"It's worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change."

"Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom."

"Our modern world places such heavy demands on our time and attention that the need to remember our responsibilities to others is greater than ever."

"Each day is a new beginning, I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God."

"When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future"

"Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves–from our recklessness or our greed."

"Over the years, those who have seemed to me to be the most happy, contented and fulfilled have always been the people who have lived the most outgoing and unselfish lives."

"Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour."

"Whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load."

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

"We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock."

"It has always been easy to hate and destroy. To build and to cherish is much more difficult."

"I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal, and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration, to work together."

Over the nearly 70 years that she ruled Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth shared many words of wisdom. Here are some of the most inspiring

history

History

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

Queen Elizabeth's Most Inspiring Quotes Through the Years

Gen Z would rather be anonymous online. The youngest adult generation and the most online is frustrated with being surveilled and embarrassed by attention-seeking behaviours. This has caused a retreat into spaces where users rarely use their full names.  Biz Sherbert recently observed, "In the mid-2010s, ambiguity died online—not of natural causes, it was hunted and killed." Now young people are trying to bring it back.

A new era of anonymity

<ul><li>Anonymity is partly a response to security concerns. During the Black Lives Matter protests, millions of young people downloaded the encrypted messaging app Signal to avoid surveillance. The anonymous hacker group Anonymous made a buzzy return. Other activists used tools for blurring protesters' faces in Instagram stories and moved to decentralised apps.</li><li>Anonymity can also be ideological. In crypto culture, known as Web3 culture, the idea was founded that transactions can be made online without exchanging personal information. It had a newer norm of showing a cartoon instead of a human face.</li></ul>

Reason for anonymity

The gradual reveal of personal information, and building up to reveal your face was once a give-and-take among people in the same online space.  When Instagram and TikTok made it possible to make money from your face, personality, thoughts, beliefs and personal trauma, young people forgot how good it was not to be anyone in particular. But now they’ve been coming back around.

Hiding your identity has always been important

The return to Tumblr reflects a longing for the more recent past before the age of the influencer. <ul><li>Aspiring artists prefer to remain anonymous because they want to be known for their work or point of view, not for their face or personality. </li><li>Even on Instagram, there are now thousands of niche meme accounts run by anonymous proprietors. </li><li>Anonymous brands appear more authentic to some viewers because they aren’t selling anything or trying to become stars.</li></ul>

The influencer culture is falling out of style

career

Career

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

The Personal Brand Is Dead

Rock-paper-scissors is governed by three simple rules: rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. On the face of it, the chances of winning are just one in three, but that presumes people pick rock, paper, or scissors at random.Studies have shown that our choice often depends on what happened in the previous game. Losers tend to switch to the choice that would have won the game they just lost, while winners tend to stick. And these habits can be exploited as follows: if you won, then play what your opponent just used, but if you lost, then play what neither of you played.

Winning rock-paper-scissors

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

entertainment

Entertainment

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

What’s the best way to win at rock-paper-scissors?

Coffee is unique among artisanal beverages in that the brewer plays a significant role in its quality at the point of consumption. In contrast, drinkers buy draft beer and wine as finished products; their only consumer-controlled variable is the temperature at which they drink them.Why is it that coffee produced by a barista at a cafe always tastes different than the same beans brewed at home?It may be down to their years of training, but more likely it’s their ability to harness the principles of chemistry and physics.

Making Great Coffee

We humans seem to like drinks that contain coffee constituents (organic acids, Maillard products, esters and heterocycles, to name a few) at 1.2 to 1.5 percent by mass (as in filter coffee), and also favour drinks containing 8 to 10 percent by mass (as in espresso). <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/espresso-coffee/illy/978-0-12-370371-2">Concentrations outside of these ranges</a> are challenging to execute. There are a limited number of technologies that achieve 8 to 10 percent concentrations, the espresso machine being the most familiar.

The Strongness Of The Beans

There are many ways, though, to achieve a drink containing 1.2 to 1.5 percent coffee. A pour-over, Turkish, Arabic, Aeropress, French press, siphon or batch brew (that is, regular drip) apparatus – each produces coffee that tastes good around these concentrations. These brew methods also boast an advantage over their espresso counterpart: They are cheap. An espresso machine can produce a beverage of this concentration: the Americano, which is just an espresso shot diluted with water to the concentration of filter coffee.

The Brew Methods

There are two families of brewing devices within the low-concentration methods – those that fully immerse the coffee in the brewing water and those that flow the water through the coffee bed.From a physical perspective, the major difference is that the temperature of the coffee particulates is higher in the full immersion system. The slowest part of coffee extraction is not the rate at which compounds dissolve from the particulate surface. Rather, it’s the speed at which coffee flavour moves through the solid particle to the water-coffee interface, and this speed is increased with temperature.

When Coffee Meets Water

Pour-overs and other flow-through systems are more complex. Unlike full immersion methods where time is controlled, flow-through brew times depend on the grind size since the grounds control the flow rate.The water-to-coffee ratio matters, too, in the brew time. Simply grinding finer to increase extraction invariably changes the brew time, as the water seeps more slowly through finer grounds. One can increase the water-to-coffee ratio by using less coffee, but as the mass of coffee is reduced, the brew time also decreases. Optimization of filter coffee brewing is multidimensional and tricky.

Brewing Isn't A Simple Matter

Even if you can optimize your brew method and apparatus to precisely mimic your favourite barista, there is still a near-certain chance that your home brew will taste different from the cafe’s.There are three subtleties that have a tremendous impact on the coffee quality: water chemistry, particle size distribution produced by the grinder and coffee freshness.

Other Variables To Control

Given coffee is an acidic beverage, the acidity of your brew water can have a big effect. Brew water containing low levels of both calcium ions and bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) – that is, soft water – will result in a highly acidic cup, sometimes described as sour. Brew water containing high levels of HCO₃⁻ – typically, hard water – will produce a chalky cup, as the bicarbonate has neutralized most of the flavorsome acids in the coffee.

The Water Chemistry

Every coffee enthusiast will rightly tell you that blade grinders are disfavored because they produce a seemingly random particle size distribution; there can be both powder and essentially whole coffee beans coexisting. The alternative, a burr grinder, features two pieces of metal with teeth that cut the coffee into progressively smaller pieces. They allow ground particulates through an aperture only once they are small enough.

Particle Size Distribution By The Grinder

Roasted coffee contains a significant amount of CO₂ and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4557.2006.00093.x">volatiles trapped within the solid coffee matrix</a>: Over time these gaseous organic molecules will escape the bean. Fewer volatiles means a less flavorful cup of coffee. Most cafes will not serve coffee more than four weeks out from the roast date, emphasizing the importance of using freshly roasted beans.

Coffee Freshness

So don’t feel bad that your carefully brewed cup of coffee at home never stacks up to what you buy at the café. There are a lot of variables – scientific and otherwise – that must be wrangled to produce a single superlative cup. Take comfort that most of these variables are not optimized by some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1137/15M1036658">mathematical</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13362-016-0024-6">algorithm</a>, but rather by somebody’s tongue. What’s most important is that your coffee tastes good to you… brew after brew.

The Last Sip

food

Food

health

Health

communication

Communication

Coffee Culture

Sciency thingies behind The Perfect Brew!

The science behind why what your barista achieves at the cafe tastes better than what you can come up with at home.

Brewing a great cup of coffee depends on chemistry and physics

The pandemic has sped up change in the technological sector. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is bound to become the foundation of the internet's latest development - Web 3.0. Web 3.0 has the potential to build a more open and decentralised internet. A powerful synergetic relationship will be formed between Web 3.0, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technology.

The technological sector

<ul><li>Artificial intelligence or AI can potentially introduce new items in the market without any challenges.</li><li>BAAS is a cloud-based service that enables customers to work with the blockchain to create digital products.</li><li>The semantic web involves web principles that are extended from documents to data.</li><li>Decentralised technology. Blockchain will use Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology principles.</li><li>NFT's will power up the Web 3.0 Movement as the creators can easily monetise it with open standards.</li></ul>

Web 3.0 trends

<ul><li>3D Interactive web technology, including virtual identities, interactions and more.</li><li>The social web in Web 3.0 will be defined mainly by decentralised technology.</li><li>Low code application building software will make creating applications easy.</li><li>Flux. The aim is to provide the groundwork for developers to build a new web iteration.</li><li>Cloud technology allows organisations to work from anywhere in the world. Companies are likely to shift away from quickly constructed cloud services towards cloud-native systems.</li></ul>

More Web 3.0 trends

Web 3.0 is bigger than Blockchain and NFTs. Let us find out how the next phase of the internet unfolds.

crypto

Cryptocurrency

softwareengineering

Software Engineering

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Introduction to Web 3.0

As technology is changing its patterns, new trends for cryptocurrencies and block chain technology will become the foundation of,Web 3.0. Here are the top Web 3.0 trends of 2022

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Top 10 Web 3.0 Trends and Predictions to Lookout for in 2022

Productivity dysmorphia could explain why you feel down about your productivity, even when it’s clear to everyone else you’re doing a great job. It sits in “the intersection of burnout, imposter syndrome, and anxiety.”

Productivity dysmorphia

The key to battling productivity dysmorphia is recognizing intellectually that you’re meeting your goals and doing good work. It can be helpful to see those facts represented in a tangible way. <ul><li>Write down your to-do list regularly, but don’t be overwhelmed if it’s long. You’ll get it all done in a timely manner. You are more than capable.</li><li>Mark off each goal as you accomplish it. It’s important that you see your successes and wins. At the end of the day, even if only half of the items on the list are checked off, you’ll see how much work you really did. </li></ul>

Write down your to-do list

We get a lot of feedback during the workday that can go unappreciated because of the pace at which we work. Stop letting positive reinforcement pass you by. That’s what the productivity dysmorphia wants.Next time you get an email or Slack message thanking you for all your hard work, don’t just reply, “No problem.” Sit for a second and think about the message, whether it’s from your boss or a third-party connection.

Take positive messages to heart

Try to reconsider what you think of as “productivity.” <ul><li>It’s productive to get all your work done, yes, and productive to work out or devote a certain amount of time every night to your side job or hobby. </li><li>It’s also productive to rest. Relaxing and refreshing your mind and body will enable you to accomplish more in the near future without risking the dreaded burnout. Celebrate everything you do as a step toward productivity. Write down your rest periods, too. They count.</li></ul>

Reframe your idea of “productivity”

You've accomplished too much to feel that you haven't done enough.

productivity

Productivity

How to Overcome ‘Productivity Dysmorphia’

When you learn how to start a business, you’ll want to have a specific audience you want to reach, engage, and interact with. These users are going to be the same people who will read your content, buy your products, and help grow your business.Start by identifying:<ul><li>Their demographics (age, location, gender, etc.)</li><li>How they spend their time online and where do they reside (social media, blogs, sites etc.)</li><li>What problems or concerns are they currently trying to solve</li><li>What value to they expect from you</li><li>What are some points of objection your audience might have to working with you.</li></ul>

Build Your Target Audience

No matter how big or small your business is, there is virtually no company that has zero competition. The first step here is to find out who it is you are competing with exactly. Perform a Google search on your topic/niche and see who the main players in your industry are.Are there any emerging companies that might pose a threat now or in the future? How many notable competitors do you have, that are going after the same exact audience?

Run a Competitive Analysis

You already know what keywords your competition is using to rank on Google, and you already have your persona set. By combining these two elements you can start to brainstorm potential long tail keywords and phrases you will need to start adding to your website and blog posts to make them “findable.”A winnable keywords is defined as a word or phrase that has:<ul><li>Over 100 monthly searches</li><li>Has a difficulty score of below 55%</li><li>Is relevant in both context and intent with your audience’s pains, needs, or interests.</li></ul>

Find “Winnable” Keywords

<ul><li>Start off by thinking of a good domain name. Ideally, this should include a winnable keyword IF possible. If it’s not possible, don’t worry too much, just make sure you’re using something that represents your brand and is easy to remember,</li><li>Next it’s time to find a hosting platform. Without this your site has nowhere to sit, and thus won’t exist!</li><li>Now, at long last, it’s to build your website. You can go with WordPress. Its free, beginner-friendly, and has integrations with the most popular tools and hosting services.</li></ul>

Build Your Website

Among the plethora of tools that provide in depth, high value insight for free, Google Analytics (GA) reigns supreme.Despite its many benefits and advantages, GA does have one pretty big “flaw” especially for beginners; it can be overwhelming.

Set Up Google Analytics (GA)

<ul><li>Start by brainstorming a few topics around the keywords you found. </li><li>Once you’re done brainstorming, pick the titles/topics you like the most and start creating a content calendar. This will help you stay on track and guide you for the next months in terms of planning and creating.</li><li>Once your calendar is complete begin creating. Ideally, you want to have a few posts ready for your audience to read but we know time is a really valuable commodity.</li></ul>

Create Content

In order to fully optimize your pages you will need to place these keywords in:<ol><li>Your titles</li><li>Your URL</li><li>The headers throughout your page/post</li><li>Image alt tags (search engine crawlers cant see images, so you will need to add a title to each one of you images to help crawlers understand what the image is about)</li><li>The body of your page/post (make sure they fit in naturally throughout the text)</li><li>Anchor text in internal links to other relevant pages or posts on your site</li><li>Your meta tags — This is the abstract or summary, of the page and is often your first chance to catch your audience’s attention.</li></ol>

Optimize for On-page SEO

Contrary to on-page SEO, off-page SEO has to do with optimization elements that reside externally (not on your pages.) The most common element here is link building (or backlinking.) This is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own site, pages, or blog. The more links from high ranking websites, the better your site will look in the eyes of Google.The easiest way to begin is to just create high quality content. The more researched, valuable, and quality driven your posts are, the greater the chance of them being linked back to by other websites.

Optimize for Off-page SEO

Start by answering the following questions:<ul><li>On which social media platform does my target audience spend most of their time? (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.)</li><li>How many hours a day do they spend on social media?</li><li>What kind of posts to they like to see (plain images, links, videos etc.)</li><li>What would make them engage with my post (like, share, comment.)</li><li>What time of day do they frequent the platform?</li><li>How many times a day to they visit the platform?</li></ul>So now that you have the answers to these questions you are ready to start creating social profiles.

Social Media Marketing

Starting a business isn’t easy, and learning how to start a business is even harder. If it was easy, then everyone would be doing it! The first 30 days of your new business are like a new President’s…

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

business

Business

startup

Startups

How to Start a Business in 30 Days: A Complete Guide

The office is not only a place to do work. It is also a place to be observed doing work. A large number of companies whose workforce has gone remote have acquired surveillance software to continue observing their employees work. However, employee monitoring software may not be a good thing for employees who prize their privacy and employers who desire a good relationship with their staff.

Surveillance software for employees

Studies show that being watched reinforces positive social behaviours. For example, if you think you're being watched, you're likely to donate to charity and less likely to steal or litter. However, studies also show that surveillance tends to undermine trust between employees and employers. Employees perceive their working conditions as more stressful. They experience higher levels of job boredom, fatigue, anger, anxiety, and depression.

Surveillance pros and cons

A rise in employee surveillance accelerated during the pandemic. However, we are also more accustomed to being watched. We accept cameras in novel spaces such as doorbell cameras, webcams and smartphones. We accept data tracking on websites and assume that our information is used. Yet, despite the possibility that monitoring is becoming more accepted, people still don't like the nature of surveillance. The solution to maintaining increased productivity and remote work is to trust employees and discard the spyware.

Privacy matters

As remote working has become more common, sales of monitoring technology have boomed. But using surveillance tools carries a cost.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Is it right or productive to watch workers?

<ul><li>The standard implementation of a single-page app provides a page “shell” to the browser without any meaningful content included. The content is instead loaded on demand from the server with AJAX and then added to the page by JavaScript.</li><li>This allows a user to view the “pages” of an SPA site without a page refresh, theoretically improving UX.</li><li>While this architecture works for human users, what about search engine crawlers?&nbsp;</li><li>It’s important to know this, as it could determine whether or not the site’s content is indexable by a search engine, and just as importantly, how well its content is ranked.</li></ul>

The issue with client-rendered content

If SEO is critical, you can’t rely on your SPA’s client rendering and must ensure content comes included in your pages.This doesn’t mean you need to abandon the SPA architecture, though. There are two techniques, server-side rendering and prerendering, that both can achieve the desired outcome.

What to do if SEO is critical

SPAs typically provide a page to the browser that has no meaningful content. Content is instead loaded by AJAX as the user navigates the site. Can a search engine index this content? Does it rank as w

Is My Single-Page App SEO Friendly?

File name similarity seems to be a substantial predictor of image indexing in Google. Google likes to see image file names that are very similar to both the product title and the product handle (or url pathname) . A correlation above 0.40 seems to be ideal. We calculate this correlation using Dice’s Coefficient.For example: File name: foo-bar-pocket-tshirt-striped-red-front.jpg Product title: Foo Bar Pocket T-Shirt — Striped Product handle: /products/foo-bar-pocket-tshirt-striped-red

File Name Similarity

Image uniqueness is an opaque thing to measure, but it seems that Google is starting to take this more seriously.It seems that merchants whose images are very unique, highly detailed, and distinguishable are much more reliably indexed. For example, something like a white T-shirt on a light colored background with very little detail on the T-shirt seems to be demoted by Google.This concept is particularly important for merchants who are selling products that are not unique—like a retailer who carries many brand names.&nbsp;

Image Uniqueness & Duplicate Content

I launched Image Sitemap for Shopify in December 2017. To date we have submitted over 500k images to Google Search on behalf of our customers—with those customers seeing an average of 648% increase…

Queen Elizabeth's Most Inspiring Quotes Through the Years

The Personal Brand Is Dead

What’s the best way to win at rock-paper-scissors?

Brewing a great cup of coffee depends on chemistry and physics

Top 10 Web 3.0 Trends and Predictions to Lookout for in 2022

Troy Strong