ideal individual choice freedom Millions u fiercely defend right make “free” choice ignore choice manipulated upstream menu didn’t choose first place exactly magician give people illusion free choice architecting menu win matter choose can’t emphasize enough deep insight people given menu choice rarely ask “what’s menu” “why given option others” “do know menu provider’s goals” “is menu empowering original need choice actually distraction” eg overwhelmingly array toothpaste empowering menu choice need “I ran toothpaste” example imagine you’re friend Tuesday night want keep conversation going open Yelp find nearby recommendation see list bar group turn huddle face staring phone comparing bar scrutinize photo comparing cocktail drink menu still relevant original desire group It’s bar aren’t good choice it’s Yelp substituted group’s original question “where go keep talking” different question “what’s bar good photo cocktails” shaping menu Moreover group fall illusion Yelp’s menu represents complete set choice go looking phone don’t see park across street band playing live music miss popup gallery side street serving crepe coffee Neither show Yelp’s menu Yelp subtly reframes group’s need “where go keep talking” term photo cocktail served choice technology give u nearly every domain life information event place go friend dating job — assume phone always empowering useful menu pick “most empowering” menu different menu choice blindly surrender menu we’re given it’s easy lose track difference “Who’s free tonight hang out” becomes menu recent people texted u could ping “What’s happening world” becomes menu news feed story “Who’s single go date” becomes menu face swipe Tinder instead local event friend urban adventure nearby “I respond email” becomes menu key type response instead empowering way communicate person user interface menu email client gave empowering choice way respond instead “what message want type back” Design Tristan Harris wake morning turn phone see list notification — frame experience “waking morning” around menu “all thing I’ve missed since yesterday” example see Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design talk list notification wake morning — empowering menu choice wake reflect care Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design Talk shaping menu pick technology hijack way perceive choice replaces new one closer pay attention option we’re given we’ll notice don’t actually align true need Hijack 2 Put Slot Machine Billion Pockets you’re app keep people hooked Turn slot machine average person check phone 150 time day making 150 conscious choice often check email per day One major reason 1 psychological ingredient slot machine intermittent variable reward want maximize addictiveness tech designer need link user’s action like pulling lever variable reward pull lever immediately receive either enticing reward match prize nothing Addictiveness maximized rate reward variable effect really work people Yes Slot machine make money United States baseball movie theme park combined Relative kind gambling people get ‘problematically involved’ slot machine 3–4x faster according NYU professor Natasha Dow Schull author Addiction Design Image courtesy Jopwell here’s unfortunate truth — several billion people slot machine pocket pull phone pocket we’re playing slot machine see notification got pull refresh email we’re playing slot machine see new email got swipe finger scroll Instagram feed we’re playing slot machine see photo come next swipe face leftright dating apps like Tinder we’re playing slot machine see got match tap red notification we’re playing slot machine what’s underneath Apps website sprinkle intermittent variable reward product it’s good business case slot machine emerge accident example malicious corporation behind email consciously chose make slot machine one profit million check email nothing’s Neither Apple Google’s designer want phone work like slot machine emerged accident company like Apple Google responsibility reduce effect converting intermittent variable reward le addictive predictable one better design example could empower people set predictable time day week want check “slot machine” apps correspondingly adjust new message delivered align time Hijack 3 Fear Missing Something Important FOMSI Another way apps website hijack people’s mind inducing “1 chance could missing something important” convince I’m channel important information message friendship potential sexual opportunity — hard turn unsubscribe remove account — aha win might miss something important keep u subscribed newsletter even haven’t delivered recent benefit “what miss future announcement” keep u “friended” people haven’t spoke age “what miss something important them” keep u swiping face dating apps even haven’t even met anyone “what miss one hot match like me” keep u using social medium “what miss important news story fall behind friend talking about” zoom fear we’ll discover it’s unbounded we’ll always miss something important point stop using something magic moment Facebook we’ll miss using 6th hour eg old friend who’s visiting town right magic moment we’ll miss Tinder eg dream romantic partner swiping 700th match emergency phone call we’ll miss we’re connected 247 living moment moment fear missing something isn’t we’re built live it’s amazing quickly let go fear wake illusion unplug day unsubscribe notification go Camp Grounded — concern thought we’d don’t actually happen don’t miss don’t see thought “what miss something important” generated advance unplugging unsubscribing turning — Imagine tech company recognized helped u proactively tune relationship friend business term define “time well spent” life instead term might miss Hijack 4 Social Approval Easily one persuasive thing human receive We’re vulnerable social approval need belong approved appreciated peer among highest human motivation social approval hand tech company get tagged friend Marc imagine making conscious choice tag don’t see company like Facebook orchestrated first place Facebook Instagram SnapChat manipulate often people get tagged photo automatically suggesting face people tag eg showing box 1click confirmation “Tag Tristan photo” Marc tag he’s actually responding Facebook’s suggestion making independent choice design choice like Facebook control multiplier often million people experience social approval line Facebook us automatic suggestion like get people tag people creating social externality interruption happens change main profile photo — Facebook know that’s moment we’re vulnerable social approval “what friend think new pic” Facebook rank higher news feed stick around longer friend like comment time like comment we’ll get pulled right back Everyone innately responds social approval demographic teenager vulnerable others That’s it’s important recognize powerful designer exploit vulnerability Hijack 5 Social Reciprocity Titfortat favor — owe one next time say “thank you”— say “you’re welcome” send email— it’s rude get back follow — it’s rude follow back especially teenager vulnerable needing reciprocate others’ gesture Social Approval tech company manipulate often experience case it’s accident Email texting messaging apps social reciprocity factory case company exploit vulnerability purpose LinkedIn obvious offender LinkedIn want many people creating social obligation possible time reciprocate accepting connection responding message endorsing someone back skill come back linkedincom get people spend time Like Facebook LinkedIn exploit asymmetry perception receive invitation someone connect imagine person making conscious choice invite reality likely unconsciously responded LinkedIn’s list suggested contact word LinkedIn turn unconscious impulse “add” person new social obligation million people feel obligated repay profit time people spend Imagine million people getting interrupted like throughout day running around like chicken head cut reciprocating — designed company profit Welcome social medium accepting endorsement LinkedIn take advantage bias reciprocate offering four additional people endorse return Imagine technology company responsibility minimize social reciprocity independent organization represented public’s interest — industry consortium FDA tech — monitored technology company abused bias Hijack 6 Bottomless bowl Infinite Feeds Autoplay YouTube autoplays next video countdown Another way hijack people keep consuming thing even aren’t hungry anymore Easy Take experience bounded finite turn bottomless flow keep going Cornell professor Brian Wansink demonstrated study showing trick people keep eating soup giving bottomless bowl automatically refill eat bottomless bowl people eat 73 calorie normal bowl underestimate many calorie ate 140 calorie Tech company exploit principle News feed purposely designed autorefill reason keep scrolling purposely eliminate reason pause reconsider leave It’s also video social medium site like Netflix YouTube Facebook autoplay next video countdown instead waiting make conscious choice case won’t huge portion traffic website driven autoplaying next thing Facebook autoplays next video countdown Tech company often claim “we’re making easier user see video want watch” actually serving business interest can’t blame increasing “time spent” currency compete Instead imagine technology company empowered consciously bound experience align would “time well spent” bounding quantity time spend quality would “time well spent” Hijack 7 Instant Interruption v “Respectful” Delivery Companies know message interrupt people immediately persuasive getting people respond message delivered asynchronously like email deferred inbox Given choice Facebook Messenger WhatsApp WeChat SnapChat matter would prefer design messaging system interrupt recipient immediately show chat box instead helping user respect other’s attention word interruption good business It’s also interest heighten feeling urgency social reciprocity example Facebook automatically tell sender “saw” message instead letting avoid disclosing whether read “now know I’ve seen message feel even obligated respond” contrast Apple respectfully let user toggle “Read Receipts” problem maximizing interruption name business creates tragedy common ruining global attention span causing billion unnecessary interruption day huge problem need fix shared design standard potentially part Time Well Spent Hijack 8 Bundling Reasons Reasons Another way apps hijack taking reason visiting app perform task make inseparable app’s business reason maximizing much consume we’re example physical world grocery store 1 2 popular reason visit pharmacy refill buying milk grocery store want maximize much people buy put pharmacy milk back store word make thing customer want milk pharmacy inseparable business want store truly organized support people would put popular item front Tech company design website way example want look Facebook event happening tonight reason Facebook app doesn’t allow access without first landing news feed reason that’s purpose Facebook want convert every reason using Facebook reason maximize time spend consuming thing Instead imagine … Twitter gave separate way post tweet see news feed Facebook gave separate way look Facebook Events going tonight without forced use news feed Facebook gave separate way use Facebook Connect passport creating new account 3rd party apps website without forced install Facebook’s entire app news feed notification Time Well Spent world always direct way get want separately business want Imagine digital “bill rights” outlining design standard forced product used billion people let navigate directly want without needing go intentionally placed distraction Imagine web browser empowered navigate directly want — especially site intentionally detour toward reason Hijack 9 Inconvenient Choices We’re told it’s enough business “make choice available” “If don’t like always use different product” “If don’t like always unsubscribe” “If you’re addicted app always uninstall phone” Businesses naturally want make choice want make easier choice don’t want make harder Magicians thing make easier spectator pick thing want pick harder pick thing don’t example NYTimescom let “make free choice” cancel digital subscription instead hit “Cancel Subscription” send email information cancel account calling phone number that’s open certain time NYTimes claim it’s giving free choice cancel account Instead viewing world term availability choice view world term friction required enact choice Imagine world choice labeled difficult fulfill like coefficient friction independent entity — industry consortium nonprofit — labeled difficulty set standard easy navigation Hijack 10 Forecasting Errors “Foot Door” strategy Facebook promise easy choice “See Photo” Would still click gave true price tag Lastly apps exploit people’s inability forecast consequence click People don’t intuitively forecast true cost click it’s presented Sales people use “foot door” technique asking small innocuous request begin “just one click see tweet got retweeted” escalate “why don’t stay awhile” Virtually engagement website use trick Imagine web browser smartphones gateway people make choice truly watching people helped forecast consequence click based real data benefit cost actually That’s add “Estimated reading time” top post put “true cost” choice front people you’re treating user audience dignity respect Time Well Spent internet choice could framed term projected cost benefit people empowered make informed choice default extra work TripAdvisor us “foot door” technique asking single click review “How many stars” hiding three page survey question behind click Summary Fix upset technology hijack agency I’ve listed technique literally thousand Imagine whole bookshelf seminar workshop training teach aspiring tech entrepreneur technique like Imagine hundred engineer whose job every day invent new way keep hooked ultimate freedom free mind need technology that’s team help u live feel think act freely need smartphones notification screen web browser exoskeleton mind interpersonal relationship put value impulse first People’s time valuable protect rigor privacy digital right Tristan Harris Design Ethicist Google 2016 studied technology restructures two billion people’s attention wellbeing behavior resource Time Well Spent Center Humane Technology see httphumanetechcom UPDATE first version post lacked acknowledgement inspired thinking many year including Joe Edelman Aza Raskin Raph D’Amico Shaun Martin Jonathan Harris Damon Horowitz thinking menu choicemaking deeply rooted Joe Edelman’s work Human Values ChoicemakingTags Business Startup Time Well Spent Psychology Tech

What is this Quantum Ledger Database That We Keep Hearing About?

Image Source: Aneesh Nair Quantum Ledger Database(QLDB) is a No-SQL(Semi-SQL & Semi-NoSQL) Append-only database that provides an immutable, transparent, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log ‎owned by a central authority. Since it is a No-SQL database, It has the ability to store a lot of semi-unstructured data using a document-oriented data model. Moreover, it Uses SQL like data structure(Tables and Rows) and a language(PartiQL). So, it can leverage current SQL developers to offer robust ways to query and manage data. QLDB vs SQL,NoSQL Databases: Traditional Databases: Any other traditional databases (SQL and No-SQL) store data in the form of a table or JSON document model. Within these traditional databases, data can be modified by anyone who is in control of the database itself results in data conflicts and manipulations. These databases don't keep track of document history and only store the current state of the document. So, these databases cannot provide audit trials out of the box. As all of these databases do not have automatic data encryption so the data files are at risk of being read or modified by hackers directly. While most of these databases cannot work with cryptography, so it is not possible to immute the data and cannot prove who modified what. Immutability&Transparency ✘ Audit Logs ✘ Verifiable ✘ Data History ✘ Amazon’s QLDB: Amazon QLDB is a fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log ‎owned by a central trusted authority. Amazon QLDB tracks each and every application data change and maintains a complete and verifiable history of changes over time. How did you write this definition soo beautifully and clearly? Because I copied it from AWS Documentation. That is the best definition I’ve come across for QLDB. AWS is always at the front when it comes to blockchain technology or any technology in general. Amazon, itself being a giant knows the importance of data among the businesses. It introduced QLDB in 2018 along with Amazon Managed Blockchain. Features of QLDB: So, you may ask, why Amazon QLDB? Immutability&Transparency ✓ Amazon QLDB has a built-in immutable journal that stores an accurate and sequenced entry of every data change. The journal is append-only, meaning that data can only be added to a journal and it cannot be overwritten or deleted. This ensures that your stored change history cannot be deleted or modified. Even if you delete the data from your ledger, the change history of that data can still be accessed by reading from the immutable journal. 2. Audit Logs & History✓ With Amazon QLDB, you can access the entire change history of your application’s data. You can query a summary of historical changes, and also specific details related to transaction history. So, QLDB can provide Audit trails out of the box without any further implementation. 3. Verifiable✓ Amazon QLDB uses cryptography to create a concise summary of your change in history. This secure summary, commonly known as a digest, is generated using a cryptographic hash function (SHA-256). The digest acts as proof of your data’s change history, allowing you to look back and verify the integrity of your data changes. 4. Highly Scalable✓ With Amazon QLDB, you don’t have to worry about provisioning capacity or configuring read and write limits. You create a ledger, define your tables, and QLDB automatically scales to support the demands of your application. QLDB also allows you to monitor operational metrics for your read and write IOs with Cloudwatch. Architecture of QLDB Application: QLDB Application Architecture QLDB vs Blockchain: If you’re familiar with blockchain already, you might conclude from the definition, QLDB is somewhat related to blockchain. yes, it is. It offers all the key features of a blockchain ledger database including immutability, transparency, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log. However, there’s the most important difference between QLDB and Blockchain is — QLDB is a centralized ledger whereas Blockchain is a distributed ledger. Blockchain has shown the potential to change every sector out there. Also, blockchain is equally useful when it comes to storing data. After all, it is a distributed ledger. Also, the fact that traditional databases will soon make its way out for the more robust blockchain-based database. However, some businesses just cannot use a decentralized database for their business as they have to run a number of blockchain nodes and a lot of complexity involved in order to build a blockchain network. Also, other organizations that are involved with the business consortium should need to participate in the network. There are certain use-cases where an organization(like a bank) doesn’t want to share ledger with any other party and wanted keep track of data on centralized ledger where they want data to be immutable, verifiable, and secure. This type of use-cases don’t need the complexity of Blockchain network architecture and QLDB is a perfect fit. Is QLDB going to kill Blockchain? The answer is No. Blockchains have their own unique features — i.e. Smart contracts that run on the blockchain network take application logic to the next level by running separately from the server. wherein QLDB(or any traditional databases), you will end up writing application logic in your server code. Image Source: Chirag dhul “QLDB is a centralized ledger-based database powered by blockchain” With the invention of QLDB and ProvenDB(Story for another), I believe we are on the right path to offering enterprises a way to take advantage of a ledger like technology without the complexities. Selection of Database Technology: Applications of QLDB: QLDB fits perfectly for applications that need a scalable centralized ledger database where it needs to record all the transaction history overtime with added cryptographic security. Blockchain can be applied to many challenges of the supply chains, finance, healthcare such as complicated record-keeping and tracking of products. As a less corruptible and better-automated alternative to centralized databases. However, few industries often don’t want to share ledger with other participants(as in blockchain) so they don’t want to use complex blockchain architecture of network with channels for the privacy instead they can use QLDB. Usecases: Banking and Finance: Banks often need a centralized ledger-like application to keep track of critical data, such as credit and debit transactions across customer bank accounts. Instead of building a custom database that has complex auditing functionality, or using blockchain, banks can use QLDB to easily store an accurate and complete record of all financial transactions. 2. Supply chains: Manufacturing companies often need to track the full manufacturing history of a product as well as records of their movements throughout the supply chain, A ledger database can be used to record the history of each transaction, and provide details of every individual batch of the product manufactured at a facility. In case of a product recall, manufacturers can use QLDB to easily trace the history of the entire production and distribution lifecycle of a product. 4. Insurance: Insurance applications often need a way to better track the history of claim transactions. Instead of building complex auditing functionality using relational databases, insurance companies can use QLDB to accurately maintain the history of claims over their entire lifetime, and whenever a potential conflict arises, QLDB can also help cryptographically verify the integrity of the claims data, making the application resilient against data entry errors and manipulation. In the next article, let’s dive deep into QLDB Setup, and testing out a sample application on top of QLDB. Are you guys interested? Follow us!!. Work with us! Impressed with the features and use-cases of QLDB? Wanted to power your application or project with QLDB? Let us know. We at Devopsinternational (an emerging technologies company focussed on Machine learning, Blockchain, and AWS) delivering value to customers and society with software craftsmanship. We have been helping social and environmental startups validate their idea through its product development and technology expertise. You can find more about our services on our website.

https://medium.com/devopsinternationalbv/what-is-this-quantum-ledger-database-that-im-keep-hearing-about-a3c16c35c799

['Salman Dabbakuti']

2020-06-23 15:04:24.870000+00:00

['Cloud Computing', 'Blockchain', 'AWS', 'Programming', 'Database']

Title Quantum Ledger Database Keep Hearing AboutContent Image Source Aneesh Nair Quantum Ledger DatabaseQLDB NoSQLSemiSQL SemiNoSQL Appendonly database provides immutable transparent cryptographically verifiable transaction log ‎owned central authority Since NoSQL database ability store lot semiunstructured data using documentoriented data model Moreover Uses SQL like data structureTables Rows languagePartiQL leverage current SQL developer offer robust way query manage data QLDB v SQLNoSQL Databases Traditional Databases traditional database SQL NoSQL store data form table JSON document model Within traditional database data modified anyone control database result data conflict manipulation database dont keep track document history store current state document database cannot provide audit trial box database automatic data encryption data file risk read modified hacker directly database cannot work cryptography possible immute data cannot prove modified ImmutabilityTransparency ✘ Audit Logs ✘ Verifiable ✘ Data History ✘ Amazon’s QLDB Amazon QLDB fully managed ledger database provides transparent immutable cryptographically verifiable transaction log ‎owned central trusted authority Amazon QLDB track every application data change maintains complete verifiable history change time write definition soo beautifully clearly copied AWS Documentation best definition I’ve come across QLDB AWS always front come blockchain technology technology general Amazon giant know importance data among business introduced QLDB 2018 along Amazon Managed Blockchain Features QLDB may ask Amazon QLDB ImmutabilityTransparency ✓ Amazon QLDB builtin immutable journal store accurate sequenced entry every data change journal appendonly meaning data added journal cannot overwritten deleted ensures stored change history cannot deleted modified Even delete data ledger change history data still accessed reading immutable journal 2 Audit Logs History✓ Amazon QLDB access entire change history application’s data query summary historical change also specific detail related transaction history QLDB provide Audit trail box without implementation 3 Verifiable✓ Amazon QLDB us cryptography create concise summary change history secure summary commonly known digest generated using cryptographic hash function SHA256 digest act proof data’s change history allowing look back verify integrity data change 4 Highly Scalable✓ Amazon QLDB don’t worry provisioning capacity configuring read write limit create ledger define table QLDB automatically scale support demand application QLDB also allows monitor operational metric read write IOs Cloudwatch Architecture QLDB Application QLDB Application Architecture QLDB v Blockchain you’re familiar blockchain already might conclude definition QLDB somewhat related blockchain yes offer key feature blockchain ledger database including immutability transparency cryptographically verifiable transaction log However there’s important difference QLDB Blockchain — QLDB centralized ledger whereas Blockchain distributed ledger Blockchain shown potential change every sector Also blockchain equally useful come storing data distributed ledger Also fact traditional database soon make way robust blockchainbased database However business cannot use decentralized database business run number blockchain node lot complexity involved order build blockchain network Also organization involved business consortium need participate network certain usecases organizationlike bank doesn’t want share ledger party wanted keep track data centralized ledger want data immutable verifiable secure type usecases don’t need complexity Blockchain network architecture QLDB perfect fit QLDB going kill Blockchain answer Blockchains unique feature — ie Smart contract run blockchain network take application logic next level running separately server wherein QLDBor traditional database end writing application logic server code Image Source Chirag dhul “QLDB centralized ledgerbased database powered blockchain” invention QLDB ProvenDBStory another believe right path offering enterprise way take advantage ledger like technology without complexity Selection Database Technology Applications QLDB QLDB fit perfectly application need scalable centralized ledger database need record transaction history overtime added cryptographic security Blockchain applied many challenge supply chain finance healthcare complicated recordkeeping tracking product le corruptible betterautomated alternative centralized database However industry often don’t want share ledger participantsas blockchain don’t want use complex blockchain architecture network channel privacy instead use QLDB Usecases Banking Finance Banks often need centralized ledgerlike application keep track critical data credit debit transaction across customer bank account Instead building custom database complex auditing functionality using blockchain bank use QLDB easily store accurate complete record financial transaction 2 Supply chain Manufacturing company often need track full manufacturing history product well record movement throughout supply chain ledger database used record history transaction provide detail every individual batch product manufactured facility case product recall manufacturer use QLDB easily trace history entire production distribution lifecycle product 4 Insurance Insurance application often need way better track history claim transaction Instead building complex auditing functionality using relational database insurance company use QLDB accurately maintain history claim entire lifetime whenever potential conflict arises QLDB also help cryptographically verify integrity claim data making application resilient data entry error manipulation next article let’s dive deep QLDB Setup testing sample application top QLDB guy interested Follow u Work u Impressed feature usecases QLDB Wanted power application project QLDB Let u know Devopsinternational emerging technology company focussed Machine learning Blockchain AWS delivering value customer society software craftsmanship helping social environmental startup validate idea product development technology expertise find service websiteTags Cloud Computing Blockchain AWS Programming Database

How ‘& Sons’ Became a Retail Trope — and the Cruelest Lie in Branding

How ‘& Sons’ Became a Retail Trope — and the Cruelest Lie in Branding Family businesses are dying. Don’t let this trend fool you. In 2015, the British government was forced to pay £8.8 million to Taylor & Sons when the Welsh engineering firm went into liquidation, and in so doing, laid off its 250-person team. On the surface, that might sound weird. After all, why would a government pay out a seven-figure sum to a midsize firm that went bankrupt? In short, in all came down to a typo, a complex business bureaucracy and the odd practice of naming businesses. The story of Taylor & Sons’ big payout began in 2009, after the government’s official registrar for all companies in the U.K., Companies House, mistook Taylor & Sons — at that point, a flourishing firm that had been operating for 134 years — with Taylor & Son Limited, a body shop based in Manchester, which had reported plans to shut down. The mix-up meant the British government had shut down all of Taylor & Sons accounts, bank transactions and U.K.-based trusts. Contracts were lost, staff didn’t get paid and the firm’s credit agreements with suppliers were no longer valid. And so, by the end of 2009, Taylor & Sons (the engineering firm) was forced to shut down for good. After a six-year court battle, Taylor & Sons owner Philip Davison-Sebry won the payout for irreparable damages in London’s high court. (He’s currently using that money to start a new firm.) For its part, the British government still blames the incident on a clerical error, part of which it attributes to the large number of businesses in the U.K. that have some variation of the “& Son(s)” suffix in their names. While there’s no exact figure on the number of businesses with “& Son(s)” or “and Son(s)” currently operating in the U.K. — let alone worldwide — a basic search on Companies House yields more than 200,000 current results. Some of these businesses are expected — e.g., established bars like James Smith & Sons, a famous London umbrella makers that’s been in operation since the 1830s and is still run by members of the James family, or White and Sons, a real-estate firm first established in 1817 that specializes in luxury country property. Newer businesses, though — including streetwear brands like ONLY & SONS (est. 2014) or coffee shops like Parker & Sons (est. 2015) — have also used the suffix as part of their branding, despite being new, and most importantly, not being set up as family-owned businesses. Moreover, the resonance of “& Son(s)” isn’t just a clever form of linguistic branding, it’s an aesthetic one too, with brands like the U.K.-based “& Sons” clothing brand building ad campaigns around sons emulating their fathers in “dapper” work clothes, and old, industrial tool-shops being used as the backdrop for photoshoots for handmade leather belts and heavy-duty denim shirts — all, of course, shot on 35-millimeter film. Obviously, the “& Son(s)” suffix isn’t exclusively used for businesses. In fact, the folk-indie band Mumford & Sons probably represents its most successful contemporary usage. In 2016, the band’s founder and lead singer, Marcus Mumford, told NME that in retrospect, he believed the name of his band was “rubbish” and that it had been formed in a hurry. At the same time, he said that the name initially resonated because it felt like an antidote to a changing London. More specifically, he explained that “there’s a bit of trying to stop the demise of London venues,” and so, he wanted to create an “antiquated family business name” that was rare to see in the city. Mumford might now see his band’s name as slightly ridiculous, but the thinking behind it is still fairly common among new businesses in the U.K.’s main cities like London, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester. “We wanted a name that sounded like it could stand the test of time,” says Mark Smith, 32, the manager of Hunter & Sons coffee in Bath. The shop was founded in 2012 by Smith and two friends, who felt there was an absence of good, local coffee shops in Bath. Like Mumford, Smith liked the idea of having a place that sounded as though it was an established family name and gave the impression that this small store was part of the city’s history — the shop itself is small and intimate with a rustic-theme decor. “We didn’t want to give it a weird modern name,” Mark adds, saying that while most of his customers are young, either university students or young professionals, the city itself has a sizeable number of people around retirement age who might have been turned away from a modern-sounding, hipster name. Smith isn’t sure whether the shop will last generations though. He and his business partners are unmarried, and none of them have children, let alone sons. But to him, “Hunter & Sons” isn’t about their legacy, it’s more about creating a place where residents can feel comfortable. “We want to make a place where you can come and work, meet your friends, or if you’re young parents, where you can take your kids,” he says. “So the name is reflective of the values we want to embody and represents a family-orientated place that gives back to the community. After all, isn’t that what all the old family businesses did?” Curiously, this attitude isn’t shared by many men who run and work in businesses that were originally set up as father-son enterprises. Outside of a residential building site in South East London, I meet one of them — 50-year-old Phil Jenkins — in a local cafe for a cup of tea. Jenkins, wearing a dusty, torn grey T-shirt underneath a flourescent yellow jacket and black hard-hat, works as a construction manager for Jenkins & Sons, a firm his father set up shortly after World War II. Jenkins is proud of keeping his family’s company afloat — and for continuing the legacy of his father, Michael, who passed away in 2015. He worries, though, that he’ll be the last member of his family to continue the business. His son plans to study law at university, with his eyes set on a corporate job in the city. More existentially still, high operational costs and a decreasing workload have forced Jenkins to downsize. His business’ story is a familiar one, especially in major cities like London. When I ask Jenkins about the name “Jenkins & Sons,” he smiles, saying that when the name was chosen, there was a clear plan in mind. Its logo hasn’t changed since 1960, a simple pattern of a large triangle with a smaller triangle inside. It has no website or social media presence, let alone any kind of vintage chic-aesthetic. “We’re a family of laborers and hard grafters,” he says. “We worked hard to set up this business. It took a lot of savings. My father had to work factory jobs and then work in his free time to save money, all while looking after my mum, me and my sister.” To Jenkins, the existence of Jenkins & Sons is an embodiment of the struggle that working-class families like his have gone through — as well as a statement that the values of “honest, hard work” will continue to future generations. It’s also a relic of an older time, he says. “Back in the day, joining the family business wasn’t a punishment, but something you should look forward to. I worked with my old man every day after I left school, and he taught me everything I know — how to use my hands, how to fix anything. So [the firm] also shows how strong our relationship was, and how much he trusted me to continue the legacy he made.” Right now, Jenkins believes the firm has a good five years left, but he emphasises that it’s very much an exception. Friends of his who inherited firms set up by their fathers have “crashed and burned. They’ve gone bankrupt — a lot of them took a hit after the recession when they weren’t able to finance themselves and the banks cut them off.” Maybe more fatally, he believes that moments like the 2008 financial crash probably did a considerable amount of damage to the concept of family-owned business for younger generations. “I know my son saw me struggling during that period,” he says. “I’d come home stressed and angry. I’d shout at him over silly things because I wasn’t sure if the business would last. Maybe he saw all that and thought, I don’t want that stress. I want something more secure. I don’t blame him!” As Jenkins leaves to get back to work, he says that even if Jenkins & Sons doesn’t last beyond him, he’ll be proud of what it will have left behind, which will at least outlive him — and possibly his son, too. “Foundations, frames, structuring — whatever happens, I can say we were part of that and that our family has helped people have their own familial communities here.” Needless to say, that legacy will long outlast the antique coffee-shop aesthetic. Hussein Kesvani is MEL’s U.K./Europe editor. He last wrote about the male business thots of Instagram. More Hussein:

https://medium.com/mel-magazine/how-sons-became-a-retail-trope-and-the-cruelest-lie-in-branding-aca2e5934611

['Hussein Kesvani']

2018-07-25 20:11:17.836000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Business', 'Branding', 'Startup', 'Parenting']

Title ‘ Sons’ Became Retail Trope — Cruelest Lie BrandingContent ‘ Sons’ Became Retail Trope — Cruelest Lie Branding Family business dying Don’t let trend fool 2015 British government forced pay £88 million Taylor Sons Welsh engineering firm went liquidation laid 250person team surface might sound weird would government pay sevenfigure sum midsize firm went bankrupt short came typo complex business bureaucracy odd practice naming business story Taylor Sons’ big payout began 2009 government’s official registrar company UK Companies House mistook Taylor Sons — point flourishing firm operating 134 year — Taylor Son Limited body shop based Manchester reported plan shut mixup meant British government shut Taylor Sons account bank transaction UKbased trust Contracts lost staff didn’t get paid firm’s credit agreement supplier longer valid end 2009 Taylor Sons engineering firm forced shut good sixyear court battle Taylor Sons owner Philip DavisonSebry payout irreparable damage London’s high court He’s currently using money start new firm part British government still blame incident clerical error part attribute large number business UK variation “ Sons” suffix name there’s exact figure number business “ Sons” “and Sons” currently operating UK — let alone worldwide — basic search Companies House yield 200000 current result business expected — eg established bar like James Smith Sons famous London umbrella maker that’s operation since 1830s still run member James family White Sons realestate firm first established 1817 specializes luxury country property Newer business though — including streetwear brand like SONS est 2014 coffee shop like Parker Sons est 2015 — also used suffix part branding despite new importantly set familyowned business Moreover resonance “ Sons” isn’t clever form linguistic branding it’s aesthetic one brand like UKbased “ Sons” clothing brand building ad campaign around son emulating father “dapper” work clothes old industrial toolshops used backdrop photoshoots handmade leather belt heavyduty denim shirt — course shot 35millimeter film Obviously “ Sons” suffix isn’t exclusively used business fact folkindie band Mumford Sons probably represents successful contemporary usage 2016 band’s founder lead singer Marcus Mumford told NME retrospect believed name band “rubbish” formed hurry time said name initially resonated felt like antidote changing London specifically explained “there’s bit trying stop demise London venues” wanted create “antiquated family business name” rare see city Mumford might see band’s name slightly ridiculous thinking behind still fairly common among new business UK’s main city like London Leeds Birmingham Manchester “We wanted name sounded like could stand test time” say Mark Smith 32 manager Hunter Sons coffee Bath shop founded 2012 Smith two friend felt absence good local coffee shop Bath Like Mumford Smith liked idea place sounded though established family name gave impression small store part city’s history — shop small intimate rustictheme decor “We didn’t want give weird modern name” Mark add saying customer young either university student young professional city sizeable number people around retirement age might turned away modernsounding hipster name Smith isn’t sure whether shop last generation though business partner unmarried none child let alone son “Hunter Sons” isn’t legacy it’s creating place resident feel comfortable “We want make place come work meet friend you’re young parent take kids” say “So name reflective value want embody represents familyorientated place give back community isn’t old family business did” Curiously attitude isn’t shared many men run work business originally set fatherson enterprise Outside residential building site South East London meet one — 50yearold Phil Jenkins — local cafe cup tea Jenkins wearing dusty torn grey Tshirt underneath flourescent yellow jacket black hardhat work construction manager Jenkins Sons firm father set shortly World War II Jenkins proud keeping family’s company afloat — continuing legacy father Michael passed away 2015 worry though he’ll last member family continue business son plan study law university eye set corporate job city existentially still high operational cost decreasing workload forced Jenkins downsize business’ story familiar one especially major city like London ask Jenkins name “Jenkins Sons” smile saying name chosen clear plan mind logo hasn’t changed since 1960 simple pattern large triangle smaller triangle inside website social medium presence let alone kind vintage chicaesthetic “We’re family laborer hard grafters” say “We worked hard set business took lot saving father work factory job work free time save money looking mum sister” Jenkins existence Jenkins Sons embodiment struggle workingclass family like gone — well statement value “honest hard work” continue future generation It’s also relic older time say “Back day joining family business wasn’t punishment something look forward worked old man every day left school taught everything know — use hand fix anything firm also show strong relationship much trusted continue legacy made” Right Jenkins belief firm good five year left emphasis it’s much exception Friends inherited firm set father “crashed burned They’ve gone bankrupt — lot took hit recession weren’t able finance bank cut off” Maybe fatally belief moment like 2008 financial crash probably considerable amount damage concept familyowned business younger generation “I know son saw struggling period” say “I’d come home stressed angry I’d shout silly thing wasn’t sure business would last Maybe saw thought don’t want stress want something secure don’t blame him” Jenkins leaf get back work say even Jenkins Sons doesn’t last beyond he’ll proud left behind least outlive — possibly son “Foundations frame structuring — whatever happens say part family helped people familial community here” Needless say legacy long outlast antique coffeeshop aesthetic Hussein Kesvani MEL’s UKEurope editor last wrote male business thots Instagram HusseinTags Marketing Business Branding Startup Parenting

Why Psychopaths Outperform Us

Why Psychopaths Outperform Us Lessons from Wisdom of Psychopaths by Kevin Dutton Too much psychopathy can lock you up behind bars, but a little bit can do wonders. Author Kevin Dutton actually argues that “regulated psychopathy can have a positive impact on well-being and quality of life” — a life filled with accomplishments and fulfillment. What Makes a Person a Psychopath? Contrary to common beliefs, psychopathy lies on a spectrum, ranging from low to high levels of displayed traits. It’s not so much of a black-or-white matter. In fact, we may all be a little psychopathic. Psychopathy is commonly described as a personality disorder with a boosted sense of egotism and narcissism. Other traits include “superficial charm, manipulation, fabrication of intricate stories, impulsivity, and emotional poverty.” On a positive note, psychopaths are goal-oriented, driven, charming, and unbothered by emotional hangovers. These traits are beneficial to have in many professions, which is probably why psychopaths are more prevalent among business leaders, lawyers, and surgeons compared to those who are criminals. Psychopaths Are Productivity Experts Without the burden of emotions, psychopaths are able to strive towards their goal in the most efficient and effective way. They have an “emotional tunnel vision” that facilitates the discarding of irrelevant and unbeneficial information and instead focusing on the tasks that lead to success. People with low levels of psychopathy often get caught up in the what ifs. We procrastinate tasks that we don’t want to do. We feel emotionally damaged after traumatic events. These thoughts cause us to step on the brakes. In a society where productivity is rewarded, these “normal people” tendencies don’t help; they actually hinder us from achieving our goals, deeming us useless for being sensitive. We are treated as damaged goods. Spiritually Psychopathic Further analyzing how psychopaths view the tasks at hand, we can find some overlapping traits between psychopathy and spirituality. Such traits are: stoicism, mindfulness, fearlessness, mental toughness, creativity, and energy. Psychopaths are similar to monks, focused on chasing gratification. They see the goal ahead of them and run towards it. They don’t step on the brake to dwell on all the distractions in life — they have the ruthlessness to focus on the outcomes that fulfill them.

https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/why-psychopaths-outperform-us-24993120d9a8

['Project Hbe']

2020-11-03 22:27:44.616000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Psychology', 'Spirituality', 'Culture', 'Business']

Title Psychopaths Outperform UsContent Psychopaths Outperform Us Lessons Wisdom Psychopaths Kevin Dutton much psychopathy lock behind bar little bit wonder Author Kevin Dutton actually argues “regulated psychopathy positive impact wellbeing quality life” — life filled accomplishment fulfillment Makes Person Psychopath Contrary common belief psychopathy lie spectrum ranging low high level displayed trait It’s much blackorwhite matter fact may little psychopathic Psychopathy commonly described personality disorder boosted sense egotism narcissism trait include “superficial charm manipulation fabrication intricate story impulsivity emotional poverty” positive note psychopath goaloriented driven charming unbothered emotional hangover trait beneficial many profession probably psychopath prevalent among business leader lawyer surgeon compared criminal Psychopaths Productivity Experts Without burden emotion psychopath able strive towards goal efficient effective way “emotional tunnel vision” facilitates discarding irrelevant unbeneficial information instead focusing task lead success People low level psychopathy often get caught ifs procrastinate task don’t want feel emotionally damaged traumatic event thought cause u step brake society productivity rewarded “normal people” tendency don’t help actually hinder u achieving goal deeming u useless sensitive treated damaged good Spiritually Psychopathic analyzing psychopath view task hand find overlapping trait psychopathy spirituality trait stoicism mindfulness fearlessness mental toughness creativity energy Psychopaths similar monk focused chasing gratification see goal ahead run towards don’t step brake dwell distraction life — ruthlessness focus outcome fulfill themTags Productivity Psychology Spirituality Culture Business

The Limits to a Facebook Ad Budget

How Ad Limits Will Work on Facebook The ad limit consists of tiers based upon the spending from each page. The highest spend amount in a month within a rolling 12 month period is weighed against the tier limits. Facebook also considers the month with the highest spend within the period against the tier criteria. Facebook is implementing these tiers to tailor its ad optimization. The machine learning algorithm that serves the ads on the platform discovers the best placement each time an ad appears in a Facebook user’s news feed. Running too many ads at once can hinder that assessment. When marketers issue hundreds of marketing campaigns linked to the pages under administration, each individual campaign ad runs the risk of competing against each other. This leads to ads being delivered fewer times, reducing impressions and the opportunity to connect with the intended customer. This reduction of impressions gives Facebook fewer opportunities to learn how to best position the ads. It can cost marketers more of their budget since the ads are run without optimization initially. The following matrix explains the four tiers that are based on the ad spend for each business page. The tier for ad limits is expected to impact campaign budgets from large enterprises rather than small businesses. When the limit is reached, the page won’t be able to run more ads or publish edits to existing ads until the ad volume falls below the limit. Marketers will be able to turn off the ad campaigns to help bring their accounts within the intended tier. Facebook offers a few ways to monitor how campaigns are reaching the ad threshold. Marketers can inspect the ad limit for each Facebook page being managed on the Ad Limits Per Page tool. The Ad Limits Per Page tool is accessed through the Business Manager menu. It displays a table of pages under administration, the number of ads being running by the pages, and the ad limit for each page.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/the-limits-to-a-facebook-ad-budget-c70ab1038579

['Pierre Debois']

2020-11-23 14:57:32.144000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Facebook', 'Social Media', 'Ads', 'Anaytics']

Title Limits Facebook Ad BudgetContent Ad Limits Work Facebook ad limit consists tier based upon spending page highest spend amount month within rolling 12 month period weighed tier limit Facebook also considers month highest spend within period tier criterion Facebook implementing tier tailor ad optimization machine learning algorithm serf ad platform discovers best placement time ad appears Facebook user’s news feed Running many ad hinder assessment marketer issue hundred marketing campaign linked page administration individual campaign ad run risk competing lead ad delivered fewer time reducing impression opportunity connect intended customer reduction impression give Facebook fewer opportunity learn best position ad cost marketer budget since ad run without optimization initially following matrix explains four tier based ad spend business page tier ad limit expected impact campaign budget large enterprise rather small business limit reached page won’t able run ad publish edits existing ad ad volume fall limit Marketers able turn ad campaign help bring account within intended tier Facebook offer way monitor campaign reaching ad threshold Marketers inspect ad limit Facebook page managed Ad Limits Per Page tool Ad Limits Per Page tool accessed Business Manager menu display table page administration number ad running page ad limit pageTags Marketing Facebook Social Media Ads Anaytics

Managed Kubernetes Services Compared: GKE vs. EKS vs. AKS

Summary Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) By far the easiest-to-use and most feature-rich managed Kubernetes solution. If you have no particular allegiance to any cloud platform and you just want the best Kubernetes experience, look no further. GKE workloads view in the Google Cloud Console. The fact that GKE sets the bar for managed Kubernetes is no surprise considering Kubernetes was designed by Google. GKE also had a nearly three-year head-start on its competitors — ample time to mature and gain features. GKE offers a rich out-of-the-box experience that that gives you integrated logging and monitoring, with Google’s excellent Stackdriver ops tool and full visibility into your workloads and resource usage from the GCP web console. GKE’s CLI experience also offers you full control over your cluster configuration, making cluster creation and management remarkably simple. Simply put, GKE clusters are production-ready out-of-the-box with everything you need to immediately start deploying workloads. With Google managing so much for you, you lose a little bit of control if you wish to fully customize your cluster. Still, beyond this, GKE is hard to fault. It’s the best managed Kubernetes experience, bar none. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) A great out-of-the-box experience with powerful development tools and quick Kubernetes updates. It’s the obvious choice for those already in the Microsoft/Azure ecosystem and a strong alternative to GKE for everyone else. AKS cluster insights view in the Azure Portal. Although it doesn’t quite reach the heights of GKE, AKS has a great out-of-the-box experience with features like logging, monitoring, and metrics. A new Azure portal feature now gives you full visibility into your cluster workloads, although GKE still offers more comprehensive metrics and functionality. After a series of redesigns, Azure’s portal has gone from being a cluttered and confusing mess to a genuinely pleasant experience. Beyond the much-improved portal, AKS also has a strong CLI experience that gives you comprehensive control over your cluster. Clusters are easy to create and manage and are production-ready. A downside with Azure as a platform is that it’s the least reliable of the three primary cloud providers. In terms of percentage uptime and sheer number of outages, Azure lags behind AWS and GCP. This doesn’t mean its unusable — plenty of big companies continue to rely on Azure — but it is something to keep in mind. Besides some potential downsides, AKS remains a fantastic managed Kubernetes service. Although GKE is the better option for most, Azure has a few primary benefits. If you have an existing presence on Azure or use existing Microsoft tools like 365 or Active Directory, AKS is a natural fit. For everyone else, cheaper pricing with free control planes, fast Kubernetes updates, useful development tooling with VS Code and a seamless serverless compute option all mean that AKS is a strong offering worth considering. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) The weakest Kubernetes offering in terms of feature support, ease-of-use and out-of-the-box experience. Pick it if you must be on AWS or if you want the ability to fully control your Kubernetes cluster. EKS cluster view in AWS Management Console. In contrast to the easy-to-use very managed approach GKE and AKS take, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) leaves you to manage a lot of configuration yourself. You’ll spend a lot of time manually configuring IAM roles and policies, as well as installing various pieces of functionality yourself. You don’t get any visibility into your cluster or workloads by default. The EKS web interface as well as CLI are sparse and extremely limited to a handful of operations. Third-party tools like the terraform-aws-eks Terraform module and the eksctl command-line tool fill in a lot of the frustrating gaps with EKS’s management experience. Both automate and abstract a fair bit of cluster creation and management complexity. eksctl , specifically, provides the fully-featured CLI experience that AWS does not give you. However, even these tools can only go so far. Because this functionality isn’t native to EKS, even if these tools abstract some complexity, you’re still ultimately responsible for maintaining it. EKS does work very well if you want more control over your cluster. By being relatively hands-off on the management front, you also get a clean slate to fully customize whatever you need to, if you’re so inclined. EKS is also the only service here with bare metal node support and support for bringing your own machine images. Ultimately, EKS’s greatest strength is that it’s an AWS service. It lives within one of the strongest and most mature cloud platforms with rock-solid reliability, a wide range of very popular services and a massive developer community.

https://medium.com/better-programming/managed-kubernetes-services-compared-gke-vs-eks-vs-aks-df1ecb22bba0

['Bharat Arimilli']

2020-12-11 03:59:59.589000+00:00

['Programming', 'Kubernetes', 'Azure', 'AWS', 'Google Cloud Platform']

Title Managed Kubernetes Services Compared GKE v EKS v AKSContent Summary Google Kubernetes Engine GKE far easiesttouse featurerich managed Kubernetes solution particular allegiance cloud platform want best Kubernetes experience look GKE workload view Google Cloud Console fact GKE set bar managed Kubernetes surprise considering Kubernetes designed Google GKE also nearly threeyear headstart competitor — ample time mature gain feature GKE offer rich outofthebox experience give integrated logging monitoring Google’s excellent Stackdriver ops tool full visibility workload resource usage GCP web console GKE’s CLI experience also offer full control cluster configuration making cluster creation management remarkably simple Simply put GKE cluster productionready outofthebox everything need immediately start deploying workload Google managing much lose little bit control wish fully customize cluster Still beyond GKE hard fault It’s best managed Kubernetes experience bar none Azure Kubernetes Service AKS great outofthebox experience powerful development tool quick Kubernetes update It’s obvious choice already MicrosoftAzure ecosystem strong alternative GKE everyone else AKS cluster insight view Azure Portal Although doesn’t quite reach height GKE AKS great outofthebox experience feature like logging monitoring metric new Azure portal feature give full visibility cluster workload although GKE still offer comprehensive metric functionality series redesigns Azure’s portal gone cluttered confusing mess genuinely pleasant experience Beyond muchimproved portal AKS also strong CLI experience give comprehensive control cluster Clusters easy create manage productionready downside Azure platform it’s least reliable three primary cloud provider term percentage uptime sheer number outage Azure lag behind AWS GCP doesn’t mean unusable — plenty big company continue rely Azure — something keep mind Besides potential downside AKS remains fantastic managed Kubernetes service Although GKE better option Azure primary benefit existing presence Azure use existing Microsoft tool like 365 Active Directory AKS natural fit everyone else cheaper pricing free control plane fast Kubernetes update useful development tooling VS Code seamless serverless compute option mean AKS strong offering worth considering Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service EKS weakest Kubernetes offering term feature support easeofuse outofthebox experience Pick must AWS want ability fully control Kubernetes cluster EKS cluster view AWS Management Console contrast easytouse managed approach GKE AKS take Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service EKS leaf manage lot configuration You’ll spend lot time manually configuring IAM role policy well installing various piece functionality don’t get visibility cluster workload default EKS web interface well CLI sparse extremely limited handful operation Thirdparty tool like terraformawseks Terraform module eksctl commandline tool fill lot frustrating gap EKS’s management experience automate abstract fair bit cluster creation management complexity eksctl specifically provides fullyfeatured CLI experience AWS give However even tool go far functionality isn’t native EKS even tool abstract complexity you’re still ultimately responsible maintaining EKS work well want control cluster relatively handsoff management front also get clean slate fully customize whatever need you’re inclined EKS also service bare metal node support support bringing machine image Ultimately EKS’s greatest strength it’s AWS service life within one strongest mature cloud platform rocksolid reliability wide range popular service massive developer communityTags Programming Kubernetes Azure AWS Google Cloud Platform

The Scam Catching LinkedIn Users Off Guard — The Fast Path to 1 Million Followers Which Exploits Jobseekers

Here’s How the LinkedIn Scam Works When a person is desperate to find a job they’re willing to try anything. How do I know? I was that guy last year. I thought it would be easy to find my next job. I wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming rejection and ghosting I faced. After a while, your brain becomes a mashed potato. You start seeing jobs where jobs don’t exist. LinkedIn wannabe influencers take advantage of these insecurities. In order to build a big following on LinkedIn you need three things: 1) Likes 2) Comments 3) Followers. It doesn’t matter where these metrics come from. All that matters is you get as much engagement as possible. Social media engagement has become a form of slave labor. Wannabe influencers get you to like or comment on their post by promising the following: You’ll get a job by leaving a “like.” (Or even a promotion.) You’ll meet a recruiter if you leave a comment. You’ll find more customers for your pandemic-stricken business by sharing an unrelated social media post you didn’t create. If people think they can get something for free by engaging with your content then they’ll do anything to participate. It takes half a second to like a post. It takes 30 seconds to leave a comment. It’s like the LinkedIn lottery. You might get a six-figure job or you might get absolutely nothing. But the price to enter the competition is so small it feels silly not to do it. So, millions of people every month on LinkedIn engage with these scam posts. 1st sign of a scam The original poster never engages with a single comment. If the wannabe influencer really wanted to help you find a job they would at least engage with a few comments. They never do because they don’t need to. Their goal is followers and influence — not genuine help. 2nd sign of a scam The number of comments in proportion to the number of likes is almost equal. These posts attract tonnes of comments, which is extremely powerful for the LinkedIn algorithm. 3rd sign of a scam What you’re offered isn’t tangible. To say you will get a job by leaving a comment is an invisible promise. They don’t tell you how. There is no strategy. They don’t explain what success looks like or what the steps are. 4th sign of a scam They never give examples of success stories. You never see these wannabe influencers giving examples of real humans who won the LinkedIn lottery and got a job by liking their post. That’s because the winners don’t exist. We know deep down that finding a job goes well beyond the comments section of a LinkedIn post. Genuine connection leads to job opportunities, not a like or comment.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/the-scam-catching-linkedin-users-off-guard-the-fast-path-to-1-million-followers-which-exploits-fa2ca34e3134

['Tim Denning']

2020-12-28 13:02:35.757000+00:00

['Social Media', 'Writing', 'Business', 'LinkedIn', 'Marketing']

Title Scam Catching LinkedIn Users Guard — Fast Path 1 Million Followers Exploits JobseekersContent Here’s LinkedIn Scam Works person desperate find job they’re willing try anything know guy last year thought would easy find next job wasn’t prepared overwhelming rejection ghosting faced brain becomes mashed potato start seeing job job don’t exist LinkedIn wannabe influencers take advantage insecurity order build big following LinkedIn need three thing 1 Likes 2 Comments 3 Followers doesn’t matter metric come matter get much engagement possible Social medium engagement become form slave labor Wannabe influencers get like comment post promising following You’ll get job leaving “like” even promotion You’ll meet recruiter leave comment You’ll find customer pandemicstricken business sharing unrelated social medium post didn’t create people think get something free engaging content they’ll anything participate take half second like post take 30 second leave comment It’s like LinkedIn lottery might get sixfigure job might get absolutely nothing price enter competition small feel silly million people every month LinkedIn engage scam post 1st sign scam original poster never engages single comment wannabe influencer really wanted help find job would least engage comment never don’t need goal follower influence — genuine help 2nd sign scam number comment proportion number like almost equal post attract tonne comment extremely powerful LinkedIn algorithm 3rd sign scam you’re offered isn’t tangible say get job leaving comment invisible promise don’t tell strategy don’t explain success look like step 4th sign scam never give example success story never see wannabe influencers giving example real human LinkedIn lottery got job liking post That’s winner don’t exist know deep finding job go well beyond comment section LinkedIn post Genuine connection lead job opportunity like commentTags Social Media Writing Business LinkedIn Marketing

It’s Time to Stop Charging Children as Adults

It’s Time to Stop Charging Children as Adults Every child, no matter the crime, should be eligible for redemption and grace Photo by David Veksler on Unsplash The other day, a former student of mine, only 14 years old, was charged with first degree murder and is set to be tried as an adult. The kid is only 14 — so one of the first questions I gravitated to was why was he being tried as an adult? To contextualize children being charged as adults, it’s important to understand the justice system. According to the New York Times Editorial Board, under New York law, children as young as 13 can be tried as adults if they’re charged with second-degree murder or anything worse. The same applies to some felony sex crimes — and all states have differing laws allowing minors to be charged as adults. Of course, the practice intensified during the “tough on crime era,” namely the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. A viral case of a 15-year-old Black boy who killed two men on the subway and wounded a third led to widespread tough on crime reforms throughout New York. One of the most famous children prosecuted as adults was Korey Wise, one of the teenagers wrongfully convicted as part of the Central Park Five. It hurt me to think about my student potentially suffering such a vicious fate. And it isn’t that I don’t believe in accountability and consequences — but by all measures, being 14 still means you’re a child. Of course, my student’s story is less nuanced than that of the unequivocal innocence of Korey Wise and the Central Park Five — his attorney said he was there. His attorney said he initiated the confrontation — but simply said he didn’t shoot the gun. I wasn’t there, so I can’t act like I know all the facts. But again, to be 14 still means you’re a child. Where is God’s gift of mercy and grace here? According to Casey et al. at the Journal of Adolescent Research, adolescent brains are associated with impulsive and risky choices. They are less likely to exercise impulse control and assess risk and long-term consequences. According to Robertson et al. at Child Psychiatry and Human Development, being a younger offender is directly associated with mental illness. And putting aside morality for a moment — there’s also the effectiveness of trying children as adults. Teens arrested as adults are 34 percent more likely to be rearrested than teens tried through the juvenile justice system. Many countries in Europe ban adult prosecutions for children. The U.S. stands as an exception — a country that had over 50,000 teens under 18 incarcerated in 2014, that disproportionately targets Black children compared to children of other races. And then there is the question of justice — which is undeniably important. But how is strict justice going to bring a life back? The cause of the New York Times Editorial Board piece was the murder of Tessa Majors, a Barnard student, by three teenagers, two of whom were charged with second-degree murder after Majors was stabbed to death. Without a doubt, the murder of Majors is tragic. But I can’t help but feel like fewer people would care if Majors wasn’t a white woman. It’s an anecdotal observation from living in Baltimore, a majority Black city, that fewer people care when the victim of a murder or violent crime is Black — a quintessential example of white privilege. The city I live in has more murders per capita than El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and it seems like no one cares. In the closing words of the New York Times Editorial Board, “charging adolescents as adults makes the state crueler, not safer.” I will hold those words close as I follow my student’s trial. But it’s just a wider question for now — when should children be charged as adults? According to Nicole Sclalabba at the American Bar Association, a juvenile is only tried as an adult under the consideration of the law under certain circumstances. While Sclalabba notes that juveniles were not always charged separately from adults in American history, progressive reformers of the penal system in the early 1800s got the penal system to educate and rehabilitate juveniles, and in 1899, the first juvenile court was created. It was still an imperfect system, but in the 1970s and 1980s, a rise in violent crime got reforms passed to make it easier to try juveniles in criminal courts, leading to an era of punitive juvenile justice laws. Since violent crime has stabilized a bit since that time, the Supreme Court made executions of young people who commit murder banned in Roper v. Simmons in 2005. The Supreme Court later banned mandatory life without parole sentences for people who commit crimes when they’re 17 or younger in Graham v. Florida in 2010 for non-homicide offenses. “But charging adolescents as adults makes the state crueler, not safer,” The New York Times Editorial Board says. Even children charged and convicted of murder and other violent crimes should be eligible for redemption and grace — and it includes kids like my old student. We have to stop charging kids as adults, no matter the crime. Juvenile courts have been associated with greater access to rehabilitation and counseling and benefits to teens. It’s time to stop charging children as adults. Takeaways I wrote this piece because of my student who is being charged with an adult, and I know he is not an adult. I worry about his future, and yes — I worry that my student’s life is effectively ruined. He made a mistake that ended up costing another man his life, but if a child under 18 cannot buy alcohol, enlist in the military, or vote, they also shouldn’t be sent to adult prisons. Following the decisions of Roper and Graham, the Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that even for juveniles convicted for homicidal offenses, juveniles without parole sentences are unconstitutional. It’s not like I don’t believe in consequences and accountability. But other options should be pursued — and hopefully state legislatures will stop letting prosecutors charge children as adults, or the Supreme Court will make another landmark decision.

https://medium.com/an-injustice/its-time-to-stop-charging-children-as-adults-d98f06aa12dc

['Ryan Fan']

2020-10-24 12:34:57.346000+00:00

['Justice', 'Society', 'Equality', 'Nonfiction', 'Race']

Title It’s Time Stop Charging Children AdultsContent It’s Time Stop Charging Children Adults Every child matter crime eligible redemption grace Photo David Veksler Unsplash day former student mine 14 year old charged first degree murder set tried adult kid 14 — one first question gravitated tried adult contextualize child charged adult it’s important understand justice system According New York Times Editorial Board New York law child young 13 tried adult they’re charged seconddegree murder anything worse applies felony sex crime — state differing law allowing minor charged adult course practice intensified “tough crime era” namely 1970s 1980s early 1990s viral case 15yearold Black boy killed two men subway wounded third led widespread tough crime reform throughout New York One famous child prosecuted adult Korey Wise one teenager wrongfully convicted part Central Park Five hurt think student potentially suffering vicious fate isn’t don’t believe accountability consequence — measure 14 still mean you’re child course student’s story le nuanced unequivocal innocence Korey Wise Central Park Five — attorney said attorney said initiated confrontation — simply said didn’t shoot gun wasn’t can’t act like know fact 14 still mean you’re child God’s gift mercy grace According Casey et al Journal Adolescent Research adolescent brain associated impulsive risky choice le likely exercise impulse control ass risk longterm consequence According Robertson et al Child Psychiatry Human Development younger offender directly associated mental illness putting aside morality moment — there’s also effectiveness trying child adult Teens arrested adult 34 percent likely rearrested teen tried juvenile justice system Many country Europe ban adult prosecution child US stand exception — country 50000 teen 18 incarcerated 2014 disproportionately target Black child compared child race question justice — undeniably important strict justice going bring life back cause New York Times Editorial Board piece murder Tessa Majors Barnard student three teenager two charged seconddegree murder Majors stabbed death Without doubt murder Majors tragic can’t help feel like fewer people would care Majors wasn’t white woman It’s anecdotal observation living Baltimore majority Black city fewer people care victim murder violent crime Black — quintessential example white privilege city live murder per caput El Salvador Honduras Guatemala seems like one care closing word New York Times Editorial Board “charging adolescent adult make state crueler safer” hold word close follow student’s trial it’s wider question — child charged adult According Nicole Sclalabba American Bar Association juvenile tried adult consideration law certain circumstance Sclalabba note juvenile always charged separately adult American history progressive reformer penal system early 1800s got penal system educate rehabilitate juvenile 1899 first juvenile court created still imperfect system 1970s 1980s rise violent crime got reform passed make easier try juvenile criminal court leading era punitive juvenile justice law Since violent crime stabilized bit since time Supreme Court made execution young people commit murder banned Roper v Simmons 2005 Supreme Court later banned mandatory life without parole sentence people commit crime they’re 17 younger Graham v Florida 2010 nonhomicide offense “But charging adolescent adult make state crueler safer” New York Times Editorial Board say Even child charged convicted murder violent crime eligible redemption grace — includes kid like old student stop charging kid adult matter crime Juvenile court associated greater access rehabilitation counseling benefit teen It’s time stop charging child adult Takeaways wrote piece student charged adult know adult worry future yes — worry student’s life effectively ruined made mistake ended costing another man life child 18 cannot buy alcohol enlist military vote also shouldn’t sent adult prison Following decision Roper Graham Supreme Court held Miller v Alabama even juvenile convicted homicidal offense juvenile without parole sentence unconstitutional It’s like don’t believe consequence accountability option pursued — hopefully state legislature stop letting prosecutor charge child adult Supreme Court make another landmark decisionTags Justice Society Equality Nonfiction Race