In South Korea, the minimum wage increase of 5% in the last year and the implementation of the Serious Disasters Punishment Act unintentionally pushed companies to accelerate their shift toward automation. In the US, Singapore and Japan, robots are rising in response to labour shortages. However, even in South Korea, there is less than one robot for every ten human workers, so it'll be some time before we reach a truly distopian scenario.

The Robot Workforce is Rising Quickly

Labor shortages and other factors are pushing countries to adopt automation.

career

Career

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

The robot workforce is coming - The Hustle

Royal jubilee celebrations have a long history, despite that only a few British monarchs have lived long enough to reach a major milestone. <ul><li>October 1809 was the 49th anniversary of George III's accession, at the height of the Napoleonic wars.</li><li>Queen Victoria celebrated Golden and Diamond Jubilees marking 50 and 60 years of her reign. </li><li>George V's silver jubilee in May 1935 marked 25 years of George V as the King.</li><li>In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her platinum  jubilee. No other British monarch has ever reigned for 70 years.</li></ul>

Royal jubilee celebrations

The success of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II's 25 years on the throne was not a foregone conclusion.  The country was in an economic crisis and bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. There was a sentiment of political instability and discontent. The exposure of the affair between Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener and baronet, caused ribald headlines, and the Labour government was reluctant to spend money on a celebration. Huge crowds greeted her enthusiastically. "I am simply amazed: I had no idea," the Queen was overheard saying repeatedly.

1977: The silver jubilee

The 50th anniversary of the Queen’s accession followed a decade of shocks to the monarchy: the divorces of three of her children, and the fire at Windsor Castle,  whereafter the Queen wished to pay income tax for the first time. These events led to questioning both the monarchy’s popularity and its long-term viability. After the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother at the age of 101, the public reaction revealed respect and affection for the monarchy. These are some events that contributed to another successful jubilee celebration.

2002: The golden jubilee

The diamond jubilee was not tentative testing of the monarchy’s popularity. Yet, to prevent criticism of the cost at a time of recession, some elements of the celebrations were privately sponsored. Overall, the Queen’s jubilees proved an increasingly successful element in promoting the monarchy’s popularity.

2012: The diamond jubilee

The 65th anniversary of the Queen’s accession passed without publicity. The chief reason for the lack of ceremony is that the date of her accession is also the anniversary of her father’s death, which the Queen liked to spend in private. George  VI was found dead in bed in 1952, having unexpectedly suffered a heart attack in his sleep. Elizabeth II was on tour in Kenya when she succeeded to the throne.

2017: The sapphire jubilee

Royal anniversary celebrations have long been a litmus test of the public mood. As Queen Elizabeth II reaches her platinum jubilee, Stephen Bates looks at the major milestones in the reign of Elizabeth II, and Britons’ reactions to these events...

history

History

Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilees: Celebrations Of A Record-Breaking Reign | HistoryExtra

Though we’re living through a time of extraordinary innovation in GPU-accelerated machine learning, the latest research papers frequently (and prominently) feature algorithms that are decades, in certain cases 70 years old.Given the extent to which these older algorithms support and are enmeshed in the latest trends and headline-grabbing developments in machine learning, it’s a contestable stance. So let’s take a look at some of the ‘classic’ building blocks underpinning the latest innovations, as well as some newer entries that are making an early bid for the AI hall of fame.

Machine Learning Algorithms: The Premise

In 2017 Google Research led a research collaboration culminating in the paper Attention Is All You Need. The work outlined a novel architecture that promoted attention mechanisms from ‘piping’ in encoder/decoder and recurrent network models to a central transformational technology in their own right.The approach was dubbed Transformer, and has since become a revolutionary methodology in Natural Language Processing (NLP), powering, amongst many other examples, the autoregressive language model and AI poster-child GPT-3.

1. Transformers

Transformers captured the public imagination in 2020 with the release of OpenAI’s GPT-3, which boasted a then record-breaking <a href="https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/openai-presents-gpt-3-a-175-billion-parameters-language-model/">175 billion parameters</a>. This apparently staggering achievement was eventually overshadowed by later projects, such as the 2021 <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/using-deepspeed-and-megatron-to-train-megatron-turing-nlg-530b-the-worlds-largest-and-most-powerful-generative-language-model/">release</a> of Microsoft’s Megatron-Turing NLG 530B, which (as the name suggests) features over 530 billion parameters.

The Usage Of Transformers

Though transformers have gained extraordinary media coverage through the release and adoption of GPT-3, the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) has become a recognizable brand in its own right, and may eventually join deepfake as a verb.The Generator cycles through thousands of images in a dataset, iteratively attempting to reconstruct them. For each attempt, the Discriminator grades the Generator’s work, and sends the Generator back to do better, but without any insight into the way that the previous reconstruction erred.

2: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

Beside their (actually fairly limited) involvement in popular deepfake videos, image/video-centric GANs have proliferated over the last four years, enthralling researchers and the public alike. Keeping up with the dizzying rate and frequency of new releases is a challenge, though the GitHub repository Awesome GAN Applications aims to provide a comprehensive list.Generative Adversarial Networks can in theory derive features from any well-framed domain, including text.

The Usage Of GANs

Originated in 1963, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a core algorithm that crops up frequently in new research. Under SVM, vectors map the relative disposition of data points in a dataset, while support vectors delineate the boundaries between different groups, features, or traits.Since <a href="https://www.unite.ai/what-are-support-vector-machines/">support Vector Machines</a> can effectively and agnostically address high-dimensional data of many kinds, they crop up widely across a variety of machine learning sectors, including deepfake detection, image classification, hate speech classification, DNA analysis and population structure prediction.

3: Support Vector Machine(SVM)

K-Means Clustering has become the most popular implementation of this approach, shepherding data points into distinctive ‘K Groups’, which may indicate demographic sectors, online communities, or any other possible secret aggregation waiting to be discovered in raw statistical data.Outside of this application, K-Means Clustering is also employed for landslide prediction, medical image segmentation, image synthesis with GANs, document classification, and city planning, among many other potential and actual uses.

4: K-Means Clustering

Random Forest is an ensemble learning method that averages the result from an array of decision trees to establish an overall prediction for the outcome.As with many of the algorithms in this list, Random Forest typically operates as an ‘early’ sorter and filter of data, and as such consistently crops up in new research papers. Some examples of Random Forest usage include Magnetic Resonance Image Synthesis, Bitcoin price prediction, census segmentation, text classification and credit card fraud detection.

5: Random Forest

A naive Bayes classifier is a powerful but relatively lightweight algorithm capable of estimating probabilities based on the calculated features of data.This level of academic and investigative rigour would be overkill where ‘common sense’ is available but is a valuable standard when traversing the many ambiguities and potentially unrelated correlations that may exist in a machine learning dataset.Naive Bayes filters are well-represented in disease prediction and document categorization, spam filtering, sentiment classification, recommender systems, and fraud detection.

6: Naive Bayes

K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) is a lean algorithm that still features prominently across academic papers and private sector machine learning research initiatives.KNN has been called ‘the lazy learner’, since it exhaustively scans a dataset in order to evaluate the relationships between data points, rather than requiring the training of a full-fledged machine learning model.KNN has been used for online signature verification, image classification, text mining, crop prediction, and facial recognition, besides other applications and incorporations.

7: K- Nearest Neighbors (KNN)

The Markov Decision Process (MDP) is one of the most basic blocks of reinforcement learning architectures. A conceptual algorithm in its own right, it has been adapted into a great number of other algorithms, and recurs frequently in the current crop of AI/ML research.MDP explores a data environment by using its evaluation of its current state (i.e. ‘where’ it is in the data) to decide which node of the data to explore next.Besides its <a href="https://www.kaggle.com/arjanso/reinforcement-learning-chess-1-policy-iteration">obvious applicability</a> to chess and other strictly sequential games, MDP is also a natural contender for the <a href="https://robotics.ucmerced.edu/sites/robotics.ucmerced.edu/files/page/documents/phthesisfeyzabadi.pdf">procedural training of robotics systems</a>.

8: Markov Decision Process (MDP)

Term Frequency (TF) divides the number of times a word appears in a document by the total number of words in that document. Thus the word seal appearing once in a thousand-word article has a term frequency of 0.001. By itself, TF is largely useless as an indicator of term importance, due to the fact that meaningless articles (such as a, and, the, and it) predominate.TF-IDF is a powerful and popular method for initial filtering passes in Natural Language Processing frameworks.

9: Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is an increasingly popular method for optimizing the training of machine learning models.Gradient Descent itself is a method of optimizing and subsequently quantifying the improvement that a model is making during training.SGD has become the most popular optimization algorithm for fitting neural networks. One configuration of SGD that is becoming dominant in new AI/ML research papers is the choice of the Adaptive Moment Estimation (ADAM, introduced in 2015) optimizer.

10: Stochastic Gradient Descent

computerscience

Computer Science

softwareengineering

Software Engineering

10 Best Machine Learning Algorithms (2022) - Unite.AI

Cumulative Layout Shift is one of these key metrics that measures the “jumpiness” of a website and how it unexpectedly moves as elements load. Let’s take a closer look at how this metric works, and how you can make sure your own website is following best practices so you rank higher on search engines and provide your users with a better experience.

Cumulative Layout Shift

Cumulative Layout Shift (or CLS) is a measure of how much a webpage unexpectedly shifts during its life. For example, if a website visitor loaded a page and, while they were reading it, banner loads and the page jumps down, that would constitute a large CLS score.Along with Largest Contentful Paint (the amount of time it takes to load the largest piece of content) and First Input Delay (how long it takes for a page to be interactive or “clickable”), CLS is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals. Google’s web crawlers measure CLS on each page they index.

Defining Cumulative Layout Shift 

Page shifts happen when content loads at different speeds and causes the layout to change and alters what the viewer is looking at. Advertisements loading slowly, videos of unknown size suddenly appearing, or DOM elements being dynamically added are all potential causes of CLS.

Cumulative Layout Shift: Causes

Jumpy websites that load in pieces or with unexpected behavior will cause your visitors to find another website to browse. And if they do stick around, a high CLS score is likely to cause usability problems like choosing the wrong option, checking out too early, or missing parts of your website altogether.This problem is only exacerbated by the large number of internet users who are browsing on their smartphones. When viewing your site on a small screen, any jumps and layout shifts on the website are certain to have a big impact on mobile user experience.

Cumulative Layout Shift: Importance

The good news is that you don’t have to measure CLS yourself because Google makes it really easy to analyze your page performance with their PageSpeed Insights tool, or in the Chrome browser using Lighthouse Tools.To analyze performance in PageSpeed Insights:<ul><li>Enter a website URL into Google's PageSpeed Insights tool.</li><li>Click 'Analyze.'</li><li>Check your performance. You can review both mobile and desktop performance, which you can switch between using the top left corner navigation.</li></ul>

Measuring Cumulative Layout Shift

<ul><li>Open up the website you want to analyze in Chrome.</li><li>Navigate to Developer Tools by clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the browser window, choosing “More Tools” and then “Developer Tools.”</li><li>When the console opens, choose “Lighthouse” from the options along the top.</li><li>Click “Generate Report.”</li></ul>

Lighthouse Analysis

These are the two variables that Google uses to calculate CLS in the formula below:layout shift score = impact fraction x distance fraction<ul><li>Impact fraction relates to the size of the unstable element in comparison to the viewport. </li><li>Distance fraction is the amount the unstable element moves as a ratio of the viewport.</li></ul>So a high CLS would consist of a large element moving a long distance. A small CLS would be the result of a small element moving only a small distance.

Impact Fraction and Distance Fraction

A good cumulative layout score is anything less than 0.1. The reports from PageInsights or Lighthouse tools will automatically flag any poor scores, as well as provide advice on how to optimize the page for better performance.

An Ideal CLS Score

1. Use a CMS (content management system).This will make sure that you’re designing with best practices in mind, and flag any issues before you launch your site.2. Specify size attributes for images and videos.Rather than letting them set their own height and width, dictate size attributes for your media. 3. Understand how ads can influence your layout.Google Publisher Tag offers extensive guidance about how to reserve space for ads.4. Use transitions and animation to provide context around page changes.

How To Improve Cumulative Layout Shift

CLS only takes into account unexpected changes. If the layout changes because of a user-initiated action, there is no impact on CLS. This is a helpful tool to use when you don’t need to load everything all at once. Instead, offer users the opportunity to choose which elements they want to view through “read more” links or “expand topic” accordions within your page.

Expected Vs Unexpected Layout Shift

Paying attention to CLS not only provides a better user experience, but it also boosts your search result rankings. It’s a win-win.To meet Google’s standards for CLS, start by using a diagnostic tool to measure your website’s current performance. Take into account the basic guidelines outlined above, and keep layout shifts top of mind when designing your website, especially around transitions and content additions. With these few simple considerations, you’ll see better results across the board.

Offer A Better User Experience With CLS Optimization

Interested in learning more about cumulative layout shift? Here's your quick-and-easy guide.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Cumulative Layout Shift: What It Is and How to Measure It

Charles Kuen Kao (1933-2018) transformed the way we communicate. In the mid- 1960s, Kao suggested that information can be delivered in the form of light through fibre-optic cables. The cables are made of long, purified glass pipes along which light beams would be fired. Because the glass is made of purified glass, the pipe's walls act as a mirror for the photons (light particles), making them bounce and travel across large distances within the pipe.

The father of fibre-optic communication

Studies show that over 90% of Americans have at least one cataract by age 65. There are various treatments for cataracts. One technique involved inserting a needle into the eye to reach the lens, then breaking apart the cloudy cataract using an ultrasound probe. Patricia Bath (1942-2019) invented the Laserphaco Probe in 1986, replacing ultrasound with lasers that are more accurate. Bath was the first African American to receive a patent for her technique.

Treating cataracts with lasers

Flossie Wong-Staal (1946-2020), a virologist, played a central role in AIDS research. Wong-Staal was part of the team that first identified the HIV virus as the cause of AIDS. Together with her colleague Robert Gallo, Wong-Staal cloned HIV and discovered how it hides from the immune system. She also created a blood test to detect HIV.

Breaking HIV's genetic code

Christine Darden (1942-present), a female engineer at NASA, used computer models to calculate the environmental effect of sonic booms. Sonic booms are the loud noises produced when planes fly faster than the speed of sound. The noise is caused by the sudden change in air pressure around the aircraft. While NASA scientists replicated the booms using wind tunnels and model planes, Darden's simulation results matched the wind tunnel outcomes, were cheaper and more efficient.

Pioneering supersonic flight

Charles Drew (1904-1950). Drew was a leading expert on blood. During World War II, the need for blood transfusions increased. So in 1940, the U.S. formed the Blood for Britain project, aiming to ship blood overseas. Drew was appointed head of the project, and with John Scudder, devised a way to separate plasma from the blood. Blood needs to be refrigerated to remain useful, but if the plasma is extracted from the blood and mixed in a saline solution, it could be shipped without refrigeration.

Invention of the blood bank

George Carruthers (1939-2020) designed the Lunar Surface Ultraviolet Camera in 1972. The camera was sent aboard Apollo 16 and put on the lunar surface. From there, it took over 550 ultraviolet images of stars, nebulas and galaxies. It also gathered data on Earth's atmosphere, including the accumulation of pollutants.

The first lunar telescope

Alice Ball (1892-1916) pioneered a new treatment for leprosy. Leprosy caused nerve damage and skin lesions. In 1873, Norwegian physician Dr Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen found that a bacterium Mycobacterium leprae caused leprosy. 
In 1915, Ball developed a means to isolate the active ingredient in chaulmoogra nut oil and engineered a water-soluble injection of this extract as an effective treatment. The credit for her method was attributed to her colleague Arthur L. Dean, but she was credited for it posthumously.

Treatment for leprosy

They're not as famous as Darwin or Curie, but these heroes made our lives better through groundbreaking achievements.

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

7 scientists who helped change the world

Independence Day in the United States is an annual celebration of the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The marking of the first day of independence during the summer of 1776 took the form of a mock funeral of the king, whose "death" symbolized the end of monarchy and tyranny and the beginning of liberty.

4 July - Independence day

In the first few years of the republic, Independence Day was celebrated with parades, oratory, and toasting in ceremonies. The Fourth of July commemoration became a patriotic tradition which many groups wanted to claim, such as the abolitionists, women's rights advocates, and the temperance movement.

Celebration of Independence Day

The rise of leisure meant the Fourth of July emerged as a major midsummer holiday. Heavy drinking and many fireworks injuries prompted reformers of the late 19th and early 20th century to start a Safe and Sane Fourth of July movement. During the later 20th century, this day became less important as a venue for politics. However, it remains an important symbol of national power and freedom.

Fourth of July a midsummer holiday

Independence Day, annual celebration of nationhood in the United States, commemorating the passage of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Independence Day | History, Meaning, & Date

The central belief of Skepticism is that there is little we can know with absolute certainty. There will always be a second opinion or a different perspective.
The Greek Pyrrho of Elis, and the Roman Sextus Empiricus thought recognizing Skepticism is the best thing philosophy can give us.

Skepticism - we know very little with any certainty

Pyrrho is considered the first Skeptic philosopher. He thought we waste so much time and effort demanding solutions where there's only doubt that we're destined to be unhappy.
Instead, he thought we ought to adopt a position of suspended judgement, or epoché. If someone asks you for your views, you ought to simply demonstrate epoché and say that you only have your opinion and conclude that there is no absolute answer.

Adopt a position of epoché

The Roman Sextus Empiricus further developed the idea of Skepticism. He thought everything we claim to know was open to doubt and added that there could be no possible way to resolve this challenge. For Sextus, both opinions are equally valid.
Recognising the limits to our understanding is deeply comforting. We can let go of dogmatically defending views we have no way to know for sure are correct. We can still aim for something but also accept we may never succeed.

Skepticism rejects the false hope for easy answers

Skepticism is the philosophy that there's very little that we can actually know with any certainty. Pyrrho is considered the father of Skepticism, and he believed we ought to suspend our judgment on all those things to which we can never find an answer. By giving up the dogmatic pursuit of some kind of resolution, we can be at peace with ourselves.

philosophy

Philosophy

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

problemsolving

Problem Solving

communication

Communication

Pyrrho and the Skeptical way of life: ignorance is bliss

Invented in 1926 by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, the Television has been an incredible, long-lasting creation, having the power to take us to wonderful places where we can experience news, entertainment, sports and real or fictional stories of all kinds. 
The first transmission was broadcast by Baird, who later also invented the first colour television.

The Power Of Television

This fantastic invention has made it possible for millions of people to watch the moon landing, Olympic games, the Royal Wedding, the World Cup, primetime sitcoms like Dallas or Seinfeld, and more recently the Netflix series Bodyguard.
Television has the power to trigger our imagination, encourage learning, arouse curiosity and bind people together. It is the world's common room where shared memories are broadcast.

Television: A Window To The World

Apart from man landing on the moon for the first time in 1969, Television has been a home of many events and first-time broadcasts. 
The first interracial kiss was shown in 1968 in a Star Trek (The Original Series) episode. The TV has made us living witnesses to ground-breaking news events like the Iranian embassy siege or the 9/11 attacks.

TV: The Home Of Many Firsts

As TV becomes unimaginably diverse, wild and daring due to the advent of internet giants and on-demand services, it has also become social.
Watercooler talks have more often than not been based on what a particular sports event, news or sitcom was on TV the day before. Important stories usually kick start great conversations and this effect has been amplified with the advent of social media, particularly Twitter.

TV: The Conversation Starter

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

movies

Movies & Shows

Focus on... The Power of Television | BAFTA

Stop reacting to life and start responding to it.If you want to really change, you need to start reframing your mindset. You’re not in control of everything that happens to you, but you are in control of how you respond to what happens to you.

Reframing your mindset

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

A mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within you to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviours, choices, or tools.It’s so powerful that it affects every decision-making process. It predetermines your responses and interpretations of situations.

What mindset is

<ul><li>Growth mindset: you believe your most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. This view creates a love of learning and resilience.</li><li>Fixed mindset: you believe basic qualities, like intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits and that talent alone creates success — without effort. </li></ul>

Types of mindsets

“Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are.”

Ask yourself these questions, to identify limiting beliefs and negative patterns:<ul><li>Where did I learn these beliefs and knowledge from?</li><li>Are they the objective truth?</li><li>Who uses these beliefs in life and business?</li></ul>

Examine your current beliefs

... for improving performance:<ul><li>Self-talk (saying to yourself “I can do better”)</li><li>Imagery (imagining yourself doing something better)</li><li>If-then planning (for example, “If I start to doubt myself, then I will remind myself that I have the skills!”)</li></ul>

Motivational techniques

"People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new."

You can change your brain’s patterns once you start to consistently feed your mind with new empowering messages.When you begin to master your mindset, you will be able to make new healthy choices, embrace a positive outlook in life, commit to goals and get them done and you will most likely finish what you start.

Mastering your mindset

<ul><li>Make a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound life-list of 5 things you want to achieve. </li><li>Set small goals for each day and week.</li><li>Be aware of your self-talk. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones.</li><li>Use the skills you already have. Focus on your strengths and build upon them. </li><li>See failure as a set up for a comeback.</li></ul>

Disciplined practice

If you've ever failed at reaching any goal in life, the problem could all be in your mind. That's how important your mindset is. If you want to real change, you need to start reframing your mindset. Stop reacting to life and start responding to it.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

habits

Habits

How to Instantly Reframe Your Mindset And Radically Improve Your Life

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America pioneered the concept of stand-up comedy, an art form that was an odd kind of basic, no-frills entertainment. A person facing a crowd, with a mic in hand, has to make them laugh.
The origins of stand-up comedy are traced to burlesque shows at New York City’s vaudeville theaters, mostly catering to people familiar with modern city life. The initial shows by the earliest ‘stand-up’ comedians were short and full of slapstick humor, as if racing to please the audience in the least amount of time.

The Origins Of Stand-Up Comedy

The initial content of stand-up comedy wasn’t sarcasm or observational comedy. It had standard gags that involved gold-digging females, harping ladies, problems with money, and chasing unattainable women.
The routines were kept lively, fast-paced and punchy.

History Of Stand-Up Comedy: The Initial Content

The first person to actually be on stage and do a stand-up act was Charley Case, at the vaudeville theatre, NYC, some time in the 1880s or 1890s.
He fit the quiet, neurotic comedian stereotype, and came across as a tortured, depressed comedian. Even his death was attributed to a revolver accident at an NYC hotel, sparking rumours of suicide.

The First Stand-Up Comedian

"Behind every successful man is a woman. Behind her is his wife."

The developing cinema industry, which had a much more glamorous appeal, overshadowed the NYC stand-up comedy, but the concept was taken and refined by comedians in the 1950s, in other places in New York, along with San Francisco. Stand-up comedy was here to stay.

History of Stand-Up Comedy: The Coming Of Cinema

Charles Dickens thought Americans weren’t very funny. “They certainly are not a humorous people,” he wrote in 1868, “and their temperament always...

The robot workforce is coming - The Hustle

Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilees: Celebrations Of A Record-Breaking Reign | HistoryExtra

10 Best Machine Learning Algorithms (2022) - Unite.AI

Cumulative Layout Shift: What It Is and How to Measure It

7 scientists who helped change the world

Vincent Robin