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reasonandempathy · 5 years ago

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I just want to point out pieces either spoken in honest ignorance of facts/trends or, in my read, as disingenous.

As a primer:

Marxist =/= Communist. The simplest way to keep that in mind is Marxism is a way of seeing the world and Communism is one specific proposed solution to the problems Marxism brings up.

you forget that billionaires don’t keep their money in piles like fucking Scrooge McDuck. They spend that money in assets and net worth

Probably ignorant, but billionaires do do this. And it’s been going this way for years now. In 2013 the rich were saving over a third of their annual income (from all sources) as liquid cash. It’s a trend that’s only continued, as per the Financial Times 2019. The rich are literally hoarding actual, physical, literal gold bricks.

Even if we apply the average percentage in 2019 (27.2%), which isn’t accurate because as you get richer you tend to save more, so it’s easily believable he’s more than just that amount in straight-up cash, just in his Net Worth Bezos has upwards of $50bn just lying around.

That’s just straight cash. From 1 guy.

As of 2017 (from a quick search), corporations had $2.7 Trillion just lying around in offshore accounts. That’s literally just their cash.

And in regards to “they also have assets”, those can...also...be seized. In a universe where there’s the political willpower to do this there’s nothing actually stopping “the people” from just...seizing a factory. The state does it fairly frequently for a whole host of reasons. Houses, businesses, cars, suits, gold toilets.

you need to figure out how to adapt to the changes in economics we’ve had since Marx hurled racial slurs at black people.

Almost definitely disingenuous. For two reasons:

The thought that people haven’t actually thought up “well life changed since the 1800s, so we should change how we think about this” is just a bit too much to be sincerely believed. Literally, it would be akin to saying “Republicans want us to invade Korea to stop the tide of rising Chinese power.”

Yes. Marx was a bit racist. A lot of people were and a lot of people still are. Gandhi was a racist too. But the argument isn’t to treat sikhs like Gandhi did. Their racism is also not the point of this conversation, so throwing it in there is just poisoning the well.

Tell me when the revolution comes and the rich are dethroned; who’s in charge of redistributing their wealth? And how much do you trust them NOT to make sure large sums of money go into their hands, their friends, or personal projects because of [Insert reason here]?

Maybe a bit of both.

Ignorant: Marxists actually end up liking democratic systems, and wanting to implement them where possible. Viewing Marxism as a working class guide to economics, they also encourage massive participation from the general public in all things political. Clearly “engage the public completely” and “use democratic systems” is a fairly clear plan in the “how do we stop a few corrupt people from hoarding everything”. It’s not as if marxists haven’t opened a history book.

Disingenuous: This question/critique can be applied to every large-scale movement as a whole. “How do you stop corrupt people from being corrupt?” With...regulations, laws, and consistent vigilance? The same way capitalist governments are supposed to keep them from being corrupt.

Capitalist governments fail all the time to do that. So do socialist/communist ones.

So FINE. I’m fully on board with getting rid of the rich and taking their money. But first someone has to explain where said money is going, how we can trust their decision and the system of checks to make sure they don’t run away with it.

Definitely Disingenous:

Dude. There are plans. So many plans. There are presidential campaigns and books and pamphlets and policy proposals and public documents thousands of pages long on any particular topic. I got bored a few years ago and drafted eighteen pages of policy proposals and plans.

And I realized this week I should probably revise them.

And I’m a fucking nobody.

The plans are there. You probably know some of the basic details of the most prominent ones simply through cultural osmosis. They’re out there. We literally just had a 9 month primary election in the US where the center-left democratic candidate “has a plan for that” and the other left-wing not-democrat had even more detailed and meticulous plans (in some categories, less than others).

You know that. You have to know that.

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t-baba · 5 years ago

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How to find the minimal CSS framework for you

#441 — May 20, 2020

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

A Drop-in Minimal CSS Framework Switcher — There are a lot of so called ‘minimal’ CSS systems out there, such as new.css and GitHub’s Primer but it can be hard to sort through them for something you’d like. Enter this ‘minimal CSS framework switcher’ where you get to preview lots of minimal CSS frameworks on a single page. Alternatively, you can find a list of all the frameworks involved here.

Liam Doherty

What's New in Lighthouse 6.0 — Lighthouse 6 (the automated website UX auditing tool) has just dropped. Some of the changes include new metrics, audits for unused JavaScript, changes to the Chrome extension, and lots more.

Connor Clark

Faster CI/CD for All Your Software Projects Using Buildkite — See how Shopify scaled from 300 to 1800 engineers while keeping their build times under 5 minutes.

Buildkite sponsor

Second-Guessing the Modern Web — What if everyone’s wrong? Can we solve things in a better way that single page applications? Interesting thought piece and Rich Harris replied with In Defense of the Modern Web.

Tom MacWright

Just How Bad Is The ICO's Draft 'Age Appropriate' Design Code? — The author proclaims that as “a policy wonk, a technologist, a privacy campaigner, and as a parent” the UK data protection regulator’s proposed ‘Age Appropriate Design Code’ is one of the worst proposals she’s ever seen, and could result in age-gating across the internet, and a huge increase in data collection.

Heather Burns

What's New in Chrome 83 for Developers? — Version 83 is rolling out to stable now, and adds trusted types support, introduces changes to styling in HTML form controls, and more. Here’s a four-minute video version that covers the changes if you’d prefer. Secure DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS) support is another interesting development.

Pete Le Page (Google)

▶ Understanding Cumulative Layout Shift — Content moving unexpectedly on a page can be really irritating. This 20-minute explainer looks at the new ‘Cumulative Layout Shift’ speed metric (reported in Lightouse 6.0) and how it can help developers understand the impact of this problem on their pages.

Annie Sullivan and Steve Kobes

Microsoft Shows Off Its Edge Browser Running on Linux — Spotted at Microsoft’s Build 2020 conf where Microsoft has been releasing things left, right, and center like a package manager for Windows and Windows Terminal 1.0.

Rich Woods

⚡️ Quick bits:

Microsoft showed off a bunch of new Edge features in this snazzy video from their annual Build conference.

Support for the :where() pseudo class is now in the latest Safari preview.

Mozilla has launched a new accessibility blog featuring posts from the Firefox Accessibility Team.

How to center things in CSS is pretty much evergreen content, right...? 😅

I asked on Twitter whether it's 'frontend', 'front-end' or 'front end'. Here are the results.

Microsoft's Edge browser now has its own origin trials system with a couple of experiments already live.

A tab grouping feature is coming to Chrome.

💻 Jobs

Find a Job Through Vettery — Vettery specializes in tech roles and is completely free for job seekers. Create a profile to get started.

Vettery

Frontend Developer at X-Team (Remote) — Join X-Team and work on projects for companies like Riot Games, FOX, Coinbase, and more. Work from anywhere.

X-Team

ℹ️ Interested in running a job listing in Frontend Focus? There's more info here.

📙 Tutorials & Opinion

Minimalist HTML — The irony here is that this blog is literally in plain text. But overall, some good points about how to keep your HTML brief, should you want to reduce character counts.

Ryan Jacobs

The Need for Speed, 23 Years Later — In this somewhat historical look at website and internet speed, Kathryn looks at the fact that page speeds have not improved over time in spite of the increase in internet speed.

Kathryn Whitenton

Using CSS calc() to Figure Out Optimal Line-height — A quick, but math-heavy post by Jesús Ricarte on optimal line-height values that are more maintainable.

Jesús Ricarte

IE11 Mainstream End Of Life in Oct 2020 — Some interesting thoughts on Windows 10 and supporting IE11. As the author points out, he made up the term ‘mainstream EOL’ and he links to a response from an Edge team member.

Shawn Wang

Form Design: Multiple Inputs Versus One Input — Some web forms use multiple inputs for what really should be a single unit of data. This usability guide looks at the drawbacks of that approach and how to improve the experience.

adam silver

Safe/Unsafe Alignment in CSS Flexbox — This is a brief look at the new safe keyword that can be used with the align-items property in Flexbox, so far only supported in Firefox.

stefan judis

Detect Inactive Users with The Idle Detection API — Currently in development, this API can be used to find out when a user isn’t actively using their device.

Thomas Steiner

Stop Setting The Language of Your Website Based On User Location — A little PSA on why this might not always be the best idea…

Pedro Pimenta

🔧 Code, Tools and Resources

Animal Crossing: Isabelle's Day Off — Yep, I’m playing Animal Crossing at the moment, so felt it appropriate to include this great little animated diorama created with CSS. There’s also a neat time-lapse video of it all being put together. Impressive!

Tee Diang codepen

MongoDB Is Easy. Now Make It Powerful. Free Download for 30 Days.

Studio 3T sponsor

IntersectionObserver Visualizer — If you’re new to using the IntersectionObserver API, this useful interactive demo might help you comprehend it a little better.

michelle barker

Stylemug: A CSS-in-JS Library with Support for Atomic CSS Extraction — Another solution on the CSS-in-JS scene that features the ability to extract CSS rules to a .css file, which then replaces the stylesheet in your bundle.

Matthias Van Parijs

new.css: A Classless CSS Framework to Write Modern Websites using Only HTML — Weighs only ~4.5kb. Demo here.

🐦 ...spotted on Twitter

Here's a list of all the different length units you can use in CSS. I don't think I was familar with the Q unit.

by via Frontend Focus https://ift.tt/2ZlOl4V

#HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly

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conveyinformation · 6 years ago

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Homework: Festival Poster

Mock up a poster for an upcoming 2019 event in New York. Consider choosing a festival so you have lots of type to work with: You can choose any annual event, such as the Bicycle Film Festival or the Anarchist Book Festival, or design your own event. For the purposes of this assignment, imagine that your poster will be posted in the New York Subway system, either on the walls or on the trains themselves.

Here's the catch: No graphics.

Your poster must include at least the title, the date, the location, and the website of your event. You can add more information if needed.

Your typography and your overall design should give subway riders a sense of the festival. What's going on there? Is it a film festival for cinema snobs or a series of sleazy warehouse parties? You will want to play with hierarchy, scale, alignment, and type selection. You can work with pattern, color, and various lines and basic geometric shapes, but no photos and no illustrations.

You're welcome to use any type combination you like, but I strongly suggest limiting yourself to two typefaces and trying to work with at least one of our 10 classic typefaces from A Type Primer (which you can find in our Drive folder). (Bembo, Garamond, Janson, Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, Serifa or Rockwell, Futura, Gill Sans, or Univers. You can use any or multiple styles, including Roman, Italics, Bold, Light, Condensed, or Extended.)

Print your poster at 13x19. There is paper in the cabinet with my name on it and a larger printer in the corner of room 204, which will be open starting at 10am on Monday. Make sure to size and format your file correctly at 300 DPI at 13x9. There are guides for how to set up the print dialogs on Epson printers in Room 204; you will not be using the giant printers, but the guides are the same. You can use Illustrator at Bobst library or at Laguardia Coop. Laguardia Coop also has printers.

Bring in 10 sketches that show your early ideas and the process you used to get to your final design. We will critique these posters in class on Monday and revise with a second draft for Tuesday of next week.

For type reviews: Look at two posters and post images and short reviews on Tumblr. Here are hundreds of examples of typography posters: https://www.pinterest.com/smallblackroom/typographic-poster/

And some good general poster collections: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/lane/poster-collections https://www.cooperhewitt.org/tag/posters/ moma.org/ (search "poster")

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holytheoristtastemaker · 5 years ago

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You see them on almost every website you visit. Click throughs to accept cookies and read privacy policies.

But this isn’t just a default state for web designers to build into projects. You need to actually think about a privacy policy before just putting something on the website or using a default template.

The challenge when it comes to a privacy policy is that there are a lot of things to think about, and what’s important to include might vary by your industry or location. We’ve put together a primer so you can start working on a solid privacy policy for your website and know what question you might need to ask before you click publish.

Do You Need a Website Privacy Policy?

The short answer is yes.

But with as is the case with almost everything else in website design, it gets more complicated than that quickly. So, here’s a longer answer.

Certain places, such as the European Union (GDPR), United Kingdom (DPA), Canada (PIPEDA), Australia, and some states in the United States, have laws that require privacy policies and notifications if you collect certain types of information on your website. Other countries and locations are adding regulations all the time.

As a rule of thumb, if you adhere to the strictest privacy guidelines, you should be safe. Since the nature of the web is worldwide, that can be a safe way to think about where to start.

The other influencing factor can include third-party apps and services that you connect to your website, such as email newsletters, advertising, analytics tools, or eCommerce platforms. These services might have or require that you include a privacy policy on your website as part of their terms and conditions for use.

You can find the Terms of Use for Google’s Marketing Platform here. Since most websites are using a Google tool, often Analytics, this can be a good baseline for thinking about what a privacy policy should include. (And remember, you agreed to these terms when you started using a Google tool.) https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/

5 Ways a Privacy Policy Can Benefit Your Website

Even if you don’t legally need a privacy policy, there are other reasons to jump on board now.

Build trust with users. You wouldn’t sell things online or ask for payment information without website security. A privacy policy is kind of the same thing. While many people don’t actually read these documents, they are there in case they need them or have questions. This creates a level of transparency that users will appreciate and can build trust.

Help boost search rankings. It’s an indirect impact, but It does exist. More visitors and more engagement can boost search; a more comprehensive website that engages visitors for a longer period of time does tell search engines that your website is more valuable.

Increase conversions. This benefit goes back to trust and transparency. If your privacy policy is clear, easy to find, and easy to read users that are on the fence about filling out a form, answering a poll, or making a purchase may feel confident enough to do so on your website.

Stay in compliance third-party tools. You could lose the ability to use your email newsletter service or another app if you don’t have a privacy policy and their terms of use require it. That’s a headache you don’t want to deal with.

It’s not hard. Generally speaking, creating and adding a privacy policy to your website isn’t a complex task. If you have a business attorney, they can probably draft something for you quickly. There are also other tools and resources online – we’ll get to those a little later here – that you can use to help craft your own draft. Once you have the document, all you have to do is create a page for it on your website.

What Needs To Be in a Website Privacy Policy?

While there’s no one-size-fits all privacy policy, there are some general pieces of information that almost every website privacy policy includes. Do keep in mind, that if you are in a more regulated industry, such as healthcare or financial services, there may be even stricter privacy policy guidelines to consider.

Most privacy policies contain the following:

The website URL, owner, and contact information (such as an email address)

What information or data you collect on your website (such as asking for email signups or payment information)

If that information or data is retained (for example, payment information is not generally stored on websites; usernames or account information might be)

What do you do with any information or data you collect

If anyone else, such as a third-party app or vendor, has access to that information

Clauses or information from any third-party apps that are required as part of your usage agreement with them

Where Should You Put a Privacy Policy on Your Website?

Once you’ve done the work to create a solid privacy policy for your website, it should be on a page of its own. Don’t overthink it and name this page “Privacy Policy.” You may also have a terms and conditions or terms of use page that is separate.

Using a naming convention such as privacy policy makes it easy for website visitors to find it if they search your website.

Then link to it. The standard location for a privacy policy is in the footer. It’s a good idea to make sure it is on, or easily accessed, from every page on your website. (That’s why the footer is a standard location.)

How Often Should You Update a Privacy Policy?

Once you’ve written and published a privacy policy, you can’t just forget about it.

The laws surrounding consumer rights and internet privacy seem to be shifting all the time. Stay on top of legislative changes where you live and update your policy if you see new regulations go into effect.

Generally, adding a privacy policy update to your list of annual website to-dos is a good idea.

Read through the policy for things that might have changed, third-party services you are no longer using or new third-party tools you’ve added. Clean up language that’s confusing.

It’s also a good practice to read over your privacy policy any time you link it to a new website, service, or app. (Facebook, for example, will let you link to a website privacy policy.) Any time you link to the policy again, make sure it encompasses the use you are adding at a minimum.

The right privacy policy for you depends on your needs, business, location, industry, and website. We don’t recommend downloading a random template and publishing it.

But there are some templates, tools and guidelines that can be a solid starting point. When looking for one of these tools, opt from something that comes from an official source (such as a reputable business advocate or organization) over a template from a reseller.

A few privacy policy resources include:

Sample Privacy Statement from UC Berkeley https://security.berkeley.edu/how-write-effective-website-privacy-statement

Privacy and Security from the U.S. FTC https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/privacy-and-security

Privacy Notice template from GDPR.eu https://gdpr.eu/privacy-notice/

Shopify Privacy Policy Generator https://www.shopify.com/tools/policy-generator

Conclusion

In some countries, there are privacy and online regulations in place. This guide is not meant as a legal document and you should always consult an attorney if you have questions about specific rules.

This guide is designed to help you begin to understand what factors you should consider in a privacy policy. If you don’t have one on your website, it is probably time to consider what type of privacy policy is appropriate and what information it should include.

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himanshuthukran · 5 years ago

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2020 NHL Trade Deadline primer and tracker: Things to know, dates, timeline, ranking key targets

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With the NHL All-Star break in the rearview mirror, the unofficial second half of the season is upon us. That typically means eyes start shifting toward the playoffs or, if your team is less fortunate, the NHL Draft lottery odds.

But before we can start looking past the conclusion of the regular season, it’s important to consider what may happen around the league’s annual trade…

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ronnykblair · 6 years ago

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The Definitive Guide to the Equity Research Internship

Ah, the equity research internship.

Sure, the industry itself may not be in great shape, but any finance internship helps, right?

Well… maybe.

Equity research internships are quite different from investment banking internships and sales & trading internships, even though they all take place at large banks.

That creates some opportunities if you use them well – and some risks if you don’t:

Wait, Do Equity Research Internships Exist? Why Are They So Rare?

You’ve probably noticed that there are not that many equity research internships.

A quick search on LinkedIn revealed over 15,000 openings for “investment banking interns,” but only ~50 for “equity research interns” – and many of those were not for real internships.

There are relatively few ER internships because:

Equity research recruiting is less cyclical than IB and S&T recruiting, so groups hire “as needed.” It’s not as if a group always hires 100 people per year and then needs to replace them when 75% leave within two years. As a result, there’s less of a need to recruit interns to fill the pipeline. Some of the bulge-bracket banks do have structured internship programs, but there are still many fewer openings.

Everything depends on the Analyst in the group (the “Analyst” is the most senior team member in research). If they do not want interns, the group will not hire interns. Different Analysts run their groups very differently, so hiring practices vary more widely than in IB or S&T.

Interns are less useful in ER because they need to go through an entire quarter of company earnings to learn the business and key processes. A quarter lasts 3 months, so by the time that happens, the internship is over. By contrast, there are always random tasks and grunt work that IB interns can assist with.

So Then, What Do Equity Research Interns Do?

If you’re lucky enough to win one of the few available equity research internships, you should start by understanding what you won’t do:

Write equity research reports.

Speak with clients or other external parties.

You need to be licensed and working full-time at the bank to do those, so you’ll be completing the following types of tasks instead:

Finding industry and market data.

Assisting with model updates following earnings calls and company news.

Summarizing news and recent corporate events for your team.

Updating lists of comparable public companies and other valuation data.

Updating “primers” or annual reports the group issues on key verticals or sub-industries.

You’re unlikely to build a detailed 3-statement model from scratch or complete an entire valuation from beginning to end, but you may contribute to parts of these.

Similarly, you’re not going to draft a 100-page initiating coverage report as an intern, but you may contribute to parts of it.

Since there are no deals or pitches in equity research, daily activities are more about following companies and the market and less about responding to Urgent Request X from Client A.

Also, as stated above, equity research work and culture vary heavily based on the Analyst in charge of the group.

Some Analysts favor complex financial models, others like on-the-ground research, others like a data-driven approach, and still others focus on relationship-building.

But no matter how the group runs, your job is to make everyone’s life easier.

On average, you can expect to work around 12 hours per weekday, roughly the same as the full-time research professionals.

Hours will spike up during earnings season when everyone scrambles to update models and send out new reports.

Weekend work is not that common, but you should be available in case something comes up.

Who Offers Equity Research Internships?

The bulge-bracket banks, middle-market banks, and some elite-boutique banks have research teams and may, therefore, offer internships.

It’s rare for regional boutique banks to offer equity research, but if they do, they might offer internships as well.

Asset management firms such as Fidelity and Vanguard may offer “research internships” as well, but these are buy-side equity research roles, which are somewhat different from the sell-side roles discussed in this article.

Finally, there are dedicated/independent research firms that charge clients directly for research and which may also offer internships.

Examples include Green Street Advisors (REITs), Bernstein (diversified), Arete Research (TMT), Redburn (diversified), Agency Partners (aerospace and defense), and Telsey (consumer focus – has now expanded into IB and S&T as well).

Why Bother with an Equity Research Internship?

You would complete an equity research internship for the same reasons you’d complete an investment banking internship: to win a full-time return offer, to decide whether or not the industry is right for you, and to build a sequence of work experience.

However, “win a full-time return offer” is a less likely outcome in equity research because of the reasons mentioned above: hiring is random, and there aren’t clearly defined “classes” of new employees.

Which Candidates Win These Internships?

The same qualities that get you in the door for IB interviews are also important in equity research: a top-ranked university, high grades, previous finance internships, and accounting/valuation/financial modeling skills.

But there are a few key differences:

Market Passion is Critical – And you can’t fake it. If you don’t actively follow industries and research and pick stocks on your own, it will be obvious within ~5 minutes.

So Are Writing and Communication Skills – You may not do official report writing as an intern, but you will be emailing your team and contributing to reports.

MBA Internships… Exist, Kind Of? – Some of the larger banks do recruit on-campus for MBA-level internships, but it’s far less “institutionalized” than the same process for investment banking.

Off-the-Beaten-Path Routes Are More Feasible – This last point does not apply to internships quite as much, but it’s more viable to take the “industry expertise + a bit of finance experience” and win ER roles as an older career changer.

These points mean that it’s probably not a great idea to complete an expensive degree, such as an MBA, solely to get into equity research.

Some candidates make it work, but it’s quite risky due to the small number of internships and the lack of a structured, recurring hiring process at most firms.

The Internship Recruiting Timeline

At the undergraduate level, the equity research recruiting timeline has been creeping up, though it’s still not quite as crazy as the IB timeline.

Recruiting for banks with structured internship programs now takes place around a year in advance of the internship, so you need to start your networking efforts and technical preparation very early.

But again: most ER hiring is “off-cycle,” and even internship opportunities can pop up randomly, so you never know.

How to Get an Equity Research Internship

We cover the key points in the article on equity research recruiting, but to summarize:

You can submit your application online if the bank has an internship program, but networking works quite well for finding unofficial/off-cycle research positions.

Start by finding professionals on LinkedIn and then emailing them, or find their information through other sources like Bloomberg, Capital IQ, FactSet, or even research reports that list contact information.

Write a 5-6 sentence email to introduce yourself, and ask for a time to speak to learn more about opportunities at Firm X as well as their career paths; you can also ask questions about how the group is run (e.g., what the Analyst publishes besides earnings updates), why clients value the Analyst, and what the bank’s vision for its research division is. Focus on firms where there is clearly an open position (look on job sites).

If you legitimately do not know what you are doing (be honest), then do not attach a stock pitch, sample report, or model to your intro email (this mostly applies if you’re an early university student).

If you do know what you’re doing, do attach a stock pitch/sample report/model. For a quick test, take a look at our stock pitch examples and ask if you could come up with something similar in 1-2 weeks.

By the time you go in for interviews, you should ideally know at least a few people throughout different equity research groups at the bank.

Equity Research Internship Interviews

Assuming you network successfully, submit a good application, and make it through whatever online tests or HireVue recordings they require, the next step is real interviews.

You can expect the standard “fit” questions:

Walk me through your resume / tell me about yourself.

Why equity research?

Your strengths and weaknesses.

Your team and leadership experiences.

Your communication skills and writing abilities.

Technical questions are similar to investment banking interview questions, but there’s more focus on accounting, 3-statement modeling, and valuation since you do not work on M&A or LBO deals directly in ER.

It is extremely important to have 2-3 solid stock pitches – if you do not, interviewers will conclude that you’re not interested in the job.

You may get a written test or on-site case study as well, but it’s usually fairly simple: maybe 60 minutes to read materials about two peer companies and recommend one over the other.

A detailed financial modeling test is unlikely for an internship role, but anything is possible.

There’s a description of the internship interview process in a reader story of his move from compliance to equity research.

How to Prepare for the Internship

If you make it through interviews and win the offer, congrats!

Now you get to panic about how to prepare and impress everyone on the job.

Most of the points in our article about investment banking internship preparation apply here as well: Learn key Excel and PowerPoint shortcuts, practice reading annual reports, read up on your industry, take extensive notes, do some “pre-networking,” and try to reduce your smartphone addiction.

A few additional, ER-specific tips include:

Learn your group’s coverage universe – read up on the companies in it, ask for copies of older reports, and figure out the data your team likes to present.

Practice summarizing news and company events and shortening long articles into a few bullet points.

Practice listening to corporate earnings calls and summarizing the key points. If you can’t listen live, download the webcast afterward or read the transcript.

How to Make the Most of an Equity Research Internship

Many of the points in the investment banking internship guide apply here as well – but the division of work differs since there are no deals in ER.

As an intern, the only way to add value is to make other peoples’ lives easier.

That means doing the following will improve your chances of winning a return offer, or at least getting a solid recommendation:

Don’t make mistakes – always print and double-check your work before showing it to anyone.

Do the boring grunt work (data gathering and scrubbing, updating valuation information, etc.) that’s required and that no one else wants to do.

Take the initiative – if you find an interesting article or report about your industry, send it to your team and summarize the key points. If someone is wasting time on a task you could handle, volunteer to do it for them.

Figure out your group’s coverage universe on Day 1 and add each company’s earnings call to your team’s calendars if it’s not already there.

You should also use downtime to network, not only within your team, but also with other groups, such as sales & trading, and see if you can do anything to help.

Don’t do this every day or it will get annoying, but try to meet a few new people every 1-2 weeks.

Do all that, and you might just win a return offer – if there’s an opening, of course.

Equity Research Internships: Hidden Gem or Hidden Land Mine?

I think equity research internships are a bit overrated for the reasons highlighted above:

They tend to take quite a bit of networking to secure.

There’s not necessarily a structured recruiting process or a set number of hires each year.

And even if you do win the internship, the path to a full-time offer does not necessarily exist.

A research internship could be a good first or second step if your long-term goal is in the public markets (hedge funds, asset management, etc.).

But if you’re more inclined to the “deal” side of things (investment banking and private equity), I’m not sure I would recommend equity research internships.

With a similar amount of networking, you could win a boutique PE or VC internship that’s more relevant, and that fits your story better.

I’m not sure that research internships are “hidden land mines,” but they’re also not quite “hidden gems” in the same way some off-cycle internships are.

So… buyer beware, and if the internship seems too shiny to be true, it probably is.

The post The Definitive Guide to the Equity Research Internship appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/equity-research-internship/

#ronnykblair digest

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 6 years ago

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Setting up your Amazon marketing strategy: A how-to guide

In 2018, Amazon’s annual revenue exceeded USD 232 billion. That’s more than New Zealand’s GDP. Going by its net worth of over USD 1 trillion, Amazon also has the Netherlands’ GDP beat. The retailer has created its own economy, one with more than 1 million sellers proffering over 12 million products to 300 million-plus users.

And it’s not just the scale that’s outrageous. The average Amazon Prime customer visits Amazon about once a week and spends an average USD 1,500 every year. Forbes has called this level of customer loyalty “astounding”.

What’s more, the success extends beyond consumer goods. Amazon Business has blossomed into a USD 10-billion market in the span of about three years, offering everything from office equipment to autoparts to medical supplies to building materials.

As easy as it is to ooh and aah at Amazon, sellers in B2C and B2B markets can’t presume they’ll be profitable. The online marketplace is competitive, and success requires a strong Amazon marketing strategy.

Getting Started: Selling on Amazon

First things first: Should you sell on Amazon, and how?

Many brands sell their products on the e-commerce platform as a way to tap into its massive customer base and some of its loyalty incentives (e.g., two-day shipping).

But selling on Amazon can be a marketing campaign unto itself. About 66% of customer journeys start on Amazon. And when they start on Amazon, they often end there – with or without your product. This is to say, listing products on Amazon can ultimately improve brand awareness. Not to mention, Amazon is a great place to cultivate influencers by way of positive reviews.

So, assuming your product is not on Amazon’s restricted list, and there’s a market for it on the platform (e.g., you’re not selling industrial automation systems, disaster recovery services or another niche offering), you should probably be using Amazon.

Nearly 90% of consumers say they are more likely to buy products from Amazon than from other online platforms. That alone should tell you all you need to know.

A quick primer on how to sell on Amazon

Brands that make their own products can sell them to Amazon or on Amazon. It’s a subtle but important difference, as it affects which of Amazon’s e-commerce services the seller uses:

Vendor Central: In this invite-only web interface, manufacturers and distributors sell in bulk to Amazon which, in turn, sells to customers. Amazon controls retail pricing under this model.

Seller Central: This interface is open to anyone. Individuals, manufacturers, brands or third-party merchants can sell products on Amazon (or Amazon Business in the case of businesses) directly to customers, giving the seller more control over pricing strategy and inventory.

This practical bench seat cover for pets is sold by Amazon.

This highly impractical pillow case is not sold by Amazon.

Amazon makes more marketing resources available to sellers using Vendor Central – understandable considering Amazon acts as the seller and wants to move more products. But again, the tradeoff is that Amazon has more pricing control, which makes it a little harder for suppliers to manage their margins.

The recurring monthly cost is the same for Vendor Central and Seller Central: $39.99. However, Seller-Central users also have to pay a fee per sale.

Brands can also allow third-party resellers to sell their wares. However, brands that wish to control their presence on the e-commerce platform can restrict third parties from carrying their products.

An important note on two-day shipping

There are more than 100 million Amazon Prime customers, and many of them come for the two-day shipping. Keep this in mind when deciding between FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) and FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon).

With FBM, the merchant uses its own logistics infrastructure to get the product to the customer. This means that if they want to sell products on Prime with the perk of two-day shipping, they need to work for it.

But with FBA, your brand automatically qualifies for Amazon Prime. The tradeoff, of course, is that you pay fees for FBA. However, it could be worth it if you sell fast-moving consumer goods and want to tap into Amazon’s logistics network.

Whether you opt for FBM or FBA will ultimately depend on your industry, your company’s supply-chain capabilities and how important two-day delivery is to your marketing objectives.

Marketing on Amazon – aka what you came for

Marketing on Amazon requires a little trial and error and a lot of attention to detail. To help break this down for you, we’ve split Amazon marketing into three categories. Let’s take a look at each, and how it contributes to a larger campaign.

1. Amazon search engine optimisation

Astoundingly, Amazon now has more product searches than Google. Organic search engine optimisation is therefore of the essence. Here are the core search factors to consider:

Keywords

Identify the top search terms that lead to certain types of product pages using tools such as Sonar or Ahrefs. Be sure to add these key terms in your product listing, including the title, descriptions and details.

Backend keywords

You can only fit so many relevant keywords on a product listing. But you can still rank for the rest by including them as search terms in the backend. These won’t appear on your page, but they will affect product ranking. Note that word order matters (“pillow Nicolas Cage” vs. “Nicolas Cage pillow”). Also, avoid including keywords used on the page in this list.

Product titles

Always put keywords first in the product title, since Amazon has different word limits depending on where the product appears (main search results page, mobile search results and side-bar results). This will ensure the most important information comes first.

Bullet points and product descriptions

Try to anticipate the attributes that shoppers care about the most, and if possible, include keywords in the bulleted list and product description. Note that if you enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry, you can add an enhanced product description that includes a “From the manufacturer” section.

Customer reviews

Positive product reviews are the cheapest form of influencer marketing. Equally important, Amazon tries to help shoppers find the best products by giving higher-rated items a ranking boost, and vice versa. Quantity of ratings and quantity of reviews are also important. You can encourage customers to review your products by sending post-purchase follow-up emails asking them to share their experience. Here’s what one customer said about his Nicolas Cage pillowcase:

It also helps to respond to negative customer reviews in an attempt to rectify a bad situation and hopefully earn a higher rating. This loyal customer, for instance, could have used some reassurance from the seller after his third – and possibly his final – Nic Cage pillowcase turned out to be a dud:

Drafting reasonable responses can also influence shoppers’ impressions of your brand by making you look more attentive and dedicated to customer satisfaction.

Answered questions

Product listings on Amazon have a Q&A section so that customers can get additional information or ask more specific questions about the product. These details can help shoppers make purchasing decisions.

What’s more, leaving questions unanswered can hurt your ranking. Technically, other customers can answer product questions, but some of those queries may be better left to your brand than someone speaking on behalf of it – and you probably shouldn’t assume that another customer will do that work for you.

It’s also worth noting that the types of questions shoppers ask convey information about their values. You can mine those questions for important details you may have missed or even opportunities to improve your products.

Product images

A product image is often the first thing that shoppers will see, so make it high-res, and make sure it’s of the core product – no custom graphics or illustrations allowed. You can add graphics or superimpose information on additional images, but make sure your main image features the core product.

Sometimes, it helps to provide an image that demonstrates a unique selling proposition. For instance, this sequin pillow that reveals Nic Cage’s face when you swipe it:

Nic Cage pillows have really cornered the gag gift market.

Conversion rate and price

No big surprise here. Amazon search favors competitively priced products that drive more sales. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re at a disadvantage if you charge more for premium products that customers love.

Still, it’s worth remembering that Amazon is a business with a long and somewhat contentious history of under-cutting prices to drive up sales.

Quick note about ‘Amazon’s Choice’

Have you ever noticed some products have the label “Amazon’s Choice”? To the best of everyone’s knowledge, this is an organic designation that is determined by selling a product that meets certain criteria. According to Business Insider, items that qualify for this title are:

Popular and frequently sold;

Competitively priced;

Positively reviewed by many customers;

Not returned often;

Shipped quickly via Prime.

Otherwise, not a whole lot is known about the label, and as far as we can tell, your best shot at earning it is to do everything right from an SEO and customer experience standpoint (check out our post about Amazon SEO for more details).

2. Amazon Marketing Services

Also known as Amazon Advertising, Amazon Marketing Service (AMS) lets sellers create pay-per-click ad campaigns as part of their e-commerce marketing strategy. The service relies on keywords, related products and shopper interests for placement. Once clicked, the ad leads to the product page.

Merchants can use AMS for several different types of ads, including:

Product display ads

Product display ads may appear on the side or bottom of search results – as in the example above – or in the margins of related product pages.

Sponsored product ads

Sponsored product ads are similar to PPC ads on Google SERPs. They appear in Amazon search results, but also in product pages right above product descriptions.

Headline search ads

Headline search ads – also known as “sponsored brand ads” – appear at the top of SERPs. They’re highly customisable in that they can feature custom ad copy, a link to a branded Amazon landing page and additional links to specific products.

Paid ads on Amazon are no substitution for creating strong product descriptions and following other organic SEO best practices.

Quick note about ‘Amazon Attribution’

Historically, Amazon users have been able to track Amazon ad campaigns and receive Amazon Advertising media reports through the Amazon Advertising console.

However, in 2018, Amazon released Amazon Attribution Beta, a more robust analytics resource that helps sellers understand how shoppers discover, research and purchase products. The platform, which is already available to all US merchants, will also let sellers track sources of traffic outside of Amazon. This includes brand websites but also Google and social media platforms.

TL;DR: Amazon is actively trying to make marketers’ lives easier as they create their Amazon marketing strategies.

3. Digital marketing outside of Amazon

At long last, we arrive at the off-site elements of the Amazon marketing strategy.

For some brands, the bulk of profits will stream in directly from the e-commerce colossus. But the vast majority of Amazon merchants (80%) sell on other channels simultaneously. These include branded e-commerce sites and apps, other online shopping platforms, brick-and-mortar stores and more.

The whole reason for selling on Amazon in the first place is to tap into its massive pool of existing customers. But that doesn’t mean you should forget about the ocean of prospects that exists outside of Amazon.

Furthermore, the strategies you employ across non-Amazon channels can significantly affect your success as a seller on the platform. Email is maybe the best example. Sending post-purchase thank you messages to customers, and reminding them a few days or weeks after purchasing to review your products, helps you create a relationship with those buyers and hopefully turn them into brand advocates.

Social media, meanwhile, can act as a valuable way to promote your products outside of Amazon, announce updates, share company information and cultivate a brand voice. It also gives users yet another way to engage with your brand. After all, there’s no better social media influencer than a genuinely satisfied customer.

In a manner of speaking, your brand is bigger than Amazon

There’s no denying that Amazon provides businesses with an exceptional resource in the form of its e-commerce platform and its humongous base of loyal customers.

But even if most of your sales come from Amazon, your brand is not Amazon, and Amazon is not your brand. You still need to distinguish your presence on the site with SEO-driven product pages, paid campaigns and brand-awareness efforts outside of the platform.

More importantly, your brand must cultivate an identity that is separate from the leviathan. It must demonstrate its values through email campaigns, social media marketing, content marketing and other digital channels.

Because, at the end of the day, if you create a brand customers love, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, Amazon or no Amazon.

from http://bit.ly/2G7FaKS

#content marketing

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thinklookdosummer2019 · 6 years ago

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Homework: Due June 17

Here's the catch: No graphics.

Your poster must include at least the title, the date, the location, and the website of your event. You can add more information if needed.

Your typography and your overall design should give subway riders a sense of the festival. What's going on there? Is it a film festival for cinema snobs or a series of sleazy warehouse parties? You will want to play with hierarchy, scale, alignment, and type selection. You can work with pattern, color, and various lines and geometric shapes, but no photos and no illustrations.

Print your poster at 13x19. There is paper in the cabinet with my name on it and a larger printer in the corner of room 204 (open Thursday and Friday 1-5p). Make sure to size and format your file correctly at 300 DPI. (There are guides for how to set up the print dialogs on Epson printers. You will not be using the giant printers, but the guides are the same.) Bring in 10 sketches that show your early ideas and the process you used to get to your final design. We will critique these posters in class on Monday and revise with a second draft on Wednesday of next week.

For type reviews: Look at two posters and post images and short reviews on Tumblr.

Here are hundreds of examples of typography posters:

https://www.pinterest.com/smallblackroom/typographic-poster/

And some good general poster collections:

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/lane/poster-collections

https://www.cooperhewitt.org/tag/posters/

www.moma.org/ (search "poster")

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leejohnsus · 7 years ago

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What Is the Difference Between an Industrial and a Commercial Electrician?

Let’s say you run a retail store and, one day, the lights go out. Who do you call? Or, perhaps you operate a large manufacturing plant, and the power systems fail. Who do you contact then? If your answer is “electrician”, you get partial credit. There are two primary types, commercial and industrial, and there is a world of difference between them.

Do You Dream of Becoming a Commercial Electrician?

Well, it’s your lucky day, because it is a much shorter overall process than becoming an industrial one. Most commercial electricians begin their careers with an associate’s degree. Then, they complete an apprenticeship with someone already working in the field.

The training, as well as the work, entails a lot of wiring and electrical knowledge, as you’d expect. Study.com confirms this. Commercial electrician students should learn circuit installation, motors and alarms, hydraulics and pneumatics.

After all the schooling and training, electricians are required by law to obtain a license to work. The licensing laws vary by state, but without one, you can’t work on electrical wiring in a building that isn’t your own home.

According to UK Electrician Ltd, a commercial electrician in London, there are more commercial electricians than industrial electricians. They typically work in very different environments, such as retail stores and restaurants. At times, they draft blueprints for retail spaces, but always work to ensure the safety of the electricity.

Basically, as Electrician School Edu puts it, “Commercial electricians install, upgrade, maintain, troubleshoot, and fix electrical systems in virtually all non-residential settings.” Whether it’s a bank, school, office, or even airport, a commercial electrician can do the job.

If you’re more of a visual learner, I highly recommend this short video from the Electrician Information Resource. The host gives a quick introduction of the ins and outs of daily life as a commercial electrician. He also covers the job security element, which is equally important.

What Does It Take to Be an Industrial Electrician?

If you’re an overachiever, you might want to go the harder route and become an industrial electrician. Aside from the basics of wiring and a working knowledge of electrical systems, they share little with their counterparts.

For starters, it takes much longer to become an industrial electrician. They must complete a four-year apprenticeship, including 144 hours per year spent in classrooms. Additionally, they get hands-on training, which comes in at a whopping 2,000 hours per year.

Industrial electricians studying through a college may also earn a degree, the associate of applied science. The training itself goes into great detail, since they will be required to handle more complicated tasks.

Study.com covers the coursework. It includes “electrical wiring, electricity fundamentals, electrical controls, blueprint reading and electrical code”. Their work environments are often complex facilities intended for manufacturing, processing, or production.

Here, they have to manage problems with high voltages. According to PMI, they work with “minuscule and direct micro currents of electricity.” These can be formidable challenges, so the practical know-how is equally immense.

Industrial electricians train longer to work with complicated systems in dangerous work environments. In other words, there is a good reason fewer people choose this route.

Similar to the video in the previous section, try this one out regarding industrial electricians. Student Edge explains the job expectations and apprenticeships by interviewing a working electrician.

It’s a Numbers Game

Electricians can make a very solid paycheck. They put in tons of hours both in the classroom and in the field, so it makes sense. Just how much money do they actually make? And how many people are you competing against?

According to PayScale, commercial electricians make an average of $21.36 per hour. This is only an average, of course, and actual pay will vary largely by location and experience. By comparison, PayScale says that industrial electricians make an average of $24.61 per hour.

Right off the bat, you can see that there is a three dollar difference. That’s nothing to sniff at. If you’re more interested in annual salary, the numbers are similar. Commercials make about $52,902 per year, while industrials rake in roughly $61,311 per year.

Those numbers are pretty solid. Again, you could earn more or less than these rough estimates. This will greatly depend on where you work and how long you stay in the field. With experience comes a higher price tag.

As far as competition goes, you certainly won’t be the only fish in the pond, but the opportunities continue to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports, “Employment of electricians is projected to grow 9 percent from 2016 to 2026.” This is a very steady growth rate.

The BLS also indicates that electricians who complete more complex tasks have greater job prospects. This alone is in favor of a strong industrial background over a commercial one. The fact remains, of course, that one must put in the time.

In the End, They’re the Same, But Different

At the end of the day, if you have your sights set on becoming an electrician, there are two main paths you can take.

On the one hand, commercial electricians study less and deal with less complicated systems and work environments. They also may not learn as much overall, and thus the road from electrician to engineer might be far steeper.

On the other hand, industrial electricians have to put in more time, but they also get to handle a wider range of complexity, which is its own reward. If the prospect of working in factories and warehouses, the engines of American construction, appeals to you, industrial is the way to go.

Now you’ve had a chance to read a bit about commercial electricians and industrial electricians. At this point, I also recommend taking a deeper dive with this textbook, a massive primer on all things American electrician.

The post What Is the Difference Between an Industrial and a Commercial Electrician? appeared first on Siyanda Business Directory.

source https://www.siyanda.org/what-is-the-difference-between-an-industrial-and-a-commercial-electrician/ source https://localbusinessdirectoryus.tumblr.com/post/180121237603

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localbusinessdirectoryus · 7 years ago

Text

What Is the Difference Between an Industrial and a Commercial Electrician?

Do You Dream of Becoming a Commercial Electrician?

What Does It Take to Be an Industrial Electrician?

Industrial electricians train longer to work with complicated systems in dangerous work environments. In other words, there is a good reason fewer people choose this route.

Similar to the video in the previous section, try this one out regarding industrial electricians. Student Edge explains the job expectations and apprenticeships by interviewing a working electrician.

It’s a Numbers Game

In the End, They’re the Same, But Different

At the end of the day, if you have your sights set on becoming an electrician, there are two main paths you can take.

The post What Is the Difference Between an Industrial and a Commercial Electrician? appeared first on Siyanda Business Directory.

source https://www.siyanda.org/what-is-the-difference-between-an-industrial-and-a-commercial-electrician/

0 notes

1baddmouthcrown · 7 years ago

Text

19TH Century Toussaint L'Ouverture, 1816 the American Colonization Society Sam Sharpe, Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, Antonio Maceo, Booker T Washington, WEB Du Bois, Paul Bogle and George William Gordon, James Mata Dwane South African Methodist Minister Methodist the Ethiopian Church of Mangena Mokone 1896, founder of the Order of Ethiopia in the Anglican Church, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the African Methodist Espicopal Church.

1801 March constitution for Saint Domingue drafted by constitutional assembly appointed by Louverture promulgated on 1801 July 7 making him Governor General of Hispaniola. Article 3 of the constitution states: “There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French.

An 1806 engraving of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. It depicts the general, sword raised in one arm, while the other holds a severed head of a white woman.

Vicomte de Rochambeau imported about 15, 000 attack dogs. At the Bay of Le Cap, Rochambeau had blacks drowned.

1804 January 1 Dessalines declares independence and renames Saint Domingue “Ayiti” after the indigenous Taíno/Arawak name.

1804 February to April 22 Haiti Massacre..

1804 September 22 proclaimed Emperor by Generals of the Haitian Revolution Army and crowned Emperor Jacques I in a coronation ceremony on 6 October in the city of Le Cap.

1 April Henry, by the grace of God and constitutional law of the state, King of Haiti, Sovereign of Tortuga, Gonâve, and other adjacent islands, Destroyer of tyranny, Regenerator and Benefactor of the Haitian nation, Creator of her moral, political, and martial institutions, First crowned monarch of the New World, Defender of the faith, Founder of the Royal Military Order of Saint Henry.

1811 Louisiana German Coast revolt.

1816 the American Colonization Society established mainly by the effort of Charles Fenton Mercer as well as John Caldwell and the Presbyterian minister Robert Finley.

1820 Reverend Daniel Coker and Reverend Samuel Bacon sail to Liberia on the Elizabeth with 88 emigrants. Sierra Leone Reverend Bacon King Jack Ben of Grand Bassa secured tract of land Cape Mesurado named Monrovia after President James Monroe.

Of the 4, 571 emigrants who arrived between 1820 and 1843 only 1, 819 of them survived.

1822 Delanys mother Pati moves their family to Chambersbury in the free state of Pennsylvania after in the state of Virginia where education of blacks prohibited The New York Primer and Spelling Book Delany and his siblings used to learn how to read and write is discovered.

1826 Truth escape from slavery.

1828 Truth reunited with her son Peter illegally sold.

1831 Delany ath the age of 19 moves West to Pittsburgh where he works as a barber and laborer.

1831 Saint James, Trelawny and WestmorelandSam Sharpes Baptist War.

August 21 Southampton County, Virginia Nat Turner Rebellion.

1832 Delany during the National cholera epidemic becomes apprentice to Dr. Andrew N. Mc Dowell and learns fire cupping and leeching techniques, and also studies with abolitionist doctors such as Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne and Dr. Joseph P. Gazzam of Pittsburgh.

1835 Delany attends National Negro Convention in Philadelphia.

Douglass begins to be taught the alphabet by his masters wife whos husband however disapproves of the slaves being made literate and later also snatches a newspaper from him. Douglass learns to read from white children in his neighborhood and from observing the writings of the men he works with with this Douglass’s reading is greatly increased.

Douglass after being hired begins to teach large numbers of other slaves from the plantation to read the New Testament at weekly Sunday school.

1838 September 3 Douglass escapes from slavery in under 24 hours Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad from Havre de Grace, Maryland, in Harford County crossed Susquehanna River to Perryvile in Cecil County steam ferry and took the train to Wilmington, Delaware steamboat Delaware River to Quaker City" of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City.

1839 Douglass becomes a licensed preacher.

September 15 Douglass marries Anna.

1840 Douglas makes Elmira, New York, Underground Railroad station speech.

1841 William Lyod Garrison Bristol Anti-Slavery Society.

Douglas speaks at Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society’s annual convention in Nantucket.

1843 Delany begins publishing The Mystery black newspaper, his articles and writings reprinted in William Lloyd Garrisons The Liberator.

Douglass American Anti-Slavery Society’s “Hundred Conventions” project, a six-month tour. Pendleton Indiana Douglas mob suffers broken hando.

Isabella Baumfree gives herself the name Sojourner Truth and becomes a Methodist.

1844 Truth Northampton, Massachusetts.

1845 August 16 Douglas sails on the Cambria for Liverpool, travels to Ireland and Great Britain, meets Irish nationalist Daniel O’ Connell as well as British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson

Autobiography Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass.

Imperial Hotel.

1946 Delany sued $650 for libel against a African American Fiddler Johnson who he accused in The Mystery newspaper of being a slave catcher.

Douglass.

1847 Delany mets Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison whilst they are in Pittsburgh on an anti-slavery and helps to put together Frederick Douglass’s first abolitionist newspaper the North Star.

Delanys eulogy for Rev. Fayette Davis widely redistributed.

Martin Delany, c. 1847. Called the father of Black Nationalism, this rare image captures Delany, already an abolitionist, writer, publisher, and journalist at this point in his life. Courtesy of Floyd Thomas.

Delany recruits for the Union Army. His son Touissant Louverture Delany serves with the 54th regiment.

1948 July Delanys in the North Star that U.S. District Court Justice John McLean instructed the jury in the Crosswait trial to make it a punishable offence for a citizen to thwart those trying to "repossess" an alleged runaway slave, and as a result influences abolitionist Salmon P. Chase to remove McLean as a candidate of the Free Soil Party for the Presidency.

Douglass attends Senecca Falls convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton resolution for Womens suffrage passed James and Lucretia Mott 15th Amendment.

Ezra Greenleaf Weld, Fugitive Slave Law Convention, Cazenovia, New York, 1850. Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Frederick Douglass, who presided over the proceedings, is seated at the corner of the table. Mary Edmonson (in plaid shawl) stands over his left shoulder. Abolitionist Gerrit Smith stands over Douglass’s right shoulder, with Emily Edmonson (also in plaid) to his right.

Delany becomes one of the first of three black men to attend Harvard Medical School but is dismissed on account of race complaint from white students within three weeks.

1850 Blyden emigrates to Liberia.

1851, Douglass the North Star with Gerrit Smith’s Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass’ Paper ceased 1860.

Truth George Thompson.

After 42 years at St. Paul Street and Central Avenue, and mostly because of the endless railroad traffic nearby, the monument had become “grimy and sooty.” And so a committee was formed, and a decision was made to move the monument to Highland Park. The place in the park for the statue was within a few hundred yards of where Douglass had once lived, on South Avenue. Not exactly the apex of city life, but away from the grime of the trains.

And so today the statue stands, as it has for 75 years, in the park. It was rededicated on September 4th, 1941.

Douglass’s address to the ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society July 5, 1852.

Delany being discriminated against and on account of African Americans not being elevated to such positions, publishes his The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered.

“SWEET is the virgin honey, though the wild bee store it in a reed; And bright the jewelled band that circleth an Ethiop’s arm; Pure are the grains of gold in the turbid stream of the Ganges; And fair the living flowers that spring from the dull cold sod. Wherefore, thou gentle student, bend thine ear to my speech, For I also am as thou art; our hearts can commune together: To meanest matters will I stoop, for mean is the lot of mortal; I will rise to noblest themes, for the soul hath a heritage of glory.”

1853 Douglass attends the National African American Convention in Rochester.

September 7 Truth speaks at suffragist "mob convention" at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City.

1854 Delany publishes The Origins and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry: Its Introduction into the United States and Legitimacy among Colored Men.

Delany, during Cholera outbreak stays behind to treat patients whilst leave.

August Dealany leads the National Emigration Convention in Cleveland, Ohio and publishes his “Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent”. Political rights resolution passed for Blacks.

Truth speaks to "Friends of Human Progress" at Battle Creek, Michigan.

1856 Delany moves his family to Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

Blyden edits the Liberia Herald and writes the column "A Voice From Bleeding Africa.

1859 Delany publishes parts of Blake: Or The Huts of America in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, in which he criticises for inaccurately portraying the slaves as too passive although for cruelty of Southern slave owners serialised form in The Anglo-African Magazine between January to July.

May Delany sails from New York to Liberia, signs treaty chiefs in the Abeokuta region settlers to live on so long as they can.

1860 Delany leaves Liberia for England where he is honoured by the International Statistical Congress, and returns to America the same year.

1861 Delanys second part of part one series published in Weekly Anglo African Magazine.

Blyden becomes professor of Greek and Latin at Liberia College remains until 1864.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas and Northern states were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.)

Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: “We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky … we were watching … by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day … we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries.”

1862 Blyden becomes Liberian Secretary of State.

1863 Delany begins recruiting black men for the Union Army Rhode Island, Connecticut and Ohio raising thousands of enlistees many joining the new United States Coloured Troops, his son serving in the 54th regiment 179, 000 black men enlisting in the U.S. Coloured Troops almost 10% of those serving in the Union army.

1864 Truth employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C.

1865 February Delany meets Abraham Lincoln.

Delany becomes the first black line field officer in the U.S. Army as well as only Black officer to be receive commission of the highest rank of Major during the Civil War.

April 14 Delany invited to the War Department ceremony in Charleston, South Carolina, attending with Robert Vesey son of hanged black abolitionist, Denmark Vesey in ship named the Planter former slave Robert Smalls abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison Senator Warner.

April 15 President Lincoln assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Delany serves under General Rufus Saxton in the 52nd U.S. Colored Troops Freedman Bureau Hilton Head.

Truth works in Freedman's Hospital in Washington.

1865 October Baptist Deacon Paul Bogle of Stony Gut Saint Thomas, Morant Bay Rebellion George William Gordon.

1867 May 9 Truth American Equal Rights Association.

1868 October 10 El grito de Yara (Cry of Yara) revolt led by Carlos Manuel de Lespedes.

Antonio Maceo at age 23 with his Father and brothers join the Ten Years War. Maceo promoted to Commander/Major and weeks after to Lieutenant Colonel.

1870, Douglass last newspaper, the New National Era.

Love serves as 1st Most Worshipful Grand Master of Prince Hall Freemasonry 1870-1872 in the Most Worshipful Sovereign Grand Lodge of Florida and in the Most Worshipful Sovereign Grand Lodge of Georgia 1873-1875.

1871 January 1 Truth Eighth Anniversary of Negro Freedom.

1874 Delany runs as an Independent Republican for Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina (with John T. Green as the gubernatorial candidate).

March Douglas becomes President of Freeman Saving bank.

1875 Delany charged with defrauding a church.

1876 Delany supports Democratic candidate Wade Hampton in the gubernatorial election suppress Black voting at polls more than 150 Black’s killed by rifle clubs and paramilitary group Red Shirts.

1877 Delany Liberian Exodus Joint Steamship Company Charleston, South Carolina purchase the 400 ton Azor 1878 Charleston to Monrovia led by Harrison N. Bouey.

1878 Booker T Washington attends Wayland Seminary in Washington D. C.

March 15 Maceo meets with General Martinez Campes Protest of Baraqua Pact of Zanjon.

1879 Maceo and General Calixto Garcia Iniguez plan invasion of Cuba from New York, Maceo sends Calixto Garcia as highest commander.

1880 Blyden serves as President of Liberia College until 1884.

1881 Hampton Institute President Samuel C Armstrong Washington.

1882 Anna Douglas passes away.

1883 Newspaper Advertisement announcing the debut performance of Henrietta Vinton Davis at Marini’s Hall in Washington DC.

Davis 36 years later would join Marcus Garveys Universal Negro Improvement Association.

November 26 Truth passes away.

1884 Douglass marries the daughter of abolitionist Gideon Pitts Jr suffragist and abolitionist Helen Pitts.

1885 January 24 Delany dies of tuberculosis in Wilberforce, Ohio.

WEB Du Bois attends Fisk University Nashville, Tennessee receives bachelor degree.

W. E. B. Du Bois with the Fisk University class of 1888.

1888 Douglass becomes the first African American to recieve vote for President.

1889 Douglass appointed U. S. minister resident and Consul General to Republic of Haiti and charge d'affaires for Santo Domingo by President Harrison.

Love moves to Jamaica where he starts the Jamaica Advocate newspaper.

1890 Du Bois awarded his second bachelor degree, cum laude, in history by Harvard.

1891 Du Bois receives scholarship to attend sociology graduate school at Harvard.

1892 Douglass place Fells point, Baltimore was constructed as rental housing for African Americans.

Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner.

Du Bois receives John F. Slater Fund to attend University of Berlin studies with Germans top social scientists such as Gustav von Schmoller, Adolph Wagner, and Heinrich von Treitschke.

1893 Douglass made co commissioner of Haitian pavilion at Worlds Colombian Exposition in Chicago.

1894 Du Bois begins work as a teacher at Wilberforce University in Ohio.

1895 Du Bois becomes the first African American to PhD from Harvard University. Douglass attends National Council of Women in Washington D. C. dies in the same year of a heart attack.

Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party Jose Marti Maceo the Necessary War Maceo Gomez highest in command. Flor Crombet Baracoa Santiago de Cuba Marti falls in battle in Dos Ríos (confluence between the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto).

Bishop H. M. Turner receiving James M. Dwane, of South Africa - Bishop H. M. Turner, H. B. Parks, J. M. Dwane, J. S. Flipper. Bishop Henry Mc Turner was also an advocate for repatriation for African Americans to Liberia and was responsible for two ships with 500 emigrants sailing to there in 1895 and 1896.

Maceo Jose Marti.

James Mata Dwane South African Methodist Minister who left the Methodist Church to join the Ethiopian Church of Mangena Mokone in 1896, founder of the Order of Ethiopia in the Anglican Church.

1896 Du Bois becomes a sociological field researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

Maceo Lieutenant General second in command after Gomez General in Chief.

Maceo and Gomez commanding two mambises columns invade the west of Cuba from Mangos de Baragua Martinez Campos cover horseback and by foot 1000 miles in 96 days.

Maceo Spanish forces in Havana and Pinar del Rio.

October Maceo arrives at Mantua in the western extreme of Cuba

December 7 Maceo shot in the chest, a broken jaw and penetrated skull.

1897 Du Bois takes part in the American Negro Academy, in July takes professorship in history and economics at the Atlanta University in Georgia and publishes Strivings of the Negro People in the August issue of the Atlantic monthly.

1899 Du Bois publishes his sociological study The Philadelphia Negro which was the first of its kind from the field research he conducted whilst in Pennsylvania.

Du Bois on his way to meet Atlanta Constitution editor Joel Chandler Harris about Sam Hose who was torchered, burnt and lynched for killing his landlord in an act of self defence turns back after being informed Hose knuckles were for sale a grocery store further down on the very Street (Mitchell Street) he was walking on.

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technato · 7 years ago

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Exabytes in a Test Tube: The Case for DNA Data Storage

With the right coding, the double helix could archive our entire civilization

Illustration: Anatomy Blue

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Illustration: Anatomy Blue

Five thousand years ago, a man died in the Alps. It’s possible he died from a blow to the head, or he may have bled to death after being shot in the shoulder with an arrow. There’s a lot we don’t know about Ötzi (named for the Ötztal Alps, where he was discovered), despite the fact that researchers have spent almost 30 years studying him.

On the other hand, we know rather a lot about Ötzi’s physiological traits and even his clothes. We know he had brown eyes and a predisposition for cardiovascular diseases. He had type O positive blood and was lactose intolerant. The coat he was wearing was patched together using the leather of multiple sheep and goats, and his hat was made from a brown bear’s hide. All of this information came from sequencing the DNA of both Ötzi and the clothing he wore.

DNA can store remarkable amounts of genetic information and, as Ötzi demonstrates, can do so for thousands of years. The DNA molecule is a double-helix staircase of billions of molecular blocks, called base pairs, whose arrangement determines much of what makes each of us unique. Only recently have we contemplated using DNA to store electronic, digital data. And while DNA isn’t currently a viable alternative to memory sticks or hard-disk drives, it might be one of our best options to cope with the increasingly vast quantities of data we’ll create as data mining, analytics, and other big-data applications proliferate.

It was back in 2003 when some researchers, notably a group at the University of Arizona, became intrigued with the idea of using DNA to store data. But there were plenty of skeptics: Conventional mass-storage systems were doing the job cheaply and reliably. There was no compelling reason to seek out new options.

The situation has changed drastically over the last 15 years. We face an unprecedented data deluge in medicine, physics, astronomy, biology, and other sciences. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, for example, produces about 73,000 gigabytes of data annually. At the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Large Hadron Collider generates 50 million GB of data per year as it records the results of experiments involving, typically, 600 million particle collisions per second. These CERN results churn through a distributed computing grid comprising over 130,000 CPUs, 230 million GB of magnetic tape storage, and 300 million GB of online disk storage.

Using primers to replicate DNA

Illustration: Mark Montgomery

Primers are short strands of bases that match, base for base, the ends of DNA strands. Primers kick-start the polymerase chain reaction in order to replicate a particular DNA strand, making it easier to pick out at random from a soup of DNA strands.

In the life sciences, DNA sequencing alone generates millions of gigabytes of data per year. Researchers predict that within a decade we will be swamped with 40 billion (109) GB of genomic data. All of that data will have to be stored for decades due to government regulations in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

Yet even as our data storage needs surge, traditional mass-storage technologies are starting to approach their limits. With hard-disk drives, we’re encountering a limit of 1 terabyte—1,000 GB—per square inch. Past that point, temperature fluctuations can induce the magnetically charged material of the disk to flip, corrupting the data it holds. We could try to use a more heat-resistant material, but we would have to drastically alter the technology we use to read and write on hard-disk drives, which would require huge new investments. The storage industry needs to look elsewhere.

DNA-based storage has come a long way since the early 2000s, when the technologies for reading DNA, let alone writing it, were still in their infancy. In those days, the Human Genome Project had only recently completed a draft of the human genome, at a mind-boggling cost exceeding US $2.7 billion, which works out to about $1 to read each base pair.

By the end of 2015, the cost for obtaining a highly accurate readout of an entire human genome had fallen below $1,500, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute. And today, roughly $1,000 is enough for you to get your entire genome sequenced. The cost of DNA sequencing is one three-millionth what it was 10 years ago.

Our ability to sequence, synthesize, and edit DNA has advanced at a previously inconceivable speed. Far from being expensive and impractical, these DNA technologies are the most disruptive in all of biotechnology. It’s now possible to write custom DNA strands for pennies per base pair, at least for short strands. Two companies, GenScript Biotech Corp. and Integrated DNA Technologies, provide DNA synthesis for 11 and 37 cents per base pair, respectively, for strands no longer than several hundred base pairs. Biotech startup companies buy their services and use the synthesized DNA to repair organs or create yeasts that produce unusual flavors to use in brewing beer.

DNA-based storage systems are new and uncharted territory for coding theorists

For companies purchasing synthetic DNA, the cost depends on the length of the sequence being synthesized, because it is usually much more difficult to create long DNA strands. There are a handful of specialized efforts to synthesize longer strands—for example, an ongoing multilab effort is building an entirely synthetic yeast genome. Even so, commercially purchasing anything beyond 10,000 base pairs is currently impossible. (For reference, your genome has about 3.08 billion base pairs, a slightly smaller number than that of an African clawed frog.)

When reading DNA, sequencing devices produce fragments ranging in length from several hundred to tens of thousands of base pairs, which are then analyzed fragment by fragment before being stitched back together for a full readout. The whole process of reading an entire human genome takes less than a day. Researchers are now starting to sequence large quantities of fragments using nanopore technologies, which feed DNA through pores as if they were spaghetti noodles slipping through a large-holed strainer. As DNA passes through a pore, it can be read base by base.

In addition, DNA may be replicated exponentially at a low cost using the polymerase chain reaction, which duplicates a strand of DNA by splitting it apart and then building two identical strands by matching up the corresponding base pairs. These advances in reading DNA as well as in replicating it allow us, for the first time, to seriously consider DNA as a data-recording medium.

It still may not match other data storage options for cost, but DNA has advantages that other options can’t match. Not only is it easily replicated, it also has an ultrahigh storage density—as much as 100 trillion (1012) GB per gram. While the data representing a human genome, base pair by base pair, can be stored digitally on a CD with room to spare, a cell nucleus stores that same amount of data in a space about 1/24,000 as large. DNA does not have to be powered by an external energy source to retain data, as long as it’s stored in a controlled environment. And it can last for a long time: DNA can survive in less than ideal conditions for hundreds of thousands of years, although it often becomes highly degraded. After all, the Alps preserved Ötzi’s DNA for more than 5,000 years. Researchers once recovered DNA from the toe bones of a horse that had been preserved in a glacier for about 700,000 years.

Despite these appealing attributes, exploiting DNA for digital storage involves significant challenges. When it comes to building a storage system, the first task is to model the system’s structure and operation. To that end, two research groups—one at Harvard in 2012 and the other at the European Bioinformatics Institute, in the United Kingdom, in 2013—proposed conceptually simple designs for DNA-based storage.

Encoding text or binary code as DNA

Illustration: Mark Montgomery

We can take a simple phrase like “ Be nam khodavand” (Persian for “in the name of God”) and encode it in base 3. We can then convert those numbers into DNA. Each base-3 digit will be encoded as any of the bases A, T, G, and C, depending on the letter in the strand that came before. For example, a 0 will be encoded as G if the previous base was C. This method complicates the encoding process, but it prevents creating strands with several repetitions of the same base, which can cause errors when sequencing the strand later. To recover the original text, the process can be done in reverse.

The basic idea was to convert the data into the DNA alphabet—adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G)—and store it in short strings with large amounts of overlap. The overlap would ensure that the data could be stitched back together accurately. For example, if the information was stored in strings that were 100 base pairs long, the last 75 base pairs from the previous string could be used as the first 75 base pairs for the next, with the next 25 base pairs tacked onto the end. With this strategy, the estimated cost of encoding 1 megabyte of data was over $12,000 for synthesizing the DNA and another $220 for retrieving it—rather prohibitively expensive at the moment.

Ensuring redundancy in DNA

Encoding data into a single long strand of DNA is asking for trouble when it comes time to recover the data. A safer process encodes the data in shorter strands. We then construct the first part of the next strand using the same data found at the end of the previous strand. This way we have multiple copies of the data for comparison.

Substitution errors in binary code

Damerau distance codes, which in natural-language processing are used to catch errors like misspellings (for example, “smort” instead of “smart”), can identify the spots in binary code where 1s and 0s have likely been substituted by mistake during copying or transcription.

Substitution errors in DNA

Damerau distance codes can also be used to address the errors that occur in DNA, even though they’re more complex than binary errors. Sometimes bases are inadvertently deleted, and sometimes two will swap positions, errors that do not often occur in binary code.

Illustrations: Mark Montgomery

Since then, research groups have demonstrated the long-term reliability of DNA-based data storage, the feasibility of using some traditional coding techniques, and even storing small amounts of data within the genomes of living bacteria. Our work, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in collaboration with the labs of Jian Ma and Huimin Zhao, pioneered random-access storage in DNA. We have been focused on solving the problems of random access, rewriting, and error-free data recovery for data that is read from DNA sequencing devices. Random access (the ability to directly access any information you want) and addressing (which tells you where to find that information) are key to any effective data storage method.

Our interest in DNA-based data storage emerged from our backgrounds in coding theory. Coding theory has made modern storage systems possible by enabling the proper data formatting for specific systems, the conversion of data from one format to another, and the correction of inevitable errors.

DNA-based storage systems are a tantalizing challenge for coding theorists. We were initially drawn to the challenge of identifying the sources of errors from both writing and reading DNA, and of developing coding techniques to correct or mitigate such errors. Coding improves the reliability of ultimately fallible storage devices and the feasibility of using cheaper options. But DNA-based storage systems are new and uncharted territory for coding theorists.

To understand the coding challenge presented by DNA, first consider a compact disc. The data is nicely organized into tracks, and we can easily access that data with the readily available hardware. DNA isn’t so simple. It’s inherently unordered; there are no tracks to follow to access the data.

A complete storage system would encompass many DNA molecules, so how would you even locate and select the specific molecule carrying the data you want? It would be like trying to fish a specific noodle out of a bowl of chicken noodle soup. It’s highly unlikely you’d grab the right noodle at random, but if you could replicate that specific noodle again and again, until you filled the bowl, any noodle you nab would likely be the right one.

Our idea for DNA data access is to synthesize each encoded strand with an additional sequence that acts as an address. Carefully designed sequences of the bases, called primers, would match that address sequence and begin the process of replicating the DNA of interest. In this way, we could exponentially reproduce DNA strands carrying the data of interest using the polymerase chain reaction, making it easy to find a copy of the right strand.

Of course, with DNA, it’s not quite so simple as plucking the right noodle out of your soup. Think of a primer as a sticky tape that binds to a specific set of rungs, or “complements,” on the DNA “ladder.” A primer should bind only to the specific address sequence it’s looking for. To make matters more difficult, not all primers are created equal: G and C base pairs typically bind more tightly than A and T, meaning that a primer constructed with too many A and T bases may not bind as strongly. Poorly designed primers can cause a lot of problems.

Reading DNA with a shotgun sequencer

“Shotgun-style” sequencing breaks copies of the long, unwieldy DNA strand into fragments of varying lengths. After those shorter segments are read, they can be compared with different fragments to reconstruct the entire sequence, although this method can introduce uncertainty about the placement of individual fragments.

Transcription errors in binary code

When reading binary data from a traditional storage medium, there’s always a small chance that a 1 could be read as a 0 by mistake, or that a 0 could be read as a 1. Because we’re dealing with a simple two-state system, we can expect that each situation will occur with equal frequency.

Illustrations: Mark Montgomery

We’re encountering intriguing coding questions in figuring out how to construct primers that will not only bind tightly but to the right targets. For example, because each primer will bind with its complement—A to T, G to C, and vice versa—how can we ensure that each address sequence doesn’t appear anywhere in the encoded data except as the address of the DNA strand you’re looking for? Otherwise, the primer may bind to the wrong location and replicate unwanted DNA.

Fortunately, coding theorists have been solving similar problems for traditional storage media for decades. Other challenges, for example, like those that emerge in connection with reading the DNA, aren’t typically encountered in conventional mass-storage systems. There are plenty of devices on the market that sequence DNA: Illumina’s HiSeq 2500 system, PacBio’s RS II and Sequel systems, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ MinION are just three examples. All such sequencers are prone to introducing different types of readout errors as they determine the exact sequence of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that make up a DNA sample. Illumina devices, for example, sometimes substitute the wrong base when reading the strand—say, an A instead of a C. These errors become more frequent the further into the strand you get. The accidental deletion of entire blocks is also a concern, and nanopore sequencers often insert the wrong base pairs into readouts or omit base pairs entirely.

Different sequencers all require different code to compensate for their flaws. For Illumina sequencers, for example, we’ve proposed a coding scheme that adds redundancy to the sequence to eliminate the substitution errors that arise from the devices’ “shotgun-style” approach to sequencing. It’s tricky to rebuild a genome after breaking it apart to read individual sequences without occasionally inserting the wrong segment in the wrong location. Redundant sequences will improve the odds of recovering data even if a segment is corrupted as a result of being reassembled incorrectly.

For nanopore sequencers, we developed codes to address different types of substitution errors that arise from sequencing the strand too quickly. In traditional data storage, it’s just as likely that a 0 could be changed to a 1 as it is that a 1 could be changed to a 0. It’s not so simple with DNA, where an A could be rewritten as a T, C, or G, and the substitutions don’t happen with equal frequency. We’ve written codes to account for that fact, as well as codes to handle the base-pair deletions and swaps that naturally occur as DNA ages.

Nanopore-sequencer transcription errors in DNA

Illustration: Mark Montgomery

Nanopore sequencers read long strings of DNA bases one by one, and because of the speed at which they do so, they will occasionally misread a particular base. Unlike the simple misreading of 1s and 0s, however, the odds of bases being mistaken for one another varies, due to their complex molecular structures and even the orientation the strand is in as it passes through the nanopore.

DNA-based storage, like any other data storage system, requires random access and efficient reading. But the biggest challenge is writing data inexpensively. Synthesizing DNA is still expensive, partly because of the molecule’s sheer complexity and partly because the market is not driving the development of cheaper methods. One possible approach to reduce costs is to prevent errors in the first place. By placing redundancies in the DNA sequences that store data, you can skip expensive after-the-fact corrections. This is common practice in every data storage method, but synthesizing companies currently aren’t equipped to pursue this—their production processes are so automated it would be prohibitively expensive to adjust them to produce these types of redundant strands.

Making DNA-based storage a practical reality will require cooperation among researchers on the frontiers of synthetic biology and coding theory. We’ve made big strides toward realizing a DNA-based storage system, but we need to develop systems to efficiently access the information encoded into DNA. We need to design coding schemes that guard against both synthesis and sequencing errors. And we need to figure out how to do these things cheaply.

If we can solve these problems, nature’s incredible storage medium—DNA—might also store our music, our literature, and our scientific advances. The very same medium that literally specifies who we are as individuals might also store our art, our culture, and our history as a species.

About the Authors

Olgica Milenkovic is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois. Ryan Gabrys is a scientist with the U.S. Navy’s Spawar in San Diego and a postdoc at Illinois. Han Mao Kiah is a lecturer at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a former postdoc at Illinois. S.M. Hossein Tabatabaei Yazdi is a Ph.D. student working with Milenkovic.

Exabytes in a Test Tube: The Case for DNA Data Storage syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

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westernmanews · 8 years ago

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BOSTON – (SHNS) – Criminalized in 1911, decriminalized in 2008, and legalized in 2016, marijuana is now Massachusetts’ biggest, trickiest opportunity.

On Beacon Hill – though certainly not at the local level – the electoral and legislative wrangling is finished for the moment, and an even more consequential phase has begun: writing and enforcing the rules for this multi-billion-dollar game, and making the most of its potential.

Three ballot questions have made marijuana mainstream, but the questions are really just beginning, with Cannabis Control Commission Chairman Steven Hoffman cast as Answerer in Chief.

Who will profit? How much? What will the industry do if too many locations ban the sale of weed in their towns? How can regulators assist the industry to grow, yet insure public safety concerns are sufficiently addressed that residents, police and officials feel comfortable enough to encourage development? What should rule makers not allow? What should the state do with the influx of revenue? And how much will a black market compete with the legal suppliers?

This cheat sheet is not the place to explore all the ramifications of the coming of legal weed to Massachusetts – the State House News Forum is! But it hopefully will provide some useful context. The Massachusetts Marijuana Summit is Nov. 15 at the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education center at 10 Winter Place in Downtown Crossing starting at 7:30 a.m.

The summit will feature will feature a leadoff talk by Hoffman followed by two panels, one focused on the key political and policy questions, and another on the theme of entrepreneurial challenges.

A Short Chronology

1989: First Freedom Rally in support of marijuana legalization is held in North Adams, moving to Boston Common in 1992 and growing into the second-largest pro-pot rally in the U.S. after Seattle’s Hempfest.

1990: MassCann, the state arm of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, is founded.

1992: Gov. William Weld signs a bill into law legalizing the use of marijuana for glaucoma, cancer therapy and certain asthmatic disorders under a limited Department of Public Health research program. He also commutes the sentence of man sentenced to 30 days for treating himself for scleroderma with pot he grew himself.

1996: Legislature grants DPH the power to approve any Massachusetts patient to possess and use pot legally for relief of symptoms. But there’s a catch: there is no legal way to obtain marijuana in Massachusetts, even though DPH.

1999: The group gathering signatures for a 2000 ballot question decriminalizing marijuana is the only one to fall short of the necessary number to qualify, causing Sec. of State William Galvin to joke, “Marijuana just went up in smoke.” Several non-binding local questions decriminalizing recreational use and legalizing medicinal marijuana do win in 2000.

2002: Acting Gov. Jane Swift vetoes a budget amendment allowing judges to impose civil, not criminal, penalties for possession.

2003: For whatever reason, “Medical marijuana” displaces “medicinal marijuana” as the term of choice in most news coverage. But the state’s medical marijuana program is still moribund for lack of a legal source.

2005: Steven Tolman, Senate chairman of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee, says the time has come to decriminalize marijuana.

2006: Mental Health and Substance Abuse sends a bill to the Legislature that would make Massachusetts the 12th state to decriminalize pot.

2007: A binding question decriminalizing marijuana garners enough support to appear on the 2008 ballot.

2008: The ballot question making possession of less than an ounce a civil infraction passes, 62.8 to 33.5 percent, over the objections of Gov. Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley.

2009: Advocates for legalization argue before the Revenue Committee that that the state could collect millions in revenue annually if the marijuana trade were steered from the black market to legal channels. U.S. Justice Department issues memo discouraging federal prosecutors from charging individuals who use marijuana for medical reasons.

2011: With the Legislature having failed to legalize pot for medical use, advocates take the now-familiar trip to the ballot, placing a medical-marijuana bill before voters for 2012.

2012: The medical-marijuana question passes 63.3 percent to 36.7 percent, and the Department of Public Health begins drafting regulations to license individuals to buy and dispensaries to sell.

2013: While the medical-marijuana question received a “Yes” majority in every community except Lawrence and Bellingham, by September, 115 cities and towns have enacted temporary local prohibitions on dispensaries.

2014: Two years after the ballot question, protesters gather outside DPH offices to decry the fact that not a single dispensary has opened and medical marijuana still is not legally available in Massachusetts.

2015: The first dispensary finally opens in June, in Salem. Supporters of legalized recreational pot clear the signature-gathering hurdle for the 2016 ballot.

2016: Voters legalize recreational marijuana, 56.7 percent to 46.3. Almost immediately, the Legislature passes a bill delaying the start of retail sales by six months, until July 1, 2018. Possession of amounts under an ounce, and consumption in private, become legal at once.

2017: Attorney general issues ruling that local communities may not opt out of hosting medical marijuana dispensaries. Governor signs legislation changing the provisions of the voter-approved legalization law. Pot is taxed at 10.75 percent plus the 6.25 percent state sales tax, plus a 3 percent local option tax. Communities are given the chance to opt out of retail sales by vote of the local legislative body if they voted “No” on 2016’s Question 4, or by local referendum if they voted “Yes.” The law expands the Cannabis Control Commission from three to five members and takes it out of the purview of the state treasurer’s office, while the treasurer still is given power to appoint the chair. Medical marijuana regulation is scheduled to be taken out of the hands of the Dept. of Public Health and placed with the CCC. The CCC holds its first meeting Sept. 12; Shawn Collins, the treasurer’s expert on marijuana policy, wins the executive director’s job Oct. 19. A major impediment to the health of the nascent industry emerges, as 115 communities vote in temporary or permanent bans on recreational retail shops within their borders.

Other States Massachusetts was the 18th state to legalize possession of marijuana for professionally-certified medical use. Medical use is legal in 29 states. Recreational use is legal in California, Washington State, Washington D.C., Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Maine and Massachusetts.

Next Steps

March 15 is the deadline for the Cannabis Control Commission to issue regulations for licensing, sale and control of legal marijuana.

April 1 is the first day the CCC can accept license application from would-be commercial cultivators and sellers.

May 1 is the date by which testing protocols must be complete.

June 1 is the first date the CCC can issue recreational licenses, and those licenses permit sales 30 days after opening, so…

July 1 is the date retail sales are permissible, though it’s not certain any licenses will be issued by then.

The Market The Mass. Department of Revenue estimates 2017 Mass. retail sales of between $375 million and $636 million, with about $1 billion in sales in fiscal 2020. Industry analysts New Frontier and ArcView Market Research have predicted about $1.7 billion in combined recreational and medical sales here in 2021. ArcView projects 17,400 full and part time jobs will be created growing, selling and promoting pot. The state projects state and local tax collections of approximately $240 million in fiscal 2021. Nationally, pot sales are generally projected at $7 billion to $8 billion in 2017, while the Brightfield Group just issued a report estimating the international market to swell to $31.4 billion globally in 2021. Canada is expected to legalize recreational pot next year, and European and Latin American countries are increasingly permitting medical marijuana.

The Industry Among the major players in this enormous new sector:

Culivators

Retailers

Facilities developers and managers

Financial services providers

Medical providers

Testing laboratories

Marketers and advertisers

Lawyers and government-affairs professionals

Human-capital specialists

Medical Vs. Recreational The number of medical seed-to-sale dispensaries is now up to 15 – far fewer than supporters of the ballot campaign for medical marijuana imagined would be approved by now. But about 100 more locations have been granted provisional registrations by the DPH, and some will likely make it to the final stage and open – though only 35 medical dispensaries can operate statewide under the 2013 law implementing the 2012 ballot question. All approved medical dispensaries can be converted to dual medical and recreational shops with the issuance of a license, and that’s widely expected to happen. Patients are issued marijuana cards for eight specific debilitating diseases and a number of psychological or neurological conditions, as certified by their physicians. They may possess a 60-day supply, or up to 10 ounces, in their home.

Panelists

Keynote Steven Hoffman, CCC Chair

Panel One Stan Rosenberg, Mass. State Senate President: Sen. Rosenberg began his career as an aide to then-state Sen., later Congressman, John Olver. He was executive director of the state Democratic party from 1983-1985. He won election to the House in 1986, and the Senate in 1991, succeeding Olver. He was Senate Ways and Means chairman from 1996 to 1999, named Majority Leader in 2013, and elected President of the Senate in 2015.

Kamani Jefferson, President, Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council: Mr. Jefferson combined a talent for sales, experience in making edibles, and a devotion to the Yes on 4 cause into an advocacy career. He founded the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council to continue to pursue the Yes on 4’s objectives of a safe and thriving marijuana industry that improves the quality of life in communities hurt disproportionately by the illegal drug trade.

Jim Smith, founding partner, Smith, Costello and Crawford: Rep. Smith was state representative from Lynn for eight years. He was one of the original sponsors of decriminalization, in the 1970s. His recent involvement on the marijuana issue centers on assisting would-be medical marijuana providers to negotiate the political and regulatory landscape of Massachusetts government.

Daniel Smith, general counsel, Sen. Patricia Jehlen: General counsels are the people in the offices of lawmakers and policy officials expected to know every last detail and ramification of the laws governing their bosses’ area of authority. As Sen. Jehlen’s general counsel, Mr. Smith was by her side when the Marijuana Policy Committee wrote the law at the centerpiece of today’s forum.

Panel Two Dr. Karen Munkacy, CEO of Garden Remedies in Newton, a medical dispensary: Ms. Munkacy comes to her current position via her battle with breast cancer, which taught her the value of marijuana in caregiving. As both an entrepreneur and a doctor with medical-school teaching experience, she’s uniquely situated to discuss the present and future of medical marijuana.

Laura Davis, director of compliance, Good Chemistry: Ms. Davis has done much of her work overseeing compliance with health, safety and environmental regulation for companies building spacecraft and space telescopes. For instance, she oversaw the handing of beryllium in the construction of the James Webb space scope, the most powerful ever built. She’s transferred her expertise to compliance in the marijuana industry, which must observe regulations from fire safety to solvent handing to appropriate disposal of degraded product.

Tim Keogh, President and CEO, Americann Massachusetts: Mr. Keough was selling and developing Florida real estate when his friend passed away from stomach cancer. Like numerous other industry leaders, his experience compelled him to join the new industry, and he became a lobbyist for, and cultivator of, medical marijuana in Rhode Island. He then cofounded Americann, which is spearheading the construction of the largest medical cultivation facility in the country, in Freetown.

Jim Borghesani (moderator), Marijuana Policy Project: Mr. Borghesani became the most recognizable public face of legal-weed advocacy during the Yes on 4 campaign, and has evolved his role into making the case for acceptance of the industry at the local level and its maximum encouragement as policy and regulations are developed.

The Regulators Legislative wrangling over how to oversee the expanded marijuana industry seemed neverending, but finally did wrap up in mid-July with approval of a law creating the five-member Cannabis Control Commission, appointed by the governor, treasurer and attorney general. Members of the CCC, which began meeting in September:

Steven Hoffman, Chairman: Mr. Hoffman has an extensive business-management background; this is his first involvement in the marijuana industry.

Jennifer Flanagan of Leominster was state Senator when Gov. Charlie Baker named her as his pick for the CCC. She specialized on mental-health and substance-abuse issues in the Legislature.

Britte McBride of Lynnfield was Attorney General Maura Healey’s pick and possesses an extensive background in public safety and law enforcement policy. She was assistant attorney general and deputy chief of staff under former AG Martha Coakley, and headed her policy and government division, advocating for the AG’s legislative agenda. Prior to that, she served as legal counsel at the Department of Public Safety. After Coakley left office, McBride became deputy legal counsel of the Mass. State Senate.

Kay Doyle is the primary legal counsel for the Department of Public Health’s Medical Marijuana program, and handled marijuana regulation as part of her portfolio during her 17 years at Kopelman and Paige, a firm specializing in Massachusetts municipal law.

Shaleen Title of Malden founded THC Staffing Group, an industry recruiter that focuses on diversity and inclusion in hiring. She co-authored Question 4. Like many other advocates, she began her activism arguing for medical marijuana, then turned her attention to legalization.

The Local Level As of mid November, 35 communities had adopted permanent bans on retail shops and 89 had adopted temporary moratoriums on retail sales. The resistance to sales outlets is developing as a major obstacle to the development of a vigorous industry that can successfully subsume the black market. The number of communities that have blocked sales, temporarily or permanently, exceeds the number of places that voted “No” on Question 4 – 87.

#Western MA news #westernmanews

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kakoliberlin · 8 years ago

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Draft Dodging: Major Climate Report Goes Public, Circumventing Agency Review

Influential climate report makes its way to the public bypassing federal agency review.

It began with President Trump’s selection of noted climate deniers to high-profile cabinet positions. It escalated when he signaled his intent to turn back the clock on renewable energy in favor of coal, and began pursuing more oil and gas drilling on our public lands and waters. Then the Trump administration propelled the issue to a whole new level by withdrawing the U.S. from the historic Paris Climate Agreement, eliminating federal climate science programs, research, and positions, and wiping climate science from the pages of federal agency websites.

But the administration’s outright war on climate science also prompted a remarkable development: somebody released the near-final draft of a major report on “the state of the science relating to climate change and its physical impacts” to the public via The New York Times, bypassing final review by thirteen federal agencies.

A Primer on the Climate Science Special Report

The “Climate Science Special Report” (CSSR) is a major source of scientific information for the National Climate Assessment (NCA), a report mandated every four years by a 1990 law called the Global Change Research Act. The next NCA is due in 2018 and is expected to summarize observed and probable climate change impacts across U.S. regions and sectors (such as agriculture, public health, forests, etc.). It was no secret that the CSSR was under development; a “third-order draft” (or third draft) of the CSSR was released for public comment in December. What’s unusual is the unauthorized release of the “Fifth-Order” or “Final Clearance Draft,” which begins on page 545 of the file obtained by The New York Times.

This new draft of the CSSR, which incorporates both public comments received in response to the earlier draft and the results of an experts’ panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences in March, was submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in June. Under normal circumstances, it would be working its way through a routine final approval process. But these circumstances are anything but normal.

First of all, the OSTP only has one-quarter of the staff it had under President Obama and President Trump has yet to nominate someone to lead the agency. So, it’s not quite clear how the agency would manage to approve the release of a climate science compendium. And that, pardon the cheap climate metaphor, is only the tip of the iceberg.

The program that officially releases the NCA is comprised of thirteen different departments and agencies, each of which must sign off on the Final Clearance Draft. One of those agencies is the Environmental Protection Agency, now led by climate change denier Scott Pruitt. Another is the Department of the Interior, administered by Secretary Ryan Zinke who, despite claiming to accept climate change, recently rattled off six glaring errors about climate science and policy in the span of just three minutes during a recent congressional hearing. Given this cast of characters and the not-so-subtle dismantling of our federal government’s engagement on climate science, it is not surprising that the final draft report mysteriously made its way into the hands of The New York Times for public dissemination.

So now that the information has been made public, what exactly does it say? The latest, near-final draft delves into greater detail than previous draft versions, but describes a strikingly similar and dire prognosis:

There is “very high confidence” that global temperatures have increased by 1.8 degrees F since the beginning of the 20th century, and it is “extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20thcentury”

Similarly, there is “very high confidence” that “Average annual temperature over the contiguous United States is projected to rise.” The exact amount of warming depends on our emissions trajectory, but without any action it could increase by nearly 12 degrees F.

There is “very high confidence” that high temperature extremes have outpaced low temperature extremes over the past 20 years, and extreme precipitation events have been increasing in frequency and intensity in many areas.

The final draft report includes detailed sections about the contributors to climate change, how climate models work and what assumptions they entail, as well as individual chapters on temperature, precipitation, storms, floods, droughts, sea level rise, Arctic and ocean impacts, and more. For an extra dose of existential terror, the report also includes a chapter on compound effects and “tipping points” – events that are difficult to model, but could nonetheless occur, like drought simultaneously striking multiple agricultural regions, or ice melt triggering major changes in ocean circulation. While unlikely, these kinds of “mega-events” could cause massive widespread ecological damage and intensified misery for human communities.

Looking Into the Future

What does the future hold for this report, as well as the other parts of the Climate Science Special Report and the broader National Climate Assessment? That still remains to be seen, as does whether the abrupt release of the near-final draft will affect the final federal approval process. In a related and potentially ominous twist, over the weekend the administration disbanded the 15-member advisory committee that was helping to finalize the NCA. The future remains uncertain for these highly influential reports, but what perhaps remains even more alarmingly unclear is what the future could hold for the climate and people, habitats and wildlife that depend on it.

Follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on the latest climate developments and other news important to wildlife and our work. Don’t forget to sign up for our emails where you will get all the latest news and action alerts to support wildlife.

The post Draft Dodging: Major Climate Report Goes Public, Circumventing Agency Review appeared first on Defenders of Wildlife Blog.

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#IFTTT #Defenders of Wildlife Blog

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dylan38sanders · 8 years ago

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Marketing Events To Millennials Via Snapchat, Instagram and Livestreaming

Despite being a generation glued to their screens, marketing events to millennials has been surprisingly successful. I’d venture to guess that it’s because the younger generation is skewed towards collecting experiences rather than possessions. Millenials are primed to consume more when it comes to travel and events.

Of course, the rise of social media and video help fuel the fire a bit. There’s no better way to spread the word than a friend showing off how much fun they had during your event, this is very valuable. Just make sure to create an unforgettable experience and your attendees will do the rest.

World-Class Cities For Your Global Meetings

Global events can be tricky, particularly when you have to choose which city should play host. Each city has something different to offer with cities such as Beijing, Seoul, Madrid, and Buenos Aires becoming popular destinations for events. But how to choose among them? Well, look at the number of expected attendees, the type of environment you need, and a few other criteria. Thankfully, this handy quiz will help you determine which city you will be flying to next for your international event.

What Makes Events Popular With Millennials?

The “Fear of Missing Out” (or FOMO as the cool kids say) sometimes has negative connotations. Oddly enough, it seems to have become an asset for the events industry. FOMO has even been cited as one of the reasons why millennials attend events. In an age where everyone is constantly on their phones and computers, they join events to gain a connection with the community and the world. Millenials wish to gain more experience, and they don’t want to be left out. Leverage this when marketing events to millennials by making events more exclusive and by providing worthwhile experiences to the attendees.

An Event Planner’s Greatest Woes

Being an event planner is no walk in the park. Just like in most other professions, there are pain points that we all share. From marketing events, dealing with long hours to keeping your game face on with clients, event planners need to have an almost superhuman resilience to problems. This Quora thread airs out some of the biggest pain points of event professionals, as well as some suggestions on how to make things better.

It seems FOMO has become an asset for the events industry Click To Tweet

Living In The Live Stream Era

Live streaming is now the norm, and each event worthy of its name is joining the bandwagon. Audiences are loving it. If your brand has a particularly strong social media presence, then live streaming an event could help you build a bigger and more loyal fan base. There are, however, some things to look out for when deciding on your live streaming strategy. This post will give you the lowdown on choosing your platform and your sponsors. It also gives you important tips you need to follow to reach a bigger audience.

Tracking your Event ROI: Goals, Models, Tools, and More

The words “return on investment” is often thrown around a lot in the industry, but how exactly does it apply to events? After spending a significant chunk of your annual budget on events, it’s important to know how much of that spending affected the company’s growth. The proper measurement of an event’s ROI starts with the proper setting of goals for each event. Without that (and without a good grasp of what ROI is and isn’t), you can’t accurately measure an event’s results. This article serves as a primer to all things event ROI and how to apply it for your business.

Why No One’s Watching What You’re Posting

Aside from live events, videos usually take up a significant chunk of a company’s budget. With the whole internet is turning to video, it would seem like now is the perfect time to join the bandwagon. But! What if no one’s watching what you’re posting? First of all, you might be boring your audiences with an awfully long video. Your post might also be missing your target audience when marketing events, by being on the wrong channel. Regardless of the reason behind your lack of views, this guide will help you get back on track with a few effective tips and techniques.

Are people watching your live streams? Click To Tweet

Boost Your Social Media Strategy With An Employee Policy

Most of the time, businesses start by focusing on a team of social media specialists to draft and carry out their promotional strategies. While this does work, it isn’t as effective as turning each and every employee into one of these “specialists” — ambassadors who could better engage interested parties on the Internet. For this, you need a policy that clearly delineates who can speak on behalf of your company, and who can create and implement guidelines. It’s also important to make sure no private information gets leaked along the way!

Instagram Vs Snapchat Stories: Which Is Better For Marketing?

While Instagram and Snapchat are still neck and neck in their niche, marketers are still undecided which platform is the best one to use marketing. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. Instagram Stories, for example, is better for engagement and for usability. It also has a wider audience and better visual impact. Snapchat, on the other hand, is all about spontaneity and being personal, with less competition and a younger audience. Both platforms have great promise when it comes to marketing events.

Disney Takes The Star Wars Experience To A New Level

Star Wars has always wowed its fans with its immersive universe and unique storyline. Now its new owner Disney is taking things to a whole new level. The entertainment colossus is slated to open a Star Wars hotel. Here, each employee (or “cast member”) will be in character and each guest will have his or her own storyline. While it certain to be a hit in terms of sheer entertainment and business value, this endeavor could also teach us a thing or two about how to make a truly immersive experience, whether on the scale of a hotel or perhaps an event.

Airbnb Moves Into Corporate Travel

Long known as a go-to option for individual travelers and backpackers, Airbnb has entered the sphere of corporate travel with its latest integration of Concur Travel. This will potentially reduce the safety and privacy concerns that had previously served as a red flag for business travelers, by providing better control and visibility over the lodgings. With Concur’s online booking tool, Airbnb hopes to include its home-sharing options among the top choices of corporate travel managers.

We’ve heard a lot of news about companies expanding to new markets, from veterans to young startups. As they say, if your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.

Marketing events will help you grow your business and expand. What are you doing to grow your events business?

from Endless Events http://helloendless.com/marketing-events-millennials/

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