There are a lot of theories floating around about how we wound up with (shudder) President Donald Trump.
The Bernie Sanders camp is crowing, “We told you so, Bernie would have won!”
The media likes to go on about how little Hillary Clinton was trusted; an impression created entirely by the media.
An article in Ad Age by Simon Dumenco theorizes that Clinton’s messaging was wrong. She wasted airtime pointing out the obvious–Trump is a horrible person. Hell, everybody knows that.
In the aftermath, however, what really happened is becoming increasingly clear: Welcome to the post-truth “Idiocracy.”
It started with the media. To compete for viewers, channels pretending to be news sensationalized every morsel of fake news. They gave more airtime to the endless Benghazi hearings than to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
When they finally milked that for all it was worth, the fake email scandal launched a slow, poisonous drip, with each outrageous false claim spreading like wildfire on social media.
Search for Hillary + email in BuzzSumo, and you get something like this:
I am tired of the classic left/right perspective on society, policy, and politics. I realize that markets are an incredible tool to allocate resources efficiently. And I also realize that markets are subject to failure and we need to protect our society from these market failures. I am not a purist on either side of this debate and I find the hard core advocates on the far left and the far right impossible to take. I believe orthodoxy is one of the worst human traits.
So I enjoyed reading this post on “new economics” and I particularly like this table that shows the difference between traditional economic thinking and new economic thinking:
The post goes on to explore how these new economics thinking will eventually impact politics, policy, and society at large.
First, rather than predict we should experiment. Policymaking often starts with an engineering perspective – there is a problem and government should fix it. For example, we need to get student mathematics test scores up, we need to reduce traffic congestion, or we need to prevent financial fraud. Policy wonks design some rational solution, it goes through the political meat grinder, whatever emerges is implemented (often poorly), unintended consequences occur, and then – whether it works or not – it gets locked in for a long time. An alternative approach is to create a portfolio of small-scale experiments trying a variety of solutions, see which ones work, scale-up the ones that are working, and eliminate the ones that are not. Such an evolutionary approach recognises the complexity of social-economic systems, the difficulty of predicting what solutions will work in advance and difficulties in real-world implementation. Failures then happen on a small scale and become opportunities to learn rather than hard to reverse policy disasters. It won’t eliminate the distortions of politics. But the current process forces politicians to choose from competing forecasts about what will and won’t work put forward by competing interest groups – since it is hard to judge which forecast is right it is not surprising they simply choose the more powerful interest group. An evolutionary approach at least gives them an option of choosing what has been shown to actually work.
I also like this bit about the tolerance for failure:
A major challenge for these more adaptive approaches to policy is the political difficulty of failure. Learning from a portfolio of experiments necessitates that some experiments will fail. Evolution is a highly innovative, but inherently wasteful process – many options are often tried before the right one is discovered. Yet politicians are held to an impossibly high standard, where any failure, large or small, can be used to call into question their entire record.
I don’t think the way we do things in startup land should be a model for how everything should work, but there is a lot to be learned from the way the tech sector works. Innovating, trying new things, measuring the impacts of these new things, and evolving leads to forward progress. And when something fails, we accept is as a lesson learned, not something to be embarrassed about (or fired for).
If the worlds of economics and politics are moving in our direction, I am very pleased and optimistic about that.
Fighting games can be a fun time wasters and the Windows Store has plenty to choose from. These fast-paced games can involve one on one rumbles or fighting your way through waves of enemy troops. Many have role-playing features where you can upgrade the hero's skills and equipment, adding more depth to the game.
Keep in mind that we are considering fighting games those where the success of the battle rests with an individual warrior. Combat or battle games, in contrast, hinge on your success at leading groups of soldiers against the enemy. I'm talking about games that are more like Mortal Kombat than Halo.
We have searched high and low in the Windows Store and these are the best fighting games for Windows 10.
Shadow Fight 2
Shadow Fight 2 is a fantastic fighting game for Window 10 PC and Mobile that has stunning graphics, easy to use controls and plenty of jaw smashing action. Fighters are silhouetted, providing eye-catching animations during the fight sequences.
Role-playing features allows you to upgrade skills and customize your fighter with swords, nunchaku, armor and more. Gameplay has you traveling through six different worlds to face off against a collection of menacing demons and powerful bosses.
Fights are played in a best out of three round format. As you complete matches, you earn game currency that can be used to unlock and upgrade equipment and skills. There are also tournaments to compete in that provide opportunities to increase your skills and earn more cash.
Shadow Fight 2 is a free game for Windows 10 PC and Mobile with a few in-app purchase opportunities. All in all, it is an eye-catching, a Download Shadow Fight 2 from the Windows Store (for PC)
Gods of Rome is a fighting game from Gameloft that is of mythical proportions. Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile. This free game has you controlling a team of mythical warriors that include the likes of Zeus, Atlas, Spartacus, and more in a series of one on one fights. You also have access to Egyptian gods and other historical figures to duke it out with.
The Huawei Mate 9 heralded the birth of the Hisilicon Kirin 960 chipset which has been revealed on benchmark to have a superior fire power. While the Kirin 960 is yet to be fully utilized in Huawei’s smartphones, the company is already rumored to be working on its next flagship chip which would be called Kirin 970.
Recently, a Weibo user reputed to be familiar with the Taiwanese mobile phone industry revealed some details about the Kirin 970. The Kirin 970 will be built on a TSMC manufacturing process and so it is not surprising that details of the Kirin 970 are emanating from Taiwan, TSMC’s base. Accordingly, the Kirin 970 is detailed to pack an octa-core CPU comprised of four ARM Cortex-A73 cores, and four ARM Cortex-A53 cores. The next gen flagship chipset is also revealed to have a maximum clock frequency of between 2.8GHz – 3.0GHz. In addition, the Kirin 970 will be equipped with Cat. 12 LTE baseband and would come as Huawei’s first chip to use the 10nm process.
The Kirin 970 is rumored to be unveiled in the first quarter of next year in order to achieve mass production. The Huawei P10 is also expected in Q1 2017 but will not pack the Kirin 970 chip instead would use the current Kirin 960 as the Mate 9. Rather, in accordance with Huawei’s custom, the Huawei’s Mate 10 would be the first to pack the Kirin 970 and that would likely be in the second half of 2017.
With changing business dynamics, businesses need to focus on core activities and outsource other functions. Outsourcing custom content development is now an established and beneficial practice. This article outlines 8 reasons why you should go for outsourcing and how this will help your business.
Why Outsourcing Custom Content Development Helps Every Business
Today, outsourcing is a strategic necessity, often needed to remain competitive and control costs. Many of you reading this article may be evaluating outsourcing custom content development for the first time. You may want to outsource a single project/a series of projects or look at establishing a strategic partnership. It is important to begin this with quantification of your need to outsource.
What Are The Triggers For Outsourcing Custom Or Bespoke Content Development?
The use of eLearning/online training in general and eLearning content development outsourcing has seen a surge in the last decade and a half or so. Consider these stats and facts and how they are leading to outsourcing of custom content development:
More than 77% of the companies in the US use online training.
The market has seen a whopping growth of about 900% from the year 2000.
If an organization is to invest on an eLearning content development project of about US $10K-50K in the US, it costs nearly 40% less in India.
According to a study from the EDUCAUSE Centre for Applied Research, among research institutions, eLearning was the most favored (60%) for outsourcing.
Most organizations do not have a training department of their own. They find it way cheaper and convenient to outsource their training needs than have a dedicated internal team for the same.
Many organizations carry out occasional trainings and opting for outsourcing is a flexible option for them in terms of training investment.
On the other hand, if you are part of a Learning and Development team and manage the training and its delivery through internal resources, your typical triggers would be:
To bring down costs.
Leverage on external talent and make up for the lack of talent that you may have.
Enrich your portfolio with innovative solutions.
Clear your bandwidth to retain focus on your strategic services (including engagement with internal teams, TNA, Learning Analytics, ROI, and so on)
What Are The Reasons Why Outsourcing Custom Content Development Helps Every Business?
We, at EI Design are a strategic outsourcing partner to several organizations world-wide. Several of these engagements began with a small project to test waters and have steadily evolved to a point where we are engaged over multi-year contracts for these customers.
The journey to establish successful partnerships in custom or bespoke content development has intrinsic challenges. I believe that the challenges intrinsic to outsourcing of custom or bespoke content development can be offset by using the right framework to evaluate the partner. Once this is in place, you will see the required gains and achieve the long-term goal of competitive advantage.
One of the most obvious benefits of outsourcing is the amount of money organizations end up saving. Why spend a packet on eLearning content development in-house when you can get it done in lesser time and with the desired quality for a much lesser price? There’s no need to worry about infrastructure, hardware, and software costs either!
2. Flexibility To Scale The Team Up And Down.
Changing business dynamics can create situations where you’d need to alter the size of your team. Outsourcing addresses this challenge effectively, offering you the flexibility to get more (or less) people to get the job done.
3. Access To New Skill Sets And More Varied Talent In A Given Domain.
Learner expectations keep changing and so do tools and technologies. With the industry being so fast-paced and dynamic, it sometimes becomes difficult to have all the skills required to address the varied and changing needs of your customers. With outsourcing, you get the comfort of being able to count on another partner to help you address this challenge.
4. Reduction In Development Time Leading To A Faster Turnaround Time.
Outsourcing partners typically focus on shorter development cycles and align a dedicated team to fulfill your requirements. This translates into a quicker turnaround time, especially when your internal team is unavailable.
5. Access To Best Practices Leading To Optimization Of Your Development Practices.
There’s always that opportunity to take a leaf out of someone’s book. Your outsourcing partner is likely to have serviced several organizations and follow sound development practices as a result. You can leverage on this and optimize your own development practices.
6. Addition Of More Innovative Solutions To Your Portfolio.
When you get to work with an outsourcing partner, you often get access to the wider range of solutions they offer. That’s an opportunity window to enrich your own portfolio by taking cues from their offerings.
7. Enhanced Focus On Your Customers.
With a dedicated outsourcing partner taking care of your development needs and day to day execution, you can pay more attention to your customers (internal or external) and divert the time and focus on achieving customer satisfaction and opening new windows of business opportunity.
8. Channelize Your Resources To Strategic Activities.
Letting your outsourcing partner handle certain portions of your tasks will allow your team to channelize themselves more towards the strategic side of your business.
To gain further insights on outsourcing, you can review two of my articles:
I hope this article will help you in moving forward to outsource your custom or bespoke content development and use this approach to further strengthen your competitive advantage. If you need any specific assistance in this regard, do contact me at apandey@eidesign.net.
Iraqi forces will resume their push against Islamic State inside Mosul in the coming days, a U.S. battlefield commander said, in a new phase of the two-month-old operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line in the city.
The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi'ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. The upcoming phase appears likely to give American troops their biggest combat role since they fulfilled President Barack Obama's pledge to withdraw from Iraq in 2011.
Elite Iraqi soldiers have retaken a quarter of Mosul, the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq, but their advance has been slow and punishing. They entered a planned "operational refit" this month, the first significant pause of the campaign.
will put U.S. troops inside of Mosul proper and at greater risk, though James said the danger level was still characterized as "moderate". Three U.S. servicemen have been killed in northern Iraq in the past 15 months.
James, speaking from an austere outpost east of Mosul where several hundred U.S. troops are stationed, said the pace of the upcoming phase on the eastern side would depend on resistance from Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.
"If we achieve great success on the first day and we gain momentum, then it may go very quickly. If Daesh fights very hard the first day and we run into a roadblock and we have to go back and go OK that was not the correct point of penetration, it may take longer," he said.
INTEGRATION
Further integration with the Iraqi troops - to what commanders described as an unprecedented level for conventional U.S. forces - will help synchronize surveillance, air support and force movement, according to James.
"It increases our situational understanding. The man on the ground knows what's going on best," he said. "It's just better when they're on the ground talking to each other and saying, 'Hey, have you looked at that area over there? That's decisive terrain. Have you thought about putting forces there?'"
Let's say you manage a WordPress site. You chose, purchase, and install a pre-made theme. Say you added a few items you came across in the WordPress plugin directory to add some advanced features to the site. This is the awesomeness that is the WordPress ecosystem. It's relatively easy for anyone with light technical chops to get a website off the ground and wrangle together something powerful without having to build everything from scratch. It just works great and your website looks wonderful.
Until it doesn't.
I do a little work for a WordPress plugin. The number one thing that gets reported to the support team is, without a doubt, are situations where the plugin conflicts with either the installed theme or another installed plugin. The person reporting the problem has the plugin installed, but what it is doing looks nothing like the screenshots advertised by the plugin.
This can be extremely irritating for the person managing the site. If this plugin is downloaded from the WordPress directory, then it ought to work right out of the box, right?
You could argue this is an unrealistic expectation when you consider that most themes and plugins are developed by different people. It's understandable that mashing code from multiple authors into the same site will lead to at least some conflicts now and then, despite everyone's best intentions to deliver good work.
#This post is going to look into the specific area of style conflicts and ways to overcome them.
I'll start off by saying that it's a tough position being a WordPress theme or plugin developer. On one hand, any stylesheets a plugin includes need to be opinionated enough so that they do what they need to do and look great. On the other hand, they need to respect the work of the active theme and other plugin developers so that the styles play nicely together. It's a balance that even a trained tightrope walker can appreciate.
We're not going to talk about the different methods WordPress plugin developers have to make theme and plugin styles more compatible or theme-able. Instead, we're going to look at the different ways we can override conflicting CSS in WordPress that allow you to take control of the styling for any component of a WordPress site, regardless of whether it originates from the theme or a plugin.
All WordPress sites employ a theme. CSS-Tricks runs on WordPress and it has its own custom theme, which contains all the template and style files needed to generate this post. Well, assuming you're reading this on the site and not from a syndicated feed.
The point being that all themes require at least two files, one of which is the magical `style.css`. This file is required because it contains information about the theme that WordPress would be unable to recognize the theme without.
Those of you who know a thing or two about WordPress might want to stop me here because style.css does not have to contain CSS and you would be right. It does not have to and we could simply add our own stylesheet to the header of the theme instead and use style.css as a shell for the theme to be recognized. That's legit. However, the file was indeed intended to be the primary location of a theme's files, regardless of how we choose to develop our sites.
If your theme uses the file to contain the theme styles, you can modify it directly to change any of the styling properties of your site. It can also be used to add and override styles that might come packaged in plugins or other third-party sources.
The active theme method is only great if you are the developer of the theme. Many folks, however, roll with themes made by other developers. I'm sure you've seen the many theme marketplaces out there that sell premium WordPress themes that you purchase, download, and install into WordPress. That's what we're talking about.
If you're using one of these themes, then best practice is to manage your customizations in a child theme. This is really a fancy way of describing the process of creating a new folder in your WordPress `wp-content/themes` directory that is the same name as your parent theme, only with `-child` appended to it.
For example, if our parent theme directory is called `css-tricks` then our child theme directory would be called `css-tricks-child`. This directory requires `style.css` just like the parent directory and it will be loaded on the site after the parent theme's `style.css` file so that any styles contained in the child theme version will override the parent.
Don't you wish that's how your teenage years worked?
Now you can make as many changes as needed and you will not lose those changes when installing future updates that the theme developer releases.
This is one of my favorite ways to go about overriding styles in WordPress. The idea is that you create your own stylesheet and load it into the site theme after all of the other stylesheets so that yours overrides the others.
There are two well-documented WordPress functions, one called wp_register_style() and the other wp_enqueue_style() that allows us to do this and it can be added either to parent or child theme functions.phpfile in order tell WordPress to look for it and load it in the site header.
This is a basic example of how the function can be used to call a stylesheet by the file name (aka handle) and file path:
function my-custom-styles(){// Register my custom stylesheetwp_register_style('custom-styles',get_template_directory_uri().'/lib/styles/custom-styles.css'));// Load my custom stylesheetwp_enqueue_style('custom-styles');}add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts','my-custom-styles');
We could get a little more fancy by telling WordPress to load it only on a specific page:
// Load my custom stylesheetfunction my-custom-styles(){// Register my custom stylesheetwp_register_style('custom-styles',get_template_directory_uri().'/lib/styles/custom-styles.css'));// Check that the current page is the homepageif( is_home ){// Then grab the custom stylesheetwp_enqueue_style('custom-styles');}}add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts','my-custom-styles');
Note that adding an extra request to all pages is a performance consideration, but you can certainly wrangle control of that as well.
Art direction seemed to be all the rage in something like 2009, though recent data suggests a slight rebound. The idea being that adding styles to the head on a one-off basis would allow you to create compelling layouts on a post-to-post basis. Styles injected into a <style> block in the head, as long as they come after the regular stylesheets of the site which are probably <link> elements, will have the opportunity to override existing styles nicely.
Art direction can be used as an effective means for overriding conflicting styles as well and is particularly effective when those conflicts only exist in very specific places without having to create and load a full stylesheet to clean things up.
Hey, if a plugin got you into this mess of conflicting styles, then maybe there is one to get you out of it, right? Of course, there is.
I am sure there are others out in the wild, but the one I am most familiar with is Simple Custom CSS. The idea is pretty straightforward: a new screen is added that allows you to write CSS. The CSS entered and saved gets added to the document head which, like the art direction method we discussed, gives you the opportunity to override other styles on that particular page.
Oh yeah, remember that? You can actually edit a site's style.css file directly in WordPress by navigating to the buried tavern that is the Appearance > Editor screen.
I'll preface this by saying I find this to be a scary place to hang out. It provides you with access to edit the code of any theme file, including PHP templates. The changes are not version controlled, so it's hard to know what has changed in case you screw something up, and if your version control system is in charge of deployment, and changes there might override changes made here.
Still, it is possible to override styles here and to do so without needing to open up a text editor, saving your changes, then uploading them to a server (via whatever you do for deployment).
Look at that: six methods for overriding styles in WordPress. The next time you run into a situation where something does not look right after installing a theme or plugin to your WordPress installation, you now have the power to take control of the mess and clean things up like a boss.
