text:
Women-Led Startups Aren't Getting Funded, and There's a Very Simple Reason Why
Investors need to stop blaming the lack of diversity in their portfolios on a "pipeline problem."
By Sheila Herrling@sherrling
If I had a dollar for every time an investor told me they'd "love to invest in a female founder or a founder of color but they just can't find them," I'd be, well, a well-resourced investor of diverse entrepreneurs. Why? Because diversity is the investment alpha.
Women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, particularly black women; women-led businesses are outperforming their male peers in many VC portfolios, and; racially-diverse companies outperform industry norms by 35 percent. So, with all the hype around data-driven investment decision-making and pattern-matching algorithms that find successful founders, investors must be seizing this incredible opportunity, right?
Nope. Less than 10 percent (and that's the generous end of the scale) of venture-backed companies have a female founder. Less than 1 percent have a black founder; same for Latinx. A mere 0.2 percent of venture deals go to black female founders; in fact, only 26 black female founders have raised over $1 million in outside capital...ever. The average amount of venture capital to black female founders is only $36,000 compared to the overall average of $1.3 million invested.
Stunning, right? And the top reason given by investors? "It's a pipeline problem" (back to the lead-off quote of this article). My response? "That. Is. Just. False." It's not a pipeline problem, it's a power problem.
When it comes to inclusion, our high-growth entrepreneurial ecosystem is in desperate need of disruption. Its problems are systemic, embedded deeply in the way our culture thinks about entrepreneurship. The people we prop up, the ideas we invest in, the decision making structures we use, and the concepts that we employ are built upon a long history of institutional bias. Bias that quite intentionally created structures concentrating power largely in the hands of white men.
Now, the same degree of intentionality that created these structures all those years ago needs to go into disrupting them to seize the enormous opportunity of talent, innovation and profit-making potential that's being under-leveraged.
Let's start with these three disruptions we could do right now for immediate impact:
1. Diversify the decision-makers.
He who makes the rules, well, rules. 92 percent of investment partners in the top 100 VCs are men, typically highly educated, wealthy and white. Given how bias works and network sourcing investment opportunities work, it shouldn't be surprising that a similarly large majority of startup funding goes to the same demographic.
With increasing data pointing to the profit and performance dividends from diverse companies, investors should be incentivized to: 1. disrupt the inside game by adding more diversity to the investment decision maker pool -- women and investors of color will see markets and profit streams currently unseen; and 2. disrupt the outside game by adding more diversity to their sourcing spaces -- search outside the three VC hotspots and Ivy League schools; there's exciting opportunities brewing all over this country.
2. Disrupt the rules.
Bringing intentionality to changing the culture of and sourcing standards for entrepreneurship to level the playing field for all entrepreneurs could go a long way in diversifying the space.
First, a culture reset. The bro-ish, sexist culture that permeates the entrepreneurship ecosystem is toxic, stacking the odds against women. Without an intense focus on setting and maintaining the right culture, the toxic one thrives and drives. 2018 is proving to be the year where women's stories of discrimination, harassment and assault are actually disrupting the system. While Ellen Pao may have lost her lawsuit, her story paved the way for others to speak out -- Susan Fowler, Elizabeth Scott, Amélie Lamont. And the #MeToo campaign provided the power of numbers cover for victims that exposed what we can no longer pretend is an isolated problem.
Diversity at the investment decision making level will help reset the culture, as will heightened intentionality around ways in which to create an inclusive environment on-site (think: bean bags, kegs, and ping pong aren't everyone's ideal accelerator or office furnishings); introduce more options for networking and ideation (think: open office hours as alternatives to drinks and dinners); and let's remember, most guys are good guys -- let's not assume bad intent on the whole lot.
Second, a pitch competition rethink. The pitch competition has become the ubiquitous vehicle for proving your company's worth. But bias enters the space in ways that disadvantage founders who are not male. Turns out, venture investors prefer pitches by attractive men, and male founders tend to be asked "promotion-oriented questions" while female founders are asked "prevention-oriented" questions, skewing funding male. Recent innovations are having interesting results in terms of diversifying the space. Village Capital deploys a peer selection model and Springboard Enterprises has a "Dolphin Tank" which is less about a competition than a channeling of expertise to help entrepreneurs take the next step.
Third, a pattern recognition wake-up call. Many investors use pattern recognition to source deals. With bias quite literally baked into the code, as Doug Speight puts it in his brilliant Medium piece, "pattern recognition is bias turned practice." It's time to upgrade the code to reflect diversity dividends in the data and expand investor networks to intentionally hit more inclusive markets.
3. Create a new power base.
Assimilation has been very practical advice for those wishing to break into the entrepreneurship space -- an effort to "level the playing field" by essentially playing by the rules and within the structures built by the current power base. That tactic has delivered the woeful stats above. See, the problem with power is that those who have it, even if unconsciously, resist ceding or sharing it. Underrepresented groups can continue to "lean in" and overrepresented groups can make room. But in the choice between continuing to try to level the current playing field, hoping it will seize the opportunities the data presents, or creating a new playing field, I'm increasingly tipping to the latter.
Perhaps it's time for a revolution. A time where we very intentionally encourage and then scale new power coalitions. Like the surge of new investment funds by women for women (like All Raise, Ellevest's Impact Portfolios, Golden Seeds, Rethink Impact, Brava Investments, Female Founders Fund, The Helm, and WE Capital) and by funders of color for entrepreneurs of color (Backstage Capital, Impact America Fund, Catalyst Fund, Cross Culture Ventures, and Black Angel Tech Fund). Or financing platforms like crowdfunding which offer greater opportunities to redistribute entrepreneurship dividends and democratize the space (iFundWomen, Seed Invest, Kickstarter). Founders themselves are recognizing their own power to disrupt by joining forces in the #FoundersForChange coalition, committing to factoring in the race and gender composition of potential investor firms into their decision making.
And let's keep our eye on one very important ball -- women are expected to hold half of the private wealth in the United States by 2020, to the tune of $11 trillion. This may be the biggest disruptor of all in terms of supporting diverse start-ups, driving social enterprises and the impact investing movement, and redistributing power and wealth in the country.
Remember that old saying, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"? When the benefits of diversifying entrepreneurship continue to be under-recognized, under-leveraged and under-seized, it may well be time for a strategy of "if you can't join 'em, beat 'em."


Obesity is a growing concern across the globe. In the United States, an estimated two-thirds of the US adult population is overweight, while approximately half of that—about 30 percent of the total population—is considered obese. In the UK numbers regarding obesity are just as daunting, with the amount of people who are obese having just about tripled in the past 25 years.
There are a lot of reasons behind this growth. For one thing, there has been a major shift in the average working conditions, with people moving from living active lifestyles in industrial jobs to spending most of their days stuck behind a computer at a desk. What's more, dining practices have undergone a huge change in the past 25 years. The rise of the fast food restaurant is just proof that the way people think about meals has undergone a rather large shift. Portion sizes are larger, carbs are more prevalent and highly refined, and soda is a more common beverage choice than water.
Between increased sugar intake, higher daily caloric intake levels, and reduced daily activity, it is no wonder that so many people are struggling with their weight. But even if there is an understanding as to why, it doesn't clear up the mystery regarding how much of the global population this is impacting. It is impossible to go from home to home and count every person who is overweight or obese, so statistics rely on data collection and models that predict the global obesity level based on smaller samples. Unfortunately, researchers are finding that the data collection method that has been the go-to in association with studies for obesity is potentially flawed, leaving out a significant portion of the population who may not fit standard definitions of obesity, but would significantly benefit from obesity-oriented treatments like medical weight loss programs.
For years, weight loss doctors and researchers alike have used the body mass index, or BMI scale, to determine obesity level. The BMI scale measures the relationship between height and weight and places you in one of four categories, underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese, based on your height to weight ratio. The problem that researchers are confronting now is that the BMI scale does not take into account basal measurements, like fat to muscle ratio. This means that there are cases where a person may appear to have a healthy BMI, but still have a high fat-to-muscle ratio, and so would still benefit from medical weight loss programs along with dietary and exercise improvements, but are not directed towards receiving the assistance they need.
Unfortunately, this oversight means that the obesity epidemic globally may actually be much larger than originally anticipated, with researchers potentially overlooking millions of adults who are struggling with excess body weight.


text:
from kivy.uix.screenmanager import Screen
from kivy.uix.togglebutton import ToggleButton
from kivy.uix.popup import Popup
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.utils import get_color_from_hex
from kivy.properties import NumericProperty
from screens import screenmanager
import random

__author__ = 'ohaz'

Builder.load_file('./screens/ingamescreen.kv')

# ----------------
# Global Variables
# ----------------

# This one should probably not be a global variable. Bad Design?
last_button = None

# A list of colours to use. Each element is a list of 2 colours - the lit one and a darker version of it.
colours = [['#FF0000', '#CC0000'], ['#FF00FF', '#CC00CC'], ['#0000FF', '#0000CC'], ['#00FF00', '#00CC00'],
           ['#FFFF00', '#CCCC00']]

class GameOverPopup(Popup):
    """
    The popup that appears if you either leave the game, or lose
    """

    def __init__(self, screen):
        """
        Initialise the popup
        :param screen: the screen the popup belongs to
        :return:
        """
        self.screen = screen
        super(GameOverPopup, self).__init__()

    def close(self):
        """
        Closes the popup. Also switches to the main menu
        :return:
        """
        self.dismiss()
        screenmanager.change_to('main_menu')

class ColourToggleButton(ToggleButton):
    """
    Use a toggle button as a way to display the coloured blocks.
    """

    def __init__(self, screen):
        """
        Initialise the Button
        :param screen: the screen this button belongs to
        :return:
        """
        super(ColourToggleButton, self).__init__()
        self.screen = screen
        self.visited = False

    def colour_press(self):
        """
        Event that gets fired when a button is pressed.
        :return:
        """
        global last_button
        if last_button is None:
            # If there is no "last button press", set this as the latest one
            last_button = self
        else:
            # Another button has been pressed before. Switch the colours of the two
            last_button.background_color, self.background_color = self.background_color, last_button.background_color
            # Set their states back to normal and reset the last button pressed
            last_button.state = 'normal'
            self.state = 'normal'
            last_button = None
            # Check if the switch removed any blocks
            points = self.screen.check_removal()
            if points == 0:
                # If nothing has been removed, the player gets one step closer to losing
                self.screen.misses += 1
            else:
                # Give the player the points
                self.screen.points += points
            if self.screen.misses > 3:
                # Player has lost, leave the game
                self.screen.leave()

class IngameScreen(Screen):
    """
    Class for the Ingame Screen.
    Contains a few labels for the points and the misses, the game itself and a leave button.
    """

    # Properties for the wrong moves the player did and the points.
    misses = NumericProperty(0)
    points = NumericProperty(0)

    def on_enter(self, *args):
        """
        Event that gets fired when the player enters this screen.
        Does cleanup from previous games and prepares the new game
        :param args: arguments passed
        :return:
        """
        # Set the wrong moves and the points to 0
        self.misses = 0
        self.points = 0
        # Create a new random seed for colour generation
        random.seed()
        # Clear the grid from previous games
        grid = self.ids.grid
        grid.clear_widgets()
        for i in range(0, grid.rows * grid.cols):
            # Create new Coloured Buttons with random colours from the colours list
            c_button = ColourToggleButton(self)
            colour = random.randint(0, len(colours)-1)
            c_button.background_color = get_color_from_hex(colours[colour][0])
            grid.add_widget(c_button)

    def check_removal(self, multiplier=1):
        """
        Recursive function that checks if enough blocks with the same colour are next to each other
        :param multiplier: The point multiplier
        :return: Points the player gets for this step
        """
        children = self.ids.grid.children
        groups = []
        points = 0

        # Recursively check all children and creates groups with them
        for i, child in enumerate(children):
            if not child.visited:
                groups.append(self.recursive_check(i))

        # Reset visit status for the next pass
        for child in children:
            child.visited = False

        # Get the groups that contain more than 3 blocks of the same colour, calculate points and let new blocks fall
        high_groups = [x for x in groups if len(x) > 3]
        for g in high_groups:
            # I sort the blocks by reversed id, this helps in the implementation of how blocks fall
            # If this was unsorted, a block might get the colour of the block above that actually should get removed
            g.sort(reverse=True)
            points += multiplier * len(g)
            multiplier += 1
            for button_id in g:
                self.fall(button_id)
        if len(high_groups) > 0:
            return self.check_removal(multiplier) + points
        else:
            return 0

    def fall(self, current):
        """
        Gravity implementation. Blocks fall down (also spawns new ones)
        :param current: the block we are currently visiting
        :return:
        """
        grid = self.ids.grid
        children = grid.children

        # The block above the current one is the one with the higher id
        child_above = current + grid.cols

        # the top row of blocks starts with this id
        topmost = len(grid.children) - grid.cols

        if child_above > topmost:
            # We are in the top row, generate new coloured block
            colour = random.randint(0, len(colours)-1)
            children[current].background_color = get_color_from_hex(colours[colour][0])
        else:
            # Let the block on top of us fall down and do the same for the block above
            children[current].background_color = children[child_above].background_color
            self.fall(child_above)

    def recursive_check(self, current):
        """
        Recursively check the blocks for groups
        :param current: the block currently visited
        :return: a list of blocks
        """
        grid = self.ids.grid
        children = grid.children
        own_color = children[current].background_color
        children[current].visited = True
        own_list = [current]

        # Get all children next to the current one
        child_top = current - grid.cols
        if child_top < 0:
            child_top = None
        child_bot = current + grid.cols
        if child_bot >= grid.rows * grid.cols:
            child_bot = None
        child_left = None
        child_right = None
        if current % grid.cols > 0:
            child_left = current - 1
        if current % grid.cols < grid.cols - 1:
            child_right = current + 1
        children_next = [child_top, child_bot, child_left, child_right]

        # Check if children need to get added to the list
        for child in children_next:
            if child is not None:
                if children[child].background_color == own_color and not children[child].visited:
                    own_list.extend(self.recursive_check(child))

        return own_list

    def leave(self):
        """
        Leave the game. Creates a popup that shows the score
        :return:
        """
        p = GameOverPopup(self)
        p.open()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Adapt · Prevent · Restore
Politics First
Climate Actions
My Summer Valentine
Open Source Plants™
Plant Choices – Criteria
Climate Ready Plants
Assisted Migration
Steadfast Plants, LLC
Just a Cup of Coffee
The Iowa Business Community: A Wasteland For Climate Denial
Breeding Plants for Climate Adaptation
My august Valentine
February 14th. Valentine's Day. Anxious sifting through picked-over piles of roses,squashed together, 12 at a time, and mass-produced in faraway lands. Racks of disheveled cards with canned messages from total strangers, fancy boxes containing a few tiny morsels of mush or nuts covered with chocolate veneers. Restaurants overwhelmed with patrons — only two to a table. Bleary-eyed florists, thankful that this most absurd of holiday deadlines is nearing an end. But love is in the air . . . right? It's the thought that counts . . . right? Indeed. Let's not disrespect such an occasion. But can we make it more loving and thoughtful, at least when it comes to those dozen roses?
Towards this noble end, I hereby declare that, in the northern hemisphere:
The Valentine's celebration is now in August and it shall last the entire month. It may be celebrated any day, or every day, or any times in between. (No procrastinating until August 31st).
Here's why (with inspiration from Amy Stewart's masterful New York Times bestseller from 2007, Flower Confidential):
Those dozen roses at the neighborhood big box were most likely grown indoors somewhere in the southern hemisphere. They have never been outdoors; never seen sunlight; never been visited by a bee. They have been sprayed, drenched, or dunked in pesticides, fungicides, preservatives (and even dyes). And don't bother smelling them. The scent has been bred away. As for their carbon footprint, the flowers are grown indoors (greenhouse gas emissions); intensively managed with inputs of chemicals (emissions); bundled into layers of protective packaging (emissions); shipped with refrigeration halfway around the world (emissions), and retailed in a lighted, heated building in the middle of winter (emissions). Doesn't the global economy just rock? Compare this to some locally grown flowers in an Iowa August. The flowers are grown outside by the sun and rain, put in a bucket of water, and transported a few miles to a farmer's market. They are available in a riot of shapes, sizes, colors and scents. To be sure, some inputs and transportation emissions are inevitable, but the contrast of carbon footprints could not be more stark.
In her beautiful and thoughtful books, The 50 Mile Bouquet (2012) and Slow Flowers (2013), Debra Prinzing encourages the local production and consumption of cut flowers. Floral decor from local sources in winter is achieved through the use of branches, berries, and the like — and blooms from forced bulbs or local greenhouses. This is a fine approach for the local economy, and particularly for the climates of California and the Pacific Northwest (the geographies in Debra's book). But the idea of browsing around outside for twigs in an Iowa February is rather daunting; and sometimes impossible (think blizzard). And an August celebration with flowers need not incur the carbon footprint of greenhouses.
Florists and other purveyors of flowers in the ides of February need not fear. Would it not be a blessing to diminish the mad rush of February 14th, and substitute a more leisurely stroll of increased sales for the whole month of August? Good riddance to a single-day deadline for a highly perishable, out-of-season luxury item.
So how about it? Join us. Celebrate Valentine's for the whole month of August– pick a day, or all the days. Support your local economy. Reduce your carbon footprint. Create a better world for your Valentine and those who will follow. What could be more loving and thoughtful than that?
Cindy, will you be my august* Valentine?**
Grow-Share-Repeat.
Matthew Bailey
*The meaning and etymology of "February" and "August" will convince you if nothing else does. The origin of the word "February" seems a bit hazy but has something to do with purification by smoke or burnt offerings (!). On the other hand, "august" means "marked by supreme dignity or grandeur" Slam dunk. Case closed. August it is.
**She said yes.
An Ode to Provenance – On the occasion of Mom's 80th birthday
Happy birthday Mom and Dad.
My Mom (1935) and Dad (1929) were born on the same date, six years apart. Shortly after moving into their Tennessee home in 1964, Dad dug a small oak seedling up from somewhere on the property and planted it in the new construction debris that made up our front yard (Despite the impoverished site, it became a majestic tree; until a truck rumbled through a few years ago and cut it in half lengthwise to keep it out of the power lines. But hope springs eternal — as we shall see). Upon Dad's passing in 2000, Mom put a small plaque on the tree and sprinkled his ashes around. Apart from beauty and shade the tree was now . . . important. With this newly christened treasure, I set about to preserve it for all time.
So how does one immortalize an oak tree? Why, collect the acorns, of course. Plant 'em. Help 'em grow.
So I did. The result is three young trees in Ankeny, IA , the largest of which is a strapping thirty-foot teenager. Despite its Tennessee provenance it has thrived through Iowa's extreme winters with no trouble at all. Dad would be proud.
As we proceed further into a changing climate, these offspring oaks, in Iowa ground and of Tennessee provenance, may have more to give. Iowa may become progressively more like Tennessee (map). Some plant species adapted to Iowa's past and current climate will struggle or fade away. Indeed, the very notion of "native" species will be turned on its head: what does "native" mean when the "native" environment is repeatedly swept away on timescales of a single human lifespan? The assumptions that "native" plants and plant communities are tougher and better become more uncertain.
"Resilient" will come to more accurately describe plant specimens, species, and communities that are tougher and better in a constantly changing climate. And the clearest path to resilience is diversity. The notion of planning and planting diverse tree communities for resilience to change has precedent. In reaction to the devastating effects of diseases and pests that destroyed virtually every American elm and American chestnut (and other species), a rule of thumb called the 10/20/30 rule has long been suggested: no more than 10% of plantings should be within a single species, no more than 20% within a single genus; and no more than 30% within a single family (original article). The risk of a disease or pest wiping out every tree is greatly reduced.
To hedge against the new "pest" of climate change perhaps we can sprinkle a mindfulness of provenance into our genetically diverse plantings. That is, let's deliberately move some plants from South to North. So, my oak tree may indeed have more to give. And maybe my bald cypress, which seems to thrive as well on a well-drained Iowa hillside as in a Louisiana swamp. Or my Osage Orange 'White Shield' — plucked from arid western Oklahoma — but from a species which achieves its highest densities in repeatedly flooded "bodark swamps."
I'm looking for more. Mindful of provenance. Plant Resilient.
Grow-Share-Repeat
Blogmeister
theplantsync@gmail.com | © 2016-2020 The Plant Sync

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Chinese Food Culture
CHNdiet
Home Chinese Food Culture 30 Traditional Chinese Desserts and Pastries
30 Traditional Chinese Desserts and Pastries
As a big country of desserts, China has a lot of traditional desserts and pastries. This article will show you the most popular desserts and pastries in China.
China's diets are often classified into south ones and north ones, and desserts are no exception. A famous writer used to comment on the differences of desserts between the South and the North. According to his comments, "the desserts in the North are common foods, while those in the South are leisure foods." With the development of society, the diets between the South and the North supply each other's needs with each other quite long ago and are not limited in local places anymore.
All Chinese know one saying, "Eating in Guangdong." It means that when talking about eating, we will think of the diets in Guangdong. Guangdong province is the No. 1 province in the catering industry of China. The Guangdong style desserts are even well known all over the country. Next, we will start from the most popular Guangdong style desserts to introduce Chinese traditional desserts and pastries to you.
Double-Layer Steamed Milk Custard
The double-layer steamed milk custard originates from Shunde city, Guangdong province. As a dessert with a history of over one hundred years in the local place, it is a famous must-taste dessert for many visitors going to Guangdong. Its main ingredients include milk, egg white, and white sugar. It tastes fragrant and sweet.
Ginger Juice Collided with Milk
The ginger juice collided with milk originates from Shawan town in Guangdong. Buffalo milk production is the sideline business of local farmers, therefore, in the local place, there are a lot of milk snacks among which the ginger juice collided with milk is the most famous one. Later, this dessert spread all over Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, becoming one of the most popular desserts in Southern China!
Ginger Juice Collided with Milk (1)
Although the ingredients of this dessert are simple and only require ginger juice, buffalo milk, and sugar, the production technique is very strict. So, it is very difficult to find the most authentic ginger juice collided with milk outside of Guangdong.
Cantonese Sponge Cake
The Cantonese sponge cake is a common pastry in the tea restaurants in Guangdong. The main ingredients of this pastry are wheat flour, egg, edible oil, and sugar. The Cantonese sponge cake needs to undergo the processes of fermentation and then steaming in the food steamer. The tradition Cantonese sponge cake looks in the golden color or the coffee color and chews as soft as the sponge.
Water Chestnut Cake
The water chestnut cake is a traditional pastry prevailing in Guangdong and Fujian. It is said that this type of pastry dates back to the Tang Dynasty (from AD 618 to 907) and has a very long history! The main ingredients are water chestnut, water chestnut starch, sugar, and edible oil. The ingredients are mixed into a paste with water and then boiled and steamed. The water chestnut cake usually looks translucent in tea yellow color and tastes fragrant and sweet.
Sweetheart Cake
The sweetheart cake is a traditional pastry in Chaozhou of Guangdong. This pastry is known to all in China. There is a touching legendary for the sweetheart cake. Quite long ago, there were a couple loving each other. Unfortunately, the husband got a serious disease. In order to cure her husband, the wife sold herself. The husband who lost his wife was not discouraged and managed to develop a type of cake with amazing flavor. Finally, the husband redeemed his wife with the money earned by selling the cake!
Steamed Creamy Custard Bun
The steamed creamy custard bun is a traditional dessert in Guangdong. As a type of steamed stuffed bun, it often appears on the breakfast table in China. The fillings of the steamed creamy custard bun are made of wheat flour, egg, milk, edible oil, and white sugar. It has strong milk fragrance and egg yolk smell.
Tangerine-flavored Red Bean Paste
The tangerine-flavored red bean paste is a traditional Cantonese sweet soup dessert. The cooking method is very easy. You only need to boil the red beans, tangerine peels, and rock sugar with water. In hot summers, the Chinese people also like to make this sweet soup with mung beans. Because the mung bean has the function of clearing the inner heat and is the most popular food in summer.
Fried Round Flat Cake (Fried Glutinous Rice Balls with Sesame)
The fried round flat cake is an ancient dessert in China. It is said that the dessert has a history of over one thousand years. It is very popular now everywhere in China. When Queen Elizabeth II visited China in October 1986, one of the desserts in the state banquet is the fried round flat cake.
The fried round flat cake is a food made from fried glutinous rice flour and sesame seeds. It is round and in a golden color. You can add different fillings such as red bean paste, peanuts, etc., to create different flavors, or make it without any fillings.
Water Lily Crisp
The water lily crisp is a very famous traditional dessert in Hangzhou. It is made from fried wheat flours and fillings. The famous chef in Hangzhou used to win the silver medal prize in the China Cooking World Competition with this dessert. The water lily crisp is in the shape of lotus flower. With exquisite appearance and crisp, fragrant and sweet tastes, it is a must-ordered dessert in the local banquet.
Sweet Green Rice Ball
The sweet green rice ball is one of the traditional desserts in Zhejiang province of China. This dessert has deep associations with the Cold Food Festival of China. The locals are accustomed to eating this dessert around the Tomb Sweeping Festival in April each year.
To make the sweet green rice ball, you need to mix the wormwood juice into the glutinous rice flour and dye the dough into the green color. After that, use the dough to wrap the filings with different flavors, such as the bean paste, the lotus seed paste, and etc. It will be ready for eating after steaming.
Osmanthus Cake
The Osmanthus cake is a well-known pastry in the Jiangnan region of China. It is said that this type of pastry has a history of more than 300 years. As a pastry made from glutinous rice flour, sugar, and Osmanthus, it has strong Osmanthus odor and tastes fragrant and sweet!
Osmanthus Cake (1)
Green Bean Cake
The green bean cake is one of the traditional pastries in China. On the Dragon Boat Festival (The fifth day in May according to China's lunar calendar) each year, the Chinese people will eat the green bean cake as a custom. Because the manufacturing methods in Southern China and Northern China are different, so the tastes are also different. But most of the time, the green bean cake is fragrant and soft.
Walnut Cake
The walnut cake is a very common dessert in China. Its main ingredients are wheat flour, egg, sugar, edible oil, and walnut kernels. Featuring crisp and sweet, the dessert looking like biscuit is very popular.
Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake
The brown sugar glutinous rice cake is a very famous dessert in Sichuan China. Its main ingredients are the glutinous rice and brown sugar. The glutinous rice cake is a kind of food made from smashed steamed glutinous rice. After frying in deep oil, you can dip some brown sugar syrups and eat them together. The taste is fragrant and sweet! This type of dessert has high praise in all places in China!
Ice Powder
The ice powder was originated from Yunnan and Guizhou and later spread to Sichuan. Thanks to the prevalence of Sichuan cuisine, this type of dessert has gradually been accepted and liked by many people. The ice powder has cool and refreshing taste, so people prefer to drink this dessert in summer.
Ice Powder (1)
The ice powder is made from the seeds of Nicandreae (scientific name: Nicandra physalodes (Linn.) Gaertn.). The ice powder mixed with water looks crystal clear and transparent and can be made into desserts together with sweet water, and fruit and vegetable.
Tofu Pudding
The tofu pudding is a very famous snack in China. It can be made into dessert either with a sweet taste or with a salty taste. Generally, the people in Southern China prefer the sweet taste and like to make the tofu pudding together with red beans and some fruits into some desserts with rich flavors.
Asparagus Crisp
The asparagus crisp is made of wheat flour and maltose. It is as white as silk and tastes fragrant and sweet. It is said that in ancient days, the asparagus crisp used to be a dessert that only emperor could eat, and afterward, the dessert was spread to the folk and became a traditional folk dessert. It has a history of 2000 years until today.
Sesame Seed Candy
The sesame seed candy can date back to the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368 to 1644) and is a traditional folk snack of China. The sesame seed candies in Xiaogan region of Hubei are the most famous ones. Many Chinese people would always keep this food at home. This type of food has neither any fixed forms nor any standard tastes. Most of them are made of glutinous rice, maltose, sesame, and peanut, and tastes fragrant, sweet and crisp.
The sweetmeat has a history of 2000 years in China. As a dessert made from fruits and vegetables after being marinated with sugar or honey, the sweetmeat has individual flavors and varieties in different places. Generally, the sweetmeats made of mangos, strawberries, waxberries, hawthorns, yellow peaches, and the like are more popular.
Egg Tart
The egg tart is a dessert made of wheat flour and egg liquid after processing and toasting. As a typical western style pastry, egg tart used to be widely spread in Hong Kong and Macao due to historical reasons. Later, this dessert became more and more localized and was spread to mainland China. Today, you can find this type of dessert in all big cities in China.
Egg Tart (1)
Pineapple Bun
The pineapple bun is a kind of sweet bread in Hong Kong. Generally, it is in the semi-sphere shape and looks in golden color, with an uneven crisp crust on the surface. Actually, this kind of bread has no ingredient of pineapple. The reason why this bread is named as the pineapple bread is that its shape is similar to that of the pineapple.
Grass Jelly
The grass jelly is a special dessert in Fujian and Taiwan. Because of its function of cooling and refreshing, it is also served as a drink or snack in summer. The ingredients of this dessert are very rich, including mesona (scientific name: Platostoma palustre), taro balls, pinto beans, peanuts, raisins, red beans, honey, milk, and so on. This is one of the favorite desserts of Chinese women!
Grass Jelly (1)
Fried Chop Rice Cake (also named as Rolling Donkey)
The rolling donkey is one of the most traditional desserts in Beijing and Tianjin of China. The surface of the dessert is coated with an earth-yellow powder that looks like the specks of dust caused by the rolling wild donkey; therefore, the dessert is named as the "rolling donkey". This dessert is mainly made from glutinous rice flour, soybean powder, and red bean paste. It tastes soft, fragrant, and sweet.
Fried Chop Rice Cake (also named as Rolling Donkey) (1)
Tuckahoe Pie
The tuckahoe pie is one of the traditional pastries of Beijing. Tuckahoe is a kind of Chinese medicine with the functions of diuretic and soothing the nerves, spleen, and stomach, therefore, the tuckahoe pie is also regarded as a type of healthy food with nourishing effect.
Tuckahoe Pie (1)
Kidney Bean Rolls
The kidney bean roll is also one of the traditional pastries in Beijing region. Its main ingredients are kidney beans and sweet bean paste. It is snow white and tastes soft and fine. It is said that the kidney bean roll used to be the imperial dessert of Empress Dowager Cixi.
Dried Milk Tofu Cake
The dried milk tofu cake is the most common milk dessert in the homes of the herdsmen in Inner Mongolia where is teemed with cow milk, sheep milk, and horse milk. The locals are accustomed to making the milk into foods convenient for storage and carrying after the processes of fermentation and solidification. Because it looks like tofu, so the dessert is named as the dried milk tofu cake. It mainly tastes sour and sweet.
Glutinous Rice Balls in Rice Wine Soup
The dessert of the glutinous rice balls in rice wine soup is one of the most popular traditional desserts in Southern China! The freshly boiled glutinous rice balls in rice wine soup will make the whole room filled with wine fragrance! Generally, this type of dessert will be served together with small glutinous rice balls! The Osmanthus honey can also be used to enhance the flavor. It is people's favorite dessert in winter as well as a classical food in Chinese breakfast!
Moon Cake
China's moon cake has inseparable associations with the Mid-Autumn Festival (the fifteenth day in August according to China's lunar calendar). The moon cakes were initially used to be the articles of tribute for worshipping the moon. The moon worshipping was an ancient worshipping activity in China and was evolved into enjoying the moon, eating the moon cakes and other folk customs. Mid-Autumn Day is one of the four traditional festivals in China, therefore, the mooncake is a very special traditional pastry for the Chinese people!
Moon Cake (1)
Because the diet habits vary in different places of China, the moon cakes have been developed into numerous types and flavors, among which the comparatively famous ones include the Cantonese style, the Beijing style, and the Suzhou style. The moon cake contains a lot of oil and sugar and belongs to the high-energy snack, so don't eat too many.
Eight-treasure Rice Pudding
As one of the traditional foods of the Han nationality of China, the eight-treasure rice pudding is popular all around the country and is also the typical food on the Laba Festival (the eighth day in December according to China's lunar calendar). After steaming the glutinous rice, add edible oil, sugar, bean paste, red dates, lotus seeds, longans, and many other food materials, then continue to steam them in steamer until it is ready. The materials in the eight-treasure rice pudding can be adjusted freely depending on your own taste. This is a dessert easy to make at home.
Lotus Root Stuffed with Glutinous Rice
The lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice is a traditional dessert in the Jiangnan region of China. The lotus root has good symbolic meaning in Chinese culture, so this dish also often appears at the wedding banquet. With lotus root and glutinous rice as the main material, together with rock sugar and honey, this dessert is very popular.
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Famous Hunan Cuisine – Hunan Food Guide
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How to Make Tofu Cheese (Tofu Cheese Recipe)
Chinese Lotus Root Soup Recipe
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Mar.21 -- U.K. Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer discusses the potential for a short Brexit extension and how that would impact a deal vote going forward. He speaks with Bloomberg's Anna Edwards on "Bloomberg Surveillance."


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Cincinnati Bengals 2019 Team Preview
Gregory Blakley | Aug 17th, 2019
After another disappointing season that saw the Bengals start 4-1 just to end up 6-10. The Cincinnati Bengals finally moved on from Marvin Lewis after a long tenure that saw zero playoff wins in 15 years.
Make sure to check out all of our other NFL team previews here.
Offseason Recap
The Cincinnati Bengals are heading into a new era under rookie head coach Zac Taylor and the fans couldn't be more excited. Everyone knows Cincinnati isn't a popular market for free agents so Taylor and the team have to build through the draft. They did so by drafting the best offensive linemen in the draft in Jonah Williams with the 11th pick. Cincinnati then followed up by picking Drew Sample out of the University of Washington. Sample and Williams both possess the skills and traits Taylor wants this team to have moving forward. Williams and Sample are very talented blockers and will help Joe Mixon find more holes and opportunities this season in a new offense that will make him the workhorse. Cincinnati also drafted Ryan Finley and Germaine Pratt who could both continue to grow and earn bigger roles.
What to Expect from the Offense
Taylor is the former quarterback's coach of the Los Angeles Rams and he learned a lot from Sean McVay in his tenure there. The Bengals will look to replicate the success of McVay and the Rams by using mostly the same offensive scheme and playbook. Cincinnati definitely has the talent to have an elite offense that features weapons in Mixon, Giovani Bernard, Tyler Boyd, John Ross and of course future Hall of Famer A.J. Green. The Bengals' biggest weakness on offense will be the offensive line especially after losing their first-round pick Williams to injury for the season. Taylor will have to establish a new starting five that will hopefully provide consistency and protection for both the passing and running game. Even with a weak offensive line, the Bengals will still use Mixon as a workhorse while opening up the passing game with intermediate routes and play-action passes. I expect the Bengals to have a top 15 offense in Taylor's first year.
What to expect from the Defense
Under new defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo the Bengals will look to their young defensive prospects to step up and help the veterans. Guys like Jordan Willis, Carl Lawson, William Jackson, and Jessie Bates will have to continue to grow and take some of the load off Carlos Dunlap, Shawn Williams, and Geno Atkins. Cincinnati's biggest weakness on defense will once again be the linebacker core that is still very young and unproven. Preston Brown is coming back from injury but he and Nick Vigil are the best linebackers on the team. With guys like Pratt, Malik Jefferson, and Jordan Evans the Bengals will need someone to step up and solidify this linebacker core or they will have huge problems against tight ends and elite running backs.
Predicting the 53 Man Roster
(3) QB- Andy Dalton, Ryan Finley, Jeff Driskel
Dalton will be heading into his 9th NFL season but his first with head coach Taylor. Taylor and the staff believe Dalton is their guy and they can get the best out of him. That is why they didn't draft Dwayne Haskins, Drew Lock or other top quarterback prospects in the 2019 draft. The Bengals did, however, trade up in the fourth round to pick Finley who could grow into a starter one day. Driskel will be the third quarterback while being utilized on special teams and sometimes lining up at wide receiver thanks to his 6'5 232 lb build and his athleticism.
(4) RB- Joe Mixon, Giovani Bernard, Trayveon Williams, Rodney Anderson
Mixon is ready to take another leap this year in a new offense that will make him the top priority. Mixon was the fourth-leading rusher in the NFL last season and could definitely win the rushing title this year. Bernard will continue to be utilized on third down and as a receiving back. It will be interesting to see if the rookies Williams and/or Anderson play a role in their first year.
(6) WR- A.J. Green, Tyler Boyd, John Ross, Alex Erickson, Josh Malone, Auden Tate
The first four are set in stone at this point but the last two spots are up for grabs between three or four guys. Stanley Morgan and Malone have both looked good during training camp but with the size, potential and hands that Tate possesses I believe he should be the fourth or fifth wide receiver. After the great idea of utilizing Driskel's athletic ability at wide receiver, I believe he could be a potential Taysom Hill type of X-factor. I expect to see Driskel utilized in a wildcat formation, on wide receiver reverses and other potential trick plays.
(3) TE- Drew Sample, C.J. Uzomah, Tyler Eifert
Sample will be the starter after being drafted in the second round. He's a great blocker with the potential to grow as a receiving option. Sample will really help open some holes for Mixon and the running game. Uzomah and Eifert will be utilized on passing downs if they can stay healthy, they could also play big roles in the new offense.
(9) OL- Cordy Glenn, Andre Smith, Billy Price, John Miller, Bobby Hart, Michael Jordan, John Jerry, Christian Westerman, Trey Hopkins
After losing Williams, the Bengals will have to run with what they got. Start the best five offensive linemen at this point and hope they can grow chemistry and play well together. With every starter set in stone besides the left guard position, it will be interesting to see who will start. This group could potentially make or break the Bengals this year so its a huge decision.
(4) DL- Geno Atkins, Andrew Billings, Renell Wren, Ryan Glasgow
This group already has two stars in Dunlap and Atkins. If the young guys can all continue to take steps forward the Bengals will have a scary defensive line. The backups could also play a role in goal-line situations and when being rotated.
(6) LB- Preston Brown, Nick Vigil, Jordan Evans, Deshaun Davis, Germaine Pratt, Malik Jefferson
This is one of the weakest position groups for Cincinnati but with a healthy Brown, Vigil, and some other guys the Bengals will hope to get by with what they have. If they want to have a good defense one of Pratt, Davis or Evans will have to step up tremendously. This is a weak position but maybe they can work it out.
(5) EDGE- Carlos Dunlap, Jordan Willis, Sam Hubbard, Carl Lawson, Kerry Wynn
This group is very talented and has plenty of potential to get even better. Willis, Lawson, and Hubbard are all very young and could be huge difference makers moving forward.
(6) CB- Dre Kirkpatrick, William Jackson, Darqueze Dennard, B.W. Webb, Tony Lippett, Darius Phillips
The cornerbacks have talent but will need to put it all together to be consistent, Jackson has the potential to be a top-five corner if he continues to grow and the addition of Webb gives them more depth in the slot. I expect Jackson and Dennard to have big seasons.
(4) SAF- Jessie Bates, Shawn Williams, Clayton Fejedelem, Brandon Wilson
This group had a fantastic year last season with Bates and Williams both racking up 110+ tackles, Williams also had five interceptions while Bates picked off three of his own. The backups will play a big role also with Fejedelem being a special teams captain and Wilson playing on some downs. I expect another big year from this group.
(3) ST- Randy Bullock, Kevin Huber, Clark Harris
This is pretty set in stone considering the veterans at the kicker, punter, and long snapper position. Bullock will look to have another good season after hitting 19/23 last season.
Some are expecting the Bengals to rebuild and go 3-13 or 4-12. I do not agree with those projections because the Bengals went 6-10 in 2018 with less talent and more injuries. While Taylor is also from the Rams coaching pyramid and I believe he can replicate the success of Sean McVay in his first year. With a veteran quarterback in Dalton, star running back in Mixon and the star wideout duo of Boyd and Green, the Bengals will be dangerous. If the defense can make plays and not give up 25+ points a game, I expect young guys like Bates, Willis, Lawson, Sample, and Ross to have big seasons.
2019 Record Prediction- I predict the Bengals will go 9-7 and make the playoffs clinching a wild card spot in Taylor's first year. This will surprise a lot of people but not me.
Follow Gregory Blakley On Twitter @gregoryblakley
Main Image Credit: Embed from Getty Images
← Enthusiasm should be tempered in Josh Gordon reinstatement
September Call-Ups: AL East Edition →


text:
Q: Visual Studio 2019 Encounted an Error and has been disabled Today I installed Visual Studio 2019 on my laptop and run a few code then I got this error :

And this is the Stack Trace :
System.NullReferenceException : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at Roslyn.Utilities.PathUtilities.PathsEqual(String path1,String path2)
   at Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CodeRefactorings.SyncNamespace.AbstractSyncNamespaceCodeRefactoringProvider`3.State.IsDocumentPathRootedInProjectFolder(Document document)
   at async Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CodeRefactorings.SyncNamespace.AbstractSyncNamespaceCodeRefactoringProvider`3.State.CreateAsync[TNamespaceDeclarationSyntax,TCompilationUnitSyntax,TMemberDeclarationSyntax](<Unknown Parameters>)
   at async Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CodeRefactorings.SyncNamespace.AbstractSyncNamespaceCodeRefactoringProvider`3.ComputeRefactoringsAsync[TNamespaceDeclarationSyntax,TCompilationUnitSyntax,TMemberDeclarationSyntax](<Unknown Parameters>)
   at async Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CodeRefactorings.CodeRefactoringService.GetRefactoringFromProviderAsync(<Unknown Parameters>)
   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Telemetry.WindowsErrorReporting.WatsonReport.GetClrWatsonExceptionInfo(Exception exceptionObject)

I would really appreciate any help on what this means
when I got this error I clicked Enable and restarted visual studio and it works fine now, But I would like to know why I got this error and how I can avoid it.
EDIT: After I made the post I tried to run my code again (the code dosen't have any errors) but vs breaks everytime imgur.com/tNrkE6l is there a way to fix this?

A: After deleting my current project and creating a new one, it fixed all the errors,
code runs just fine now.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
League of Women Voters Applauds House of Representatives for Passing the For the People Act
LWV Urges Senate Leaders to Vote on This Essential Bill
WASHINGTON - Today, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1), the sweeping democracy reform bill that will make our elections fairer and put power back in the hands of the American voters.
"This landmark legislation is the biggest improvement to our democracy since the Voting Rights Act," said Chris Carson, president of the national board of the League of Women Voters. "From election modernization to redistricting reform, the For the People Act levels the playing field to allow more Americans to participate in our democracy."
The League was proud to help shape the bill's language, making sure same day voter registration and small donor, public matching funds were prioritized in the legislation. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.
"The League works tirelessly to make sure that every eligible voter has their voice heard in every election, and that is why we were proud to take an active role in crafting and advocating for this bill," said Virginia Kase, CEO of the League of Women Voters. "A healthy democracy is one in which everyone has their voice heard. All elected officials should support legislation that works for the American people, and we will do what we can to move this bill forward in the Senate."
The League worked closely with our partner organizations in the Declaration for American Democracy coalition to build support for the For the People Act. We will continue to promote this momentous legislation and look forward to the day it becomes law.


There was a lot of time pressure in the last week of the internship as I tried to keep up with the project as it expanded. Originally I was going to catalogue the contents of 2 barns of agricultural equipment but ended up doing at least double that (Sacrewell has a seemingly endless supply of equipment). With the cataloguing done, I then had time to stay on and help decide what would happen to the 600+ objects I had spent hours nurturing and puzzling over. For the purpose of this task we adapted the game 'snog, marry, avoid' and created 'sell, keep, scrap'.
This week was spent mostly finalising all of the work I did and archiving everything. I added subtitles to the videos that have been made. I exported them all for YouTube. I digitally organised and filed away all my work for future reference. I followed up my Ask for Evidence Campaign entries.
The highlight of the week for me, was a co-worker realising she has been pronouncing my name technically incorrectly throughout my internship and finding this unacceptable. This was during a sci-fi and fiction pub quiz we went to. We came third place! (they also went to a movie quiz but I couldn't make that one, sad face) Next week, I will be attending a talk with them at the Science Museum.
If you are to take one advice from my entire series, make it this one. Have you ever been to barber? It doesn't matter if you haven't. I'm sure you've seen a boy in the past with a horrible new haircut and thought to yourself "How did he ever think that style was good idea?". Well, I'll tell you the answer; he didn't. The thing about barbers is, if you don't specifically tell them what you are expecting to get out of your visit, they will just give you the generic haircut they are familiar with. It's not their fault, it's the customer not communicating their expectations properly.


Your Favorite Enemies » Just announced: Alex is releasing a solo album!
Oct 19 Just announced: Alex is releasing a solo album!
We are excited to finally let you know about this! The album has been in the making for a little while now, and Alex is finally ready to share and commune it with you! Also, Alex has just launched a new Facebook page where he will share more details about the album and its nature. Make sure to go and like it!


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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to Include xCloud Next Month
By Christian Pepitoon August 4, 2020
Game company Microsoft recently announced that the xCloud game streaming service will be included on the Game Pass Ultimate next month.
On Sept. 15, xCloud will be part of Game Pass Ultimate, which will offer over 100 games to Android phones and tablets. This will add to Ultimate's offer of free PC and console games, as well as Xbox Live Gold, special member discounts, and a lot of perks.
Subscribers to the service will gain access to the Xbox friends list, achievements, controller settings, and saved progress after they have downloaded the official Xbox Game Pass app to their mobile devices. Microsoft confirmed that it will stream Destiny 2, Sea of Thieves, Gears 5, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Minecraft Dungeons, and Dontnod's Tell Me Why on launch day. All Xbox Game Studios titles will be streamable from day one of their release on Sept 15.
The controllers that can support this service are Xbox One Bluetooth Wireless and PlayStation 4 DualShock. Microsoft has also teamed up with other companies like NACON, PowerA, Razer, and 8Bitdo to release a number of other cloud gaming accessories like travel controllers, clips, and controllers that can be split and attached on a phone.
The September launch will be classed as a beta test and will be available on 22 countries for now:
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Check out the streamable titles on launch day:
Costume Quest 2
Crackdown 3 (campaign)
Gears 5 Ultimate Edition
Halo Wars: Definitive Edition
Halo: Spartan Assault
Killer Instinct Definitive Edition
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood
ReCore: Definitive Edition
Ryse: Son of Rome
Super Lucky's Tale
The Bard's Tale Trilogy
Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
Wasteland Remastered
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is priced $14.99 per month, PC standard for $4.99 a month, and console for $9.99 per month and get the first month for $1 only excluding console version.
Source: Official Website via Eurogamer
Microsoft Rewards New Promo Lets Users Win Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Free for Life


Seaway Export provides ocean transportation services to virtually every part of the world. With the most recognized steamship lines in the industry we get your cargo to its destination quickly and safe.
With our extensive air cargo coverage, Seaway Export provides worldwide air freight services to major cities around the world. We ensure timeliness and competitiveness on your air needs.
Seaway Export provides nationwide pickup and delivery services for freight of all kinds including automobiles. Your cargo is picked up and delivered in a appropriate time.
Our auto shipping services are top quality. We can load a total of up to 6 vehicles in a container. We can offer various containerization 20'. 40'HC, 45'HC. Ro/Ro is also avaliable for thoe who need to ship a vehicle quickly.
Looking for professional shipping services from United States to destinations worldwide?
We provide the most efficient and professional shipping services with a fleet of the most reconized steamship lines in the industry. Seaway Export is second to none in getting your cargo to its destination, safely and on time. As one of our clients you will receive a level of service that will ensue our continued buisness relationship for years to come. Clientel's needs come first and the services we provide to you are top priority.
@ 2019 Seaway Export, All rights reserved.


text:
Q: version4 pinescript undeclared identifiers, iff I'm updating the below script from v2 to v4 and cleaned it up to 3 errors:

line 30: Undeclared identifier 'p';

line 31: Undeclared identifier 'vol';

line 38: Undeclared identifier 'Sn'

I'm unsure of how to reformat the "iff"'s for version 4 to make this script run again.
Any suggestions?
// Shows the Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly VWAP. Also
// shows the previous closing VWAP, which is usually very near the
// HLC3 standard pivot for the previous time frame. i.e. The previous
// daily VWAP closing price is usually near the current Daily Pivot.
study("Multi-Timeframe VWAP V2", overlay = true)

std1 = input(title = "STDEV 1", defval = 1,type = input.float, step = 0.1)
std2 = input(title = "STDEV 2", defval = 2, type = input.float, step = 0.1)
std3 = input(title = "STDEV 3", defval = 3, type = input.float, step = 0.1)

showStd = input(false, title = "Show STDEV Bands")
showPrev = input(false, title = "Show Previous VWAP")
showPrevBand = input(false, title = "Show Previous STDEV = 1 Bands")
bands = input(title = "STDEV Bands Timeframe (D, W, M, Q, Y)", defval = "D")

startD = security(syminfo.tickerid, "D", time)
startW = security(syminfo.tickerid, "W", time)
startM = security(syminfo.tickerid, "M", time)
startQ = security(syminfo.tickerid, "3M", time)
startY = security(syminfo.tickerid, "12M", time)

newSessionD = iff(change(startD), 1, 0)
newSessionW = iff(change(startW), 1, 0)
newSessionM = iff(change(startM), 1, 0)
newSessionQ = iff(change(startQ), 1, 0)
newSessionY = iff(change(startY), 1, 0)

getVWAP(newSession) =>
    p = iff(newSession, hlc3 * volume, p[1] + hlc3 * volume)
    vol = iff(newSession, volume, vol[1] + volume)
    v = p / vol

    // Incremental weighted standard deviation (rolling)
    // http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/fanf2/hermes/doc/antiforgery/stats.pdf (part 5)
    // x[i] = hlc3[i], w[i] = volume[i], u[i] - v[i]

    Sn = iff(newSession, 0, Sn[1] + volume * (hlc3 - v[1]) * (hlc3 - v))
    std = sqrt(Sn / vol)

    [v, std]

[vD, stdevD] = getVWAP(newSessionD)
[vW, stdevW] = getVWAP(newSessionW)
[vM, stdevM] = getVWAP(newSessionM)
[vQ, stdevQ] = getVWAP(newSessionQ)
[vY, stdevY] = getVWAP(newSessionY)

A: //@version=4
// Shows the Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly VWAP. Also
// shows the previous closing VWAP, which is usually very near the
// HLC3 standard pivot for the previous time frame. i.e. The previous
// daily VWAP closing price is usually near the current Daily Pivot.
study("Multi-Timeframe VWAP V2", overlay = true)

std1 = input(title = "STDEV 1", defval = 1,type = input.float, step = 0.1)
std2 = input(title = "STDEV 2", defval = 2, type = input.float, step = 0.1)
std3 = input(title = "STDEV 3", defval = 3, type = input.float, step = 0.1)

showStd = input(false, title = "Show STDEV Bands")
showPrev = input(false, title = "Show Previous VWAP")
showPrevBand = input(false, title = "Show Previous STDEV = 1 Bands")
bands = input(title = "STDEV Bands Timeframe (D, W, M, Q, Y)", defval = "D")

startD = security(syminfo.tickerid, "D", time)
startW = security(syminfo.tickerid, "W", time)
startM = security(syminfo.tickerid, "M", time)
startQ = security(syminfo.tickerid, "3M", time)
startY = security(syminfo.tickerid, "12M", time)

newSessionD = change(startD)
newSessionW = change(startW)
newSessionM = change(startM)
newSessionQ = change(startQ)
newSessionY = change(startY)

getVWAP(newSession) =>
    var float p     = 0
    var float vol   = 0
    var float Sn    = 0
    p   := newSession ? hlc3 * volume : p[1] + hlc3 * volume
    vol := newSession ? volume : vol[1] + volume
    v = p / vol

    // Incremental weighted standard deviation (rolling)
    // http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/fanf2/hermes/doc/antiforgery/stats.pdf (part 5)
    // x[i] = hlc3[i], w[i] = volume[i], u[i] - v[i]

    Sn := newSession ? 0 : Sn[1] + volume * (hlc3 - v[1]) * (hlc3 - v)
    std = sqrt(Sn / vol)

    [v, std]

[vD, stdevD] = getVWAP(newSessionD)
[vW, stdevW] = getVWAP(newSessionW)
[vM, stdevM] = getVWAP(newSessionM)
[vQ, stdevQ] = getVWAP(newSessionQ)
[vY, stdevY] = getVWAP(newSessionY)

plot(vD, color=color.red)
plot(vW, color=color.green)
plot(vM, color=color.blue)
plot(vQ, color=color.yellow)
plot(vY, color=color.white)


Samsung, you see, carve entirely their own way in the phone world. Where most others experiment, often moderately sucessfully (I mean, you've heard of the Apple iPhone 4 and 5?), with sealed, button-less designs in glass, metal, kevlar or dense polycarbonate, Samsung rock the Android world with variations on a lightweight all-plastic design that hasn't really changed for three years or so.
Take the largest and best screen that's practical and economic to make. Take the fastest processor and GPU that are available. Use a relatively low cost plastic frame which comes apart in a second so that the user can swap out the battery if needed. And add microSD expansion of the phone's storage, up to 64GB. Use a front-and-centre physical, mechanical, large and friendly 'home' button, iPhone-style, so that as and when a user gets into trouble, one press is all that it takes to get them back to a screen they recognise. Have a recognisable 'menu' key so that when a user isn't sure what to press on screen, there's a fighting chance that they can hit this and find useful options for what to do next.
Samsung's huge success in the world marketplace with its Galaxy S II and III smartphones has been attributed largely to massive marketing campaigns, but even the best marketing in the world couldn't sell something people didn't want. And it seems that they do want Samsung's hardware flexibility, ergonomics (side power button, central home button and capacitive menu key) and the best darned screen on the planet. Galling to the Apples, LGs and HTCs of this world and, as we'll see, galling to the Android purists as well, but the sales stats back up Samsung here and no one's going to argue with around 25 billion pounds in S III sales alone.
Not that this is a huge issue in the grand scheme of things. It turns out that people love accessories (who knew?!) – "I got this case for my S4 for a penny on eBay!" someone told me proudly (plus £2.50 postage, of course, but it still goes to show). Check out your own local market stall tomorrow and you'll see swathes of cheap back shells and wrap around cases for the S III and now S4. And, with plenty of designs to choose from in plenty of materials, it's practical to own several and change the look and feel of your S III or S4 on a daily basis. Without ever having to fondle Samsung's original plastic back and sides.
Samsung cheekily promotes the S4 as "like nothing you've ever seen before", which is clearly ridiculous, given that most people in the street would be hard pressed to tell the S4 from the S III and given the similarity in the TouchWiz interface. It's an evolutionary upgrade though, and well worth exploring in detail.
As touchscreen-centric smartphones have grown in size, I've wondered each time why there's so much bezel around the display and, thankfully, the ratio of screen to bezel has been steadily increasing. In the case of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the display now occupies over 77% of the phone's frontal area, which is just about the highest in the industry. In practice this means that, despite having a larger 5" screen, the S4 is an almost identical size to its 4.8"-screened predecessor, the Galaxy S III, which is pretty impressive. After several years of saying that 'enough is enough' in terms of phone size though, please let this be the end – for the mainstream anyway.
The Galaxy S4 does feel slightly more solid in the hand, compared to the Galaxy S III, thanks to straight sides (remember, the III was curves everywhere, in an attempt to put more distance between it and Apple's iPhone lawyers), though the faux-metal band that runs round the rim is just that – fake. It's all plastic, of course, with the wafer thin removable back plate being the biggest offender here – yes, it's nicely 'glazed', but feels warm to the touch, clammy and is a fingerprint magnet. Which is where I came in, above, declaring that you may not want to handle the bare S4 – I'll warrant that most owners plump for an in-situ case of some kind.
The Galaxy S4's display is of subtly different pentile layout and of higher resolution, now 1080p. From a normal usage distance, the extra resolution is hard to notice, to be honest, though if you look up close then the characteristic pentile 'fuzziness' on text is largely absent. One downside of the new screen tech is that outdoors visibility has suffered slightly, as shown below, but 1080p resolution is clearly the standard screen real estate for 2013 and it would be churlish to turn down the S4's upgrade in pixel density.
Not much has changed around the periphery of the phone – with an MHL-enabled microUSB port on the bottom and 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, though the latter has been joined by an infrared port, another nod to 2013 tech fashions, with Samsung supplying WatchOn, an application that is 'powered by Peel', seemingly the industry experts in infrared communications with home TV electronics. It didn't work for me, failing to talk to my 2007 Toshiba DVR, but I'm sure most people will have better luck.
On the back, the speaker has been relocated to the bottom of the device, where there's slightly more room, for a larger component that pushes out significantly more volume and quality than the S III – I'd rate the Galaxy S4's speaker to be equivalent to that on the Apple iPhone 5, though nowhere near the output of the HTC One's stereo monsters, of course.
The camera's larger too, you can just see the difference if you put the two shooters side by side, with the Galaxy S4 having a larger F2.2 lens, giving better low light performance, at the expense of field of view. I didn't care though – the photos from the S4 were generally stunning, see the examples below, and it was only the usual 'low light, moving subjects' use case that caused it even a slight stumble. It's true that noone really needs 13 megapixels, but the excellent image processor here does at least make them all count to such a degree that you'll end up experimenting in a way that you'd normally reserve for a more powerful standalone camera.
It's not all good news though – for the Galaxy S4 camera, Samsung has re-used the interface from its niche product, the Galaxy Camera, Which is fair enough, since it's been well received, but it's clearly not optimised here and, in this launch firmware, there's up to half a second shutter lag after tapping the on-screen capture icon. In practice, this cause me to miss several shots of people and pets. No doubt future updates will bring this lag down, but it's irritating in the meantime.
As you'll have seen from the music hall launch, Samsung place great store on a bunch of extra camera modes, some of which are familiar, e.g. HDR, Night, Sports, Panorama, and some of which are new and… somewhat gimmicky. Drama and Eraser modes duplicate and erase (respectively) moving objects from a brief burst of photos, though you have to know you want to use these ahead of time and they're very fiddly to get right. They give good demo, but aren't that useful in the real world.
Similarly there's the dual camera option, whereby a small thumbnail of yourself from the 'front' camera is superimposed on the photo being taken by the main camera. It's a cute idea, and as a dad who's always left out of every photo because I'm the one shooting it, I wanted to like this. However, it's stymied by the positioning of the front camera on the Galaxy S4 – it's so close to the top-left hand edge of the phone that any normal two handed grip on your smartphone sees the back of your index finger in shot instead of your face.
Dual camera example, showing how easy it is to get your finger in view because of front camera positioning.
Video capture is at 1080p with fast auto-focus and is largely indistinguishable from that from other 2013 flagships. There's some sample footage in the video version of this review, embedded below.
Under the Galaxy S4's removable back we have a 2600mAh battery (up from 2100mAh in the Galaxy S III) and this does a good job of lasting through a busy day. As mentioned just now, being to replace the battery is somewhat unusual in the world of smartphone flagships, but I'm all for it, for three reasons. One, you can buy a new battery a year down the line when the capacity of your current one is down to 60%, without needing to pay a fortune down some service centre. Two, you can buy a spare battery and keep it as a pop-in spare, in a pocket, for really busy days or perhaps a camping weekend away from mains power. And three, it opens up a market for extended batteries and other accessories, flip covers, and so on. A subject I'll come back to in a future feature.
Also obvious under the battery cover is an empty microSD slot. With Android 4.2.2 and TouchWiz now occupying almost 7GB, out of the box, you've only got 9GB free of the 16GB quoted on the spec sheet. Now, these days all Android applications have to live in the internal 'system' disk – 9GB sounds like a lot, but a few large games and a few 1080p videos and the average user is struggling. It's a pity Samsung didn't see fit to start users off with a microSD card, surely only a handful of dollars on the build cost? With a card installed, photos and videos get saved to microSD, plus the larger games spot the card and hopefully download their large resource files to it.
microSD slot on the Galaxy S4 – with my own card inserted. No card comes in the box!
After some external pressure, Samsung has acknowledged all this as an issue and has promised some 'optimisations' to free up system disk space. We shall see.
Also under the hood, but unseen, is the engine – a Snapdragon 600 or Exynos 8-core, according to market, with 2GB of RAM (rather than 1GB on the Galaxy S III). I'm not into benchmarks, preferring to look at real world performance. In theory, the Galaxy S4 should blaze through everything, but in practice it's hard to spot much difference to its predecessor, for two reasons. Firstly, the extra screen resolution and the extra interface routines (of which more below) mean more work for the processor, partly offsetting the capability bump. And secondly, the TouchWiz transitions tend to dominate one's impression of the device's speed – somewhat ironic since (along with splash screens) transitions became popular on computers in the first place as ways of masking the loading time of slow applications.
Even allowing for these factors, the Galaxy S4 can still feel slow sometimes. Load up a couple of meaty web sites (I used The Verge and BoingBoing) in a couple of tabs and let them load fully. Now switch between them and, with 2GB of RAM to play with, displaying the pages should be instant – it's not, with the tab being brought into view often taking up to two seconds to re-display.
Or open up a photo for editing using the built-in editor, again the delay before the photo appears is around two seconds. Now, I realise that two seconds isn't a lot, but this device should be a lot faster than this. In places, it does scream along, and yes, I'll bet it demolishes all comers in benchmark tests, but back in the real world it's clear that Samsung has quite a bit of optimisation left to do. Updates ahoy!
Much hate is directed at manufacturers for adding their own interface touches to their Android phones, some of which is justified but, in the case of TouchWiz, it's possible to make a case that Samsung has added as much to delight the end user as to annoy those expecting stock Android. The case for Samsung's defense would like to point out the 'infinite' carousel homescreens, the ease of adding or removing these, the way applications can be hidden or re-ordered on the main app menu, and the extended settings carousel and brightness control on the drop-down notification pane.
Default homescreen on the Galaxy S4. Homescreens scroll 'infinitely', plus there's an overview mode to add to, or prune them.
The notifications pane (note the settings carousel and brightness control); (right) the Settings mega-pane, should you want to see all toggles at once!
A large part of the bad press Samsung gets for TouchWiz can be attributed to the extra applications that get added to each Galaxy phone, even when they duplicate existing Android/Google staples. From the company's point of view, the Samsung Hub, ChatON, WatchON and Samsung Apps are all there on the Galaxy range to help grow Samsung's own ecosystem, though you have to wonder how successful (or otherwise) it has been. At least, using the aforementioned 'hide' function, it's easy to tuck these away, never see them again and simply use Google's already rather extensive Play store and services.
The default weather view, accessed from the front-and-centre widget; (right) using 'Hide applications' to tuck some of the bits that aren't needed from sight.
The case for the prosecution of TouchWiz gains a bit more momentum with the usual Galaxy home key S-Voice travesty – surely every user eventually disables this to make the home button work immediately and not half a second later (when TouchWiz decides that enough time has gone by and that a second press isn't coming after all)? Plus S-Voice isn't as good as Google Now in the first place, which is also here, baked into the OS and more traditionally accessed, with either a long press of the menu key from any homescreen or with a tap on its widget.
On a more positive note, one aspect of Samsung's additions to Android which rarely get any credit is the bundle of codecs and libraries which Samsung ships 'under the hood'. In practice, this means that a Galaxy smartphone will play almost any video file, however weird and wonderful the codec used, will display any subtitles and produces excellent multimedia results.
Samsung has added a mountain of extra interface 'aids', not all turned on out of the box, thankfully. Some of these work quite well, some are destined to remain 'pub demos' and others are simply train wrecks. But you can't fault Samsung for trying to push the boundaries of how we interact with our smartphones.
For example, there's a new sensor in the cluster above the screen, whose sole purpose is to watch for hand gestures above it. These are the so-called 'Air gestures', letting you answer calls hands-free, flick between Gallery images and scroll web pages up and down, all with a quick wave in the right direction, perhaps because you have dirty or greasy hands and don't want to have to stop and clean them. These work well but obviously are somewhat niche in application.
Setting up Air gestures, plus delving into Settings to fix auto-correct in the virtual keyboard.
Then there's the 'Smart screen' eye tracking, using the Galaxy S4's front camera, intended to keep the screen on while the software detects you're still looking at it, to pause video playback when you look away and to scroll web pages when the camera spots that you're now looking at the bottom of the currently displayed content. All very innovative, but in practice it's far easier to use the touchscreen – trying to 'control' web page scrolling using your eyes to 'tell' the browser what to do gets very tiring, very quickly. In addition, the eye tracking doesn't work well with glasses or in low light.
By 'browser' above, Samsung means you to use 'Internet', its recoded version of the old stock Android application, though Chrome is also shipped with the Galaxy S4, adding extra confusion for a new user. I'm guessing that the only reason for this is that it wasn't possible to get the eye tracking working with the latter browser.
Finally there's 'Air view', using 'super sensitive' screen technology to detect when your finger is near the screen but not touching, and popping up previews of Gallery images and text messages. It's a nice feature once you get used to the 'hovering' distance needed, but Air view doesn't work in more than a handful of applications that are under Samsung's control – I'd expect more applications to be enabled for this this in a future update.
A mixed bag then, but full marks for trying. However, there's a slight sting in the tail of TouchWiz that many new users will be affected by. Somewhat unbelievably, out of the box, the Samsung virtual keyboard doesn't auto-correct mistyping – it simply puts up what it thinks you meant in a suggestions bar, and if you don't spot this and tap on it then your original mistype will stay in the text. In fact, for the older Galaxy S III this was all you got, period, leaving knowledgeable users to seek out a better keyboard in the Google Play Store. For the Galaxy S4, there is an 'auto replacement' option, but it's buried deep in Settings and it's off by default. Which is unfriendly, to say the least.
There's more to the Galaxy S4 that I haven't had time to even mention yet. There are original Samsung applications like Group Play (channels audio from multiple S4s), Optical Reader (go on, guess what this does), S-Memo (graphical note taking), S-Health (a complete health suite that uses the phone's sensors, but which also needs extra accessories, apparently 'coming soon') and Story Album (intelligently groups photos together according to date and presents them in 'arty' fashion). Plus all the core Android functions and features you know so well.
Story Album at work on my photos; (right) S-Health counting my steps. With some future accessories, this can form part of a powerful personal health system.
There's extra hardware too – a barometer, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, GPS support for both the USA satellites and the Russian GLONASS versions. There's NFC, of course, though built into the battery rather than the phone (so be careful if you do source a replacement battery – check it has the same NFC transceiver included).
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a lot of smartphone in a relatively 'small' form factor and in a remarkably thin and solid body. It's true that there are some performance caveats and it's true that Samsung still has work to do in terms of firmware updates, but the company has a good track record here and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the S4 to anyone wanting the best of 2013. The phone is supremely beweaponed, flexible in terms of hardware, customisable in terms of interface, and is in many ways the ultimate smartphone.
Side view of the Galaxy S4, showing the thin form factor and straight-edged rim.
Read back over the previous three thousand words and you'll appreciate why it's priced at a premium – the 5" 1080p display alone is horrendously expensive to replace should you manage to break it. Which means that you're strongly advised to keep the Galaxy S4 in a case of some sort. Which, in turn, means that you won't have to feel the S4's fingerprint-attracting, clammy plastic back a hundred times a day.
So configured, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is an awesome piece of technology. Will it be bettered in 2013? For geeks, the only direct contender I can see is itself, with Google announcing (just for the USA, so far) a stock Android version of the exact same device. Which is a win for Samsung either way, of course. For general users in mass markets, despite its minor flaws, the Galaxy S4 is probably going to be without peer… until the Galaxy S5 arrives, of course!


text:
Volume 7, No. 2 (2022)
Volume 7, No. 1 2022
Covid-19 Awareness Among Healthcare Students and Professionals Around Johor, Malaysia
Mohd Usairy Syafiq1, Hairul Fitri Shah1 , Sabariah Mohd Yusoff1
Quality Engineering Research Cluster, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology, Johor Bahru, Malaysia1
usairy@unikl.edu.my 1
Page 60 – 69 | Vol. 7 No. 2 2022 | Available online on 30 Dec 2022
The purpose of this research is to study the awareness of healthcare workers and professionals during COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to estimate the awareness of COVID-19 disease and related infection control practice among healthcare students and professionals around Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The data were collected from the respondents which consists of 153 healthcare students and professionals. Median test and quantitative analysis were used to test the level of awareness. The empirical study results revealed that healthcare students and professionals were shown to have high levels of COVID-19 awareness and information, as well as optimistic attitudes toward the disease based on the total percentage of the correct response.
Covid-19, Healthcare workers, Malaysia
© 2022 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFEM). All rights reserved.
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Human Factors & Ergonomics Journal (HFEJ), eISSN: 2590-3705 is the official Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Malaysia. The journal is published on a biannual basis. HFEJ aims to address current research in the field of Ergonomics in addition to the broad coverage of cognitive ergonomics, user experience, physical ergonomics and others such as transportation, industrial design and industrial engineering. HFEJ is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), as such we only accept original work.
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