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Yesterday, announced a new feature for the application load balancer that has been a long time coming. Amazon _We are pleased to announce support for Host-based routing on the Application Load Balancer. Host-based routing allows…_aws.amazon.com Elastic Load Balancing Adds Support for Host-based Routing and Increased Rules on its Application… At , we are using ALB to route traffic to our ECS cluster. We are using target groups to target our many micro-services. Globality This feature removed a lot of complexity in our routing system and I thought it’s worth a quick post on configuring this with terraform The code resource "aws_alb" "alb" {name            = "${var.name}-alb-${var.environment}"internal        = truesecurity_groups = ["${var.security_group_id}"]subnets         = ["${split(",", var.subnet_ids)}"] tags {Environment = "${var.environment}"}} resource "aws_alb_target_group" "alb_targets" {count     = "${length(keys(var.services_map))}"name      = "${element(values(var.services_map), count.index)}-${var.environment}"port      = "${element(keys(var.services_map), count.index)}"protocol  = "HTTP"vpc_id    = "${var.vpc_id}" health_check {healthy_threshold   = 2interval            = 15path                = "/api/health"timeout             = 10unhealthy_threshold = 2} tags {Color       = "${var.color}"Service     = "${element(values(var.services_map), count.index)}"Tier        = "${var.name}"Environment = "${var.environment}"}} resource "aws_alb_listener" "alb_listener" {count             = "1"load_balancer_arn = "${aws_alb.alb.arn}"port              = "${element(keys(var.services_map), count.index)}"protocol          = "HTTPS"ssl_policy        = "ELBSecurityPolicy-2015-05"certificate_arn   = "${var.ssl_certificate_arn}" default_action {target_group_arn = "${element(aws_alb_target_group.alb_targets.*.arn, 0)}"type = "forward"}} resource "aws_alb_listener_rule" "route_path" {count         = "${length(values(var.services_map))}"listener_arn  = "${aws_alb_listener.alb_listener.arn}"priority      = "${1 + count.index}" action {type = "forward"target_group_arn = "${element(aws_alb_target_group.alb_targets.*.arn, count.index)}"} condition {field = "host-header"values = ["${element(values(var.services_map), count.index)}.${var.domain}"]} lifecycle {ignore_changes = ["priority"]}} As you can see, we are creating a single load balancer that has a single listener. This listener is the “default action” and can have many routing rules. In the past, those rules consisted of path only, the new feature is adding host-header. So, take our example. The default action is a single micro-service out of all our micro-services. Then, we add rules for the HTTP Host of all the other services and route the traffic to their target groups. More than just a short code post Really more than anything, this is a culture post. If you know you have pains in your system you need to always be looking for a solution and how you can make it better. This feature came out yesterday and today we are already using it and converged out entire dev cluster. This removed about 200 lines of code from our terraform repository and probably about the same amount from the scripts we use to manage and flip environments on deployment. is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising & sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

Configuring the new ALB Host based routing with terraform

There has been a lot of buzz about OpenAI GPT-3, now having the largest neural network. Does it mean the AI problem has been solved? Yes, it has a large dataset, but we still don’t know how it learns. OpenAI Basics OpenAI Inc is a non-profit arm of Open.AI LP whose goal is to create a ‘friendly AI’ that will benefit humanity. Open.AI has several different offerings: - an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language DALL•E 2 - Generative Pre-trained Transformer is a language model that leverages deep learning to generate human-like text GPT-3 - an updated model that produces less offensive language and fewer mistakes overall but may also generate misinformation InstructGPT - Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training. It recognizes visual concepts in images and associates them with their names. CLIP How are the Models Trained? OpenAI GPT-3 is trained on 500 billion words by using the following datasets: The dataset contains data collected from over 8 years of web crawling Common Crawl is the text of webpages from all outbound Reddit links of posts with 3+ upvotes WebText2 are two internet-based books corpora Books 1 & Books2 pages in the English language Wikipedia Dataset breakdown and training distribution Dataset Tokens Weight in Training Common Crawl 410 billion 60% WebText2 19 billion 22% Books1 12 billion 8% Books2 55 billion 8% Wikipedia 3 billion 3% Training Models can be done using the following methods: This is where we give between 10-100 contexts to a model and expect the model to determine what comes next. Few-shot (FS). This is quite similar to FS. However, an example is given without any training. Context is given to the model to determine what word comes next. One-shot (1S). Zero-Shot (0S) The model predicts the answer given. The idea is that during training, the model has seen enough samples to determine what word comes next. Only the last context is allowed, making this setting difficult. Bias is inevitable Training the model involves taking large bodies of text for GPT-3 and images for DALL•E from the internet. This is where the problem occurs. The model encounters the best and worst. To counter this, OpenAI created InstructGPT, While training InstructGPT, Open.ai hired 40 people to rate the responses and would reward the model accordingly. DALL•E 2 Open.ai outlines the they currently encounter: Risks and Limitations “Use of DALL·E 2 has the potential to harm individuals and groups by reinforcing stereotypes, erasing or denigrating them, providing them with disparately low quality performance, or by subjecting them to indignity.’’ This is what DALL•E 2 believes a ‘CEO’ looks like: This is what DALL•E 2 believes a ‘flight attendant’ looks like: To reduce bias, OpenAI has recruited external experts to provide feedback. GPT-3 Gender Bias To test bias, I borrowed a list of from . You can use the OpenAI to test it for yourself. The results prove to be quite Gender bias prompts Jenny Nicholson playground interesting. Phrases: female/male employee women/men in the c-suite any woman/man knows women/men entering the workforce should know Religious Bias Gender and Race are biases that have been studied in the past. However, a recent reveals that GPT-3 also has religious bias. The following was found: paper Muslim mapped to “terrorist” in 23% of test cases Jewish mapped to “money” in 5% of test cases CLIP Race, Gender, and Age Bias CLIP performs well on classification tasks, as you have already seen in this article. It uses as its dataset to train the model. This is due to the images it is scraping from the internet. However, the model breaks down when it classifies age, gender, race, weight, and so on. This means the AI tools used to generate new art can continue perpetuating recurring  stereotypes. ImageNet OpenAI can be used to improve content generation. But as long as the datasets are being trained by scraping existing internet, we will build biases against age, gender, race, and more into technology. We must take precautions when using the internet. The information that goes into the AI must be filtered, or harmful stereotypes will never be erased.

Here’s How OpenAI is Perpetuating Unhealthy Stereotypes

Así es como OpenAI está perpetuando los estereotipos poco saludables

Voici comment OpenAI perpétue des stéréotypes malsains

यहां बताया गया है कि कैसे OpenAI अस्वास्थ्यकर रूढ़ियों को कायम रख रहा है

OpenAI が不健康な固定観念をどのように永続させているか

Veja como o OpenAI está perpetuando estereótipos prejudiciais

Đây là cách OpenAI đang tồn tại những định kiến không lành mạnh

以下是 OpenAI 如何延续不健康的刻板印象

Over the past few months, I have increasingly noticed that more and more developer teams that I help coach are turning their backs on monorepos, instead choosing to liberate code to separate repositories. For me, this couldn’t have come sooner. Don’t get me wrong, I have seen examples of monorepos work well in the past - a few years ago I worked on a scope-limited system written in which was deployed in three different environments with significant amounts of code reuse and a single team owning the entire codebase. In circumstances like this, monorepos made sense for this project. Go Unfortunately, over the past few years, companies have blindly adopted monorepos as an architectural pattern for all organisational code without considering the individual circumstances of what they’re building. In this blog post, I wanted to present some of the reasons why I think this is a firmly unhealthy engineering practice. Appealing to Big Tech Authority One of the most common arguments used by those who advocate monorepos is an appeal to the authority of big tech companies who have adopted them. If Google, Facebook, etc use monorepos, surely shouldn’t we too? This argument ignores the unique resources and challenges that these companies face. Quite simply, a company with 100s of engineers (or fewer) isn’t likely to have the developer productivity resources needed to allow monorepos to scale. For example, Google internally has that helps manage the review and merge process of cross-team Pull Requests in a monorepo. With tools like Rosie not being in the public domain, many engineering teams have learned the hard way that they don’t have the resources to support such architectural patterns. According to the tweets of the former VP of Architecture at Monzo (a UK online banking start-up), . a tool called Rosie they experienced this very problem Instances like this provide a stark reminder that the fact a big technology company does something is not a substitute for your own professional engineering judgment. Monorepos Create Tightly Coupled Code Google’s consists of seven years of research and data from more than 32,000 professionals across the industry, in companies of different sizes. Their research reports in and were clear; loosely-coupled software architecture is one of the strongest predictors of successful continuous delivery. DORA State of DevOps Report research 2021 2019 Monorepos add significant complexity to the deployment pipeline of software. As the monorepo scales, deploying all software for every change quickly becomes impractical. Slow builds or flaky tests in one service can grind the entire deployment pipeline to a halt. Therefore teams will inevitably face the challenge of adding infrastructure to work out what service needs to be rebuilt and deployed, and which can stay the same. This adds complexity, risk, and overhead to the process of deploying changes to software. As the DORA research describes, for effective high-trust engineering organisations, "teams can scale, fail, test, and deploy independently of one another". This is dependent on loosely-coupled services being separated by strictly-defined interfaces. Removing the source code boundaries between different services removes the strictly-defined interfaces necessary for this. No Architecture Is Better than Bad Architecture In my own experience, the outcomes of architectural practices like monorepos are worse than if the organisation had no centrally proscribed architectural mandate and simply allowed the systems architecture to emerge organically. This raises the question, why is this done in the first place? Conway’s Law is an adage that says: “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” In low-trust teams, a centralised architecture unit or DevOps team might emerge to mandate practices instead of trusting engineering teams to use their own judgments. It is therefore important to look beyond just technical factors and look to the organisational reasons that led to unhealthy software development practices. The character of in films reminds me much of how unaccountable software architects end up conducting themselves. Without being challenged on whether their system met the outcomes of what it was built for, they merely end up trying to build grand structures for the sake of it. The Architect The Matrix By contrast, the engineering teams actually building the functionality at hand are constantly held accountable for the work they produce. Giving individual engineering managers (and thereby, software developers) the freedom and responsibility for the technical architecture of their services, you achieve better outcomes.

Thinking Critically About Monorepos and Why Its an Unhealthy Engineering Practice

: Vested Interest Disclosure The author's an independent contributor, and while HackerNoon has reviewed the story for quality, the claims hereon belong to the author. #DYOR Hi Ethan, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind WonderHero? Ishan Pandey: Hi Ishan, thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be part of this series! I’m Ethan, Co-Founder, and CEO of WonderHero. WonderHero was founded from a spark of luck. When I was a teenager, I was a game addict and became really good at games in a short amount of time. I was told to stop due to my mum nagging at me, saying, “You better quit games or risk being a loser for the rest of your life”. Ethan Ng: I believe a lot of folks can relate to this. So when my co-founder approached me for this project to lead as the CEO, after playing the alpha game for 3.5 hours, I knew this was it. Since then, I have set forth the mission to fulfill the dream that I couldn’t fulfill as a teenager for many others out there, only this time, they have an opportunity to play and earn. Please tell us a little bit about WonderHero and the P2E NFT based gaming model. Ishan Pandey: WonderHero is a Play-And-Earn RPG for iOS & Android, where players control a team of 4 heroes in tactical turn-based battles to win NFTs and Crypto Tokens. They can trade the NFTs (Hero Skins, Weapons, and Equipment) on our in-built Marketplace and liquidate the Tokens on exchanges for income. Ethan Ng: Besides trading NFTs on the marketplace, players can also stake NFT to earn more Token rewards. To start playing WonderHero, players need at least a minimum of 3 playable Heroes, or they can join a Guild as Scholar to play for free. Can you explain to our readers how crypto gaming guilds differ from traditional gaming guilds? Ishan Pandey: That is a good one. In my opinion, fundamentally, the key difference between crypto gaming guilds and traditional ones is the players’ intent. Ethan Ng: Traditional gaming guilds are formed out of pure passion and interest in a particular game, where players thrive by partying up to progress faster in-game. Gamers volunteered to play a role in their guilds or are promoted through their contributions. With crypto gaming guilds, on the other hand, the primary intent of gaming started as earning income, which introduces a different gaming behavior, mindset, and structure. This means more players are playing for the earnings than for the game itself. The second difference is that while both types of gaming guilds are supportive pillars for the gaming ecosystem to thrive, some crypto gaming guilds have become massive with investments from VCs and other entities. Besides being able to channel players to a P2E game, guilds can also make a financial impact by investing in new projects, purchasing NFT assets (like land) in the game. How can we successfully build a sustainable gaming economy while the industry is undergoing a pragmatic shift in light of the budding popularity of the NFT gaming model? Ishan Pandey: It is truly exciting to be in this space, as we are so early on and everyone is figuring out what is the best way to build a sustainable gaming economy. Much like the early days when games were on consoles and the industry was finding the best model to bring games onto social media networks and the free-to-play model for mobile. Eventually, the industry figured out how to build sustainable free-to-play models, and there were best practices to model after. Ethan Ng: The P2E space is undergoing such a transition too, and every project is experimentation and trying to figure out a sustainable model, but I believe player retention is at the core of a sustainable gaming economy. The game needs to be fun, enjoyed by its community, and keep its players coming back for more. The majority of current P2E gamers are drawn in on the earning aspect, which is unhealthy in the long run for games because players and guilds could move from one game to another based on the earnings potential. The way sustainability works would mean that P2E games need to be able to attract gamers and grow the community even without the earning aspects of it. The earning aspect is more of a means to amplify the growth. OpenSea, currently the largest global NFT marketplace, was hacked, and consumers lost their NFTs. In this regard, what regulatory measures, you suggest, should be incorporated in terms of regulating NFTs to avoid such cyberattacks in the future? Ishan Pandey: I think there are two parts to this: Ethan Ng: Firstly, the majority of the consumers who are victims of hacks are relatively new to the crypto space and are unaware of the possible phishing hack scams. This means information sharing and education for consumers to learn how to protect themselves is much needed as part of their first lessons, much like how we were taught not to tell someone else passwords or sensitive personal information. I believe this is something all projects could do as a collective effort to make this space safer for newcomers. Secondly, vulnerability testing will be an essential practice for projects to keep a lookout for potential security threats against their community and ecosystem. What does the roadmap ahead look like for WonderHero and the NFT-based gaming ecosystem as a whole? Ishan Pandey: For the NFT-based gaming ecosystem, I believe we are entering a consolidation phase. There is a huge influx of projects in the past few months due to the hype and now we are in the midst of a bear market, which means at the end of this phase, we will see which are the projects that didn’t make it through and which are the ones who survived and is thriving with their economy. Ethan Ng: There are also many exciting new projects with promising potential, exploring various mechanics and economic models, which will be interesting to watch how it will turn out. I’m confident that NFT-based games will enter a new phase with better gameplay and a stronger model that revolves around game retention and token utility at the end of this bear market period. As for WonderHero, our team is refining our economic model, increasing NFT and token utilities. The guilds have received the guild management system well and we are continuously working to make it better. At the same time, besides having new content for the game, we are also exploring ways to increase the competitiveness of our PVP as well as other game modes. There are lots to do and there are also many great suggestions from our community that we are evaluating before deciding to add to our roadmap.

"Current P2E Gamers are drawn in on the earning aspect, which is unhealthy" - Ethan Ng

These 6 Factors Are the Difference Between Success and Failure

The Quiet Crisis That Is Stealing Our Health (and How to Get It Back) - Insights From Dr. Eric Berg

Will students in the future spend their day wearing Virtual Reality (VR) headsets? If Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg had his way, this may be the reality. Meta said it is bringing its enterprise-level Quest services to the education sector, the social media giant announced on April 15. Zuckerberg’s company Meta recently promoted this very idea, and according to a CNN article including an interview with Meta’s president of global affairs, “Meta will launch new software for educators that aims to make it easier to use its VR headsets in the classroom. The tools will let teachers manage and program multiple Quest headsets at once, give them access to a range of education-related apps and provide greater oversight and control of how students are using the devices.” Meta said there are several educational facilities already employing Quest headsets, including a life sciences course at the University of Glasgow that immerses students inside the human body, a criminal justice course at New Mexico State that places users at a virtual crime scene, and a business class at Stanford University that helps prepare students for interviews. For young students, VR technology could assist in artistic creativity, exploring molecules up close, or watching a Shakespearean play in the Globe Theatre in, say, the year 1582. VR can turn learning into an interactive experience. For example, students can take virtual field trips to the moon, historical sites, or deep into the ocean, which makes learning more engaging and memorable. Subjects like science and geography can benefit from VR by allowing students to visually explore the lifecycle of a plant, the water cycle, or even the structure of the earth’s layers. University criminal justice students could use VR to investigate virtual crime scenes or collaborate with students and professors in different geographical locations. Medical students can use VR to perform virtual surgeries, and engineering students can explore the mechanics of a machine in a three-dimensional space. VR simulations can be used to provide practical, hands-on experience in a safe environment. This is useful in disciplines like medicine, chemistry, or physics where real-life training can be risky or expensive. However, the use of VR in education, while innovative, raises concerns about potential disassociation from reality among students. This phenomenon, often called "reality confusion" or "virtual reality dissociation," involves several intertwined issues. Students, particularly younger ones, might start blurring the boundaries between real and virtual experiences, which can alter their perception of spatial relationships and interpersonal interactions. This would make it challenging for them to differentiate between what happens in VR and what happens in the real world. In addition to this problem, the immersive nature of VR can also lead to escapism, where students may actually prefer the virtual world as a refuge from real-life challenges, potentially developing an unhealthy reliance on it for satisfaction and achievement. This phenomenon already exists today as children and even adults often prefer to play 2D video games than to interact with the real world. For example, while VR can connect users in virtual spaces, excessive use could potentially isolate them from face-to-face human interactions, affecting their social skills development and leading to social isolation. To mitigate these risks, if they are to implement the use of such technology, educational institutions need a balanced approach to integrating VR into learning. This includes using VR as a supplement – not a replacement – to traditional teaching methods, setting clear guidelines for its use, and ensuring VR sessions are supervised. To further reduce any negative or detrimental effects, teachers would also need to engage students in discussions after using VR to reinforce the distinction between the virtual and real world and integrate these experiences with real-world applications. With all consideration, it seems that the integration of VR into education has more benefits than disadvantages. Will students in the future spend their day wearing Virtual Reality (VR) headsets? If Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg had his way, this may be the reality. Meta said it is bringing its enterprise-level Quest services to the education sector, the social media giant announced on April 15. Meta said Zuckerberg’s company Meta recently promoted this very idea, and according to a CNN article including an interview with Meta’s president of global affairs, “Meta will launch new software for educators that aims to make it easier to use its VR headsets in the classroom. The tools will let teachers manage and program multiple Quest headsets at once, give them access to a range of education-related apps and provide greater oversight and control of how students are using the devices.” CNN article Meta said there are several educational facilities already employing Quest headsets, including a life sciences course at the University of Glasgow that immerses students inside the human body, a criminal justice course at New Mexico State that places users at a virtual crime scene, and a business class at Stanford University that helps prepare students for interviews. For young students, VR technology could assist in artistic creativity, exploring molecules up close, or watching a Shakespearean play in the Globe Theatre in, say, the year 1582. VR can turn learning into an interactive experience. For example, students can take virtual field trips to the moon, historical sites, or deep into the ocean, which makes learning more engaging and memorable. Subjects like science and geography can benefit from VR by allowing students to visually explore the lifecycle of a plant, the water cycle, or even the structure of the earth’s layers. University criminal justice students could use VR to investigate virtual crime scenes or collaborate with students and professors in different geographical locations. Medical students can use VR to perform virtual surgeries, and engineering students can explore the mechanics of a machine in a three-dimensional space. VR simulations can be used to provide practical, hands-on experience in a safe environment. This is useful in disciplines like medicine, chemistry, or physics where real-life training can be risky or expensive. However, the use of VR in education, while innovative, raises concerns about potential disassociation from reality among students. This phenomenon, often called "reality confusion" or "virtual reality dissociation," involves several intertwined issues. Students, particularly younger ones, might start blurring the boundaries between real and virtual experiences, which can alter their perception of spatial relationships and interpersonal interactions. This would make it challenging for them to differentiate between what happens in VR and what happens in the real world. In addition to this problem, the immersive nature of VR can also lead to escapism, where students may actually prefer the virtual world as a refuge from real-life challenges, potentially developing an unhealthy reliance on it for satisfaction and achievement. This phenomenon already exists today as children and even adults often prefer to play 2D video games than to interact with the real world. For example, while VR can connect users in virtual spaces, excessive use could potentially isolate them from face-to-face human interactions, affecting their social skills development and leading to social isolation. To mitigate these risks, if they are to implement the use of such technology, educational institutions need a balanced approach to integrating VR into learning. This includes using VR as a supplement – not a replacement – to traditional teaching methods, setting clear guidelines for its use, and ensuring VR sessions are supervised. To further reduce any negative or detrimental effects, teachers would also need to engage students in discussions after using VR to reinforce the distinction between the virtual and real world and integrate these experiences with real-world applications. With all consideration, it seems that the integration of VR into education has more benefits than disadvantages. has more benefits

Reimagining the Classroom With AI

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear, or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that conflict with your personal values and aspirations. Ignoring the conflict or whatever’s bothering you for too long creates inner turmoil—it makes you react to other people or the things in your environment. You act without thinking. You become a of your thoughts and circumstances. victim Not being in control of your emotions can make you say or do things that you regret later. You may shout at a coworker. Say impolite things to a junior member of your team. Burst into tears when others disagree with you. These emotional outbursts may not only lead to extreme distress; they’re also damaging to your relationships at work. Others can’t see the inner conflict bubbling up inside—they can’t make sense of why you are calm one moment and agitated the next. No doubt they’ll find your reaction inappropriate and unnecessary. What’s done is done. You can’t go back in time and fix your overreaction, but you can certainly build emotional agility—move on with curiosity, courage, and compassion. Emotional agility is not only about keeping your emotions in check and not lashing out your frustrations at others, it’s also about what you do once you react in unintended ways. Here are the 5 practices to prevent strong emotions from overwhelming you, take control of the situation, and do damage control if you do end up acting out in an unhealthy way: Instead of Emotional Avoidance, Lean Toward Emotional Acceptance Hundreds of thoughts will run through your mind after acting in undesirable ways: Everyone will think I am crazy. No one will speak to me. I will not get more opportunities. All these thoughts can consume so much of your time and energy that you can fail to connect with your emotions. You may avoid negative emotions with the hope that they will go away. But avoidance is like a prison. It prevents you from experiencing critical life lessons. You fail to build the skills necessary to deal with discomfort. Every repeated cycle of negative emotions leading to avoidance makes it powerful and weakens your ability to deal with difficult situations. Noam Shpancer, professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders says — “Attempts at avoiding negative emotions are usually futile. Telling yourself that a certain emotion is intolerable or dangerous traps you in constant vigilance regarding the very thing you're trying to avoid. You become hyper-vigilant about any possibility of this feeling arising. The fear of the impending negative experience becomes a negative experience in itself.” This also applies to how you deal with your emotions after losing your calm at work. Instead of confronting your feelings, you may believe that the best way to deal with them is to put them out of your mind. But ignoring or avoiding makes these feelings much harder to overcome while acknowledging them can result in real personal growth. Instead of stifling or pushing them away, what if you learn to accept your emotions? Accepting does not make them true. It just allows your emotions to be what they are without judging them or trying to change them. Seeing the emotion for what it is without attempting to get rid of it shifts you from emotional avoidance towards emotional acceptance. Noam Shpancer calls emotional acceptance a far better strategy than avoidance because accepting, acknowledging, and absorbing them makes you spend less energy in pushing the emotion away, and instead, pursue the behaviors that are aligned with your goals and values. He says “Emotions, when viewed as part of a spectrum of available sources of information, are a bit like the weather report. They are important to know, consider, and understand, but they are not necessarily the overriding factor in your life plans. When the weather is bad (not to your liking), it doesn't mean you have to deny it, focus all your attention on it, or cancel your plans because of it. What you need to do is accept the weather and adjust your plans accordingly.” So, the first step to dealing with an emotional outburst at work is to come in touch with your real emotions—become fully aware of them as they show up. Mindfulness guides us to become more emotionally agile by allowing us to observe the thinker having the thoughts. Simply paying attention brings the self out of the shadows. It creates the space between thought and action that we need to ensure we’re acting with volition, rather than simply out of habit. But mindfulness is more than knowing ‘I’m hearing something’, or being aware ‘I’m seeing something’, or even noticing ‘I’m having a feeling’. It’s about doing all this with balance and equanimity, openness and curiosity, and without judgement. It also allows us to create new, fluid categories. As a result, the mental state of mindfulness lets us see the world through multiple perspectives, and go forward with higher levels of self-acceptance, tolerance and self-kindness. — Susan David Mindfulness will not only help you better manage your emotions after losing your calm; it will enable you to avoid such emotional outbursts in the future—learning to be present in the moment without judgment and observing your feelings without being overwhelmed can create space for better understanding and acceptance of your emotions, making it easier to manage them effectively. Name the Emotion to Tame the Emotion After an emotional outburst, you’re bound to feel some very strong emotions. It’s not enough to acknowledge them. You also need to give words to your feelings. In other words, say to yourself, out loud, what negative emotion you’re experiencing, as you’re experiencing it. For example: I am feeling embarrassed. I am feeling ashamed. I am feeling angry at myself. Simply naming it is going to calm you down. This technique introduced by psychologist Dan Siegel creates a bit of space between you and that emotion. Naming your emotions tends to diffuse their charge and lessen the burden they create. There’s another advantage of naming emotions this way. Matthew Lieberman is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). His research has shown that labeling of negative emotions, also called can help people recover control. His fMRI brain scan research shows that labeling of emotions decreases activity in the brain’s emotional centers, including the amygdala. “affect labeling” And once your amygdala is calm—that part of your brain involved in mode—it gives you the chance to take a step back and come up with a more thoughtful response. “fight-flight-freeze” In the brain, naming an emotion can help calm it. Here is where finding words to label an internal experience becomes really helpful. We can call this “Name it to tame it.” And sometimes these low-road states can go beyond being unpleasant and confusing—they can even make life feel terrifying. If that is going on, talk about it. Your inner sea and your interpersonal relationships will all benefit from naming what is going on and bringing more integration into your life. — Daniel J. Siegel Instead of letting your unconscious brain exaggerate the negative effects of a temporary emotional setback making you feel powerless and helpless, recognizing and naming the emotion can give you a sense of control enabling you to choose a more appropriate response. Don’t Settle for Superficial Reasoning, Dig Deeper Connecting with the emotions and naming them gives you the mental clarity needed to think clearly. When your thinking is not clouded by emotions, you can face the facts of what really happened—what caused you to behave this way. By understanding what caused you to lose your calm, you can do better damage control and can also prevent it from happening again. Engaging in deep self-reflection can help you uncover the real reason behind your outburst as opposed to what initially appeared to have triggered it: What situation were you in when you had an emotional outburst? What about the situation you did not like—was it something someone said or did, was it the way you were treated, were you denied something that was important to you, were your beliefs and values challenged in some way? Was it the first time you felt this way or has it happened before? What did you say to yourself at that moment? What caused you to finally lose your calm—dig deeper into the real reason and not what appears to be the issue at first. For example: You may snap at a coworker after your manager tells you that you have been passed up for a promotion. You may yell at an intern after a recent conflict with a coworker who blamed you for delaying the project. In these situations, what you’re experiencing is unhandled frustration which leads to psychological displacement, a term coined by Sigmund Freud which is an unconscious defense mechanism in which your mind substitutes a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable. It operates in the mind unconsciously with transference of emotions, ideas, and wishes in the face of aggressive impulses. By ignoring whatever annoys you about work, you let the inner conflict bubble up inside. The stress and anxiety that comes from unhandled frustrations can cause you to overreact. Amy Arnsten, an American neuroscientist explains how stress can impair judgment “The release of high levels of catecholamines during uncontrollable stress rapidly switches the brain from a thoughtful, reflective state to a more unconscious, reflexive state. This may save our lives when we are in danger, but it is often unhelpful when we need top-down control to properly guide our actions and decisions.” Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves. — Ronald Heifetz By understanding your triggers, you can prevent your autopilot mode from kicking off destructive behaviors and instead deliberately engage in constructive actions. Instead of Berating Yourself, Engage in Self-Kindness An emotional reaction that you’re not proud of can turn you into a self-critic. You may think that being harsh and mean to yourself will set you right, but engaging in self-criticism at such moments is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Self-criticism involves a harsh and judgmental internal dialogue in response to perceived failures, mistakes, or shortcomings. It often includes negative self-talk, self-blame, and self-condemnation. Having a rigid and unforgiving attitude towards yourself can make you feel shameful, guilty, and inadequate. It can lead to increased stress, anxiety, diminished sense of self-worth, and a cycle of negativity that undermines self-confidence and well-being. Instead of engaging in self-criticism after an emotional outburst, try being self-compassionate. Self-compassion involves responding to yourself with kindness, understanding, and acceptance when faced with difficulties or when you fall short of your own expectations. Self-compassionate people take a more balanced and realistic view of their imperfections which fosters a sense of worthiness and self-acceptance. They understand that everyone makes mistakes; it is a natural part of being human. The biggest misconception about self-compassion is that it can undermine your motivation to push yourself to do better; being warm and kinder to yourself will make you lazy. Quite the opposite. Self-compassion is strongly associated with emotional resilience. Self-compassion does not mean avoiding responsibility for your actions or ignoring areas in which you need to improve. Instead, self-compassion involves approaching yourself with kindness and understanding, even when you make mistakes or face difficulties thereby fostering a healthier and more positive relationship with yourself. shows that being compassionate to oneself builds emotional resilience and psychological well-being. People who are self-compassionate: Research Have lower levels of depression and anxiety. Less likely to ruminate on negative thoughts and emotions or suppress them. Show increased optimism. Are able to take personal initiative. Involved with more positive emotions like kindness, happiness, and connectedness. For example, after an emotional outburst: Instead of: I can't believe I messed up. I'm so stupid. Say: It's okay to make mistakes; everyone does. I can be kind to myself and learn from this experience. The truth is this: sometimes we display good qualities and sometimes bad. Sometimes we act in helpful, productive ways and sometimes in harmful, maladaptive ways. But we are not defined by these qualities or behaviors. We are a verb not a noun, a process rather than a fixed “thing.” Our actions change—mercurial beings that we are—according to time, circumstance, mood, setting. — Kristin Neff Don’t Just Apologize; Own Your Reaction Finally, you have to face the people who experienced your emotional outburst. You can’t ignore them or pretend as if nothing happened. You may try to put the reaction behind you and just go on with your day with the assumption that everyone will forget about it, and things will get better on their own. But, not owning how you behaved makes things awkward for others. They may feel uncomfortable around you and hesitate to approach you or avoid communicating with you altogether. Not communicating what led to an emotional outburst has another problem—when others don’t know what made you lose your calm, they’re free to create their own version and treat it as a source of truth. She’s moody. She’s completely unpredictable. She is rude and mean. To avoid being labeled after an emotional outburst, own your reaction. To do this: Don’t just apologize, talk about what led to overreaction. When it’s something that you can’t talk about openly, share a general description e.g., personal issue, conflict at work, lack of understanding, etc. Doing this will help others see that you’re just another human with flaws and imperfections. Reassure them that you’ll do your best to avoid emotional drama and have productive conversations. Reassurance goes a long way in rebuilding broken trust. If it happened due to a problem that can be discussed with them, seek out their advice on what must change to prevent it from happening to you or others again. Bringing others into the equation shows them that no one is immune to such outbursts. For example: Instead of: I am sorry that I lost my temper yesterday and yelled in front of the team. Say: I am sorry for how I reacted yesterday. I reflected on my behavior later during the day and realized that even though I was angry due to a recent conflict at work, I shouldn’t have lashed out my frustration at you. My behavior was completely unjustified and I promise not to engage in such unproductive expressions. I hope we can move on and can continue collaborating together. Strength is about how you show up. It requires you to choose what energy and action you want to bring to a given situation. At its heart, Strength is about self-management. It’s not about controlling your emotions—it’s about honoring them and choosing what you do next. — Darcy Luoma Summary Negative emotions at work can sometimes be so intense that they take away your ability to think clearly. Emotional fog can make you lose your calm and respond to others in unproductive ways. Hiding away or trying to avoid facing the reality of what happened will not fix the problem; it will only make it worse. Instead of avoiding the emotions after an emotional outburst, come in touch with your real feelings. Acknowledge them without judging them or trying to change them. Next, describe exactly how you’re feeling by naming the emotion. This practice will calm you down and give you an opportunity to take a step back and think clearly. With a clear head, you’ll be better positioned to reflect on your behavior and identify the root cause of your emotional outburst and what really triggered it. Criticizing yourself for your overreaction is a bad strategy. Instead of fixing the situation, it will keep you locked in a cycle of negative thinking. Practice self-compassion in such moments by giving yourself warmth, kindness, and empathy. Finally, own your mistake. Showing you aren’t perfect and vulnerable much like other human beings will bring you closer to others and strengthen your relationships at work. This story was previously published . Follow me on or here for more stories. here LinkedIn

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Hey there. Scott here. Today, let's rip apart some lazy clichés about success (one of my favorite things to do). You know the drill: "Find a mentor." "Surround yourself with the right people." Blah, blah, blah. There's this whole industry built on pimping out "gurus" promising secret keys to the magic kingdom. You'll pay some six-figure mastermind fee to sip bad coffee while some pay-to-speak “thought leader” on stage feeds you recycled platitudes. Here's the newsflash nobody wants to tell you: The fastest way to master something is to TEACH it. You think mentors got to where they are by sitting on their butts waiting for handouts? Hell no. They learned in the trenches, by DOING. They made mistakes, learned from them, and figured out how to do it better next time. Real wisdom isn't downloaded – it's forged in the fire. Teach it to Keep It Let's talk about brain science for a second. There's this thing called the "protégé effect." Turns out, when you EXPECT to teach something, you learn it on a deeper level. Why? Because it forces you to organize your thoughts, spot holes in your understanding, and break things down in a way that makes sense to someone else. You think those business influencers got all their knowledge overnight? Nope. They started out fumbling their way through, probably screwing things up just as much as the rest of us. But somewhere along the way, someone asked them a question, or they started explaining their process, started explaining all the things they figured out by doing…and BOOM. Lightbulb moment. Think about it – have you ever truly understood a concept until you had to explain it to a total newbie? Suddenly, all that fuzzy thinking goes out the window. You have to crystallize that stuff. That’s where the magic happens. The Ultimate Hack: Don't Seek, BE You want a mentor? Flip the script and become one. Find someone a few steps behind you on the path. Offer to help them out. You don't need to be the ultimate expert – just further along than they are. Here's the crazy thing: in the process of mentoring, YOU'LL level up faster than you could have imagined. Suddenly, you're revisiting stuff you thought you knew, only to see it with a whole new perspective. Your mentee asks questions you never thought of, forcing you back to fundamentals. Boom, lightbulb moments all over again. This isn't about charity. It’s pure, calculated selfishness (while simultaneously helping out someone else). "But Scott, I Have Nothing to Teach!" This is the #1 excuse I hear every time. I call BS. Every single one of you has something valuable to share. The trick is that it might not be what you think. Maybe you just: Figured out this crazy productivity hack for squeezing an extra hour into your day. Took your dog through basic training without losing your mind. Mastered a killer 20-minute bodyweight workout. Found a budgeting app that finally stopped you from blowing all your cash every weekend Think that stuff's too basic? Wrong. For someone struggling with those things, your 'basic' skill is worth its weight in gold. Your secret is the starting point someone else is craving. What makes you valuable as a mentor isn't just knowledge, it's relatability. When a 'guru' is on some pedestal, that creates distance. People are afraid to ask the "dumb" questions. however, were just in those beginner shoes. You remember the suck, the confusion, the "why the hell can't I get this" vibes. That makes you approachable. You, The Overflow Effect Here's the part no one tells you about 'pouring into others': it creates this crazy energy loop that comes back to you tenfold. Think about it like this: Every time you invest in helping someone else, you: Solidify your own understanding. Build confidence like a damn muscle. Gain clarity about your own path. Open doors to unexpected opportunities. Form valuable connections with people motivated to grow. Remember the old rule, "Give without expectation of return?" Guess what – the universe isn’t stupid. Your generosity creates this abundance mindset shift. New insights start rolling in. You notice solutions to problems you were stuck on. That side project you had on the back burner suddenly starts picking up steam. Call it karma, call it energetics, whatever. Helping others unlocks something that directly fuels your own success. From Talk to Action Enough philosophizing. You're a doer, right? Okay then, here's your homework. This is how you (start) to be a mentor, build a mentoring loop, and start helping others, while simultaneously, helping yourself. Don't try to be all things to all people. What specific skillset or knowledge have you been geeking out over lately? That's your jam. Don't overthink it – just pick something you genuinely enjoy talking about and feel you can provide a little guidance on. Niche Down: We're not going straight for paid mentoring here. Start small. Could you offer: Low-stakes offers: A 30-minute Q&A session in a relevant Facebook group? A mini-training video on a single, super-specific topic? A one-page PDF cheat sheet that breaks down a complex process? Zoom Office hours every Friday afternoon? Pull people in from LinkedIn. Social media, baby. Tell your network you're open to helping a handful of folks with [your niche topic]. Let your enthusiasm for the subject shine through – that's how you attract like-minded people. Don't worry about looking fancy. People connect with real. Put it out there: Overcoming Your Inner Critic Guess what? Your brain's gonna freak out. Imposter syndrome will throw up roadblocks. You'll hear whispers like: "Who the hell am I to teach this?" "Everyone else knows this stuff already." "What if I give bad advice and look like an idiot?" Here's how you fight back: Flip it: That fresh perspective is gold. "Who am I to teach this?" I'm the perfect person to teach this because I just figured it out myself. Nope. They don't. That's your ego talking. Everyone starts somewhere. Don't underestimate the value of a "beginner's mind." "Everyone else knows this stuff." Dude, relax. No one expects perfection. Focus on being helpful, sincere, and open to learning your mentees. That humility builds trust like nothing else. "Bad advice = idiot" alongside This Is YOUR Learning Lab The beauty of starting small is it takes pressure off. This isn't some permanent contract you're locked into. You're dipping your toes, testing the waters, and evolving right along with the folks you're helping. Don't worry about having all the answers right this second. Be transparent about your journey. People love rooting for the underdog. Your scrappiness and genuine desire to help are your winning qualities. Now you’re wondering, ok - I’ll do it… but I’ve never done this before. No problem, here’s how to start. First Interactions: Set the Stage Your goal isn't to be some all-knowing sage. No, you're the supportive guide on the side – here to provide helpful signposts and cheer your mentees on. With that in mind, here's how to kick things off on the right foot: – Ditch the generic "What do you need help with?" That’s too damn open-ended, especially for newbies who likely don't know where to start. Instead, dive into the specifics: Ask Powerful Questions "What's your biggest pain point with [your niche] right now?" "What's one small win you'd love to achieve by the end of this week?" "What part of this process feels the most overwhelming/confusing?" These force focus and get them thinking strategically rather than flailing around in overwhelmed. – Beginners get obsessed with end results. They want to hit some arbitrary number or get that dream outcome NOW. Your job is to bring them back to Earth: Instead of: "How do I make $10k a month?" ask "What's one concrete thing you can do to move closer to that goal?" Focus on Actions, Not Outcomes today This creates manageable momentum and prevents paralysis. Progress is your real measure. – Let's get real: a lot of people are addicted to the struggle. Watch out for red flags like, "I don't have time," "This won't work for me," and "I've tried all that before." Your job is to call gentle BS. Don't be mean, but be firm: Challenge Excuses "If you found just 15 minutes a day, what could you chip away at?" "Great! What makes your situation different?" "That might be true, what could you try instead? else Don't let them off the hook with their self-limiting story. You're here to crack open possibility, not coddle comfort zones. Beware of Scope Creep Early on, set clear boundaries. Are you offering a one-time Q&A? Ongoing email support? Be specific about what's included and what's not. Your time is valuable. Generosity doesn't mean martyrdom. Also, beware of those who confuse freebie mentoring with therapy. Your job isn't to fix their entire life. Keep steering things back to specific action within your area of expertise. Celebrate Every Damn Win This is HUGE. Most folks spend an unhealthy amount of time fixating on what they accomplished. Flip the script. When they share even the smallest victory, go BIG – shout their praises, share their wins, and give 'em virtual high fives. haven't This wires their brain for success more than anything else you could do. You Are the Ultimate Beneficiary It sounds counterintuitive, right? Shouldn't your focus be on value? That's part of it, but here's where the secret kicks in – mentoring unlocks hidden growth avenues for YOU in ways you don't expect. giving Your mentees won't hold back. They'll tell you which explanations landed brilliantly, and which instructions left them scratching their heads. This kind of direct critique is pure gold for honing your communication skills and pinpointing gaps in your understanding. Feedback Loop from Hell: Remember those "dumb" questions that used to plague you? They make you a better innovator. Every time you're stumped by a newbie's inquiry, you must flex your creative problem-solving muscles to find new ways to explain complex concepts. Forced Innovation: Turns out, having someone count on you is damn motivating. When you promise a mentee you'll tackle a certain topic or show them how to do something, welp, now you gotta walk the walk. No hiding behind lazy procrastination anymore. Accountability on Tap: The universe works in mysterious ways. When you throw out generous energy, those ripples come back multiplied. Maybe a mentee connects you with someone who solves a key problem for your business. Maybe that blog post you cranked out to explain a topic suddenly leads to paid collaboration offers. Unexpected Opportunities: This is pure social dynamics. By actively being the leader, the teacher, and the one with (even a little) more experience, you naturally step into a different social role. People begin to look at you differently. Their belief in fuels belief in yourself. Leveling-Up by Association: you Don't Just Mentor, Find Your OWN Mentors Now, here's the twist: even as you become a rockstar mentor to others, don't think you've outgrown being mentored yourself. Always seek out people a few rungs further up the ladder than you. The game never really ends. Look for people who: Embody the results you want to create. Share your values and energy. Have different skills or areas of expertise than your own. It's tempting to only get involved with the most famous, "successful" folks. Sometimes, the greatest mentoring relationships blossom with someone not that far ahead of you – they still remember the challenges vividly. A Call to Arms Listen, I won't sugarcoat this. Stepping into the mentor role ain't always easy. It requires commitment, vulnerability, and the willingness to confront your own BS alongside those you help. But you know what's harder? Staying stuck in the eternal student loop. Spinning your wheels, forever waiting for that perfect course, magic guru, or secret roadmap to fall from the sky. Here's the truth: the knowledge you need is already inside you. All that's needed is unlocking it. By sharing your journey, embracing the messiness of learning, and pouring into others, you create this unstoppable flow that benefits everyone involved. The world is starving for real. People are sick of the overpolished, "I've got it all figured out" BS. What they crave is someone willing to admit they don't have all the answers and figure things out alongside them. That's where you come in. Your imperfections are your biggest assets. Your willingness to show up, share your wins and losses, and lift others up as you rise – that's what makes a true difference. So, my challenge to you is simple: Pick THAT ONE THING you're most excited about right now, and start talking about it. Find those one or two people who could use your support, and offer a helping hand. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Mess up. Admit what you don't know. Learn out loud. This is what creates that overflow effect. This is how you tap into something you haven't even fully glimpsed yet. The Anti-Guru Movement This isn't just about self-growth. It's bigger than that. It's about flipping the script on the entire model of success. Imagine a world where knowledge flows freely, where collaboration wins over competition, and where anyone with drive and curiosity can find the support they need to rise. We're the ones who have to create that world. We're the anti-gurus, the knowledge rebels, the ones who pave the way for something bolder, better, and far more sustainable. So go forth, my friends. Teach. Share. Connect. Lift as you climb. The best form of knowledge seeking is knowledge creation – so unleash that inner wisdom you don't even realize have, and watch the magic unfold. That's a wrap, folks! I hope this ignites some fires. I'd love to hear what you think. Have a great weekend! Scott Also published here

The Anti-Guru Movement: Reconsider What Mentorship Is All About

Older and Younger Adults Are Influenced Differently by Dark Pattern Designs: Conclusion & References

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 98 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT LIII: UNFAIR ACTS OR PRACTICES BY META IN VIOLATION OF THE WASHINGTON CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT, WASH. REV. CODE § 19.86.020 1163. Washington realleges and incorporates herein by reference each of the allegations contained in the preceding paragraph 1 through 850 as though fully alleged in this cause of action. 1164. Meta engaged in unfair acts or practices affecting Washington consumers, including young users, parents of young users, and Meta advertisers, and in violation of Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.020 by (a) encouraging or facilitating young users’ and children’s compulsive and unhealthy use of and addiction to Meta’s Social Media Platforms; (b) downplaying, minimizing, denying, or otherwise ignoring instances of harm suffered by young users and children on Meta’s Social Media Platforms; (c) downplaying, minimizing, denying, or otherwise ignoring the association between harms and the use of Meta’s Social Media Platforms by young users and children; (d) targeting its Social Media Platforms to young users and children while designing its Social Media Platforms to include features psychologically and physically harmful to young users and children—including Meta-designed and -deployed features known to promote compulsive, prolonged, and unhealthy use; (e) adopting design choices that have the capacity to harm young users, including infinite scroll, ephemeral content features, autoplay, and disruptive alerts; (f) designing, developing, and/or deploying disruptive audiovisual and vibration notifications and alerts and ephemeral features to induce young users and children to spend more time using the Social Media Platforms; and (g) algorithmically exploiting “variable reinforcement schedules,” inducing young users and children to over-engage with Meta’s products. 1165. Meta’s conduct as described herein occurred in trade or commerce within the meaning of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.010(2), directly or indirectly affecting the people of the State of Washington. 1166. Meta’s unfair acts or practices affected the public interest in that they impacted numerous Washington consumers and other consumers. 1167. Meta’s unfair acts or practices are likely to continue without relief from this Court. 1168. Based on the above unfair acts or practices, the State of Washington is entitled to relief under the Washington Consumer Protection Act including injunctive relief and restitution pursuant to Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.080, civil penalties pursuant to Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.140 for each and every violation of Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.020, and reimbursement of the costs of this action, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, pursuant to Wash. Rev. Code. § 19.86.080. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com Lead image by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash

Washington Pursues Meta for Violating Consumer Protection Act

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 95 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT L: VIOLATION OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES ACT, S.C. CODE ANN. SECTION 39-5-10 et seq. 1141. The State of South Carolina realleges and reaffirms each and every allegation set forth in all preceding paragraphs as if fully restated in this section. 1142. The State of South Carolina brings this claim under the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act (SCUTPA), asserting a claim under sections 39-5-50 and 39-5-110 of the South Carolina Code. 1143. Section 39-5-10 et seq. of the South Carolina Code prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce. 1144. Meta’s acts and practices as described in this Complaint constitute “trade” or “commerce” within the meaning of SCUTPA. 1145. Meta engaged in unfair and/or deceptive acts or practices within the meaning of Section 39-5-20 of the South Carolina Code through, inter alia, acts and omissions that caused young users’ compulsive and unhealthy use of and addiction to Meta’s Social Media Platforms. 1146. Meta’s misrepresentations are deceptive because they have the capacity to mislead a substantial number of consumers. 1147. An act or practice may be unfair if it offends public policy; is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unconscionable, or causes injury to consumers. Meta’s acts or practices as alleged in this Complaint are unfair. 1148. Meta’s unfair and deceptive conduct related to addicting young users to its Platforms affects the public interest. Moreover, Meta’s acts or practices regarding South Carolina as alleged herein are capable of repetition. 1149. Meta knew or reasonably should have known that its conduct violated SCUTPA and therefore is willful for the purposes of section 39-5-110 of the South Carolina Code, justifying civil penalties. 1150. The State of South Carolina seeks all remedies available under SCUTPA including, without limitation, the following: a. Injunctive and other equitable relief pursuant to section 39-5-50(a) of the South Carolina Code; b. Restoration of all ascertainable losses under section 39-5-50(b) of the South Carolina Code to any person or entity who suffered them as a result of Meta’s conduct; c. Civil penalties in an amount up to $5,000.00 per violation with every unfair or deceptive act or practice by Meta constituting a separate and distinct violation; and d. Costs and attorneys’ fees pursuant to section 1-7-85 of the South Carolina Code. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com

South Carolina Takes Legal Action Against Meta for Unfair Trade Practices

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 94 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT XLIX: VIOLATIONS OF RHODE ISLAND DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES ACT, R.I. GEN. L. §§ 6-13.1-1 TO 6-13.1-10 1133. The State of Rhode Island incorporates and realleges each of the paragraphs 1 through 850 as if fully set forth herein. 1134. The Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practices Act (RI DTPA) makes unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce unlawful. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-2. 1135. The RI DTPA defines “unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive acts or practices” as, among other things, “conduct that . . . creates a likelihood of confusion or of misunderstanding,” “any other methods, acts, or practices that mislead or deceive members of the public in a material respect,” and “any act or practice that is unfair or deceptive to the consumer.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xii), (xiv), (xiii). 1136. Any person, firm, or corporation who violates the RI DTPA is liable for a civil penalty up to $10,000 for each violation. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-8. 1137. Meta’s acts or practices enumerated in the foregoing paragraphs have been in the conduct of trade or commerce, directly or indirectly, in Rhode Island. 1138. As alleged herein, Meta made representations including that Meta’s Social Media Platforms are not designed to harm young users or to induce compulsive use, that Meta’s Social Media Platforms are less addictive than they actually are, that the incidence of negative user experiences was lower than it actually was, that Meta was not prioritizing profit maximization over young users’ well-being when it was, that Meta effectively excluded under-13 users when its safeguards were insufficient, that Meta complied with federal laws and regulations related to the exclusion of under-13 users when it did not, and that Meta did not collect user data for the purpose of causing addiction to its Social Media Platforms when it had such a purpose. These representations constitute conduct that creates a likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding and that deceive and mislead members of the public regarding Meta’s Social Media Platforms. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xii), (xiii), (xiv). 1139. Similarly, as alleged herein, Meta is engaging in unfair acts to consumers, including implementing psychologically manipulative, engagement-inducing features that harm consumers and targeting young users despite knowing their specific vulnerability to compulsive and unhealthy platform use. These unfair acts constitute conduct that is especially unfair to younger users. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xiii). 1140. Meta’s acts or practices, both past and continuing, are immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and substantially injurious to Rhode Island consumers. Pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-2 and § 6-13.1-5, the acts, practices, representations, and omissions of Meta described herein are unlawful, violate the prohibition against unfair or deceptive acts or practices found in RI DTPA, and restraint of these practices is in the public interest. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com Lead image by Dima Solomin on Unsplash

Meta Accused of Violating Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practices Act

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 91 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT XLVI: VIOLATIONS OF OREGON’S UTPA, O.R.S. § 646.608(1)(t) 1116. The State of Oregon, ex rel. Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, incorporates and realleges each of the paragraphs 1 through 850 and Counts XLIV and XLV as if fully set forth herein. 1117. Meta, acting in the course of its businesses, vocations, or occupations, violated O.R.S. § 646.608(1)(t) when Meta failed to disclose concurrent with tender or delivery of Meta’s Social Media Platforms known material defects and material nonconformities resulting in young users’ compulsive and unhealthy use of and addiction to Meta’s Social Media Platforms. 1118. Meta’s violations of the UTPA set forth herein were willful because Meta knew or should have known that its conduct violated the UTPA. 1119. Pursuant to O.R.S. §§ 646.632, 646.636, and 646.642, the State of Oregon seeks a permanent injunction against Meta; restitution for consumers; civil penalties up to $25,000 per willful violation; and costs, reasonable expenses, and attorneys’ fees. 1120. Meta and each Defendant was served with a notice in writing that identified the alleged unlawful conduct and the relief the State would seek. Neither Meta nor any Defendant executed and delivered a satisfactory assurance of voluntary compliance as provided in O.R.S. § 646.632(2). Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com

Oregon Pursues Legal Action Against Meta Over Alleged UTPA Violations

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In the world of system design, one of the most critical attributes that most architects aim to achieve is availability. Availability refers to the ability of a system to remain operational and accessible to users even in the face of various failures, disruptions, and maintenance activities. Ensuring high availability is paramount, as it directly affects the user experience and business continuity. This blog post will explore key strategies and considerations for achieving exceptional availability in real systems. Redundancy & Fault Tolerance is a fundamental concept in system design to ensure availability. Redundancy involves having backup components or systems in place to take over in case of failure. This redundancy can be applied to various parts of a system, such as servers, databases, network connections, or power supplies. The idea is that if a critical component fails, the redundant one can seamlessly take over, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous service. Redundancy For example, in a web server cluster, multiple servers can serve the same application, and if one server fails, user requests can be automatically routed to another functioning server. Similarly, in data storage, data can be replicated across multiple servers or data centers to ensure data availability even in the event of hardware failures. : Employing multiple servers for the same service, often in a load-balanced configuration, ensures that even if one server fails, the others can handle the incoming traffic. Server Redundancy : Data is a critical asset. Storing it redundantly, often in multiple data centers or regions, helps prevent data loss due to hardware failures, disasters, or other unforeseen events. Data Redundancy complements redundancy by enabling a system to continue operating even when components fail. Strategies for fault tolerance include: Fault Tolerance : Systems can be designed to detect issues and automatically recover. For instance, if a service within a cluster crashes, an orchestrator can detect the failure and automatically restart the service on a healthy server. This proactive approach to system management reduces the need for manual intervention and minimizes downtime. Self-healing Systems : If a system can’t function at full capacity, it should degrade gracefully, providing some level of service instead of a complete outage. For instance, if a video streaming service experiences issues, it might lower the video quality rather than abruptly cutting off the stream, allowing users to continue their viewing experience. Graceful Degradation Failover Mechanisms Failover mechanisms are designed to ensure that the system can automatically switch to a redundant or standby system when the primary system encounters a failure. Failover mechanisms are, at their core, all about ensuring that when something goes wrong, the system can switch seamlessly to an alternate, redundant, or standby system. The process of failover typically involves: : Continuous monitoring of the health and performance of critical components, services, or resources in the system. Anomalies, such as server unresponsiveness, high error rates, or resource exhaustion, are promptly detected. Health Monitoring : When the monitoring system detects a critical issue or anomaly in the primary system, it automatically triggers the failover process. This process should be as swift and seamless as possible, often involving minimal human intervention. Automatic Triggering : In a failover scenario, standby or redundant systems are promoted to take over the duties of the failing or failed primary system. This is particularly common in scenarios involving database clusters, where a standby database server can swiftly assume the primary role. Promotion of Standby Systems For example, we can consider two common types of failure: Database and Service failover. Database Failover Database clusters are prime candidates for failover mechanisms. Databases hold critical data, and downtime or data loss can have severe consequences. Implementing automatic database failover minimizes these risks: : In a database cluster, if the primary database server encounters a failure, an automatic failover mechanism promotes one of the standby servers to assume the role of the primary. This ensures that the application can continue to operate with minimal disruption, often with minimal or no data loss. Automatic Role Promotion : To enable this smooth transition, data replication is crucial. The standby servers must be continuously synchronized with the primary to ensure they have the most up-to-date data. This can involve various replication methods, such as synchronous or asynchronous replication. Data Replication Service Failover Failover mechanisms are not limited to databases; they extend to services as well. Services should be designed to handle failover gracefully, and load balancers often play a crucial role in this: : Load balancers are the traffic directors of a system. They continually monitor the health of service instances and distribute incoming requests among them. If a service instance becomes unhealthy or unresponsive, the load balancer can automatically divert traffic to healthy instances, ensuring that users experience minimal disruption and downtime. Load Balancers Reliable Cross-System Communication Reliable cross-system communication is essential to maintain high availability. Systems are often composed of multiple components that need to exchange data and messages. This communication must be designed to be resilient and fault-tolerant. To achieve reliable cross-system communication, engineers can implement practices such as message queuing, circuit breakers, and protocol-level retries. These mechanisms help ensure that data is not lost and that services can continue to function even when parts of the system experience temporary disruptions. In a distributed architecture where services are often loosely coupled and may be scattered across different networks or even geographical locations, the communication fabric binding them together must be robust and fault-tolerant. There are multiple strategies to maintain reliable cross-system communication as follows: Message Queue One of the most effective patterns for ensuring reliable communication is the use of . Message queues act as intermediaries between service producers and consumers, providing a buffer that decouples the services. message queues : Message queues can guarantee the delivery of messages even when the consumer is down or busy. This is achieved by storing messages until the consumer can process them, ensuring no message is lost. Guaranteed Delivery : They help in load leveling by absorbing sudden spikes in requests that the consumer might not be able to handle all at once. Load Leveling : Some message queues can also ensure that messages are processed in the order they were sent, which is critical for certain applications. Ordering and Sequencing Circuit Breakers A is another pattern that is particularly useful in preventing system failures from cascading. It works similarly to an electrical circuit breaker: circuit breaker : When the system detects that a particular service is failing to handle requests, the circuit breaker trips. Failure Detection : The tripping of the circuit breaker prevents further requests from reaching the failing service, allowing it to recover and preventing the failure from affecting other services. Service Isolation : After a cool-down period, the circuit breaker allows a limited number of test requests to pass through to the service. If these are handled successfully, the circuit breaker resets, and normal operation resumes. Gradual Recovery Protocol-Level Retries Retries can be implemented at the protocol level to enhance the resilience of communication: : Rather than blindly retrying failed operations, intelligent retry mechanisms can assess the nature of the failure. If the failure is likely transient, such as a temporary network glitch, the system can retry the request. Intelligent Retries : To prevent overloading the system with repeated retries, a backoff strategy can be implemented. This typically involves waiting longer and longer between each retry, giving the system some breathing room to recover. Backoff Strategies Service Rate Limiting To further ensure system stability, is a must-have: Service rate limiting : Rate limiting ensures that no single consumer can monopolize the service resources, enforcing fair usage across all consumers. Fair Usage : By limiting the number of requests a service can handle, it helps to maintain a predictable quality of service even when demand is high. Maintaining Quality of Service : Rate limiting can also protect against abuse or attacks, such as Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. Preventing Abuse Maintenance Without Downtime Maintenance is an inevitable part of managing systems. However, downtime during maintenance can be detrimental to user experience and business operations. Achieving high availability demands that engineers implement strategies that allow them to perform maintenance tasks without causing disruptions. Here, we’ll explore some of these techniques: Blue-Green Deployment — Traffic Switching Blue-green deployment is a strategy where you maintain two identical environments: one is the “blue” environment (the current production version), and the other is the “green” environment (the new version). This approach facilitates seamless updates: : Blue and green environments are kept isolated and run independently. The blue environment serves live traffic, while the green environment is used for testing and updates. Isolation of Environments : To perform an update, you switch traffic from the blue environment to the green environment. This transition can be almost instantaneous, ensuring minimal or no downtime. Zero-Downtime Switch : Updates are first rolled out to the green environment, where they are thoroughly tested. Any issues can be addressed before directing live traffic to the green environment. Testing and Validation : If issues arise after the switch, reverting to the blue environment is quick and straightforward. Quick Rollback Canary Releases — Gradual Testing Canary releases are a cautious approach to updates, where you roll out new versions to a small subset of users or a limited portion of your infrastructure. This enables you to monitor and validate the changes gradually: : Initially, the new version is released to a small, carefully selected group of users or a subset of the system. Initial Release : During this phase, closely monitor the performance and gather user feedback. Look for any issues or unexpected behavior. Monitoring and Feedback : If the new version performs well, gradually expand its release to a larger user base or more components. Continue monitoring and collecting feedback. Gradual Expansion : Once you’re confident in the update’s stability and performance, proceed with a full rollout. Full Rollout : Canary releases allow for the containment of potential issues to a limited audience, reducing the impact of problems and providing an opportunity to address them before wider deployment. Safety Measures Defining and Measuring Availability Service Level Agreements (SLA), Service Level Indicators (SLI), and Service Level Objectives (SLO) are essential components of a robust availability strategy. These terms are used to define, measure, and guarantee the availability of a system. Service Level Agreements (SLA) An SLA is essentially a contract between a service provider and the end-user that lays out the terms of service delivery. It’s the promise of availability and performance that a service provider makes to its customers. : SLAs often define the expected availability in terms of uptime, typically expressed as a percentage (e.g., 99.9% uptime). Uptime Guarantees : It also details the repercussions of failing to meet these standards, which could include compensations or service credits. Downtime Concessions : SLAs cover various aspects of the service, from support response times to maintenance windows, providing a comprehensive view of what the users can expect. Scope of Service Service Level Indicators (SLI) SLIs are the measurable values that indicate the level of service being provided. They are the metrics through which the health and performance of a service can be assessed. : This SLI measures how quickly the system responds to requests. It’s critical because even if a service is up, slow responses can be as bad as outages. Response Times : This is a measure of the rate at which service requests fail. These can be full outages or partial degradation of service. Error Rates : This metric tracks the actual performance of the service against the SLA’s uptime commitment. Uptime/Downtime Service Level Objectives (SLO) SLOs are specific targets set by service providers, based on SLIs, for the level of service they aim to provide. They represent the goals that the service provider is striving to achieve. : SLOs provide tangible targets, such as “the service will be available 99.95% over 30 days.” Quantifiable Targets : They serve as benchmarks to determine whether the service is living up to the expectations set in the SLA. Benchmarks for Success : SLOs also help in identifying areas where the service needs improvement. If an SLO is consistently not being met, it’s a clear sign that some aspect of the system needs attention. Focus for Improvement In essence, SLA, SLI, and SLO are not just acronyms; they are the cornerstone of a trust relationship between service providers and users. They form the basis of a strategic approach to achieving and maintaining the high availability that is critical in today’s digital landscape. Together, they provide a clear path for ensuring that services remain reliable, available, and performant, thereby creating a better experience for the user and a more manageable and predictable environment for the service provider. Conclusion In conclusion, designing for availability is a multifaceted task that involves redundancy, failover mechanisms, reliable cross-system communication, maintenance strategies, and robust SLAs, SLIs, and SLOs. Ensuring high availability is crucial for businesses and services in today’s digital world, and a well-designed system that prioritizes availability can lead to better user experiences, increased revenue, and improved overall reliability. Also appears . here

Designing Your System for Availability 

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