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Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . WATER AS A THERAPEUTICAL AGENT. here WATER AS A THERAPEUTICAL AGENT. By F.C. Robinson, M.D. My experience in the use of water in almost every disease occurring in this climate has long since satisfied me that it is less objectionable and produces quicker and better results than any other treatment, and can be used when all other medication is contra-indicated. Drinking water should be pure, uncontaminated by animal or vegetable impurities, and given , unless, in rare instances, it should cause vomiting or interfere with the capability of digesting food. If children are comatose or delirious, as they frequently are in typhoid fever, give water to them regularly, or force it upon them, if they refuse to take it, as I was obliged to do with a child of six years just recovering from that fever. ad libitum It is my custom to allow cold drinks of water in all cases of measles whenever patients desire it, and I am satisfied that it aids the early appearance of the rash, and certainly is cooling and grateful to the patient. Hot drinks or vile and nauseous teas are unnecessary in this disease, and should be discarded as useless, odious, and disgusting. If congestion of the lungs or any intercurrent inflammation occurs, or the rash is much delayed, a hot water bath or the old reliable corn sweat will break up the complication with amazing rapidity, and if the head is kept cool, will not generally be unacceptable to the patient. Hot baths reduce temperature by causing free perspiration afterward, and cold packs reduce it by cooling the surface sufficiently long to reduce the heat of the blood, and, if used judiciously, seldom fail of success. I have reduced the temperature four degrees in two hours by wrapping around a child a sheet wet with tepid water, and no other covering. Cold packs are sometimes objectionable, because of their depressing effects, and should only be used to reduce high temperature and when there is no congestion or inflammation of any of the vital organs of the body. Cold water poured in a small stream from a pitcher upon the head for five or ten minutes will often relieve headache, and is a benefit in all inflammatory brain diseases, if, at the same time, you can put the feet into hot water containing mustard or pepper. Large enemas of warm water will care for spasmodic colic, and I have, in one instance, relieved strangulated hernia by the same method, and at another time the same result was accomplished by a large injection of warm linseed oil. I have often applied a cloth wet with cold water upon the throats of children suffering with spasmodic croup, with satisfactory results. I have seen infants suffering with diarrhea or summer complaint, sleepless, worrying, fretting, or crying from thirst, begging for water, and the mother or nurse afraid to give it more than a teaspoonful or two at a time, saying that it vomited everything it drank as soon as taken. I have often, when visiting such cases, called for a glass of cold water, and, to the surprise of the mother, would allow it to take all it could drink, which usually would be retained, and the child would soon be wrapped in a refreshing sleep. Without medicine, a proper regulation of the child's diet would soon restore it to health again. The spasms of children, from whatever causes, or the eclampsia from uræmic poisoning, are often readily controlled when immersed in hot water or given a hot vapor bath or corn sweat. If the convulsions of children are accompanied by a high temperature, put them into water of 100° and then gradually cool it down to 68° or 70°, and then keep them in a room of the same temperature, with little covering. If the temperature rises, repeat the treatment as frequently as necessary, and I think you will not be disappointed in the results. Scarlet fever and diphtheria, two of the most dreaded and formidable diseases of children, are largely shorn of their terrors when, in addition to an early and thorough medicinal treatment, the little patients are bathed in as warm water as the surface will allow frequently, or for thirty minutes wrapped in a warm, wet blanket, followed by warm, dry coverings, to maintain the perspiration that such treatment usually produces. It has proved to me a valuable aid in eliminating from the blood the specific poison which causes these diseases, and I can safely recommend it to your notice and trial. There is no disease more favorably influenced by this treatment than pneumonia, and in mild cases one daily warm bath or sweat, without medicine, will be sufficient to arrest this disease, and it is among the first things I usually order. If I find a child or infant with a temperature of 103° to 105°, short, dry, and painful cough, dyspnœa, rapid pulse, great thirst, or vomiting, with dry crepitation in any part of the lung tissue, I order it rolled up in a blanket or sheet coming out of hot water, and in thirty minutes change it to warm, dry blankets, and soon the little fretful, worrying sufferer would rest in a quiet, peaceful sleep.— Peoria Med. Mo. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2004). Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16972/pg16972-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

WATER AS A THERAPEUTICAL AGENT

The Therapeutical Principles of Psychoanalysis

Mental health became a big issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Government regulations heavily curtailed social interaction and made isolation mandatory. While necessary, this also caused anxiety and depression globally. to increase by 25% This was a prominent call to action for health organizations worldwide, and new technologies are developing to help combat mental illness. One of those technologies is the field of virtual reality (VR). The Benefits of Virtual Reality Therapy Virtual reality therapy is the use of virtual technology to aid in mental therapy. VR can by creating a simulated environment where patients can work through stressors. expand the realm of exposure therapy Therapists can have complete control of these environments to mitigate exposure to stressors, which then allows people to learn skills such as anxiety management. Once an emerging technology, virtual reality can now create interactable, fully immersive environments. This technology has various applications across the mental health field, from diagnosis to treatment. House Calls Through Virtual Reality Aside from direct treatments, therapists can use virtual reality to make house calls. These virtual sessions require a VR headset or other device to connect to each other. Therapists and patients use virtual avatars to communicate with each other in the simulation. Virtual sessions might even feel more relaxing for patients with social anxiety than in-person ones. These people might then feel freer to talk about stressors like issues at home or and how it affects them. the current social climate Treating Phobias with Virtual Reality Therapy One area of mental health where virtual reality therapy is making major changes is how doctors treat phobias. Phobias are an irrational and often crippling fear of a subject that does not pose an immediate threat to the individual. While these phobias are deep-seated, patients can learn to and cognitive behavioral therapy. overcome them using VR exposure VR exposure therapy is best done with the instruction of a licensed therapist. However, self-treatment apps are also available. One particular app is called oVRcome. Developed by tech entrepreneur Adam Hutchinson, of mental modules and exposure therapy to help treat patients. the app uses a combination Settings are available to control the intensity of the environments, and patients can allow their therapists access to their sessions. With COVID-19 still a big concern, apps like oVRcome can ensure patients keep up with their therapy even if they cannot leave their homes. Treating PTSD Using VR Like phobias, PTSD is another area where virtual reality therapy can be helpful. Therapists can that trigger patients’ PTSD. use VR environments to simulate conditions The therapists can control the intensity of these environments, gradually lessening the effect of the trigger. Studies show virtual reality therapy has a success rate of up to 90% when used to treat PTSD. Virtual Reality Therapy and Substance Abuse In 2022, in America ages 12 and over were victims of substance abuse. VR therapy is developing to help substance abusers overcome their addictions. over 20 million people This form of VR exposure therapy stimulates specific experiences patients are sensitive to. After recording their findings, therapists can of treatment that are best for the patient. make informed decisions on additional forms Regular sessions of this therapy can help the patient develop behaviors that will be beneficial to them. VR Treatment Is the Future Though VR exposure therapy is proven to be effective in a wide variety of areas, it still has yet to be widely adopted. This is due to the current limitations and skepticism around the use of virtual reality. However, as technology improves, VR treatment will become more effective.

How Can Therapy Be Impacted by Virtual Reality? 

Analytical Therapy

In the beginning of 2020, when Covid-19 had just started its procession around the world, my adventurous colleague and I had just left the jobs at a major cosmetics brand in order to launch our own sexual wellness company. And, because people were locked down together and plenty of them lost their jobs, our timing to introduce , a new sex & relationships app that helped people comfortably discuss important, but sensitive questions, couldn’t be better. Purpur What is Purpur Purpur is a therapy app that helps to improve relationships through conversations. We help people to discuss challenging topics and be in sync. Our concept is somewhat similar to the “We are not totally strangers“ card game with some distinct differences: Purpur is online, so you can play even if your partner is far away; We raise important sex & relationships questions that you always wanted to ask, but were afraid to; Purpur grows together with the players: we constantly add new topics and questions for discussion The questions are created by the team of certified psychotherapists and make it more comfortable for partners to discuss sex and relationships without any stigma. We cover a lot of topics connected with sexual life, but we believe that relationhips is much more than that. At Purpur, you can find questions about family planning, budgeting, home chores, and so on. For example: What does an open relationship mean to you? Is it more about sex or intimacy? Currently a Purpur user can choose between three different modes: to answer random questions; Play , a Reddit-like platform to share experience anonymously; Peep Discussion for a deep dive into the issues of money, abortions, sex drivers, and other aspects of relationships. Passes We’ll be soon adding a new Pass on sex in long-term relationships and we are planning to add new Passes on sensitive topics every month. Moreover, with more players joining Purpur, we’d like to spice up the user experience and offer an opportunity to play with a random person online. At Purpur App, there are no user profiles with personal data, and all communication is anonymous. The idea is to help people better understand themselves through sharing stories and experiences and developing communication skills. Testing concepts At the beginning, Elena and I wanted to make a sex product that would have some positive, playful, and delicate associations. We found our inspiration in Hims whose ads were all over New York City’s metro, with their amusing cacti visuals. This was the approach to a sex product that totally matched our vibe. So we started looking for references and tried to synthesize our own style. In the beginning of 2020, just before Covid-19 came, we quit our jobs to dedicate all the time to Purpur. We had around $7,000 to fund the business venture and lots of energy and inspiration to see it through. Purpur’s first product became a lubricant. Our main inputs were: creating and patenting the formula; manufacturing; launching a website as a major sales platform.** ** We spent practically $0 on marketing. To avoid extra expenses, Elena and I created all the promo content and wrote hundreds of emails to establish a community of loyal people with similar values. Then, in the midst of the pandemic, we experimented and made 1,000 candles that smelled like the best destinations for sex adventures such as a rooftop, a leather salon of a convertible in the south of Italy, or a cinema back row, which became unavailable in the times of lockdown. Our community grew, and more and more people eagerly shared their intimate stories and experiences among themselves. It seemed like the public discussions and commenting brought comfort to those who were afraid of an open dialogue with their partner, a dialogue that would enable them to learn more about each other. These stories inspired us to create various card sets with questions to improve communication and bonds among partners and different tasks to add a spark into their sex lives and relationships. Attracting First Investments The idea with card games was a success. There was plenty of positive feedback from the Purpur customers, so we set ourselves a goal of reaching a larger audience from around the world. In order to achieve this goal, we had to go digital and launch an app. This idea required investments. Our first step was to write to all our friends and acquaintances, as well as our friends’ friends and acquaintances who might have even the slightest interest in startups and could invest as business angels. I personally sent dozens of super detailed emails and messages, but the results were lackluster. Step two was to get into different pitching communities. There’s always a syndicate of business angels, who organize business meetings with startups and make subsequent investments. Still no success. Finally, I decided that we have to get investment by any means necessary and just googled different top managers and business angels and tried to contact them one by one. We were immensely happy to find the investor who closed the whole round and provided us with $220,000. We immediately discussed the conditions of the deal, but after that there was a “Valley of Death” period and six months of paperwork. Strategy and Promotion Purpur is about drive and flexibility. We don’t want to be limited by a framework of a strict strategy, but it doesn’t mean that we move forward blindly. In the beginning of the year, we set a plan with certain milestones, like the number of users we need to attract to make the project self-sufficient and the new products to launch, but there’s no particular way of achieving them, because it all depends on the resources available at the moment. We plan to use free methods to promote the Purpur App. Instead of spending an enormous budget on buying traffic, we want to grow organically and invest in content and our marketing team. The first platform we used to introduce the Purpur App was Product Hunt. 1. First users came from Product Hunt It was the first and for some time the only listing Purpur applied to and we managed to get into the top 3 products of the day on our first try. We carefully prepared for the launching and read up on the experience of different startups. There were two popular options: Engaging with popular hunters who have their own large audiences. The arrangement used to be the following: a hunter launched a new product, their subscribers got notification pushes, went to ProductHunt, installed the app, and voted. + However, this algorithm no longer works. - Moreover, we were not familiar with any hunters, so it didn’t seem a good idea to contact a random hunter and entrust the important launch to them. Launching the Purpur App ourselves. There were many startupers who said that if the product is great, it doesn’t need extra promotion to be noticed. When preparing for the launch, we used Twitter to tag hunters with more or less large audiences both at Product Hunt and on Twitter. We expected such to-the-point notifications to help attract more people who would at least see our product announcement. We had all the necessary materials, prepared the screenshots, and pushed the launch button at 00:00 Pacific Standard Time, so that we had 24 hours to gather votes. Shortly after the launch, we wrote a tweet and mentioned Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt. He tested Purpur and left a nice comment**.** As a result, Purpur got into Top 3 Products of the Day. Product Hunt brought us 800 users with 20% retention. I think it was a great result! 2. Instagram community and juicy content Our social media content strategy is simple: get tips and hints from the experts (we call them sexperts) and mix them up with personal stories. We collect a lot of user-generated content through IG polls and Q&As, then edit it nicely and make beautiful posts. Basically, we’re like Reddit if someone picks the best posts for you, fixes the spelling, and visualizes this content with the help of great designers. The creation of fun memes is a collaborative effort of all our team members. Someone sends a joke, another person makes a Purpur version of it, and SMM hits the “Post” button. Our strategy is to respond to any sex- and relationship-related news, be it Prince William #princeofpegging or Kim Cattrall’s birthday. It’s not easy to find a responsible, energetic, and inquisitive SMM manager with a great taste and a good sense of humor, so we approached this task very thoughtfully. We listed the job opening first at , and then at Girlboss. is a great community. It lessens the quantity of responses, but they are of a much better quality. All in all, we held about 20 interviews and we were absolutely in love with how open-minded the candidates were. For example, оnе candidate told us from the start that she was asexual and could look at things from an absolutely different angle. Indeed Girlboss 3. Partnerships and collaborations We love collaborations! We have this idea to team up with other companies and create Discussion Passes to help partners talk about contentious things and prevent fights. It’s a great way to show how closely sex and relationships are tied to such everyday things as money, living together, careeer, and so on. At the moment, we are super excited about partnering with different budgeting apps like Zeta, Cash App, Splitwise to observe different approaches to sharing expenses, joint budgets and personal money, savings, and acquiring common property. As you can see, the topic of sex and relationships is much deeper and more complicated than simply going to bed together, and it has more to do with communication than with physical activity. So, if you want your brand to collaborate with Purpur and find alternative ways of engaging with the audiences, please, don’t hesitate to write to us at or in our DM and we’ll set up a call :) hi@feelpurpur.com Instagram 4. A very troublesome Facebook In the future, we want to grow organically, without paid traffic, but it’s nice to have a small audience at the start. So we tried to set up a Facebook AD account to promote the App. If somebody asked me what is the one thing I would have changed, it would certainly be hiring a Facebook AD specialist right from the start. It’s been more than two months since we first tried to run a promo, but our AD account got blocked for whatever reason. Still figuring it out. 5. PR At the beginning we pitched media on our own, but recently we hired PR professionals to run the operations. At some point, if you want to grow, you need to delegate. We’ve recorded a , published an about ways spouses can spice up their relationships after years being together, and we apply to different events as speakers. We are excited about attracting more and more people to play Purpur. I’m sure, one day Kim Kardashian will also install our app! podcast with a sex therapist interview 6. Wild posting This fall we’re planning to do a wild posting in New York, LA or whatever locations we have the money for :) We want it to be fun and catchy. For the first campaign, we want to highlight the living together issues and the importance of mutual respect for each other's habits. Purpur is there for you to help establish a connection and communicate better. Design Design is responsible for half of the product’s success. The choice of colors, fonts and visuals and the app’s overall usability create a dialogue among users. Purpur addresses some rather serious and sometimes unpleasant questions such as breakups and abortions, so we wanted the process of discussing them to be as fun as possible. Our goal was to make the users feel that they are going to play and get closer with their partners, without this ‘we need to talk’ cloud hanging over them. When modeling various options of interaction with the users, we decided there would be an anonymous online chat without any personal profiles. Instead of real photos, our artists introduced a set of avatars for chatting. These animated characters inhabit the Purpur universe. They are absolutely agender, without age, without any identification. They are progenitors in the game. We’ve come up with our own creatures, mixing the features of existing animals and fantastic beasts. The symbol of Purpur is Cunilon. We think it’s super sexy because it has this curvy tongue. A tongue is a symbole of both sex and communication, and it’s in the Purpur’s DNA, which is why this design won our hearts. We chose the name for our anteater together with our insta community through voting. Conclusion These days, we are working on creating high quality expert content and promoting the culture of open communication to improve relationships between partners. Our business plans include an expansion on the US market and raising a Seed round in the near future. Follow us on Instagram: , download , and feel free to write to us, we’d love to talk! purpur_xoxo Purpur App from the App Store

Launching a Sex Therapy App During Covid

Investors and business leaders are always drawn to the next big thing. While joining in on a project early is always exciting and may result in massive returns, there are still potential pitfalls to be aware of. With every thrilling venture, there are just as many (if not more) . From Enron to the mortgage-backed security failures, to Theranos, and the massive ups and downs in the crypto market, hype, greed, and ignorance make it easier for investors to fall into schemes and scams. fraudulent companies Despite the FUD surrounding it, blockchain technology and crypto do have a viable, long-term future. So, how can investors steer clear of making a potentially bad investment in blockchain-based projects? Yep, due diligence comes with the job Theranos’s founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, seemingly presented endless red flags throughout the existence of the Edison machine. The numbers weren’t adding up and she made empty promises with no viable value-added as time went on. Combine these initial red flags with the fact that - at the executive level - there was a total lack of relevant experience in the biotech fields, and we can see indicators of fraud, or at the very least, widespread misrepresentation. Sure, there is a fair share of crypto companies and projects either created by celebrities, prominent political figures, or individuals who don’t actually have subject matter expertise wanting to take advantage of the current hype. There are also, many companies and projects founded by economists and technologists who are upfront with their expertise on the market. or endorsed It’s up to investors to examine the technology, use-case(s), organizational structure, and leadership of projects to best evaluate the future and determine if or how these projects can create value beyond speculative hype before any investments are promised or made. Look at the C-Suite, board of directors, and any existing investors – are the people who could, realistically, work on a project of this type and bring it to its true potential? Charisma is Charming Until it’s Not Get rich quick promises and other forms of charisma are overwhelmingly enticing and seductive, but when there isn’t any value created over a period of years after investments are made, it’s hard to determine the exact sunk cost. Even worse, it’s equally just as hard to admit that fraud is taking place. When the first group of investors begins to ask questions it's usually far too late for the rest to get out. As Enron grew to popularity in the 90s, investors and onlookers alike were dazzled by the charismatic leadership of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. They were seen as magnetic and effective leaders who transformed a Texas company into the seventh-largest organization in the world with a market capitalization beyond $60 billion. This charisma also created an environment of where leaders expected loyalty and questions were met with . “corporate cultism” charming and vague answers Despite its culture of knowledge, crypto is not immune to the seduction of charm. To ensure that you are making a sound investment, look beyond the alluring leadership and ask hard-hitting questions. Is the leadership saying anything of value through industry expertise and subject matter knowledge? Have they returned on initial investment either in the current company or in any previous ventures? Your hubris is showing Hubris was a major contributor to the many issues surrounding the banks and mortgage-backed security failures of 2006 to 2008. These levels of self-confidence relied on banks believing they were too big to fail, having irrational amounts of leverage, and relying on misuse of trust between leadership and the public. When the Lehman Brothers released its financial report in 2008, it cited revenues of . The report went on to list its achievements in great detail but failed to mention that they had closed BNC Mortgage and the Korea Central Mortgage business and that their share price had dropped. Rather, CEO Dick Fuld stated that they had “successfully navigated difficult markets before.” During that same year, cracks in the company’s hubris began to show. $60 billion and earnings of $4 billion The scandal of 2022 can, mostly, be attributed to the hubris of leadership. While inner circles may claim crypto is not “too big to fail”, certain projects may certainly be “too good to be true.” Luna Terra/ UST Crypto isn’t a brand-new facet of technology, but the excitement around the community continues to grow each day. As we enter the current bear market it’s essential now, more than ever, to remain optimistically cautious by performing due diligence, looking beyond the charisma, and seeing through the hubris. Also Published here

What the Tech Community Can Learn From the Scams at Enron and Theranos

Goodnight Journal provides a platform for people to write out their thoughts and feelings, connecting people and sharing life stories with others publicly, anonymously and securely. Journaling is therapeutic and a very pure way of expressing feelings and thoughts, just like having a best friend who is always ready to listen, without judgment. Sharing these thoughts and feelings with like-minded people can help people understand their inner selves. Goodnight Journal is a journaling app and community that connects journal writers, creating a sense of community and bringing people closer. is a popular online journal community that many people have turned to due to its community and secure platform. People can keep a personal journal on the app, securely writing their private online journals. Goodnight Journal Users also get to choose whether they want to share their journals publicly, remain anonymous or keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves. “Whether you want to share your thoughts with the world or simply need a place to vent for yourself, Goodnight Journal is the perfect space to articulate your feelings.” Users of Goodnight Journal have praised it for creating a that journal writers can turn to for advice and intriguing life stories. Across social media platforms, Goodnight Journal continues to receive positive reviews with users saying: killer online journal community –  “I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. To be honest, when I started journaling on Goodnight  Journal, I didn’t really think about how beneficial it would be for me to not only write down my emotions, but also go back through my entries and identify my mood swings and behavior.” –  “I’m even making friends here in this journal. Friends who are caring, supportive and encouraging. Thank you all so much for letting me write whatever I need to without judgment.” –  “I feel so excited to be part of these diary communities. They are such tender and honest places.” In addition to providing a platform where people can articulate their thoughts and feelings, Goodnight Journal is also an excellent resource for mental wellness. The platform is designed to work on any device and provide a seamless user experience that allows people to start journaling immediately. Since its 2013 launch, Goodnight Journal has served hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. Members can opt for a monthly or yearly membership plan that allows them to access various features on the app. The app works on a freemium model, allowing users to journal for free. “We want to build a community that feels like home where you can still express fully and make comforting and cheerful comments to others.” The Goodnight Journal app boosts healing and helps people get recharged by reading other people’s stories and sharing their own. Goodnight Journal is dedicated to making journaling fun and inviting more people to take up this free and educational therapeutic exercise. Compared to other journal and diary apps available, Goodnight Journal is unique in that it offers a community for users to . draw inspiration, connection, and motivation “Beyond simple journal writing, we are building a community where all writers can get motivated, inspired, and connected with other writers, which will hopefully make your life better.” The creators of Goodnight Journal also added, “We really want Goodnight Journal to be the place for everyone to come and write at any time they want and as many as they want.” Becoming a paid member of Goodnight Journal is an optional way of supporting the journaling community. Users on the free membership can read and like journals in the community; however, writing public journals and commenting on them requires access to paid features. Goodnight Journal is the that every writer needs to be part of. journaling app and community *© 2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. **Posted In: * News Press Releases

"Journaling is therapeutic and a very pure way of expressing feelings and thoughts"

I used to think that Hamlet said that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. Guess what? It was Marcellus, a guard, who turned out to be a bearer of bad news. He was the one to tell Hamlet about his father's ghost appearance. And, Hamlet had never been the same. What else did I get wrong? I used to think that Silicon Valley was a dreamland with rainbows and unicorns. Guess what? According to , it is. Elizabeth Holmes “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” The HBO documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” can be an entrepreneur's horror story or a manual. If you plan to fake till you make it, then this documentary can come in handy. If you are a straight-business-arrow, then you're going to read the book too. I'm talking about ," written by , a Pulitzer Prize Winner for Investigative Reporting. “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup John Carreyrou Did Elizabeth Holmes corrupt Silicon Valley, or was it the other way around? I don't know. What I do know for sure, though, is that fake-it-till-you-make-it, which is the unofficially official Silicon Valley's "culture" and MO, will have to change for good. Elizabeth hasn’t been the first self-proclaimed startup founder to have her own version of the crime-without-punishment story in Silicon Valley. However, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California would have to make sure she is the last one who played this fake-it-till-you-make-it game and lost. The case of showed the ugly side of Silicon Valley. There's nothing glamorous or worth admiring about founders who only dress to impress. Those who shine during presentations, but blush when the time comes to show inventions. You know, just because you choose the black turtleneck as your fashion statement, it doesn't make you Steve Jobs. U.S. v. Holmes, et al. Can a startup's "faking it" be justified? Yes, but it's a fine line between faking and making it in Silicon Valley. Every founder boldly goes where no startup has gone before. There's no way of knowing if your idea is going to work. There are no guarantees. But, there are temptations of the investors' dance floors. You just need a small financial stimulus for your startup to make end meets. Then, you would need a little bit more. If it works, you will say, it's OK, it's been worth it, I had to fake it for the right reasons. My startup's success proved me right. If it doesn't work, you have two options. You can admit a business defeat or become a serial startup faker. Here we go again. Let's try the same approach, but with a different startup, and understandably, different investors. Theranos, Not To Be Mistaken With Thanos In ancient Greek mythology Theranos was the god of health, who stole medicine from the gods for the good of mankind and was sentenced to eternal punishment by Zeus for his troubles. In Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos was the man with the plan who stole Infinity Stones and was sentenced and punished by Avengers. In our universe, Elizabeth is (was) a goddess of presentation and manipulation, who raised more than . When she snapped her fingers, Theranos' . What about her sentence and punishment? $700 million from the investors valuation went as high as $10 billion Holmes faces a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for each count of wire fraud and for each conspiracy count. A jury was selected on September 2, 2021. The trial is expected to last at least 13 weeks. (Wikipedia) I couldn't find a single word about who would be remembered as the chief scientist of Theranos rather than an award-winning biochemist. He had more years in his impressive resume than his CEO years of life in her birth certificate. Ian Gibbons A top British scientist committed suicide amid fears the 32-year-old CEO of Theranos was about to fire him - because he was having trouble getting her one-prick blood tests to work, his wife has claimed. To add insult to injury (plural would be more appropriate), means that we are more likely to see Elizabeth Holmes on the big screen, rather than in a small prison cell, first. Theranos movie based on ‘Bad Blood’ book to star Jennifer Lawrence So, my fellow entrepreneurs and startup founders, you can choose to fake it, with no guarantees that you will make it with the exception of making headlines and documentaries. Or, you can try to make it until you make it for real. As you can see my , , , and Noonies2021 nominations are real, and they call for real votes on November 15. Business Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship COVID-19

Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, and Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It Silicon Valley Startup Culture

The dramatic improvements in medicine over the past hundred years have been one of the most defining factors of modern civilization. What used to be life-threatening diseases are now mild annoyances that we only wait out because of modern medicine. Undiagnosable diseases back then are now identifiable thanks to modern techniques and testing. This article will take a look at Theranos, a company that claimed to be able to revolutionize how blood testing is done. We will see how the company grew and how it ultimately crumbled because of its high claims. How Theranos Began Imagine you are taking a blood test for general diagnostics. General practice is to take multiple draws of blood to accomplish several tests. Theranos, however, offered an alternative to this. A health technology company, Theranos . Only using a few drops of blood for blood work means a more efficient healthcare system: one that is cheaper and faster. claimed to be able to conduct a multitude of tests with only a few drops of blood This was all said to be possible through Theranos’ proprietary technology. Through Theranos’ “invention,” the Edison, up to 200 tests can be performed using only a few drops of blood. A breakthrough like this had great implications for how healthcare is accomplished across the world. Continued Growth Within a relatively short time frame, Theranos expanded quickly. With the company’s claims, a lot of people had their eyes on the potential of Theranos. There were practical applications and financial opportunities that people wanted to achieve with Theranos. A Good Image Back in 2003, Elizabeth Holmes was taking up a degree in Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Eventually, in the same year, she dropped out of Stanford to pursue her ideas of new ways of doing blood tests. Holmes was the founder of the start-up, Real-Time Cures. This start-up eventually became Theranos as we know it. While serving as CEO for Theranos, Holmes was well known for her charisma, image, and aura. Holmes proved to be crucial for how Theranos grew. Through Holme’s commanding presence, she took Theranos forward — serving both as face and leader for Theranos. Approaching the Right People Elizabeth Holmes approached different venture capitalists to fund her vision for Theranos. A key point here is that Holmes approached venture capitalists that were not well-versed in medical technology or health technology. Theranos got around $6 million in funding by late 2004. The promise of a revolutionary way of doing blood work enticed different entities to partner up with Theranos. Besides the original venture capitals which funded Theranos, others helped Theranos grow up to a top worth of $9 billion. Partners included Safeway and Walgreens, plus other funding firms and stakeholders. A House of Secrets Theranos was secretive, not only with its technology but also with how the company worked. As it was known in the industry, Theranos worked via “stealth mode.” This means Theranos did not generally publicize its findings and research, nor did it have press releases. This enabled Theranos to acquire more and more partners to expand itself without explaining what they were working on. By claiming Theranos could not say how exactly their blood testing works — because it was a trade secret — partners got into agreements where they took Theranos’ word for it. Claiming Something Revolutionary By claiming to have revolutionized how blood testing was done, Theranos brought something new to the table. Using Edison, Theranos would have made traditional blood testing obsolete. This would have carved a new practice in the healthcare industry. Tests would not only be cheaper, but they would also be automatically processed, more accurate, and portable. This attracted a lot of attention: from media hype, investors, and business partners. The Beginning of The End While Theranos was growing rapidly, multiple people became skeptical of the company. For example, a Stanford professor publicly raised suspicions about Theranos’ claims because there were no peer-reviewed articles about Theranos’ technology. In the health sciences, this was a highly unusual practice. However, a turning point for Theranos was when journalist . In this article, Carreyou published that Theranos was not using its technology for their demonstrations — instead, normal blood testing techniques were used. John Carreyou published his article about Theranos There was never any innovative technology, and the supposed “Edison” was allegedly never even real. Though Theranos tried to defend itself, the damage was already done. Other people within the company spoke out on Theranos’ false claims. The exposure of Theranos’ lies about their technology severed ties with Walgreens and Safeway. Plus, Theranos received repercussions from the FDA, SEC, and multiple lawsuits. Eventually, in 2018, . From a valuation reaching up to $9 billion, Theranos dropped to being worth nothing. In that same year, Elizabeth Holmes and her COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Theranos dissolved after years of legal trouble Several accusations were made throughout the years. In February 2021, Holmes was accused by federal investigators of destroying evidence during the last days of Theranos. What Can We Learn From Theranos? Theranos did some things that we should imitate, but it also did some things we should avoid. What should we pick up from the story of Theranos? The first is that bringing something to the table is crucial. Theranos provided something revolutionary in their industry. Otherwise, there would be no attracting factor for customers or partners for your business. Second, how you present yourself is important. Elizabeth Holmes led Theranos as its face and CEO with a certain presence. Charisma, image, and aura all help with how people approach and think of you. Third, always choose who you approach for your business. Elizabeth Holmes got millions in funding early on by choosing people who did not understand the health technology industry well. Choosing who you approach helps increase your chances of getting a good deal for your business, but can hurt the success of your business immensely. Choose to raise money from people who may be harder to raise money from, but know your industry intimately. This will allow you to leverage their experience when push comes to shove. Most importantly, always back your claims. Theranos continuously made false claims about its technology and effectiveness. Do not make claims you cannot follow up on — it may come to backfire on you later down the line. The Bottom Line Theranos was a company that grew quickly because of the value its claims created. A new way of doing blood tests meant a drastic change for the healthcare industry. However, false promises led to Theranos losing everything it had built up. While claiming something to differentiate your business from competitors is crucial, making claims you cannot follow up on will only harm your business. Theranos relied on false claims to create value. Once its lies were exposed, everything fell. How Theranos grew its business and how it lost everything is something businesses and companies should learn from. Also published here

The Ups and Downs of the Theranos Saga

COVID-19 has changed the way we live our lives. From working remotely to being separated from friends and family, if you’re feeling hopeless, listless, frustrated, or anxious, you aren’t alone. The global pandemic has created a secondary one: a mental health pandemic. But, mental health care is still unaffordable for many, even with the rise of group therapy or text/phone therapy. Luckily, there’s a growing crop of more affordable online counseling apps sitting right on your iPhone. ‍First, a bit of background. To put this mental health crisis in perspective, in past massive outbreaks of infectious diseases (none of which have been as severe as COVID-19) mental health issues have persisted due to the outbreaks for at least four years after the event. Researchers have even discovered that the psychological impacts of “bio-disasters” like pandemics and epidemics can generate negative psychological effects equivalent to that of other traumatic events such as . earthquakes and terrorist attacks ‍Many experts agree that while the Coronavirus itself may provide a possibility for an increase in mental health issues, quarantine and lockdown measures across the world are also a cause for increasing mental instability in individuals. While certainly quarantines and lockdowns are necessary to reduce the amount of people who contract COVID-19, the increase in time spent alone, the inability to work, and the surge in free time seem to usher in mental health problems for many people. ‍In fact, a recent that investigated a sample of individuals who had been quarantined found that those participants in quarantine were more likely to feel numerous negative emotional reactions when compared to their peers not in quarantine. These emotional reactions included irritability, insomnia, fear, confusion, anger, frustration, boredom, and stigma associated with ”. psychological study “stress, depression, quarantine Additionally, the same researchers discovered that those who have previously struggled with these mental health issues are more likely to relapse during times such as these. ‍A that investigated various mental health conditions in the United States of America in 2020 discovered that the average mental health of those in the sample (5,470 participants) was substantially worse in 2020 when compared to the average mental health during the same time period the year before (2019). study Specifically, substance use and suicidal ideation has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than double the amount of people in 2020 reporting suicidal thoughts when compared to 2019 numbers. The increase in substance abuse could be attributed to more free time and less responsibilities during quarantine and lockdown; however, the increase is still significant enough to warrant discussion. ‍One of the most common forms of mental health treatment is of course in-person therapy, whether that be one on one with a therapist or group therapy with a number of peers. While some sort of therapy would certainly aid many individuals with their battle with mental health issues, therapy can be inaccessible at the best of times. Most personal therapists cost $200 - $300/hour, even over the phone. And, even phone or text therapy subscriptions can cost $200 - $300 per month! ‍Luckily, more and more affordable options are popping up. One such option is the app, a new form of “DIY” Therapy. LIFE Intelligence ‍Usually, going to a therapist, you might choose a particular aspect of your life to talk about, such as conflicts with family while working from home. Or, you might choose a specific feeling, such as feeling frustrated with poor remote communication, or anxious about whether you’ll get sick, uncertain about fears such as layoffs, or lonely because you experienced a breakup and can’t date during the pandemic. The therapist would likely ask you some introspective questions and share some information from their studies. They may also send you home with some “homework,” or worksheets that help you frame your thoughts. ‍Apps such as model that experience, but in an entirely private, self-guided and affordable way. Similarly priced to Headspace or Calm, the app covers hundreds of possible life topics, from breakups, to big decisions, to giving 1x1 feedback at work. In addition, it helps you solve dozens of specific moods, much in the way a real therapist would. And, instead of taking home a paper worksheet, exercises are digitized in-app. That means you can get 100% the therapy-level breadth, depth, and specificity, at <1% the cost. It's much more scientific than even the best self care apps available. LIFE Intelligence ‍Research shows that online therapy for depression is as in-person therapy in helping individuals deal with mental health issues. In fact, the internet has been used for all types of therapy for more than a decade. basically as effective At first many mental health professionals criticized and opposed treating mental health in an online environment for a variety of reasons. For one, it was thought that it was necessary for therapists to get non-verbal cues from their clients in order to fully understand what their client was going through. Furthermore, many individuals were worried about how switching mental health treatment to an online environment may compromise the secrecy and confidentiality of patients and that it may lead to other ethical problems. ‍Despite all these grievances against online mental healthcare, it persisted and soon became more normalized. In a study that did a meta-analysis of all empirical articles on the effectiveness of internet-based mental health treatment, it was found that the effect size of apps were practically equal to in-person treatment (approximately 0.53). This means that online therapy is as effective as in-person therapy. Of course, there are caveats to this finding such as the type of treatment and the exact mental health condition of the patient; however, this still provides evidence that online mental healthcare can be effective and should certainly be utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic if available. ‍It is undeniable that discussions with a mental health professional would certainly be most helpful for those who need dedicated, severe help. However, for the vast majority of us, is better than . And, recent research highlights there are viable, digital ways to improve overall mental health without specific treatment from mental health professionals. These exist to help any individual, of any demographic, price point, or level of intra/extraversion, obtain the mental health care they deserve. something nothing Previously published at https://www.lifeintelligence.io/blog/diy-therapy-a-new-way-to-stave-off-covid-stress

How DIY Therapy through Apps is Making Mental Health Management accessible in the Pandemic

Graph Therapy. The Year of the Graph Newsletter, June / May 2020 Parts of the world are still in lockdown, while others are returning to some semblance of normalcy. Either way, while the last few months have given some things pause, they have boosted others. It seems like developments in the world of Graph are among those that have been boosted. An abundance of educational material on all things graph has been prepared and delivered online, and is now freely accessible, with more on the way. Graph databases have been making progress and announcements, repositioning themselves by a combination of releasing new features, securing additional funds, and entering strategic partnerships. A key graph database technology, RDF*, which enables compatibility between RDF and property graph databases, is gaining momentum and tool support. And more cutting edge research combining graph AI and knowledge graphs is seeing the light, too. Buckle up and enjoy some graph therapy. Stanford’s series of online seminars featured some of the world’s leading experts on all things graph. If you missed it, or if you’d like to have an overview of what was said, you can find summaries for each lecture in this series of posts by Bob Kasenchak and Ahren Lehnert. Videos from the lectures are available here. Stanford Knowledge Graph Course Not-Quite-Live-Blog Stanford University’s computer science department is offering a free class on Knowledge Graphs available to the public. Stanford is also making recordings of the class available via the class website. Another opportunity to get up to speed with educational material: The entire program of the course “Information Service Engineering” at KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, is delivered online and made freely available on YouTube. It includes topics such as ontology design, knowledge graph programming, basic graph theory, and more. Information Service Engineering at KIT Knowledge representation as a prerequisite for knowledge graphs. Learn about knowledge representation, ontologies, RDF(S), OWL, SPARQL, etc. Ontology may sound like a formal term, while knowledge graph is a more approachable one. But the 2 are related, and so is ontology and AI. Without a consistent, thoughtful approach to developing, applying, evolving an ontology, AI systems lack underpinning that would allow them to be smart enough to make an impact. The ontology is an investment that will continue to pay off, argue Seth Earley and Josh Bernoff in Harvard Business Review, making the case for how businesses may benefit from a knowldge-centric approach Is Your Data Infrastructure Ready for AI? Even after multiple generations of investments and billions of dollars of digital transformations, organizations struggle to use data to improve customer service, reduce costs, and speed the core processes that provide competitive advantage. AI was supposed to help with that. Besides AI, knowledge graphs have a part to play in the Cloud, too. State is good, and lack of support for Stateful Cloud-native applications is a roadblock for many enterprise use-cases, writes Dave Duggal. Graph knowledge bases are an old idea now being revisited to model complex, distributed domains. Combining high-level abstraction with Cloud-native design principles offers efficient “Context-as-a-Service” for hydrating stateless services. Graph knowledge-based systems can enable composition of Cloud-native services into event-driven dataflow processes. Kubernetes also touches upon Organizational Knowledge, and that may be modeled as a Knowledge Graph. Graph Knowledge Base for Stateful Cloud-Native Applications Extending graph knowledge bases to model distributed systems creates a new kind of information system, one intentionally designed for today’s IT challenges. The Enterprise Knowledge Graph Foundation was recently established to define best practices and mature the marketplace for EKG adoption, with a launch webinar on June the 23rd.. The Foundation defines its mission as including adopting semantic standards, developing best practices for accelerated EKG deployment, curating a repository of reusable models and resources, building a mechanism for engagement and shared knowledge, and advancing the business cases for EKG adoption. Enterprise Knowledge Graph Maturity Model The Enterprise Knowledge Graph Maturity Model (EKG/MM) is the industry-standard definition of the capabilities required for an enterprise knowledge graph. It establishes standard criteria for measuring progress and sets out the practical questions that all involved stakeholders ask to ensure trust, confidence and usage flexibility of data. Each capability area provides a business summary denoting its importance, a definition of the added value from semantic standards and scoring criteria based on five levels of defined maturity. Enterprise Knowledge Graphs is what the Semantic Web Company (SWC) and Ontotext have been about for a long time, too. Two of the vendors in this space that have been around for the longer time just announced a strategic partnership: Ontotext, a graph database and platform provider, meets SWC, a management and added value layer that sits on top. SWC and Ontotext CEOs emphasize how their portfolios are complementary, while the press release states that the companies have implemented a seamless integration of the PoolParty Semantic Suite™ v.8 with the GraphDB™ and Ontotext Platform, which offers benefits for many use cases. Semantic Web Company and Ontotext Partner to Advance Enterprise Knowledge Graphs Ontotext and Semantic Web Company (SWC) — two of the strongest voices advocating the value of knowledge graphs for organizations dealing with large amounts of diverse data — have announced a strategic partnership. Stardog is another graph database and platform provider. Stardog announced it has expanded it completed a Series B round of $11.4 million venture capital funding to mature its go-to-market initiatives. Its CEO set the goals of expanding EU operations, strengthening work in public sector, and developing tools and partnerships. Stardog, the leading Enterprise Knowledge Graph platform, expands Series B to $11.4 million to mature go-to-market initiatives Stardog, the leading Enterprise Knowledge Graph platform, today announced it has expanded its Series B round to $11.4m, securing an additional $3 million from new investors. NebulaGraph is an open source graph database developed by VESoft, a Chinese enterprise. VESoft is ready for further growth after closing an $8 million funding round led by Redpoint China Ventures, an investment firm launched by Silicon Valley-based Redpoint Ventures in 2005 NebulaGraph lists some 20 enterprise clients as users from domains such as social media, ecommerce, and finance. These include the likes of Meituan, Xiaohongshu, and JD.com. NebulaGraph has also been releasing new features, such as the Nebula Studio graph data visualization tool. VESoft raises $8M to meet China’s growing need for graph databases Sherman Ye founded VESoft in 2018 when he saw a growing demand for graph databases in China. VESoft is ready for further growth after closing an $8 million funding round. Microsoft Azure CosmosDB is a globaly distributed, cloud based, multi-model database which also supports graph. New autoscale and serverless features have been announced, to allow better alignment of billing to active usage. Furthermore, a new change feed, and a new Java API. Microsoft is grooming Cosmos DB as its developer-friendly NoSQL database that accommodates massive global web-scale applications but can also be cost-effective for much smaller ones. Microsoft Build brings announcements for cloud data, analytics services, and intersection of the two A series of announcements around Synapse Analytics, Cosmos DB, Azure Database and SQL Edge make this year’s Microsoft Build conference a virtual event revealing actual advances and concrete integrations. As we have often highlighted, a key differentiation among graph databases is their data model. Some are based on RDF, while others on property graphs (even though hybrids exist, too). RDF graph databases are also known as triple stores. Here Alan Morrison answers the question “What are the main pros of property graph databases compared to triplestores?”, quoting Marko Rodriguez, one of the most knowledgeable people in this space. What are the main pros of property graph databases compared to triplestores? How do property graph databases compare to RDF triplestores? RDF is best as a means of strategic integration, property graphs are best for tactical analytics. Neo4j is among the most popular graph databases. Even though it leverages property graphs, it also has an open source plugin called Neosemantics which enables it to work with RDF. A new version of Neosemantics has been released, supporting Persisted Graph Configurations, Model Validations with SHACL, and SKOS import. Some key features of Neosemantics are storing RDF data in Neo4j in a lossless manner (imported RDF can subsequently be exported without losing a single triple in the process), and on-demand exporting property graph data from Neo4j as RDF. Neosemantics 4.0 is out! Neosemantics is a Neo4j plugin that enables the use of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) W3C standard model for data interchange in Neo4j. RDF* is an extenstion to RDF that enables way of mapping RDF and property graphs. RDF* and SPARQL*, the extension to the RDF SPARQL query language, are undergoing standardization via the W3C. Olaf Hartig, RDF* creator, has put together a collection of command line tools and Java libraries to process RDF* data and SPARQL* queries. and , both popular open source tools for working with RDF, have added support for RDF*. RDF graph databases Cambridge Semantics AnzoGraph, Ontotext GraphDB and Stardog now support RDF* and SPARQL*. And Yago, a well-known open knowledge graph uses RDF* to represent statement-level annotations. RDF4J Jena YAGO 4 YAGO 4 is the latest version of the YAGO knowledge base. It is based on Wikidata — the largest public general-purpose knowledge base. The good news for RDF and SPARQL do not end here. Now data science notebook users can query public knowledge graph SPARQL endpoints directly, via integration with Jupyter and Zeppelin Notebooks, as Bob DuCharme shows. In addition, , which lets users visually browse the endpoints. Zazuko has released an open source SPARQL endpoint explorer SPARQL in a Jupyter Notebook Paulo Villegas has released a SPARQL kernel for Jupyter notebooks that lets us run queries natively, and I have been having some fun with it. More AI and data science overlap with the graph world: StellarGraph, an open source library for machine learning on graphs & networks, has released version 1.0. It includes algorithms and examples for Node classification, Link prediction, Unsupervised training / representation learning, and Graph classification. StellarGraph 1.0 — taking graph machine learning to a new level Today we delivered version 1.0 of the open-source, user-friendly StellarGraph library for machine learning (ML) on graphs and networks. It’s the culmination of three years of active research and engineering. Jure Leskovac, one of the key researchers in Graph AI, has recently presented advancements in Deep Learning for Graphs at the Deep Learning for Graphs workshop at The Web Conference. This includes a new version of the , a collection of realistic, large-scale, diverse benchmark datasets for machine learning with graphs. Open Graph Benchmark Advancements in Deep Learning for Graphs Position-aware Graph Neural Networks, Strategies for Pretraining GNNs and the Open Graph Benchmark. More cutting edge graph + AI research: SeMi, the SEmantic Modeling machIne, is a tool to semi-automatically build large-scale Knowledge Graphs from structured sources: CSV, JSON, or XML. It builds semantic models of data sources with concepts and relations in a domain ontology, and uses a graph neural network SeMi: A SEmantic Modeling machIne to build Knowledge Graphs with graph neural networks SeMi (SEmantic Modeling machIne) is a tool to semi-automatically build large-scale Knowledge Graphs from structured sources such as CSV, JSON, and XML files. Wrapping up with some COVID-19 related initiatives. The NSF has awarded funding for a Semantic Integration Platform to Combat COVID-19. COVID-19 Net will refine a knowledge graph and integrate it with complementary knowledge graphs. The Italian government publishes daily official COVID-19 open data. Now the , using the RDF Data Cube Vocabulary. data is available as linked data A that enables users to compare news from the BBC, CNN, Fox and DW News has been created by Loomi Assistant COVID-19 Knowledge Graph Web Tool NSF Awards Funding for Semantic Integration Platform to Combat COVID-19 The NSF has awarded two researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) funding to organize COVID-19 information into a transdisciplinary knowledge network that integrates health, pathogen, and environmental data to better track cases to improve analysis and forecasting across the greater San Diego region. To subscribe the to the Year of the Graph Newsletter, click here Previously published at https://yearofthegraph.xyz/newsletter/2020/06/graph-therapy-the-year-of-the-graph-newsletter-june-may-2020/

Buckle Up and Enjoy Some Graph Therapy

I remote-chat this afternoon with , founder of and one of the best brains I know in the field of Behavioural Science, Quantitative Psychology and Psychometrics. He’s born in Amsterdam and is currently home-bound in his lovely apartment in the historic museum quarter. Stefan van Tulder Talent Data Labs Hello, Stefan! Hi Rachel. How are you? I’m good, we are in a partial lockdown and most shops except groceries, hairdressers and supermarkets are closed till June but we are able to exercise and walk around outside. How’s the home-bound life for you? Happy to hear you’re coping well. All well and healthy here. For us it’s quite similar, most sport activities are closed and all forms of group entertainment have been shut down until at least June. For someone who is used to travelling all over the place the world suddenly feels very small. Yeah. How’s your team doing? They are coping well-ish. It’s hard to really tell over digital interactions only. I think the ones stuck in a small house with young children are most affected but everyone seems equally bored. How about yours? (=^_^=) I think everyone realises that working from home is harder than it seems! My team is trialling an app which promises therapy help. Are you into any of that? Oh! That’s great and super interesting. We have recently had discussions about this too. As I said before, it’s very hard to assess the mental state of people over video conference (and we often barely show our faces as we’re screen sharing). How are you going about and doing that fully digitized or human in the process? It seems completely digitized with mini ”rescue sessions”, to help in areas like : ’to feel connected’. Good! In my experience, people like the option of having a “human option”. I was thinking that therapy can’t be productized. Are you basing it on any major psychological framework? They use Big Five, and we have the option of choosing a learning pathway. I’m not sure if this is a major framework? I think we live in a world where we are increasing the degree of self-assessment and self-help through well-being apps at the fastest pace ever. I think therapy would certainly be a great angle to introduce. As far as I’m concerned, the is the most solid psychological framework that I have seen. Big Five framework Yeah, you were working on self-assessment as a service, right? Yes, not sure if is a very sticky acronym but we’re going for it! SAaaS Okay, but how would I know what the score represents and how does it help me ‘stay connected’? Well, the way I see it, there’s two types of players. Those who make an app that does something really well and then stop. Or those that build a large framework of integrations and behavior around it. We don’t just stop at self-assessment, we add recommendations to third party solutions, or give concrete advice that people can follow. I’d say that’s key to making a useful self-assessment app. I see. I was trying out a few ‘be your best self’ apps involving meditation and fitness . I found that one of them collects my recorded data on steps, sleep, and sex... Oh really? How do they collect sex data? I’m guessing from the Apple Watch? It could be presumed from the heart rate tracker or bodily movements, right? That could be from playing video games in bed. So you’d wear the watch, during... ? I wouldn’t, I don’t like to track anything (Plus I don’t ever wear a watch.) It is interesting data, I think sex is such a primal urge that if you don’t get your share you might need help. We see that a lot now in these isolated times. Maybe it is related to psychosis. Everything essentially is tied to evolutionary behavior. If it made your gene pool survive, you’d build systematic chemicals for it in your body. So, mainly, it’s testosterone (or the lack of) sending us off into chemical (ie hormone) imbalances? I don’t know how this kind of data collection would help. I don’t think we know enough about the impact of chemical imbalances on behavior to justifiably say that it leads to depression but we do know a lot about what kinds of personalities and behaviours are exhibited by mentally healthy people versus the more depressed. A good sample of that is the use of alcohol and drugs. I know we agree on how (work) culture also contributes to depression. A concept that I find very appealing is growth. The gray area between doing things that are too easy and too hard. This also counts for environments and cultures. So looking at work culture can be a great aid at finding drivers for disengagement or passivity. They are often signs related to depression. You have dabbled in the use of cultural fit mapping before. Did you find it could justify why some individuals would be able to function better than others? Yes, most individuals working in startups often prefer an environment that would give themselves the chance to grow faster in a shorter amount of time compared to conventional workplaces, and that environment should provide tools for them to thrive - strong, sound mentorship for development, autonomy to lead projects, sense of ownership. A bad decision for such individuals could be simply putting someone above him whom he could outgrow in 6 months, and would ultimately lead to less job satisfaction. But often those analyses are done in hindsight... Well, that’s because most players have chosen a passive approach to these types of analytics. The key to self-assessment is to have the data first and the behavior later. The sample you provided is very relatable and also very measurable (with the right tools). Intellect plays a big part but so does culture and personality. So let’s say in your sample you would be able to predict (with relatively high probability) that the individual will outsmart their superior within a matter of months. You would have a few options such as thinning the lines between leadership and guidance/mentorship or enabling horizontal movement at an equal pace. Yes and this also leads to right-sizing of the company which is imperative in these times, well, most times, actually. Now, most companies do not sample their full workforce and can never really provide accurate predictions at such a granular level. That’s mostly because the workforce itself is poorly incentivized to use such an app. The key here is to incentivize the user. Typically, you want to decouple from the app and its usage entirely and focus on insight to the user, first. Our app would literally recommend an employee to leave their employer if the chance that they will ever be happy in that culture is too low. That’s not a place where most app providers want to be, as it’s hard to sell something like that. That’s interesting, and I agree, most people would rather make their own discovery on this matter (and a whole lot of other things), than relying on what an app tells them to do. We’re not in the business of making money, we’re Scientists with a company and want to make good predictions. Those two don’t always tango nicely. I wanted to ask about how a Data Scientist like yourself employs the typical SaaS framework into self-assessment. You also work with Psychologists, and Neural Scientists? Yes, but the Psychologist isn’t part of the app per se. The way it works is best explained through a case. Let’s say you are a lawyer in Japan for a prestigious firm but you aren’t very emotionally stable and lack the mental energy to do repetitive tasks structurally and precisely. This profile could most likely wear out in such an environment in a very short time. The software will assess all those features and benchmarks and prompt you to find some help. This is where you can directly ship your profile to one of the Psychologists for either a chat, a video call, or - when restrictions reduce, a session. We have a dedicated group of Psychologists connected right now but later want to create a larger infrastructure for it. This leaves all the power and all the data with the user until the very end. That’s also where we would make some money, we charge a very small fee for a user recommendation to any third party. And no one else is doing anything like this? By default I assume there’s 3-5 other parties doing something similar at any point in time. But not at a scale that’s relevant, I presume. Have you seen any? We are not aiming to become a “feature”, we are aiming to become the biggest database with monitored but anonymous behavior and psychometrics, so that our recommendation system is infallible. This is an extremely expensive and intense journey. Asking some of the brightest Neuropsychologists and Data Scientists to work on some of the most secure and safe software. This is a very long play, and we’re intrinsically motivated to play it, at scale. That’s probably why we don’t see many competitors. From a Data Scientist standpoint it should be a totally useful and interesting project, (and I think what you are building has a really relevant approach for the future of work and life), but from a CEO perspective, is it too advanced for us normal humanfolk to grasp, much less make a decision on actioning on our behaviors? You touch one of the biggest pain-points. How do we translate extremely complex and mostly statistical issues into digestible (and hopefully fun) advice without alienating users. To tackle it, we work with all our psychometric assessments in isolation and have user feedback embedded in our platform. We also use reinforcement learning to guarantee results (basically looping the outcomes back into the statistics/recommendations). Luckily we also have a large community of enthusiasts who love learning more about their profile and will tell us whether something is hard to understand, out of place, or just poorly designed in general. From a behavioural perspective it’s no easy feat, either. Getting people to actually do something is infinitely harder than to read about doing something. But this is talking about human laziness, very little can be done to get us off the couch and to stop watching television. I do sleep more when I’m at home but I attribute it to the cosy feels of my space. It seems you have your work cut out for you, then. I’m personally obsessed with self-assessment. In the early days of Facebook they would have those quizzes like ‘what type of fruit are you’, or ‘which Disney princess would you be?’, and I would always ship all my data just to find out. A lot of websites have quick assessment tools these days or political party picker apps. The phenomenal popularity of them is inspiring. In contrast, asking people on the street what they vote rarely matches the final outcome of the elections. So truthfulness to other people seems unlikely, whereas to apps, is becoming more mainstream. You would be Belle. Lol! For the last 10 years we have, en masse, offloaded all our data on social media apps and publicly created a legacy of information. I think most of us have given up on protecting themselves from the internet entirely. I gotta move, this was an interesting talk! Thanks! Lots to think about! Hopefully we will see each other again before the year is over! Yes, I certainly hope so too. It’s been a great chat. Thank you Rachel.

Therapy as a Service, Sex and Other Coping Mechanisms While Homebound

Medicine is taking a turn from physical to digital - by 2025, the digital therapeutics market is projected to hit $7.8 billion. The uses of digital therapeutics range wildly from alleviating symptoms of physiological and neurobehavioral symptoms to therapeutic interventions driven by software and tech to therapies to improve outcomes when combined with regular treatments. They also offer new options to those who have otherwise unmet needs, and can help reduce reliance on medication. Digital therapeutics can also be used in the treatment of diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular, central nervous, respiratory, and gastrointestinal problems. One of the uses of tech in medicine is being used in tremor relief. This treatment combines high-intensity ultrasound to see through the skin directly to the bone, MRI to guide the procedure and to prevent healthy tissue damage. This kind of treatment, as like any treatment, has its pros and cons. This treatment is less invasive and has minimal risk as compared to traditional treatment, has a lower risk of infection, shorter recovery time, and little to no collateral damage. The cons however, are relatively minor such as tingling in the fingers and tongue and difficulty with sense of balance, but rarely last very long and are weak in intensity. Another new usage of digital therapeutics is making video games to assist with short-term memory, executive functioning, and selective attention. Video games can do this by requiring focus and making a plan and being able to process, filter, and respond to competing stimuli. Different games are being used to treat a number of illnesses such as ADHD, autism, multiple sclerosis, and major depression. Learn more about how tech is saving the lives and minds of millions around the world with current and upcoming tech using below. This is especially useful in the time of COVID-19 to help the medical community. digital therapeutics

Can Digital Therapeutics Help in Times of Coronavirus Crisis?

Over the past few months, I have been called upon several times to play the role of — a role that is sure to be more and more necessary for future generations as technology becomes more intertwined with our daily lives. When talking to my “patients,” I find myself asking these core questions: technology therapist When did you start using a smart phone? How many apps do you currently monitor? How many times do you check your phone daily? How often is your smart phone at your side? How has social media influenced your relationships? Do you feel anxiety when someone doesn’t respond to you right away? Do you feel judged on the content you share online or pressured to share specific content on social media? Which social media platforms do you currently use? Have you ever taken a hiatus from social media? Which platforms? The beautiful thing about approaching the age of 3–0 is that I can share as an older Millennial, I am part of a group of youth who grew up to be technology literate but not dependent. I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was 15, and even then it wasn’t easy to text like it is now, so I mostly used my phone for emergencies and to call my parents. Instead, I learned how to communicate completely face-to-face, without the aid/distraction of technology. Today, the world is a radically different place. In the time it takes me to go from my house to the gym, I can have Instacart deliver my groceries, post pre-scheduled Tweets through Buffer without being on Twitter, and play my favorite Spotify playlist (Shout-out to ) without using any data on my phone. It’s quite brilliant. Andrew Ash But it can also be addicting and enabling. So where is the balance? As a frequent traveler, I am blessed to have seen (and attempted to use technology in) a lot of the world. Last year when I was getting ready for a trip to Nepal, I started thinking about my technology usage. Recognizing that the Wi-Fi in the Himalayas is probably spotty, I saw this as an opportunity to do a re-set and make some adjustments in my life that would help me take back control from technology. What is most important to remember is that technology is a tool. So many of us use it as a distraction, or worse — as a part of our identity. Even if you’re Kanye West, I doubt anyone is going to remember what you tweeted a year from now, let alone in a decade. If you assume the average human life span is years, then it translates to be approximately days long. Phew! So I hope you will take the next to do your check-in. 75 28,000 72 hours In order to bring some balance back into our lives and use technology in ways that helps us (not harm us), I suggest exploring the following steps: Step 1: Take a 3-Day Break Sometimes folks recognize their unhealthy relationship with technology but go too far in the opposite direction and delete their accounts altogether. Instead, I suggest taking a 3-day break. That said, I’m not about the common move of “leaving” Facebook as if you are going on vacation. You need to really commit by removing the app(s) from your phone completely; changing your settings, and leaving Facebook. Ask your friends to give you a shout-out via text instead, or just give you a call. I know it can seem weird to pick up the phone, but trust me, you’ll be fine! After all of that is done, you’ll probably notice yourself one or more applications. This is when you need to ask yourself why. Is it because you want to stalk someone? Do you want to distract yourself by looking at memes? Do you want to get lost in past memories and look through your photos? Think carefully about what exactly it is you’re missing and how else you can meet those needs (preferably without technology). craving Countdown Check-In: Hour 1: I’m totally ready to take on this challenge! Delete dis clutter, I already feel light. Hour 2: F*ck, what I have gotten myself into…I just pick up phone and assume something is going to happen. I guess I could play a game on it…does that count? I’ll reorganize my clutter and delete old voicemails. I might even clean the case. Look at that… Step 2: Focus On Activities You Love and Track Your Behavior We’ve all heard about people charging their phones outside of their bedrooms or keeping their phones on silent during the weekends. There are even some more extreme people who delete apps during vacation…we should focus on why they try these things: they want more time with their friends and family, they want to be more productive at work or they want to space to do other things like reading. The cost for giving your attention to one place, one device, one anything is a limiting move and you might miss the opportunities for fulfillment in other areas of your life. I know firsthand how hard it can be to open yourself to the unknown and to new routines. While in Nepal, I had the pleasure of being completely distracted by traveling in another country and meeting new people every day. This made it easy to fill my day with me-type events, and I strongly encourage you to do the same. Do you like going to the farmer’s market, do you like to paint, or even having a brunch mimosa with friends, whatever it is, fill up your new free time with stuff for you. Next, gain awareness on your behaviors. The first day of my trip, I felt like I was missing something without my phone in my hand. I also experienced some minor anxiety when I thought about leaving my phone in my hostel room. What would I do if there was an emergency or someone was trying to reach me? Truthfully, the emergency thing is a real concern, but statistically speaking, I think we can play smart here and say it’s not dire to leave your phone behind and go explore. While hiking in complete beauty, I began to have anxiety about not taking any photos. But then I stopped and asked myself who I wanted to take photos for and whether anyone else really cared about what I was seeing in that moment. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I did have my GoPro with me which (unfortunately) had a damaged SD card so I don’t have any footage of making it to the Mt. Everest Base Camp. The truth is, however, that I’m not even bothered about it now. know it happened, and I do have a few pictures to commemorate it, but it’s about the journey I always. Let it all go, folks, live in the moment, and be bored. Without my phone, I found myself watching the day turn. When was the last time you just sat and watched the hours pass? One morning I left my hostel room and spent the entire day in the ground floor lobby chatting with strangers, watching the breeze ruffle the leaves, eating glorious curries, and just chilling out. It sparked different ideas and emotions, it was so telling to focus on the connections we were making, and how we communicated with each other. You see body language and facial expressions in a different way without the filter of technology. While it may sound like woo-woo new-age jargon, what I’m actually describing here is making human connections without the facilitation of technology. By connecting face-to-face, we build a bond not of memes or snaps but of stories, shrugs, and sighs. It’s very much a human story, and one that I forget how much I love to engage with until I find myself back in the thick of it. Hour 40: Okay, this isn’t so bad. I actually finished a book for once, and liked it. So…now what? Hour 52: The “itch” is wearing off. I’d love to post something about the amazing dish I just made… Oh well. Step 3: Recognize What You Do Miss | It’s Okay to Love Your Apps It’s easy to fall into the shame game pretty quickly. I’m here to tell you that it’s totally fine to love your applications. After all, there’s a reason they have became so popular and influenced our behaviors so quickly. So the awareness comes from what you miss — what do you miss? For me, it was Instagram. I do have some regret that I wasn’t able to take amazing pictures of my trip that I could look over and remember those moments as though they had just happened, but those images aren’t gone, they’re just in my memories for me to uncover and cherish. While I was on the trip, I also missed spending my early mornings and late nights laughing at memes and sharing them with my friends. I often start and end my day that way so that it begins and ends with laughter, and it would have been nice to keep up that habit while I was away. It’s always fun for us to stay connected across the globe by sending each other a giggle that says “I’m still thinking about you and you’re still my fam.” As a side note: shout-out to for being my top fave. Betches Hour 68: I can’t wait to redownload Insta and see get caught up on meme game. Actually more importantly, I can finally keep a record of my food again. YAS. Hour 72: That was pretty healthy, actually! I guess I don’t need Twitter in my life on the daily, I can keep that removed and I don’t need these other apps. I’ll keep a Facebook account to stay in touch with friends, but I’ll only access it on my desktop and when I’m not focused on work. Cool. Not bad. After completing these 3 steps, I hope you walk away with some new insights around your habits, behaviors, likes, dislikes, and what matters to you. At the end of the day, it’s about stepping back into the driver’s seat of your life and not being funneled to a place that isn’t working for you. We have no rulebook on how our relationships with technology are going to develop in the future or how humanity will evolve behaviorally over generations with access to knowledge and likes at our fingertips. Guess what? Balance is important in all things. I found this exercise helps me understand what’s most important and identify areas in which I can grow. And, most importantly, it helped me see strengths I already had — like forming relationships — that I had taken for granted. Tell me how it goes by your comments below. Are you ready to take the plunge?

Tech Therapy Check-Ins

This article is presented to you by the Immortality Foundation. Functional loss of stem cells plays a vital role in the aging process. Characterized by dysfunction of multiple tissues and organs, aging results from the reduced function of effective stem cell populations. Reversing age-related stem cell decline has long been a topic of considerable interest in longevity science. Recent advances in anti-aging research have uncovered the tremendous potential of stem cell therapy, as a way to achieve organismic rejuvenation [1]. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells of a multicellular organism which are capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type, and from which certain other kinds of cell arise by differentiation. In humans, there are two broad types of stem cells: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. In adult organisms, stem cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into various specialized cells, while maintaining the normal turnover of regenerative organs [2]. Over the past years, researchers have identified three accessible sources of adult stem cells: Bone marrow — complex procedure which requires extraction by drilling into bone (typically the femur or iliac crest) Adipose tissue (lipid cells) — which implies extraction by liposuction Blood — which requires extraction through apheresis, a procedure where blood is drawn from the donor and passed through a machine that extracts stem cells only and returns other portions of the blood to the donor [2]. Another possibility, less practiced, is extracting stem cells from umbilical cord blood just after birth. Of all procedures, autologous harvesting involves the least risk for immune rejection. Autologous cells are obtained from one’s own body, thus preventing the risk of unfavorable immune reactions. A new area of research, are induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) — adult stem cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to go back to an embryonic stem cell — like state. The reprogrammed cells function similarly to embryonic stem cells, with the ability to differentiate into any cell of the body and to create an unlimited source of cells. Pioneered by Japanese researchers in 2006, iPSC technology has significant implications for anti-aging research. The field of stem cell research has been characterized by remarkable developments in recent years. Stem cells are nowadays used for the modeling of diseases as well as for rejuvenating purposes. One aspect that has limited to some extent this therapy, was the uncertainty that after collection, injected stem cells maintain their rejuvenating function once they reach the blood stream or targeted organs. In order to preserve stem cells in their natural state, Penn University researchers developed a system to collect and store them without manipulating them, thus making stem cells available for administration via injections. They found that stem cells collected directly from human fat — called adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) — can make more proteins than originally thought. This gives them the ability to replicate and maintain their stability, a finding that can potentially open the door to new therapies for the prevention and treatment of aging-related diseases [3]. One form of stem cell therapy that has been widely practiced for over 30 years is bone marrow transplantation, and has been used to treat cancer patients with conditions such as leukemia and lymphoma. Another stem-cell therapy called Prochymal, was approved in Canada in 2012 for the treatment of acute graft-vs-host disease in children unresponsive to steroids [4]. Moreover, FDA has already approved five hematopoietic stem-cell products derived from umbilical cord blood, for the treatment of blood and immunological diseases. The number of clinical trials increases exponentially, as researchers try to tap into the potential of this revolutionary technique [5]. According to a study, conducted by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, stem cells taken from younger hearts can be used to reverse the aging process, thus giving “old hearts” the chance to rejuvenate. All treated mice had improved heart functionality, were able to exercise 20 percent longer, regrew hair at a faster rate, and had longer heart cell telomeres (telomeres are compounds found at the ends of chromosomes whose shortening is directly correlated to the aging process) [6]. Moreover, scientists recently proved that stem cell brain injections could reverse aging. Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine gave old mice a new lease on life by transplanting stem cells straight into hormone-producing regions of their brains. This study could open a new perspective in the quest for immortality. While stem cells have long held promise for regenerating specific tissues, the new findings suggest they could be used to override the entire aging process. Research leader Dongsheng Cai explains that the discovery that lays the ground for this work is that the hypothalamus — a section of the brain which secretes key hormones — controls the speed of aging throughout the body. This function is mainly attributed to a tiny group of adult stem cells, which restock the brain with neurons. Studies in animals showed that by replenishing those stem cells it’s possible to slow and even reverse various aspects of aging throughout the body [7]. Another study, conducted at the University of Rochester, found that the loss of stem cells in muscles leads to muscular decline in older mice, something that also happens to humans as they grow old. Therefore, stem cells might hold the key to people maintaining strength despite their muscles’ decline that starts in their 30s. The scientists are now focusing to build upon their research and discover a drug which could help individuals maintain the stem cell pools within their muscles [8]. Injections of stem cells derived from human embryos have been successfully used to treat multiple sclerosis in mice. The study revealed that stem cell-treated mice were able to walk and run around normally while untreated animals continued to be paralyzed. The researchers believe the findings are promising enough to move to clinical trials on patients in the hope of developing effective treatments for this degenerative disease [9]. In the cosmetic industry, stem cell injections are referred to as the ultimate anti-aging treatment. Studies showed that stem cells can replace, regrow, rejuvenate and repair the skin at a cellular level. Moreover, participants who have undergone stem cell infusion to slow down aging report other beneficial effects, such as: relief from aches and pains, dramatic boost in energy level, weight loss to normal level, increase in ability to do physical exercise, etc [10]. The numerous stem cell studies in progress across the globe are only a first step on the long road towards curing degenerative and age-related diseases. Because of their unlimited ability to self-renew and to differentiate, embryonic stem cells remain of great significance for regenerative medicine. There are still challenges to overcome before stem cells can be safely, effectively, and routinely used in the clinical setting. However, their potential benefits hold tremendous promise for an array of new anti-aging therapies and treatments. This article was presented to you by Immortality Foundation. References: Honoki, K. (2017). Preventing aging with stem cell rejuvenation: Feasible or infeasible? World J Stem Cells, 9(1), 1–8. Stem cells. (accessed on 30.10.2017). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell Stem Cell Therapy is Future of Anti-Ageing. (accessed on 30.10.2017). http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/others/sci-tech/stem-cell-therapy-is-future-of-anti-ageing/articleshow/57237567.cms A Stem-Cell-Based Drug Gets Approval in Canada. (accessed on 30.10.2017). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/health/a-stem-cell-based-drug-gets-approval-in-canada.html Reisman, M., & Adams, K. T. (2014). Stem cell therapy: A look at current research, regulations, and remaining hurdles. P & T?: A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Formulary Management, 39(12), 846–57. New Study Reveals Stem Cells from Young Hearts May Help Reverse the Aging Process. (accessed on 30.10.2017). https://futurism.com/new-study-reveals-stem-cells-from-young-hearts-may-help-reverse-the-aging-process Injection of stem cells could reverse ageing: New York scientists. (accessed on 30.10.2017). http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/injection-of-stem-cells-could-reverse-ageing-new-york-scientists/news-story/9a3daaa9b47caa9bc0c7ec8daf24dfb9 Study on Mice Shows Stem Cells Key to Maintaining Strength in Old Age. (accessed on 30.10.2017). https://www.stemaid.com/news/study-on-mice-shows-stem-cells-key-to-maintaining-strength-in-old-age.html Human stem cells successfully treat multiple sclerosis in mice. (accessed on 30.10.2017). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-stem-cells-successfully-treat-multiple-sclerosis-in-mice-9496400.html Stem Cell Therapy for Your Skin. (accessed on 30.10.2017). https://www.neomatrixmedical.com/stem-cell-medicine-in-florida/stem-cell-therapy-for-your-skin

Stem Cell Therapy — Triggering Human Body’s Ability to Heal Itself

I went to a really interesting the other day called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Tech Leads. The talk was led by Jamie Strachan, who was a developer for 15 years and now manages a team of developers at Info-Tech Research Group. In battling his own depression, he was introduced to the “Feeling Good” by David D Burns, where he discovered CBT. Meetup book Although not a tech lead myself, I was intrigued by the topic. Coming from a Neuroscience background and spending countless hours in various psychology classes, I wanted to see how Jamie was using CBT to help improve the day-to-day effectiveness of his fellow developers. CBT is the idea that our thoughts determine our emotions. Changing how we think therefore, will change how we feel about an experience. CBT is generally used to treat depression and other mental disorders, but Jamie outlined how CBT can be used to overcome common challenges such as procrastination, perfectionism, or handling criticisms. Now before we can go into how CBT can help overcome these challenges, we need to understand how our minds can trick us into arriving at negative conclusions. These “tricks” or cognitive distortions, are inaccurate thoughts that reinforce negative patterns of thought or emotions. It’s essentially a faulty way of thinking that convinces us of something, that isn’t really true. There are many cognitive distortions but some of the ones that Jamie pointed out were: Emotional Reasoning — We believe what we feel must automatically be true. We believe these unhealthy emotions reflect the way things actually are. eg.) Because I am feeling overwhelmed, I must be facing something overwhelming. 2. All-or-Nothing Thinking — If we don’t perform perfectly in one area, we see ourselves as a total failure. eg.) I can’t learn this language quickly enough therefore I’m a failure as a developer. 3. “Should” Statements — We have a firm set of rules about how we should behave. We think these statements are motivating when directed towards ourselves, however they often leave feelings of guilt, frustration, and failure. eg.) I really should exercise. 5. Jumping to conclusions (Mind reading, fortune teller error) — We come to a negative conclusion even though there are no definitive facts that convincingly support said conclusion. a.) Mind reading — You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you. eg.) She didn’t say hello to me this morning. She must dislike me. The fortune teller error. — You anticipate that things will go awry, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an established fact. b.) eg.) My year-end review will definitely go poorly. 4. Catastrophizing / Magnifying or Minimizing — We expect the worst to happen based on a slight incident that was not a big issue in the first place. eg.) I made a mistake and now the whole project is ruined and I’ll be fired. 5.) Labelling — We generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgement. eg.) I can’t even help him find a solution. I’m an idiot. Jamie then went on to explain how these cognitive distortions are intertwined with some of the everyday challenges we face both in the workplace and our personal life. Perfectionism Perfectionism is described as setting extremely high and often unreasonable expectations for yourself and/or others. Oftentimes, your self-worth is based on your ability to strive and achieve these standards. Perfectionism involves “all-or-nothing” thinking; if something is not “perfect” or up to a certain standard, it’s useless. As soon as Jamie mentioned this, I instantly thought of an example from my own life. When I was coming up with ideas for my personal website, I looked through multiple examples that others had done. I would finally settle on an idea and start working on it, but then I would see something better that someone else had done and scrap my idea. This happened numerous times as I felt my work wasn’t “perfect” and didn’t measure up to some standard I had set for myself. Even after I had the website put up, I would still obsess about various changes or improvements that I could include. Of course, wanting to improve your work is a good thing, but not when it gets in the way of other more important tasks. In my case, I had other programming languages to learn, and it was far more important to improve my coding skills than put up a cool looking portfolio website. Procrastination Consider the following scenario. There’s a deadline fast approaching for a project and you’ve barely started to work. You’re feeling anxious about it so you find yourself scrolling Pinterest, watching T.V., or even cleaning the house all to avoid the task and temporarily find some relief from your anxiety. Once the reality of the deadline sets in, you feel extreme guilt and shame that you’ve wasted all this time. Again you turn to T.V to shut off those negative feelings, and now you’re in a vicious self-defeating cycle. This is something I’m sure everyone has gone through at some point in their life. Again our brains are really good at misleading us. In this case, we’re using emotional reasoning. We are feeling anxious and overwhelmed so therefore we must be facing a task that’s daunting. Mishandling Criticism In any work place, your work will face scrutiny and criticism from others at some point. Hopefully this will be constructive criticism and lead to the overall improvement of the project. It’s important to be able to take criticism from others without feeling anger, frustration, or guilt. I’ll be honest, I’m not someone who handles criticism well. For me, receiving criticism leads me straight to “Should” statements. “I should have known better.” “I should have caught that error.” “I should have worked harder.” These statements often lead to guilt and the feeling of defeat. So how do we actually change this way of thinking. The first thing according to Jamie is you need to test your feelings. Feelings will not necessarily be positive. The should however be helpful, reasonable, and rational (based on reality). This helps you identify the issue. Next, get the thoughts out of your head using the Triple Column Method (see below). Lastly, do not be afraid to seek help. Of course, this topic is far more vast than I can hope to cover in this post but I hope it has piqued your interest. Please check out Jamie’s full talk at https://vimeo.com/253833709

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Developers

It’s time to rethink technology. ***TICKETS ARE LIMITED AND AVAILABLE *** HERE Technology news this week has been horrifying for many. A pedestrian was . Facebook is involved in a . Last month, Twitter put out a as a recognition of the growing issues across social media (something ). fatally hit by a self-driving Uber data breach of an incredible scale public call for more meaningful health metrics Mark Zuckerberg aims to fix in 2018 The old motto of “move fast, break things,” isn’t as enticing anymore. There’s a need to consider the ethics and psychological impact of how technology is impacting users. The has done an incredible job beginning this movement, but there’s more we can do. Center for Humane Technology Introducing, the Reverse Hackathon. The Reverse Hackathon Let’s come together to majorly redesign tech tools in a more meaningful, socially responsible way. We’re bringing together the power of a truly interdisciplinary dialogue, including academics, designers, ethicists, computer scientists, psychologists, entrepreneurs, educators, and many more. The final product for this hackathon is a 5 minute product proposal to humanely redesign an existing technology. We’re using humanities fields to “hack” tech product development. Let’s stop addicting users to our products and spreading false information across our platforms. Let’s stop making products without a consideration for implications on the psychology of our users. Let’s stop developing products that treat humans as aggregate numbers on a dashboard. Let’s stop breaking things. Our Reverse Hackathon is co-organized by the and . HackMentalHealth is the organizer of the world’s largest mental health hackathon and advised by Dave Morin, Dr. Steven Chan, and . California Institute of Integral Studies HackMentalHealth many other prominent figures Example Problem Spaces Here are some ideas of hacks we can see at our event, to give a clearer sense of what we’re thinking Dating apps promote self-consciousness, lookism, inauthenticity, and avoidance. How can we use relationship psychology to change Tinder, Bumble, and other apps in ways that avoid these negative thought patterns? Netflix and YouTube encourage users to spend hours on their sites binge watching and getting autoplayed to the next video. How can we restructure these technologies in a way that’s beneficial to both the company and the consumer? Instagram promotes trends like pro-ana and thinspiration, dangerously negative campaigns that promote unhealthy eating habits. How can we leverage ethics and psychology to redesign these infinite photo feeds to prevent the propagation of these trends? Why We’re Doing This We know that technology use is shaping our emotional lives, social relationships, desires and expectations as well as decision making. By bringing together academics, ethicists, psychologists, educators and other social science and humanities experts as well as product developers, designers, and coders to bridge the gap between teach and social and emotional health. What is different about this hackathon, however, is that we will begin with common technology tools and apps and at the end of the hack our participants will present pitches that improve the apps and tools by infusing them with new features that help the tools better serve our collective mental and emotional health. Join Us We’ve announced this post early in advance of the event because we want your support. We have two available slots for judges, and are looking to add sponsors and partners to our growing list of past and current sponsors. Our tickets are on sale! Get them Please 👏 and share with others if you believe in this mission. at this link.

Announcing The Reverse Hackathon with Therachat— Ethics+Technology

I just completed the second and final weekend of a two-weekend hackathon with a 3 month gap in-between the weekends. I was joined by an old friend turned developer in the interest of creating a small project together. Our requirements included project self sufficiency and limited future maintenance. We had little interest in curating social networks or dealing with custom requests. It was important to set goals that we could actually achieve. To do that, we had a few ground rules: The (10) Rules Above all: complete the project Enjoy the time in-person. I live in New York, he lives in DC. That means one of us will be traveling. This is still and always preferable to remote work Ample coffee available Ample beer available Don’t shy away from great food, but do stay conscious of time Learn new things, but don’t force new things (see rule #1) Confine the necessary work to the weekend. This was especially important given the time between our weekends Wake up early Lean on each other’s strengths and trust the other person to do their job Repeat rule #1 We did hit our release, but I didn’t want to make this about self promotion. So if you’re really interested you can hit me up on . Twitter The more important goal here is to dissect the good and bad aspects of these micro product releases. I’ve learned a lot about technology, my relationships, my increasingly-limited time, my risk tolerance, and some of my other interests. Photo from Dan Carlson Defining a micro product Stage one of our process was to choose the direction we would go and aggressively limit our scope. We definitely noticed that is anything but common. Every product sector has layers of hard-earned knowledge. This is why it’s hard to beat subject-matter experts as co-founders. common knowledge Our highest depth of knowledge is software development. This inevitably means that we suffer from a slight lack of substance on most other things. This is to be expected. It is also something I wish more people understood about developers. The Good We limited the feature set on our initial concept. What we released actually looked a lot like our original plan. We planned & implemented a one-and-done, paid service. Every interaction happens within a single session. Customers receive emails upon completion. No long-term relationship with customers, no community curation (both time-intensive). We built marketing and communication plans into our weekend work schedules. This was new for me. It was incredibly eye opening and successful. The Bad We underestimated the crowded-ness of the market (domain registration tools). This was both from a features perspective and a marketing perspective. Our ad budget per click is far lower than much of the competition. We decided not to focus on SEO, choosing an AdWords strategy instead. It was probably the wrong idea, in hindsight. This is given the low cost of the service ($9.99 — $18.99). Pay-per-click advertising is very expensive when you have low conversion value like this. The technology that made the cut The greatness of most technology is very context dependent. If speed and minimal effort is a goal, then is my slogan to win the day. This is not to say some of the tools in the bad section are not good in other contexts. Get Up and Running, Quickly The Good : was the first and obvious winner. I had not used it yet. I had priorly favored generators that bundled client and server into the same generator. I think the Facebook slogan for the repo says it all: fatigue anyone? Not dealing with a build was the joy of our lives. facebook/create-react-app Create React apps with no build configuration. JavaScript : I actually wrote another article about that . Claudia saved us from dealing with the medium to high level configuration knowledge that was sucking time out of our development process. We wanted a simple API, we wanted to make changes, we wanted to be able to deploy it and have everything work. claudiajs/claudia here : Initially problematic, but with some great tutorials from and , we were able to get it up and working very well. You can’t beat the cost and the caching advantages are also very real. For a client that is merely hitting an external (or Lambda) API, it’s hard to do better for a micro product. S3 static hosting Kyle Galbraith here Sebastian Buckpesch here : It’s hard to say enough good things about stripe’s fantastic API and integration. They’ve made payment processing on the web into a pure joy. Stripe : Been using it for years, and hard to go with something else at this point. Even though it’s no longer maintained, I was happy with the ease and syntax of from . Mandrill rschmukler/powerdrill Ryan Schmukler The Bad : Originally looked like the right tool for the job. For the better informed on Lambda, it probably is the right tool for the job. For our case, messing with different configurations on Lambda became too much of a distraction and threatened to derail our momentum on the project. serverless/serverless AWS : I use it everywhere. Once was in the mix, the value-add for webpack was very limited. Anyone who has worked with webpack knows that it is in the business of configuration headaches, so it was nice to get it out of the way. webpack.js facebook/create-react-app Supplement resources for the win We engaged in some education. Aside from the standard Stack Overflow and frantic solution searching, there were a couple other things that helped us through the process: from . I took the first three sections to get us up and going. This thing is a beast. Very valuable. Very plain spoken. Very excellent advice on how to get up and running with Google AdWords. The Ultimate Google AdWords Course Isaac Rudansky Bought a great looking template for $65.00. Quickly converted it into React components with no fuss. The template adhered to bootstrap standards, so applying existing classes was trivial. To be clear, the template did not look like Bootstrap, it just applied the standards. ThemeForest It cannot be said enough that this is a great way to document an open source library and its API. Learned a ton, and hope I was able to give back with my videos . The Claudia JS Example Projects here which came in handy for bus and train tickets in the northeast corridor. WanderU Why Therapy? In four days of work and good community, we managed to release a client/server application with reliable connections to 5+ APIs. It serves a basic need for customers. It has viral marketing built into the checkout process. It processes payments via stripe. It has a detailed, thorough AdWords campaign behind it. It works well on desktops, mobile, and tablet devices. We don’t hate the code and we don’t hate ourselves. It feels good to say that. That’s the therapy part. What I’ve Learned My desire to create and release products is a disease. My cure is not in sight. The conclusion of the project was bittersweet. We can no longer focus on the next developer milestone. We have to see if customers are actually interested. That is the biggest test of all. I do believe that the ability to create things with little cost pushes developers to write a line of code before it’s necessary. My future attempts will likely undergo a greater degree of market testing. Given that, I think we have learned a great deal and should be able to apply it more surgically when the next thing comes around. Photo from Artem Sapegin

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