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James Le
The Ten Statistical Techniques Data Scientists Need to Master
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Regardless of where you stand on the matter of Data Science sexiness, it's simply impossible to ignore the continuing importance of data, and our ability to analyze, organize, and contextualize it. Drawing on their vast stores of employment data and employee feedback, Glassdoor ranked Data Scientist #1 in their 25 Best Jobs in America list. So the role is here to stay, but unquestionably, the specifics of what a Data Scientist does will evolve. With technologies like Machine Learning becoming ever-more common place, and emerging fields like Deep Learning gaining significant traction amongst researchers and engineers — and the companies that hire them — Data Scientists continue to ride the crest of an incredible wave of innovation and technological progress.
While having a strong coding ability is important, data science isn't all about software engineering (in fact, have a good familiarity with Python and you're good to go). Data scientists live at the intersection of coding, statistics, and critical thinking. As Josh Wills put it, "data scientist is a person who is better at statistics than any programmer and better at programming than any statistician." I personally know too many software engineers looking to transition into data scientist and blindly utilizing machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or Apache Spark to their data without a thorough understanding of statistical theories behind them. So comes the study of statistical learning, a theoretical framework for machine learning drawing from the fields of statistics and functional analysis.
Why study Statistical Learning? It is important to understand the ideas behind the various techniques, in order to know how and when to use them. One has to understand the simpler methods first, in order to grasp the more sophisticated ones. It is important to accurately assess the performance of a method, to know how well or how badly it is working. Additionally, this is an exciting research area, having important applications in science, industry, and finance. Ultimately, statistical learning is a fundamental ingredient in the training of a modern data scientist. Examples of Statistical Learning problems include:
Identify the risk factors for prostate cancer.
Classify a recorded phoneme based on a log-periodogram.
Predict whether someone will have a heart attack on the basis of demographic, diet and clinical measurements.
Customize an email spam detection system.
Identify the numbers in a handwritten zip code.
Classify a tissue sample into one of several cancer classes.
Establish the relationship between salary and demographic variables in population survey data.
In my last semester in college, I did an Independent Study on Data Mining. The class covers expansive materials coming from 3 books: Intro to Statistical Learning (Hastie, Tibshirani, Witten, James), Doing Bayesian Data Analysis(Kruschke), and Time Series Analysis and Applications (Shumway, Stoffer). We did a lot of exercises on Bayesian Analysis, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Hierarchical Modeling, Supervised and Unsupervised Learning. This experience deepens my interest in the Data Mining academic field and convinces me to specialize further in it. Recently, I completed the Statistical Learning online course on Stanford Lagunita, which covers all the material in the Intro to Statistical Learning book I read in my Independent Study. Now being exposed to the content twice, I want to share the 10 statistical techniques from the book that I believe any data scientists should learn to be more effective in handling big datasets.
Before moving on with these 10 techniques, I want to differentiate between statistical learning and machine learning. I wrote one of the most popular Medium posts on machine learning before, so I am confident I have the expertise to justify these differences:
Machine learning arose as a subfield of Artificial Intelligence.
Statistical learning arose as a subfield of Statistics.
Machine learning has a greater emphasis on large scale applications and prediction accuracy.
Statistical learning emphasizes models and their interpretability, and precision and uncertainty.
But the distinction has become and more blurred, and there is a great deal of "cross-fertilization."
Machine learning has the upper hand in Marketing!
1 — Linear Regression:
In statistics, linear regression is a method to predict a target variable by fitting the best linear relationship between the dependent and independent variable. The best fit is done by making sure that the sum of all the distances between the shape and the actual observations at each point is as small as possible. The fit of the shape is "best" in the sense that no other position would produce less error given the choice of shape. 2 major types of linear regression are Simple Linear Regression and Multiple Linear Regression. Simple Linear Regressionuses a single independent variable to predict a dependent variable by fitting a best linear relationship. Multiple Linear Regression uses more than one independent variable to predict a dependent variable by fitting a best linear relationship.
Pick any 2 things that you use in your daily life and that are related. Like, I have data of my monthly spending, monthly income and the number of trips per month for the last 3 years. Now I need to answer the following questions:
What will be my monthly spending for next year?
Which factor (monthly income or number of trips per month) is more important in deciding my monthly spending?
How monthly income and trips per month are correlated with monthly spending?
2 — Classification:
Classification is a data mining technique that assigns categories to a collection of data in order to aid in more accurate predictions and analysis. Also sometimes called a Decision Tree, classification is one of several methods intended to make the analysis of very large datasets effective. 2 major Classification techniques stand out: Logistic Regression and Discriminant Analysis.
Logistic Regression is the appropriate regression analysis to conduct when the dependent variable is dichotomous (binary). Like all regression analyses, the logistic regression is a predictive analysis. Logistic regression is used to describe data and to explain the relationship between one dependent binary variable and one or more nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio-level independent variables. Types of questions that a logistic regression can examine:
How does the probability of getting lung cancer (Yes vs No) change for every additional pound of overweight and for every pack of cigarettes smoked per day?
Do body weight calorie intake, fat intake, and participant age have an influence on heart attacks (Yes vs No)?
In Discriminant Analysis, 2 or more groups or clusters or populations are known a priori and 1 or more new observations are classified into 1 of the known populations based on the measured characteristics. Discriminant analysis models the distribution of the predictors X separately in each of the response classes, and then uses Bayes' theorem to flip these around into estimates for the probability of the response category given the value of X. Such models can either be linear or quadratic.
Linear Discriminant Analysis computes "discriminant scores" for each observation to classify what response variable class it is in. These scores are obtained by finding linear combinations of the independent variables. It assumes that the observations within each class are drawn from a multivariate Gaussian distribution and the covariance of the predictor variables are common across all k levels of the response variable Y.
Quadratic Discriminant Analysis provides an alternative approach. Like LDA, QDA assumes that the observations from each class of Y are drawn from a Gaussian distribution. However, unlike LDA, QDA assumes that each class has its own covariance matrix. In other words, the predictor variables are not assumed to have common variance across each of the k levels in Y.
3 — Resampling Methods:
Resampling is the method that consists of drawing repeated samples from the original data samples. It is a non-parametric method of statistical inference. In other words, the method of resampling does not involve the utilization of the generic distribution tables in order to compute approximate p probability values.
Resampling generates a unique sampling distribution on the basis of the actual data. It uses experimental methods, rather than analytical methods, to generate the unique sampling distribution. It yields unbiased estimates as it is based on the unbiased samples of all the possible results of the data studied by the researcher. In order to understand the concept of resampling, you should understand the terms Bootstrapping and Cross-Validation:
Bootstrapping is a technique that helps in many situations like validation of a predictive model performance, ensemble methods, estimation of bias and variance of the model. It works by sampling with replacement from the original data, and take the "not chosen" data points as test cases. We can make this several times and calculate the average score as estimation of our model performance.
On the other hand, cross validation is a technique for validating the model performance, and it's done by split the training data into k parts. We take the k — 1 parts as our training set and use the "held out" part as our test set. We repeat that k times differently. Finally, we take the average of the k scores as our performance estimation.
Usually for linear models, ordinary least squares is the major criteria to be considered to fit them into the data. The next 3 methods are the alternative approaches that can provide better prediction accuracy and model interpretability for fitting linear models.
4 — Subset Selection:
This approach identifies a subset of the p predictors that we believe to be related to the response. We then fit a model using the least squares of the subset features.
Best-Subset Selection: Here we fit a separate OLS regression for each possible combination of the p predictors and then look at the resulting model fits. The algorithm is broken up into 2 stages: (1) Fit all models that contain k predictors, where k is the max length of the models, (2) Select a single model using cross-validated prediction error. It is important to use testing or validation error, and not training error to assess model fit because RSS and R² monotonically increase with more variables. The best approach is to cross-validate and choose the model with the highest R² and lowest RSS on testing error estimates.
Forward Stepwise Selection considers a much smaller subset of ppredictors. It begins with a model containing no predictors, then adds predictors to the model, one at a time until all of the predictors are in the model. The order of the variables being added is the variable, which gives the greatest addition improvement to the fit, until no more variables improve model fit using cross-validated prediction error.
Backward Stepwise Selection begins will all p predictors in the model, then iteratively removes the least useful predictor one at a time.
Hybrid Methods follows the forward stepwise approach, however, after adding each new variable, the method may also remove variables that do not contribute to the model fit.
5 — Shrinkage:
This approach fits a model involving all p predictors, however, the estimated coefficients are shrunken towards zero relative to the least squares estimates. This shrinkage, aka regularization has the effect of reducing variance. Depending on what type of shrinkage is performed, some of the coefficients may be estimated to be exactly zero. Thus this method also performs variable selection. The two best-known techniques for shrinking the coefficient estimates towards zero are the ridge regression and the lasso.
Ridge regression is similar to least squares except that the coefficients are estimated by minimizing a slightly different quantity. Ridge regression, like OLS, seeks coefficient estimates that reduce RSS, however they also have a shrinkage penalty when the coefficients come closer to zero. This penalty has the effect of shrinking the coefficient estimates towards zero. Without going into the math, it is useful to know that ridge regression shrinks the features with the smallest column space variance. Like in prinicipal component analysis, ridge regression projects the data into ddirectional space and then shrinks the coefficients of the low-variance components more than the high variance components, which are equivalent to the largest and smallest principal components.
Ridge regression had at least one disadvantage; it includes all p predictors in the final model. The penalty term will set many of them close to zero, but never exactly to zero. This isn't generally a problem for prediction accuracy, but it can make the model more difficult to interpret the results. Lasso overcomes this disadvantage and is capable of forcing some of the coefficients to zero granted that s is small enough. Since s = 1 results in regular OLS regression, as s approaches 0 the coefficients shrink towards zero. Thus, Lasso regression also performs variable selection.
6 — Dimension Reduction:
Dimension reduction reduces the problem of estimating p + 1 coefficients to the simple problem of M + 1 coefficients, where M < p. This is attained by computing M different linear combinations, or projections, of the variables. Then these M projections are used as predictors to fit a linear regression model by least squares. 2 approaches for this task are principal component regression and partial least squares.
One can describe Principal Components Regression as an approach for deriving a low-dimensional set of features from a large set of variables. The firstprincipal component direction of the data is along which the observations vary the most. In other words, the first PC is a line that fits as close as possible to the data. One can fit p distinct principal components. The second PC is a linear combination of the variables that is uncorrelated with the first PC, and has the largest variance subject to this constraint. The idea is that the principal components capture the most variance in the data using linear combinations of the data in subsequently orthogonal directions. In this way, we can also combine the effects of correlated variables to get more information out of the available data, whereas in regular least squares we would have to discard one of the correlated variables.
The PCR method that we described above involves identifying linear combinations of X that best represent the predictors. These combinations (directions) are identified in an unsupervised way, since the response Y is not used to help determine the principal component directions. That is, the response Y does not supervise the identification of the principal components, thus there is no guarantee that the directions that best explain the predictors also are the best for predicting the response (even though that is often assumed). Partial least squares (PLS) are a supervisedalternative to PCR. Like PCR, PLS is a dimension reduction method, which first identifies a new smaller set of features that are linear combinations of the original features, then fits a linear model via least squares to the new M features. Yet, unlike PCR, PLS makes use of the response variable in order to identify the new features.
7 — Nonlinear Models:
In statistics, nonlinear regression is a form of regression analysis in which observational data are modeled by a function which is a nonlinear combination of the model parameters and depends on one or more independent variables. The data are fitted by a method of successive approximations. Below are a couple of important techniques to deal with nonlinear models:
A function on the real numbers is called a step function if it can be written as a finite linear combination of indicator functions of intervals. Informally speaking, a step function is a piecewise constant function having only finitely many pieces.
A piecewise function is a function which is defined by multiple sub-functions, each sub-function applying to a certain interval of the main function's domain. Piecewise is actually a way of expressing the function, rather than a characteristic of the function itself, but with additional qualification, it can describe the nature of the function. For example, a piecewise polynomial function is a function that is a polynomial on each of its sub-domains, but possibly a different one on each.
A spline is a special function defined piecewise by polynomials. In computer graphics, spline refers to a piecewise polynomial parametric curve. Splines are popular curves because of the simplicity of their construction, their ease and accuracy of evaluation, and their capacity to approximate complex shapes through curve fitting and interactive curve design.
A generalized additive modelis a generalized linear model in which the linear predictor depends linearly on unknown smooth functions of some predictor variables, and interest focuses on inference about these smooth functions.
8 — Tree-Based Methods:
Tree-based methods can be used for both regression and classification problems. These involve stratifying or segmenting the predictor space into a number of simple regions. Since the set of splitting rules used to segment the predictor space can be summarized in a tree, these types of approaches are known as decision-tree methods. The methods below grow multiple trees which are then combined to yield a single consensus prediction.
Bagging is the way decrease the variance of your prediction by generating additional data for training from your original dataset using combinations with repetitions to produce multistep of the same carnality/size as your original data. By increasing the size of your training set you can't improve the model predictive force, but just decrease the variance, narrowly tuning the prediction to expected outcome.
Boosting is an approach to calculate the output using several different models and then average the result using a weighted average approach. By combining the advantages and pitfalls of these approaches by varying your weighting formula you can come up with a good predictive force for a wider range of input data, using different narrowly tuned models.
The random forest algorithm is actually very similar to bagging. Also here, you draw random bootstrap samples of your training set. However, in addition to the bootstrap samples, you also draw a random subset of features for training the individual trees; in bagging, you give each tree the full set of features. Due to the random feature selection, you make the trees more independent of each other compared to regular bagging, which often results in better predictive performance (due to better variance-bias trade-offs) and it's also faster, because each tree learns only from a subset of features.
9 — Support Vector Machines:
SVM is a classification technique that is listed under supervised learning models in Machine Learning. In layman's terms, it involves finding the hyperplane (line in 2D, plane in 3D and hyperplane in higher dimensions. More formally, a hyperplane is n-1 dimensional subspace of an n-dimensional space) that best separates two classes of points with the maximum margin. Essentially, it is a constrained optimization problem where the margin is maximized subject to the constraint that it perfectly classifies the data (hard margin).
The data points that kind of "support" this hyperplane on either sides are called the "support vectors". In the above picture, the filled blue circle and the two filled squares are the support vectors. For cases where the two classes of data are not linearly separable, the points are projected to an exploded (higher dimensional) space where linear separation may be possible. A problem involving multiple classes can be broken down into multiple one-versus-one or one-versus-rest binary classification problems.
10 — Unsupervised Learning:
So far, we only have discussed supervised learning techniques, in which the groups are known and the experience provided to the algorithm is the relationship between actual entities and the group they belong to. Another set of techniques can be used when the groups (categories) of data are not known. They are called unsupervised as it is left on the learning algorithm to figure out patterns in the data provided. Clustering is an example of unsupervised learning in which different data sets are clustered into groups of closely related items. Below is the list of most widely used unsupervised learning algorithms:
Principal Component Analysis helps in producing low dimensional representation of the dataset by identifying a set of linear combination of features which have maximum variance and are mutually un-correlated. This linear dimensionality technique could be helpful in understanding latent interaction between the variable in an unsupervised setting.
k-Means clustering: partitions data into k distinct clusters based on distance to the centroid of a cluster.
Hierarchical clustering: builds a multilevel hierarchy of clusters by creating a cluster tree.
This was a basic run-down of some basic statistical techniques that can help a data science program manager and or executive have a better understanding of what is running underneath the hood of their data science teams. Truthfully, some data science teams purely run algorithms through python and R libraries. Most of them don't even have to think about the math that is underlying. However, being able to understand the basics of statistical analysis gives your teams a better approach. Have insight into the smallest parts allows for easier manipulation and abstraction. I hope this basic data science statistical guide gives you a decent understanding!
P.S: You can get all the lecture slides and RStudio sessions from my GitHub source code here. Thanks for the overwhelming response!
Originally published at Towards Data Science
James Le is a Software Developer with experiences in Product Management and Data Analytics. He played a pivotal role in the operation of a start-up organization at Denison University.
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If you've always wanted to be a biker but just couldn't afford the bike of your dreams (and not because you're terrified of the things and think people you know are going to laugh at you when they bump into you wearing leathers and chains in Safeway) then here's an option for you. Starting at only 49cc, the lowest powered bikes here aren't going to blow anyone away except, perhaps, a moped rider on a good day, downhill. Though if you want, you can order anything up to a 250cc V and cruise the high street with "Born To Be Wild" playing in your headphones.
These bikes are "bobbers", or kits, originally named for the 'bob tail' or shortened rear fender. If you can tune up your car, you should be able to build one of these and the prices are way below what you'd have to pay for something big and mean. Being kits, though, there's probably no ceiling to what you can pay if you place a special order, though I wouldn't recommend a V8 unless you're learning to fly.
Cool enough to drape girls in bikinis over, but you shouldn't attempt to give them a ride home on one. These, especially the Hardknock, are a would-be Peter Fonda's dream.
I've read that you need to order way ahead, as the bikes are hand built and there's a waiting list.
Questions? Get answers from the Kikker5150 staff and other customers.


Washington, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Thursday finalized new measures to ensure that homeowners and struggling borrowers are treated fairly by mortgage servicers. The updated rule requires servicers to provide certain borrowers with foreclosure protections more than once over the life of the loan, clarifies borrower protections when the servicing of a loan is transferred, and provides important loan information to borrowers in bankruptcy. The changes also help ensure that surviving family members and others who inherit or receive property generally have the same protections under the CFPB's mortgage servicing rules as the original borrower.
Requiring servicers to notify borrowers when loss mitigation applications are complete: Whether a borrower is entitled tokey foreclosure protections depends in part on the date a borrower completes a loss mitigation application. If consumers do not know the status of their application, they cannot know the status of those foreclosure protections. Today's final rule requires servicers to notify borrowers promptly and in writing that the application is complete, so that borrowers know the status of the application and have more information about their protections.


Am I Hindering God From Finishing What He Started?
Phillipians 1:6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
From the time I invited Jesus to take up residence in my heart the work began and it was hard work, if I'm honest. I am thankful that God is long suffering, merciful, and patient because if He wasn't He may have given up on the work I require.
i enjoy watching remodeling programs. Especially the ones of people taking on risky projects where they really don't know what lies behind the walls or under the floors. It requires determination, flexibility, and patience. Without these traits the remodelers would be tempted to walk away from the project because they felt that the work was too much. It is hopeless. Or maybe they would decide to bulldoze the house and start over. I am so thankful that the Lord has not given up on me.
I can totally relate to Paul when he wrote in Romans 7:18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Then in verses 24-25 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Lord, I have some rotten floors that need to be pulled up. You'll find some damage in the walls that need to be removed. There is some rewiring that is required or there could be an electrical shortage. I'm sure some of the pipes are plugged up or even rotted and need to be replaced. I submit to Your work. Please persist with it. I thank you for the new mercies you offer me each and every day.
Thank God! My answer is on Jesus Christ my Lord!


text:
Q: String with multiple lines of weblink images. How to display them? I've got a String full of weblink image (23 links) :
listItem.text = String(item.movieimage);

If I do trace(String(item.movieimage)); the output is :
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/xxx_3.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/vaiana.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/tous_scene.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/fits.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/boyfriend.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/sahara2017.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/resident_evil_final.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/raid_dingue.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/passengers2017.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/lego_batman.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/grande_muraille.jpg
http://www.thewebsite.nc/Content/images/AFFICHES/fille_brest.jpg

Know, I've got 9 UILoader on my stage.
So I would like to do
uiloader1.source = item.movieimage[1];
uiloader2.source = item.movieimage[2];
uiloader3.source = item.movieimage[3];

...etc...
How can I do that ?
Thanks

A: Assuming they're separated by an indent
//Put all the links in an array
var myItems:Array = listItem_txt.text.split("\n");

//You say you only have nine, so only iterate until the 9th
for (var i:int = 0; i < 9; i++)
{
    //Also assuming your "uiloader" is a custom class you made with a .source property
    this.getChildByName("uiloader" + i).source = myItems[i];
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Today's business people seem to be forever on the go, which is why practical and useful bags make perfect sense as incentives and awards.
This is the rolling leather under seat or overhead carry-on luggage that opens wide enough for easy packing or unpacking. Made from vegetable-tanned, full-grain cowhide that provides a rugged durability but a soft and buttery hand. Two side slash pockets keep a newspaper or periodical handy while a front slash pocket keeps up to a 14″ laptop ready for easy on board deployment after takeoff; a zippered front pouch keeps a passport and papers at-hand. The under seat luggage unzips to reveal a spacious 13″-wide main compartment and a solid fabric wall built across its lower third that keeps folded garments tidy and undisturbed when retrieving papers, pens, charging cables, or a smartphone from three integrated zippered mesh pouches lining the bag's interior.


text:
Q: How to run multiple composed commands (with multiple arguments) in gnu parallel? I want to run the following scripts with different input arguments using GNU Parallel in parallel:
Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r 0.1 1 #(1) 0.1 and 1 are the input arguments
Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r 0.1 2 #(2)
Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r 0.1 5 #(3)
Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r 0.1 10 #(4)

So all I wanna do is run the 'commands' (1),(2),(3),(4) in parallel using GNU parallel.
My best guess was something like
parallel Rscript < svmRScript_v2.copy.r ::: 0.1 1 ::: 0.1 2 ::: 0.1 5 ::: 0.1 10

I know this is entirely wrong and I'm getting the following error:
Fatal error: cannot open file ':::': No such file or directory.
Any suggestion what I need to change?
Thanks in advance.

A: The obvious is:
parallel Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r 0.1 ::: 1 2 5 10

But I have the feeling you might want 0.1 and 0.2 later:
parallel Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r ::: 0.1 0.2 ::: 1 2 5 10

If the order of the arguments is wrong:
parallel Rscript svmRScript_v2.copy.r {2} {1} ::: 0.1 0.2 ::: 1 2 5 10

Did you have a chance to watch the intro videos and walk through the tutorial?


We like to encourage children to read, which is why we usually have at least 1 box of kid's books which can be taken for free – they are put outside our Newburgh shop if the weather is fine. Sue must remember not to put them out on a blue bin day as last week the bin men took them all away! Thanks go to Evelyn & her husband for their kind donation of 2 huge boxes of kitten & cat food. Sophie & Ian bought & collected 5 big bags of cat biscuits from Edinburgh – there wouldn't be much change from £100 so Sue thanks them very much. Sue continues to be busy rounding up feral cats & kittens – it is always a very busy time of year.


The infrastructure and technology at the Institute of Aviation Medicine (IAM) of the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) are among the best in the world, and have produced high quality aircraft pilots.
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the excellent facilities available at the IAM prompted the air force of countries such as Australia, Thailand and the Philippines to send their pilots for training here.
"This shows that we have the expertise and advantages over some developed countries. The IAM prepares RMAF pilots in mental and physical health and improve their skills in handling aircraft," he said.
It is understood that more than 10 countries including India, Brunei and Pakistan have expressed their desire to send air force pilots for training at the IAM.
The IAM provides various forms of aerophysiology training and studies for RMAF pilots and personnel.


text:
'I Wish This Was Simply A Dream:' Terence Crutcher's Twin Sister Speaks Out
News One Exclusives
Home › News One Exclusives
"It's an epidemic in America" when Black people have accidents and instead of getting help, they "get treated like criminals," said Benjamin Crump, the family's lawyer.
The family of Terence Crutcher is demanding answers after a Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer fatally shot the 40-year-old unarmed Black man as his car was stalled on the side of the road.
Outrage is building in the community and across the nation as the shocking video of the shooting spreads. Police helicopter video and dash cam video captured the disturbing events that led up to the shooting.
Prior to the shooting, an officer in the police helicopter is heard on video saying, "That looks like a bad dude too … to be on something."
Crutcher's twin sister Tiffany Crutcher and Attorney Benjamin Crump spoke with Roland Martin during Tuesday's edition of NewsOne Now.
Crutcher said of her brother's murder, "Every time I hear the helicopter, the police, and the news footage, I just get so emotional."
"My brother was a loveable guy," Crutcher said. The slain 40-year-old was a father of four who had just returned to college to study music appreciation the same day he was gunned down by Tulsa cops. Tiffany shared her brother's wishes to make his family proud and said, "he wanted to become better and he was working on his self."
Crutcher later said, "I wished this was simply a dream."
Benjamin Crump, Crutcher's family attorney who is well-known for his involvement in the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases, said that as a result of his car stalling on the road, Crutcher "was in distress."
"He was broke down just like the case of Jonathan Ferrell in Charlotte, who had the accident. He got shot by the police. And Corey Jones was broke down on the side of the road in Palm Beach … he needed help and he got shot."
Crump continued, "Now we're here in Tulsa, Oklahoma where once again, Terence Crutcher is broke down; he needed help, instead he got a bullet in his lung and this is by the people who are supposed to protect and serve him."
Before concluding his remarks on NewsOne Now, Attorney Crump said, "It's an epidemic in America when Black people, especially Black men and Black women, have accidents and instead of getting help, we get treated like criminals; we get treated like suspects and this is the crux of the matter, this is the problem.
"We have to have the community come together and say, 'We're not going to allow you to continue to get away with this, we're going to call you out on it and we're going to make you do something about it.'"
Watch Roland Martin, Tiffany Crutcher, Attorney Benjamin Crump, and the NewsOne Now panel discuss the disturbing police shooting of Terence Crutcher in the video clip above.
Watch NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.
http://newsone.com/3543236/tulsa-oklahoma-police-shoot-kill-terrance-crutcher/
'I Wish This Was Simply A Dream:' Terence Crutcher's Twin Sister Speaks Out was originally published on newsone.com
Attorney Ben Crump	, dash cam	, Excessive Force	, Mike Brown	, newsone now	, racial profiling	, Roland Martin	, Terence Crutcher	, Tiffany Crutcher	, trayvon martin	, Tulsa Police Department
Also On Praise Houston:
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Worst passwords of the year announced
By Zhu Lingqing | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-12-17 14:43
There are still a large number of people using weak and easily predictable passwords on the internet, report said. [Photo/IC]
"123456" and "password", the two easily guessed terms, remain the worst passwords of the year, according to a list released by SplashData, a security applications and services provider, for five consecutive year, tech.sina.com.cn reported.
The list, based on an analysis of 5 million leaked passwords on the internet, compiles the most frequently used passwords of the year, which are thus easy to predict.
Data leak cases have not fallen this year, and there are still a large number of people using weak and easily predictable passwords on the internet, the report said.
Passwords on the top 100 worst passwords list include simple numbers or words, such as "111111", "sunshine", "princess", "666666" and "654321".
Common names like "daniel", "hannah" and "thomas" are also weak passwords. And "donald", first name of US President Donald Trump, for the first made the list this year, coming in at No 23.
"Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to-remember combinations," Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, said in a statement.
Slain said by publishing the list, the company aims to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online.
"It is a real head-scratcher that with all the risks known, and with so many highly publicized hacks such as Marriott and the National Republican Congressional Committee, that people continue putting themselves at such risk year-after-year," he added.
It is estimated that nearly 10 percent of people have used at least one of the top 25 worst passwords on the list, with roughly 3 percent using the worst password, "123456," the company said.
The company suggests a password should have no less than 12 mixed characters and each account should have a different password.
The top 10 worst passwords on the list include: "123456", "password", "123456789", "12345678", "12345", "111111", "1234567", "sunshine", "qwerty" and "iloveyou".
Free online access could spur runaway growth in internet industry
Banks use emerging technologies to modernize operations
Intel confirms three security flaws in its chips
Bio payments future of shopping
JD.com launches robot courier station in central China city


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in Funny, Tweets & Memes
Comedian Michelle Wolf Completely Decimates Trump In Response To Twitter Attack
by Dean
President Trump is probably the worst person in the world when it comes to hearing criticism of himself. Once (pre-presidency), when he didn't like an article she'd written about him for Vanity Fair, he poured a bottle of wine down a woman's back. That's the kind of stuff only the pettiest of the Real Housewives would ever dream of.
The WHCA announced yesterday that next year's Correspondents' Dinner would break the tradition of having a comedian host, opting for an author instead. That's probably a reaction to the fact that Trump and the White House (and some of the correspondents) seriously can't take jokes about themselves, and the dinner has long been a roast of the current administration.
Last year, comedian Michelle Wolf delivered a scorching set of spot-on jokes, including one about Sarah Sanders lying, and everyone freaked out. The right feigned outrage, as they're wont to do, and everyone acted as though Wolf had gone too far just by joking about the truth.
When the WHCA announced their decision that they were having biographer Ron Chernow host instead of the customary comedian, Wolf called them "cowards."
The @whca are cowards. The media is complicit. And I couldn't be prouder. https://t.co/OOIFGuZ731
— Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) November 19, 2018
Trump himself hasn't been in attendance at either of the dinners that have been held while he's been in office (2017 was hosted by Larry Wilmore). But he was in attendance at dinner in 2011, when President Obama was still in office. Seth Meyers hosted, and he eviscerated Trump, who was in the audience, with lines like, "Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke."
All of which is to say, it wasn't a shock when Trump attacked Wolf on Twitter, calling her a "so-called comedian."
So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?
[This isn't the first time he's attacked Wolf on Twitter, either, because of course, he had to say something after the dinner last year. He didn't mention her by name, but he did call her "filthy." And note how he still couldn't let go of the Seth Meyers dinner, where he sat in complete silence while he and his character (or lack thereof) were dragged up and down creation.]
The White House Correspondents' Dinner was a failure last year, but this year was an embarrassment to everyone associated with it. The filthy "comedian" totally bombed (couldn't even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance). Put Dinner to rest, or start over!
But Wolf, being the talented comedian she is, decimated Trump in her response to his direct attack.
I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest https://t.co/bZ91Cg0QCr
OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUCHHHHHH.
That has to be, without a doubt, one of the sickest burns that Twitter's ever seen.
This is:
1. The darkest joke
2. The truest joke
3. The sickest burn
4. Written by my friend Michelle
5. Classic #bebest https://t.co/fO2U9HBhhE
— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) November 21, 2018
"Sir, Michelle Wolf is here." pic.twitter.com/RUqJSJp88s
— This ain't Funny Anymore (@mayday20201) November 21, 2018
pic.twitter.com/BPLOUuwfkO
— Ira (@ira) November 21, 2018
I'd like to report a murder… https://t.co/C0iRqSfeSt
— amber ruffin (@ambermruffin) November 21, 2018
Michelle Wolf just owned @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/iM32BcMciH
— Chicago Mike 2.0 🍩 (@ChicagoMGD_SD) November 21, 2018
This joke deserves a movie deal stat
— EdnagonMC (@ednagonmc) November 21, 2018
Straight up no way to recover from this. Wolf will now loom larger in Trump's rat-infested warehouse of a psyche than his own father. The tweet itself is a double-tap to the chest & the use of his *wife's* rotten hashtag is the headshot. Michelle Wolf is my boss & I respect her. https://t.co/SSxqLCkBZF
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) November 21, 2018
The official Twitter account should pin this tweet. https://t.co/Yc9ILYNssH
— Sean O'Connor (@seanoconnz) November 21, 2018
Trump should definitely not mess with Michelle Wolf. He's just digging his own grave.
Written by Dean
Dean Altman is a writer living in NYC.


For years while I was working as an executive at a Fortune 500 company, I dreamed of starting my own company and being my own boss. After years of anticipation, I took action and founded a startup. I love my life as a startup entrepreneur.
Are you thinking of making the switch from a big company to starting your own business? Even while you're still working, there's a lot you can do to prepare yourself for the jump.
One of the best assets you have from your time at a big firm is an extensive network of professionals who (hopefully) think well of your work. In your final months in the corporate world, you should invest in tending your current relationships and even building some new ones.
A strong network can provide leads for new clients, employees or service providers. Plus, you may never again have access to such a large group of people who are free to dine with you, only a three-minute walk from where you are sitting.
At a big company, even as an executive, you probably have a specialized role in one functional area. But in your own company, you will need to be a "jack of all trades" -- so use your remaining time at a big company to learn a new trade, on the company's dime. You can join a cross-functional project that will increase your exposure to a new area, or take advantage of training and development classes.
For example, my old employer offered a day-long introductory course in Agile Development open to anyone, regardless of job function. This would be a valuable investment of time for any budding technology entrepreneur.
Don't know anything about marketing? You'd think it would be a smart move to meet with a senior marketing leader at your company for a few tips as you start your new venture but you'd be wrong.
When you are starting out, what you really need is practical advice. The responsibilities of a VP of marketing at a Fortune 500 company are completely different from what you'll be doing marketing your small business. She won't personally use any of the software tools you'll need, and the agencies she would recommend are likely to be well out of your price range. Plus, the right marketing for an unknown startup is vastly different than for a well-known industry leader.
So what do you do instead? Seek out co-workers who used to be entrepreneurs themselves, and ask them about how they did everything. What services did they use? How much did they pay consultants? What functions did they do themselves that they now regret not outsourcing? And what turned out to be easier than they thought? You'd be surprised about how readily people will share this information, and it will be practical advice you can use.
One thing that's vastly different when you start your own business is the loss of corporate benefits. As an entrepreneur, you'll need to have medical and dental, but your plans might not be as comprehensive -- and all other benefits go out the window.
So in your last few months, schedule that elective surgery you've been putting off, max out your 401K contribution, take that class using tuition assistance or make those contributions to your alma mater while you can apply for company matching funds. There's nothing unethical about taking advantage of all your benefits as long as you are employed there.
Making the jump from the corporate world to starting your own firm can be scary, but it is worth taking the plunge.


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Whether after the resurrection every one will know what sins he has committed?
Objection 1: It seems that after the resurrection everyone will not be able to know all the sins he has committed. For whatever we know, either we receive it anew through the senses, or we draw it from the treasure house of the memory. Now after the resurrection men will be unable to perceive their sins by means of sense, because they will be things of the past, while sense perceives only the present: and many sins will have escaped the sinner's memory, and he will be unable to recall them from the treasure house of his memory. Therefore after rising again one will not be cognizant of all the sins one has committed.
Objection 2: Further, it is stated in the text (Sent. iv, D, 43), that "there are certain books of the conscience, wherein each one's merits are inscribed." Now one cannot read a thing in a book, unless it be marked down in the book: and sin leaves its mark upon the conscience according to a gloss of Origen on Rom. 2:15, "Their conscience bearing witness," etc. which mark, seemingly, is nothing else than the guilt or stain. Since then in many persons the guilt or stain of many sins is blotted out by grace, it would seem that one cannot read in one's conscience all the sins one has committed: and thus the same conclusion follows as before.
Objection 3: Further, the greater the cause the greater the effect. Now the cause which makes us grieve for the sins which we recall to memory is charity. Since then charity is perfect in the saints after the resurrection, they will grieve exceedingly for their sins, if they recall them to memory: yet this is impossible, seeing that according to Apoc. 21:4, "Sorrow and mourning shall flee away from them." [*The quotation is from Is. 35:10. The text of the Apocalypse has: "Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more."] Therefore they will not recall their own sins to memory.
Objection 4: Further, at the resurrection the damned will be to the good they once did as the blessed to the sins they once committed. Now seemingly the damned after rising again will have no knowledge of the good they once did, since this would alleviate their pain considerably. Neither therefore will the blessed have any knowledge of the sins they had committed.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xx) that "a kind of Divine energy will come to our aid, so that we shall recall all of our sins to mind."
Further, as human judgment is to external evidence, so is the Divine judgment to the witness of the conscience, according to 1 Kings 16:7, "Man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart." Now man cannot pass a perfect judgment on a matter unless evidence be taken on all the points that need to be judged. Therefore, since the Divine judgment is most perfect, it is necessary for the conscience to witness to everything that has to be judged. But all works, both good and evil, will have to be judged (2 Cor. 5:10): "We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil." Therefore each one's conscience must needs retain all the works he has done, whether good or evil.
I answer that, According to Rom. 2:15,16, "In the day when God shall judge" each one's conscience will bear witness to him and his thoughts will accuse and defend him. And since in every judicial hearing, the witness, the accuser, and the defendant need to be acquainted with the matter on which judgment has to be pronounced, and since at the general judgment all the works of men will be submitted to judgment, it will behoove every man to be cognizant then of all his works. Wherefore each man's conscience will be as a book containing his deeds on which judgment will be pronounced, even as in the human court of law we make use of records. Of these books it is written in the Apocalypse (20:12): "The books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books [Vulg.: 'book'], according to their works." According to Augustine's exposition (De Civ. Dei xx) the books which are here said to be opened "denote the saints of the New and Old Testaments in whom God's commandments are exemplified." Hence Richard of St. Victor (De judic. potest.) says: "Their hearts will be like the code of law." But the book of life, of which the text goes on to speak, signifies each one's conscience, which is said to be one single book, because the one Divine power will cause all to recall their deeds, and this energy, in so far as it reminds a man of his deeds, is called the "book of life" [*Cf. FP, Q[24], A[1], ad 1]. Or else we may refer the first books to the conscience, and by the second book we may understand the Judge's sentence as expressed in His providence.
Reply to Objection 1: Although many merits and demerits will have escaped our memory, yet there will be none of them but will remain somewhat in its effect, because those merits which are not deadened will remain in the reward accorded to them, while those that are deadened remain in the guilt of ingratitude, which is increased through the fact that a man sinned after receiving grace. In like manner those demerits which are not blotted out by repentance remain in the debt of punishment due to them, while those which have been blotted out by repentance remain in the remembrance of repentance, which they will recall together with their other merits. Hence in each man there will be something whereby he will be able to recollect his deeds. Nevertheless, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xx), the Divine energy will especially conduce to this.
Reply to Objection 2: Each one's conscience will bear certain marks of the deeds done by him; and it does not follow that these marks are the guilt alone, as stated above.
Reply to Objection 3: Although charity is now the cause of sorrow for sin, yet the saints in heaven will be so full of joy, that they will have no room for sorrow; and so they will not grieve for their sins, but rather will they rejoice in the Divine mercy, whereby their sins are forgiven them. Even so do the angels rejoice now in the Divine justice whereby those whom they guard fall headlong into sin through being abandoned by grace. and whose salvation none the less they eagerly watch over.
Reply to Objection 4: The wicked will know all the good they have done, and this will not diminish their pain; indeed, it will increase it, because the greatest sorrow is to have lost many goods: for which reason Boethius says (De Consol. ii) that "the greatest misfortune is to have been happy."


Which Fees Are Worth Paying? Which Are Not?
2008 has been the year of the airline fee. In the winter and spring, we saw airlines adding charges for second-checked bags, perhaps the most surprising industry development in recent years—until American unveiled the first first-checked-bag fee in May. Since then more than half the country's major airlines have added first-checked-bag fees, not to mention charges for onboard beverages, and have raised fees for everything from carry-on antlers to checked surfboards.
Many, but not all, of these new charges have drawn outrage from the flying public. For example, when JetBlue announced it would charge for onboard blankets and pillows, many readers were glad to be rid of the blankets and pillows most airlines use.
And so, I wonder: Are there any fees you don't mind paying? Do some of these new policies actually improve the flying experience, and if so, how? And, of course, which fees do you absolutely resent having to pay? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.


Jacquees ft Wale – Against Me :Jacquees and Wale are more than typically accustomed to wading through a sea of self-piteous emotion, the type of confessional stuff you keep mum unless the local parishioner tells you otherwise.
On "Against Me" Jacquees revels in his relative sweet spot, as the incumbent force behind many-a-song that already boasts a running start, in this case, he is working off a H.E.R. record where she champions the importance of self-validation. On "Against Me" the script is flipped onto its side, with Jacquees perceiving change, not in himself, but in his partner.
VIDEO: Kwesta ft Wale – Spirit (Official) :After debuting the music video on music channels on Dec 31st last year, Kwesta finally releases the official Spirit video online.
Wale ft J Cole – My Boy (Freestyle) :Back in January, Wale hinted at an upcoming collaboration with J. Cole by previewing some music in the studio with the multi platinum emcee.


Continuing on with this series, we now turn our attention to how to ingest and process the data collected through the Event Hub. For real time apps, this is where we want to perform our bounded queries to generate data within a window. Remember, traditionally we naturally get bounded queries because we are querying a fixed data set. With this sort of application our data is constantly coming in and so we have to be cognizant of limiting our queries within a given window.
Click Add within your Resource Group and stream for Stream Analytics and look for Stream Analytics job.
For this demo, you can set Streaming Units to 1. Streaming Units is a measure of the scalability for the job, you should adjust this based on your incoming load. For more information see here.
When we look at this sort of service we concern ourselves with three aspects: Input, Query, and Output. For the job to work we will need to fulfill each of these pieces.
For Input, we already have this, our Event Hub. We can click on Inputs and select Add Stream Input. From here you can select your Event Hub, you will be promoted to fill in values from the right side panel. As a tip, try to use the EventHub selection, dont try to specify the values. I have found that things wont work properly.
This provides an input into our analytics job for our next section we will configure the query.
As I mentioned before, the thing to remember with this sort of process is you are dealing with unbounded data. Because of this we need to make sure the queries look at the data in a bounded context.
One big tip I can give here is using Sample Data to test. Once you have your Input stream going for a bit you can return to the Inputs list and click Sample Data for that specific input. This will generate a file you can download with the data being received through that input.
Once you have this file, you can return to the Edit Query screen and click the Test button, this will let you upload the file you downloaded and will display the query results. I found this a great way to test your query logic.
Once you have things working to your liking you need to move on to the Output.
This will drop the raw data into files within your blob storage that you can read back later. Though, the real value here will be the ability to query it from something like Cosmos which we cover in the next section.
So, now you have an Event Hub that is able to ingest large amounts of data and it pumps the data into the Analytics Job which runs a query (or queries) against it and it sends the outputs, for now, to our Blob Storage.
Looking to catch you in Part 3.
Previously I walked through the process of using the Amazon Kinesis Service to build a real time analytics pipeline in which a bunch of data was ingested and then processed with the results pushed out to a data store which we could then query at our leisure. You can find the start of this series here.
This same ability is available in Microsoft Azure using a combination of Event Hubs, Analytic Streams, and CosmosDB. Let's walk through creating this pipeline.
Event Hubs in Azure are similar to Kinesis Firehose in that the aim is to intake a lot of data at scale. This is where it differs from something like Service Bus or Event Grid both of which are more geared towards enabling event driven programming.
To create an Event Hub you need to first create a namespace, it is within these namespaces that you created the hubs you will send data to. To create the namespace search for and select Event Hubs by Microsoft.
One of the important aspects here is the determination of your throughput units which determines how much load your Hub can accommodate. For a simple demo, you can leave it at 1, for more advanced scenarios you would increase it.
Enable Auto Inflate allows you to specify the minimum number of throughput units but lets Azure automatically increase the number as needed.
Once you have your Namespace, click the local Add button to add your Hub. As a convention, I always suffix these with hub.
When creating the Hub you need to be aware of the Partition count. Partitions are an important part of this sort of big data processing as they enabling data sharding which lets the system better balance the amount of data.
The number here MUST range of 2 to 32. You should try to think of a logical grouping of your data so that you can balance it. For example, in my sample I only have 10 user Ids so I create 10 partition and each one handles an individual user. In a real life scenario I might have n users so this would not work.
Regardless, selecting the appropriate partition key is essential for maximizing the processing power of Event Hubs (and other stream services).
So now that you have a hub up we need to write events to it. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, but I have not yet found a way to do it via API Management. I sense that this sort of data processing is of a different nature than pure Event Driven programming.
For starters you will need the Microsoft.Azure.EventHubs NuGet package which will make writing to the endpoint much easier.
Within your application you need to create a client reference to EventHubClient this is created using your Endpoint and Shared Access Key.
You can get these values in one of two ways: globally or locally.
Regardless of how you do this, a policy can support up to three permissions: Manage, Send, and Listen. In the context of eventing these should be pretty self explanatory.
Returning to the task at hand, we need to select the appropriate policy and copy the Connection String – primary key value. As a note, if you copy this value at the Namespace level you will NOT see the EntityPath included in the connection string, if you copy at the Hub level you will.
EntityPath can be applied via EntityHubsConnectionStringBuilder. The value is the name of the Hub you will connect to within the namespace.
Again, if you copy the Connection String from the Hub level you can OMIT the EntityPath specification that I have in the code above. I think that is the better approach anyway.
Once we have our client up and configured we can start to send events (or messages) to our Hub. We do this by calling SendAsync on the EventHubClient instance. The message can be passed in a variety of ways, but the standard is as a UTF8 byte array. This is easy to do with the Encoding class in .NET.
As with any sort of test involving streaming you need to make sure you generate a considerable amount of data so you can see the ingestion rates in the Hub metrics.
Ok so, we now have events streaming from our apps up to the Hub, now we need to do something with our data. In the next section, we will set up a Stream Analytics Job that runs against our incoming data, produces results, and drops the data into a Blob storage container.
It is with great humility that I announce Microsoft's decision to renew my MVP status for an additional year. While it is my second renewal, it comes as the first true renewal that I have had since being selected in 2016.
What I mean by that is, after I was selected in 2016 the program's renewal cycle changed and as part of the change I was grandfathered into the MVP program for 2017 into 2018. This mean't it would be my accomplishments in 2017 that would dictate whether my MVP status would continue.
I spoke and blogged quite a bit in early 2017 but, shut things down around August to focus on my wedding and honeymoon. What's more, throughout 2017 I was tasked with a large $4mil web project using NodeJS, AWS, and ReactJS for West Monroe. I was worried as this certainly drew my focus away from what got me my MVP. In addition, I decided to also refocus on the web and away from Xamarin (this as part of an overall decision to focus more on the Cloud side of things).
2018 has also not been easy as the AWS project finishes up and I celebrate the birth of my first child, my son Ethan. But I am committed to finding the balance and have already spoken at two conferences (CodeMash and Chicago Code Camp) and am selected to speak at TechBash and have abstracts out to VSLive.
In the end, my willingness to share my ideas here and the awesome people who have to read what I wrote and even share some of my articles on forums and StackOverflow, helped get that MVP renewal and so, I send out a Thank You to all.
This is it, our final step. This is basically saving our query result from the Analytics application to a DynamoDB where it can easily be queried. For this we will again use Lambda as a highly scalable and easy to deploy mechanism to facilitate this transfer.
You will get a listing of all installed templates. A casual observation of this shows two provided Lambda templates that target Kinesis events. However, neither of these will work. I actually thought I had things working with these templates, however, the structure of the event sent from Analytics is very different, but the Records property is the only one that maps, and its all empty objects.
Here we are using the AWSSDK.DynamoDbv2 NuGet package to connect to Dynamo (the Lambda role must have access to Dynamo and our specific ARN). We use AttributeValue here to write, essentially, a JSON object to the table.
In my case, I have defined the partition and sorting keys since the data we can expect is a unique combination of a minute based timestamp and symbol; this is a composite key.
Again, the Lambda name does NOT have to match the local name, it is the name will be used when connecting with other AWS Services, like our Analytics application.
We need to make sure our new Lambda function is set up as the destination for our Analytics Application. Recall that, we created a stream when we did our SQL Query. Using the Destination feature, we can ensure these bounded results wind up in the table. Part 2 explains this a bit better.
So, if you followed all three segments you should now be ready to see if things are working. I would recommend having the DynamoDb table Items table open so you can see new rows as they appear.
Start your ingestion application and refresh Dynamo. It may take some time for rows to appear. If you are inpatient, like me, you can use the SQL Editor to see rows as they come across. I also like to have Console output message in the Lambda functions that I can see in CloudWatch.
Check that your Kinesis Query is returning results and that you have defined an OUTPUT_STREAM. I feel like the AWS Docs do not drive this point home well enough and seem to imply the presence of a "default" stream; this is not the case, or not in so much as I found.
Taking a step back and looking at this end to end product, the reality is we did not write that much code. Between my Lambda's I wrote perhaps lines of code, total. Not bad given what this application can do and its level of extensibility (Kinesis streams can send to multiple destinations).
This is what I love about Cloud platforms. In the past, designing and building a system like this would take as long as the application that might be using the data. But now, with Cloud, its mostly point and click and the platform handles the rest. Streaming data applications, like this, will only become more and more common as we see more systems move to the Cloud and more business want to gather data in new and unique ways.
Kinesis in AWS, EventGrid in Azure, and Pub/Sub in Google Cloud represent tooling that allows us to take this very valuable, highly complicated applications, and building them in hours instead of weeks. Though, in my view, AWS has the best support for applications like these, though I expect the others to make progress to catch up.
I hope you enjoyed this long example and I hope it gives you ideas for your next application and reveals how easy it is to get a value production Real Time Data application quickly.


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Former Ky. Gov. Brown to lie in state in Capitol Rotunda
Published 12:05 pm Monday, November 28, 2022
By Kentucky Today
Gov. Andy Beshear is inviting the public to pay their respects to former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown Jr., who will lie in state in the Capitol on Tuesday from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Brown's family will host a public visitation in the Rotunda from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
Brown was the 55th Governor of the commonwealth, serving from 1979 to 1983. He was 88 years old when he passed away on Monday.
"Gov. Brown was a remarkable leader who was committed to serving the people of Kentucky. He made our commonwealth a better place," Gov. Beshear said. "Britainy and I are praying for his family and loved ones."
A private memorial service will be held at the Capitol on Wednesday. Kentuckians will be able to view the service on Kentucky Educational Television and ket.org.
On Tuesday, Gov. Beshear directed flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff in Brown's honor until sunset on the day of interment. Individuals, businesses and organizations throughout the commonwealth are encouraged to join in this tribute. Flag status information is available at governor.ky.gov/flag-status.


Early morning after breakfast, I went out walking towards the historical sites. There are tourist guide map which I took from Hotel reception. I just follow through the map and found out the palaces and other historical sites is just walking distance from place I stay. Horraaayyyy!!!!
OMO!!!! now I feel like I should have stay longer...not enough time to cover this all.
There is lots of walking and walking and walking..... every night back home with sore feet!!!!
First site I visited is Jongmyo Shrine (Chongmyo Shrine).
This place built at the same time as Gyeongbok Palace to hold the ancestral tablets for the kings during the Joseon Dynasty.
The royal family will perform elaborate rituals here , 5 times a year to respect their ancestors. They still practice this until now. However , in modern days they will only perform this once a year which is during month of May.
Since this is the place to pray for the dead, so walking at this large area early in the morning is really make my mind at peace.
Ginko tree and falling ginkos.
Bought two goguma and eat this at the near by park before I continue my lonely walking tour.
This is the scene at the park where I ate my goguma..
Full of ajussi with black shirt.
They are playing their traditional games called Baduk.
WOW!!! Gorgeous trees and pics. Thank you for sharing.
Farfalla! yes! the trees and scene are so beautiful! God Bless!


Rich Products Vietnam stirred up interest in their beverage category at the Vietnam International Café Show 2018, the region's largest coffee show of the year, in Ho Chi Minh City. Major coffee brands were in attendance alongside space devoted to new products and services in the Vietnamese food and beverage industry.
Two years ago, Rich's collaborated with the leaders of the Vietnam Café Show to create an exciting new beverage competition for baristas and mixologists called the Vietnam Signature Battle (VSB). This year, Rich's hosted workshops for the entrants throughout the country. More than 50 entrants posted videos for the initial round and then the judges narrowed the field to 16 for the head-to-head competition at the Café Show.
"The energy and creativity of VSB's participants, along with the learnings gained by the audience, has become the biggest draw at the Café Show," said Wendy Barth, Vice President, Marketing & R&D/ in Rich's Asia Pacific Region.
VSB is a great platform for Rich's to connect with the emerging barista and mixologist community as a leader in the beverage arena. This year's competition was even more exciting because the participants could leverage Rich's new all-natural syrups, which offer a wide-range of unique flavors with which the contestants could create truly inspired drinks.
This year's VSB winner, Hang, received $5,000 USD and will represent Vietnam in a global competition at the Seoul Café Show in late 2018. Hang will also be a Rich's ambassador for one year, working with Rich Products Vietnam on new recipes and ideas that will be featured in beverage customer workshops as well as on Rich's Foodservice/Café Facebook page.
"Rich's sponsorship at one of the most prestigious beverage mixologist events now speaks volumes to the beverage community that has begun to recognize Rich's ability to bring the 'A World of Your Creation' platform to the table," said Eddy Chan, Rich's General Manager in Jakarta, Indonesia.


text:
Brent Kenneth Ashabranner (November 3, 1921 – December 1, 2016) was an American Peace Corps administrator, including its 1967–69 deputy director, and author of more than 30 books, primarily non-fiction children's literature, which received over 40 awards.

Early life
Ashabranner was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1921, the son of a pharmacist father and sibling of older brother Gerard. After five years, his parents moved the family to El Reno, Oklahoma, where they bought a pharmacy with oil royalties his mother received from family land, and were successful at business. His father lost the drugstore, however, to the Great Depression economy in 1932, followed by closure of their bank. A year later, the family moved to Bristow, Oklahoma, where Ashabranner's father had been offered a better job. Ashabranner was an avid reader and writer in school and became increasingly interested in foreign countries. Sports interests included track and tennis. Ashabranner graduated from high school in 1939.

His brother Gerard studied law informally, though persistently, while working for a local lawyer and passed the state bar exam, enabling him to practice law and support himself. Ashabranner enrolled in Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University–Stillwater) majoring in English. The school's library introduced him to many of the best writers of the time, including Hemingway and Fitzgerald. While waiting in line to register for classes, Ashabranner met Martha White from Roswell, New Mexico, who would be his future wife. Seeking additional income, Ashabranner's English professor suggested he write pulp fiction; choosing the Western genre, Ashabranner began earning a penny a word – $50 for a 5,000-word story. At the end of his sophomore year, the same professor offered him $100 per month for part-time work in his office. Ashabranner and his wife were married three months later in mid 1941.

With America's entry into World War II five months later, Ashabranner joined the U.S. Navy's Construction Battalion (Seabees), with training at Camp Peary near Williamsburg, Virginia. His education status led to his being assigned to the camp's personnel office and he continued working with camp administrators for two years, during which Ashabranner's wife moved to Williamsburg. Ashabranner was then assigned to the naval amphibious forces.  His vessel visited much of the Pacific before the war ended in August 1945.  The couple resumed their lives in Stillwater in 1946, re-enrolling at Oklahoma A&M and selling his stories. They earned undergraduate degrees in English and Home Economics, respectively, in 1948 and Ashabranner continued on to earn a master's degree in English (1951).  He took a job as an instructor in the school's English department and the couple had two daughters in the early 1950s.

Helping other countries
In 1955, Ashabranner was given a chance to work in Africa. With its well-rated agricultural department, Oklahoma A&M was asked by the Truman administration's Point Four Program to help Ethiopia start an agricultural college. The school was in agreement and had for several years sent people for this purpose.  Ethiopia later asked for help with creating school books, and Oklahoma A&M was again asked to recruit advisors, one of whom was Ashabranner.  The job was for two years, after which he and his family were to return to Stillwater and the English department. Instead, they ended up living in Africa and Asia for 25 years.

Ethiopia
Ashabranner's job, in national capital Addis Ababa, was to start two magazines modeled after My Weekly Reader and Scholastic Corporation's Junior Scholastic. One magazine would be for Ethiopia's elementary grades and written in Amharic, the national language, and the other would be written in English for later grades. The goal was to teach readers about their country and its history. While Ashabranner struggled with Amharic, his work partner, Russel Davis, learned it much more readily.  The two traveled Ethiopia for a month with native counterparts to take in the country's culture. They visited the historic city of Aksum, and various cultural groups including the Amharas, Gallas, Guragies, and Falasha. Ashabranner and Davis used what they learned from this trip, and others like it, to tell educational stories in their magazine articles, and they wrote their first book, The Lion's Whiskers, published in 1959. Ashabranner's wife, Martha, once taught home economics skills at a local girls' school, as well.

Libya and Nigeria
When their time in Ethiopia was up, the Point Four Program asked Ashabranner to help them in Libya. After much consideration, he resigned from the newly renamed Oklahoma State University and his family went to Libya. Davis returned to the U.S. and became an educator at Harvard University, but they continued to write six more books together. While in Libya, one such book was Ten Thousand Desert Swords in 1960. The family next went to Nigeria, long a colony of Britain and about to receive its independence. While Ashabranner worked there, U.S. President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps and its first director, Sargent Shriver, visited Nigeria to see about establishing the program. Ashabranner, at that time part of the United States Agency for International Development, was assigned to escort Shriver, who then appointed Ashabranner in charge of setting up operations after Nigeria agreed to participate. Also while there, Ashabranner became a non-fiction writer, working with Davis on their last and best-selling book together, Land in the Sun: The Story of West Africa (1963).

India, America, and Southeast Asia
Ashabranner's next assignment was in India, where he was the local director when its Peace Corps program became the largest in the world in 1965. After nearly four years in India, the next Peace Corps director asked Ashabranner to return to America and become the international program's deputy director. He bought a house in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. and his daughters graduated from Walter Johnson High School there. In May 1969, Ashabranner was among the guests invited to the Nixon White House for Joseph Blatchford's swearing-in ceremony as the third Peace Corps director. Ashabranner's daughter Melissa earned degrees from Temple University and Yale, while daughter Jennifer  trained professionally in pet grooming and photography. Ashabranner and his wife then returned oversees while he worked with the philanthropic Ford Foundation, moving from the Philippines to Indonesia in 1976.

Full-time writing
In 1980, Ashabranner and his wife returned to America to be near their daughters and devote his full-time work to writing non-fiction books for young readers.  Most of his more recent work is illustrated by Paul Conklin, whom Ashabranner first met in Nigeria. Daughter Jennifer also illustrated several of Ashabranner's books, beginning with Always to Remember (1988) about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He collaborated with daughter Melissa in Into a Strange Land (1987) and Counting America (1989). In 1988, Ashabranner and his wife moved to Williamsburg, Virginia. While the last book he had published was in 2002, Ashabranner told his doctor he'd be writing as long as he lived.

Death and legacy
Ashabranner died on December 1, 2016, and was survived by his wife and daughters, three grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.

Author Muriel Miller Branch, who wrote in 2000 about the Gullah people, described Ashabranner as a mentor who first discerned her writing talent.

Ashabranner's wife, Martha, died at age 98 on May 30, 2020.

Published works

For children

Other
The Stakes Are High (editor), Bantam (New York), 1954.
A First Course in College English (textbook, with Judson Milburn and Cecil B. Williams), Houghton (Boston), 1962.
A Moment in History: The First Ten Years of the Peace Corps, Doubleday (New York), 1971.

References

1921 births
2016 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American children's writers
Carter G. Woodson Book Award winners
Military personnel from Oklahoma
Peace Corps directors
People from Bristow, Oklahoma
People from Shawnee, Oklahoma
People from Stillwater, Oklahoma
People from Williamsburg, Virginia
Seabees
Oklahoma State University alumni
Oklahoma State University faculty
United States Navy personnel of World War II
American expatriates in Ethiopia
American expatriates in Libya
American expatriates in India
American expatriates in Indonesia
American expatriates in the Philippines

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: How to hide an element when clicking in another element who shares the same classes in vanilla JavaScript? I have created a toggle menu using vanilla javaScript because I am trying not to use jQuery as a dependency. I have been successful so far, but I want to toggle off the visibility of the other elements when clicking & opening a menu content.
HTML code for the markup:

Menu 1

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 2

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 3

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 4

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

CSS code for the styling of the toggle on/off effect of the menu content:
menu-link {
    display: inline-block;
    cursor: pointer;
    padding: 10px;
}

.menu-content {
    display: none;
}

.show {
    display: block;
    -webkit-animation-name: show;
    animation-name: show;
}

/* Show Animation */
@-webkit-keyframes show {
    from {
        opacity: 0;
    }

    to {
        opacity: 1;
    }
}

@keyframes show {
    from {
        opacity: 0;
    }

    to {
        opacity: 1;
    }
}

.animated {
    -webkit-animation-duration: 1.3s;
    animation-duration: 1.3s;
    -webkit-animation-fill-mode: both;
    animation-fill-mode: both;
}

JavaScript code to toggle class on/off:
// var declaration
var menuLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.menu-link');

// Loop through the array & add a click event to toggle "show" class
for (var i = 0; i < menuLinks.length; i++ ) {
    menuLinks[i].addEventListener('click', function() {
        if(this.nextElementSibling.className.match("show") ) {
            this.nextElementSibling.classList.remove("show");
        } else {
            this.nextElementSibling.classList.add("show");
        }
    });
};

This is jsfiddle example

A: Short answer:
You can simply get reference to the element which was clicked directly on your event listener and change visibility of all elements but the one which was clicked.
for (var i = 0; i < menuLinks.length; i++ ) {
  menuLinks[i].addEventListener('click', function(event) {
    const clickedElement = event.target;
    // remove show class from all elements but clicked element
    menuLinks.forEach(function(linkEl) {
      if (linkEl !== clickedElement) {
        linkEl.classList.toggle("show", false);
      } else {
        linkEl.classList.toggle("show", true);
      }
    });
  });
};

One problem I see here is that you are registering click listners on all the elements. You can optimize that by adding one click listener to a parent DOM node instead on each individual node.

A: Inside the callback function you could loop through your array menuLinks, remove the show class from all siblings and finally add it to the sibling which parent fired the click event.
Something like:

// var declaration
var menuLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.menu-link');

// Loop through the array & add a click event to toggle "show" class
for (var i = 0; i < menuLinks.length; i++) {
  menuLinks[i].addEventListener('click', function(e) {

    for (var a = 0; a < menuLinks.length; a++) {
      if (menuLinks[a] != e.target) {
        menuLinks[a].nextElementSibling.className = "menu-content animated";
      }

    }
    e.target.nextElementSibling.className = "show";
  });
};
menu-link {
  display: inline-block;
  cursor: pointer;
  padding: 10px;
}

.menu-content {
  display: none;
}

.show {
  display: block;
}

/* Show Animation */

@-webkit-keyframes show {
  from {
    opacity: 0;
  }
  to {
    opacity: 1;
  }
}

@keyframes show {
  from {
    opacity: 0;
  }
  to {
    opacity: 1;
  }
}

.show {
  -webkit-animation-name: show;
  animation-name: show;
}

.animated {
  -webkit-animation-duration: 1.3s;
  animation-duration: 1.3s;
  -webkit-animation-fill-mode: both;
  animation-fill-mode: both;
}

Menu 1

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 2

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 3

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

Menu 4

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sed quas odio facere sunt ullam quo ex amet sint in vitae.

A: You need to hide other elements in the DOM for this purpose. One way to do it:
JSFiddle
// var declaration
var menuLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.menu-link');

// Loop through the array & add a click event to toggle "show" class
for (var i = 0; i < menuLinks.length; i++ ) {
    var el = menuLinks[i]
  el.addEventListener('click', function() {
    var itemId = i;

      var allMenuLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.menu-link');

    if(this.nextElementSibling.className.match("show") ) {
      this.nextElementSibling.classList.remove("show");
    } else {
      this.nextElementSibling.classList.add("show");
    }

    for(var j=0; j<allMenuLinks.length; j++) {
        if(this==allMenuLinks[j]) {
        continue;
      }
      allMenuLinks[j].nextElementSibling.classList.remove("show");
    }
  })
}

A: First you are creating a new function each time in loop so you should rather declare such function outside. The whole code might look like this:
var menuLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.menu-link');
var onClick = function () {
  var target = this;
  for (var i = 0, j = menuLinks.length; i < j; i++) {
    if (target === menuLinks[i]) {
      target.classList.add("show");
    } else {
      target.classList.remove("show");
    }
  }
};
// Loop through the array & add a click event to toggle "show" class
for (var i = 0, j = menuLinks.length; i < j; i++) {
    menuLinks[i].addEventListener('click', onClick);
}


This entry was posted in Crocheting, Hope, Multiple Sclerosis, Relax, Struggles, Thankful by Positively Alyssa. Bookmark the permalink.
Great job crocheting!! Keep up the good work!!
Thank you so much Meg! I enjoy crocheting and it is so relaxing!
Crocheting has helped me with a lot of curve balls lately. Maybe more dealing with the stress of moving and all, but that is a curve ball.
It is amazing how much crocheting helps my stress levels at bay or at least less than that would be without it! I am so glad it helps you as well and I hope things get better for you soon!
Very pretty Alyssa – my mom was a knitter and she used to make those needles fly. She tried to teach me how to knit several times and I always dropped stitches and she would have to repair my work all the time. It is exciting to create such beautiful handiwork.
Thank you so much! I never learned how to knit and it seems a lot more difficult that crocheting because there are 2 sticks. It is pretty exciting to create something from just a small piece of yarn!
Yes it is – my neighbor used to crochet and used to make alot of afghans and half-afghans as well. She would do her crocheting while watching TV and then she'd make things out of her scrap yarn, multi-colored afghans … she did so until she got COPD and then she was afraid of the wool fibers affecting her breathing. When she got on a large oxygen machine I guess it was no longer a problem, but she had given her yarn and hooks, etc. away. My mom knit for years, then got carpal tunnel problems from knitting so much. This was because she made two afghans for my grandmother and one for each of us – it was a lot of knitting. She usually used to knit baby outfits for friends and then their kids had babies – it was endless, and sweaters and vests for me. (That was when I used to get dressed up for work – now I just wear shorts and tee-shirts and sometimes in Winter my polar fleece PJs. I like to be comfortable – how did I wear pantyhose and pumps back in the day?
It is funny you ask that about pantyhose and pumps all day back in the day. I got to a point I couldn't wear heals any longer and I use to LOVE shoes. I guess as we age cute shoes become less important. I hope your week has started off well!
Oh thank you for saying I might be too young for something, I tend to feel old lately! I actually do know the shoes you are talking about:)! It is crazy, I use to LOVE heals because they made me taller, now they are my enemy. I do still like cute shoes, but now they are way more logical!!
I was (and still am) tall, so why the heck was I wearing high heels to make me taller Alyssa? They sure are not good for your feet in the long run … you are probably a lot younger than me – I will be 63 in a few months and sometimes I cannot believe that – it does not seem possible to be 63.
Oh dear, age is really just a number and doesn't mean a lot in the big picture! I am 37 and often feel like I am 73, but it is just life. By reading your comments and your own blog, I would have NEVER guesses you will be turning 63. You definitely seem more like maybe 36!! Keep living life and you will always be young at heart!
Thanks Alyssa – I don't feel that age but it is a sad reality – sometimes I think I'd to be younger, but the world is so unsettled right now … things move too fast sometimes for me. I know that MS brings you down physically, as well as emotionally, and makes you feel your real age is turned around … life is tough sometimes, you're right about that. I can empathize with you as my mom fought a daily battle with her pain from her orthopedic injuries from a car accident when she was just 11 – I think I mentioned my mom to you before. So, I watched her daily struggles, her face full of pain for each step she took. Hang in there Alyssa … I feel for you and I know it is tough. I like your positive messages that you send to us – keep them up okay?
Thank you kindly! The world is way too unsettling at the moment and it is a little terrifying. I only hope for better days ahead of both of us. You couldn't be more right, MS does have a way of bring me down, but I do not want to allow for an illness to control me. I am so sorry for the struggles your mother endured, but she was lucky to have a sweet daughter like yourself! I do promise to keep positive messages as often as I can!!
You are welcome Alyssa – you have a circle of friends here, some who know your struggles, and others like me who cannot walk in your shoes, but knows those medical struggles and can empathize. We are all here to boost morale and get through those less than stellar days. Positive vibes as much as possible!
The blog world has offered me SO many amazing friends and you are included in that! There are many that do understand my struggles and others that are just understanding because they have a heart!! It is my goal to share honesty and positivity with every word I share!
Thank you for saying that Alyssa … I wish you an easier journey and your positivity will help you go down that path.
You are more than welcome and I want you to know how much I appreciate YOU!!
Keeping busy always keep stress away.
Thank you so much! Yes, keeping busy does keep the stress away or at least at bay! I hope you had a great weekend!
Thank you so much! Honestly, I think my first one, because it was bigger took more than a month. The one I made around the holidays, took almost 2 weeks. No pressure of course, but you should try it! The Granny Square is very simple. I promise to share the purple one when it is complete. I don't know how big it will be, I am trying to use all the yarn I have! I hope you had a great weekend as well!
You're welcome! And it didn't take you long at all!. I think I will give it a go. Thanks for posting…giving people inspiration!
You are far too kind and I appreciate you! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help when you give crocheting a try!
Thank you so much! Between writing and crocheting, I think I keep my stress down some, just not completely.
Thank you Jen! MS is a battle and it is great to find things we can do, especially when those things help manage stress. Stress is absolutely the worst thing with MS. I honestly never thought about trying to make money with crocheting, but I will let you know if I change my mind ever. I am not even sure how or where to start with that. I appreciate your kind words and sharing what you are doing with it!
Yes, Alyssa! These are great. Own it! You are a talented gal. xo~k.
Thank you so much Kim! Of course I am a little hard on myself at times and if something doesn't look right, I start over again!
Thank you so much! I was always scared to try knitting because there are too many sticks! I do think you could pick up crocheting easily. The two easiest ones to try are the Granny Square and the Double Crochet. I believe in you and know you can do it! It definitely takes my mind off of all the negative in life right now. I think without it, I might lose what is left of my mind!
If you decide to try it, let me know if I can do anything to help you!!!
Aw that's very kind, thank you! I had a thought… maybe get my mum some crocheting stuff for mother's day and we can try it together as I thought of suggesting she try it before (she used to enjoy knitting, but the last project went awry – the biggest shoulder and 6 foot arm on just one sleeve on an otherwise pretty jumper was the funniest thing I've ever seen! – and she hadn't done any more since, so I thought trying something else would be a good idea).
That sounds like a wonder idea and I am sure your mum would be thrilled. The two of you might have a great time together crocheting. I actually taught my mother how to or at least I tried teaching her:)!
Thank you! I am glad that crocheting helps me relax because with all I have been going through, my stress levels are sky high and it is possible if I didn't have something to distract me I would be having another relapse. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate you kindness, understanding and support, you are a pretty amazing person and I am glad to call you a friend!
Thank you so much! I promise you it's easy and you could pick it up! If you decide to try it, let me know if there is anything I can do to help!
Beautiful work Alyssa and I'm glad it helps you feel better.
That's really cool! I used to try to knit but I was super bad at it and very slow. I've tried to learn to crochet but so far have had a little trouble picking it up. My fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be after my last relapse, but I can definitely see how it would be relaxing. I'll have to try again.
Thank you! I think knitting looks a lot more difficult than crocheting, but I could be wrong. If you are still interested in learning to crochet, you could try the Granny Square. It is pretty easy. I do understand about the fingers not be as nimble, but crocheting still may offer you relaxation, it doesn't even really matter how the blanket turns out!!
Oh wow. Amazing. You're a real artist.
Thank you so much! I definitely try, but this is so relaxing for me! I hope you are having a good week!!
I bet. Doing fine, thanks. Keeping myself busy.
It is always good to stay busy as it takes away most of the stresses in our lives!
Thank you so much! It is so relaxing and if there's anything I can help you with, please let me know ♡!
Those are beautiful! There's nothing as relaxing as crochet. I made the never-ending granny square one in blues and cream. Your colors are so pretty! I'm only able to crochet following along with beginner videos and had to quit after my frozen shoulder but I miss it! Happy crocheting!!
Thank you so much! Crocheting has helped me stay calm and not be too stressed. I am making this blanket until I run our of the colors, so it is going to be huge!!!