ave Unsolved Zoom Mysteries: Why We Have to Say “You’re Muted” So Much By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:36:00 -0400 Video conference tools are an indispensable part of the Plague Times. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and their compatriots are keeping us close and connected in a physically distanced world. As tech-savvy folks with years of cross-office collaboration, we’ve laughed at the sketches and memes about vidconf mishaps. We practice good Zoomiquette, including muting ourselves when we’re not talking. Yet even we can’t escape one vidconf pitfall. (There but for the grace of Zoom go I.) On nearly every vidconf, someone starts to talk, and then someone else says: “Oop, you’re muted.” And, inevitably: “Oop, you’re still muted.” That’s right: we’re trying to follow Zoomiquette by muting, but then we forget or struggle to unmute when we do want to talk. In this post, I’ll share my theories for why the You’re Muted Problems are so pervasive, using Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom as examples. Spoiler alert: While I hope this will help you be more mindful of the problem, I can’t offer a good solution. It still happens to me. All. The. Time. Skip the why and go straight to the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now. Why we don't realize we’re muted before talking Why does this keep happening?!? Simply put: UX and design decisions make it harder to remember that you’re muted before you start to talk. Here’s a common scenario: You haven’t talked for a bit, so you haven’t interacted with the Zoom screen for a few seconds. Then you start to talk — and that’s when someone tells you, “You’re muted.” We forget so easily in these scenarios because when our mouse has been idle for a few seconds, the apps hide or downplay the UI elements that tell us we’re muted. Zoom and Teams are the worst offenders: Zoom hides both the toolbar with the main in-app controls (the big mute button) and the mute status indicator on your video pane thumbnail.Teams hides the toolbar, and doesn't show a mute status indicator on your video thumbnail in the first place. Meet is only slightly better: Meet hides the toolbar, and shows only a small mute status icon in your video thumbnail. Even when our mouse is active, the apps’ subtle approach to muted state UI can make it easy to forget that we’re muted: Teams is the worst offender: The mute button is an icon rather than words.The muted-state icon's styling could be confused with unmuted state: Teams does not follow the common pattern of using red to denote muted state.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from all the other controls.As mentioned above, Teams never shows a secondary mute status indicator. Zoom is a bit better, but still makes it pretty easy to forget that you’re muted: Pros:Zoom is the only app to use words on the mute button, in this case to denote the button action (rather than the muted state).The muted-state icon’s styling (red line) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:The mute button’s placement (bottom left corner of the page) is easy to overlook.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from the other toolbar buttons — and Zoom has a lot of toolbar buttons, especially when logged in as host.The secondary mute status indicator is a small icon.The mute button’s muted-state icon is styled slightly differently from the secondary mute status indicator. Potential Cons:While words denote the button action, only an icon denotes the muted state. Meet is probably the clearest of the three apps, but still has pitfalls: Pros:The mute button is visually prominent in the UI: It’s clearly differentiated in the visual hierarchy relative to other controls (styled as a primary button); is a large button; and is placed closer to the center of the controls bar.The muted-state icon’s styling (red fill) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:Uses only an icon rather than words to denote the muted state.Unrelated Con:While the mute button is visually prominent, it’s also placed next to the hang-up button. So in Meet’s active state you might be less likely to forget you’re muted … but more likely to accidentally hang up when trying to unmute. 😬 I know modern app design leans toward minimalism. There’s often good rationale to use icons rather than words, or to de-emphasize controls and indicators when not in use. But again: This happens on basically every call! Often multiple times per call!! And we’re supposed to be tech-savvy!!! Imagine what it’s like for the tens of millions of vidconf newbs. I would argue that “knowing your muted state” has turned out to be a major vidconf user need. At this point, it’s certainly worth rethinking UX patterns for. Why we keep unsuccessfully unmuting once we realize we’re muted So we can blame the You’re Muted Problem on UX and design. But what causes the You’re Still Muted Problem? Once we know we’re muted, why do we sometimes fail to unmute before talking again? This one is more complicated — and definitely more speculative. To start making sense of this scenario, here’s the sequence I’m guessing most commonly plays out (I did this a couple times before I became aware of it): The crucial part is when the person tries to unmute by pressing the keyboard Volume On/Off key. If that’s in fact what’s happening (again, this is just a hypothesis), I’m guessing they did that because when someone says “You’re muted” or “I can’t hear you,” our subconscious thought process is: “Oh, Audio is Off. Press the keyboard key that I usually press when I want to change Audio Off to Audio On.” There are two traps in this reflexive thought process: First, the keyboard volume keys control the speaker volume, not the microphone volume. (More specifically, they control the system sound output settings, rather than the system sound input settings or the vidconf app’s sound input settings.)In fact, there isn’t a keyboard key to control the microphone volume. You can’t unmute your mic via a dedicated keyboard key, the way that you can turn the speaker volume on/off via a keyboard key while watching a movie or listening to music. Second, I think we reflexively press the keyboard key anyway because our mental model of the keyboard audio keys is just: Audio. Not microphone vs. speaker. This fuzzy mental model makes sense: There’s only one set of keyboard keys related to audio, so why would I think to distinguish between microphone and speaker? So my best guess is hardware design causes the You’re Still Muted Problem. After all, keyboard designs are from a pre-Zoom era, when the average person rarely used the computer’s microphone.If that is the cause, one potential solution is for hardware manufacturers to start including dedicated keys to control microphone volume: Video conference keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now Let me know if you have other theories for the You’re Still Muted Problem! In the meantime, the best alternative is to learn all of the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts for muting/unmuting: MeetMac: Command(⌘) + DWindows: Control + DTeamsMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + MZoomMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + AWindows: Alt + AHold Spacebar: Temporarily unmute Other vidconf apps not included in my analysis: Cisco Webex MeetingsMac: Ctrl + Alt + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + M GoToMeeting Mac: No keyboard shortcut? Windows: Ctrl + Alt + A Bonus protip from Jackson Fox: If you use multiple vidconf apps, pick a keyboard shortcut that you like and manually change each app’s mute/unmute shortcut to that. Then you only have to remember one shortcut! Full Article Process User Experience
ave Presence 2.0: Beaver Builder Integration, Dark Skin & More! By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 08 Apr 2020 13:05:07 +0000 Great news for the users of Presence — our multipurpose theme. We have finally released the long-awaited 2.0 version, which features major changes and improvements. What’s new in Presence 2.0? Beaver Builder Integration Dark Skin New Demo: Organic Shop New Typography and Colors options in the Customizer New Templates in Page Builder Beaver Builder Integration If you have followed recent […] Full Article Theme Updates
ave If You’re Using Beaver Builder Lite, You Need This Addon By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:22:52 +0000 Hey there, I’m Ben, and I’m a guest author here at WPZOOM. Today I thought I’d share with you my experience of one of their rather awesome plugins, an addon for Beaver Builder. I know the team at WPZOOM are big fans of Beaver Builder, why not? It’s a great page builder with an excellent feature set; chances are if […] Full Article Plugins
ave Scurry: A Race-To-Finish Scavenger Hunt App By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:58:00 -0400 We have a lot of traditions here at Viget, many of which you may have read about - TTT, FLF, Pointless Weekend. There are others, but you have to be an insider for more information on those. Pointless Weekend is one of our favorite traditions, though. It’s been around over a decade and some pretty fun work has come out of it over the years, like Storyboard, Baby Bookie, and Short Order. At a high level, we take 48 hours to build a tool, experiment, or stunt as a team, across all four of our offices. These projects are entirely separate from our client work and we use them to try out new technologies, explore roles on the team, and stress-test our processes. The first step for a Pointless Weekend is assembling the teams. We had two teams this year, with a record number of participants. You can read about TrailBuddy, what the other team built, here. The Scurry team was split between the DC and Durham offices, so all meetings were held via Hangout. Once we were assembled, we set out to understand the constraints and the goals of our Pointless Project. We went into this weekend with an extra pep in our step, as we were determined to build something for the upcoming Viget 20th anniversary TTT this summer. Here’s what we knew we wanted: An activity all Vigets could do together, where they could create memories, and share broadly on socialSomething that we could use in a spotty network at C Lazy U Ranch in ColoradoA product we can share with others: corporate groups, families and friends, schools, bachelor/ette parties We landed on a scavenger hunt native app, which we named Scurry (Scavenger + Hurry = Scurry. Brilliant, right?). There are already a few scavenger apps available, so we set out to create something that was Quick and easy to set up huntsFree and intuitive for usersA nice combination of trivia and activitiesSocial! We wanted to enable teams to share photos and progress One of the main reasons we have Pointless Weekends is to test out new technologies and processes. In that vein, we tried out Notion as our central organizing tool - we used it for user journeys, data modeling, and even writing tickets, which we typically use Github for. We tested out Notion as our primary tool, writing tickets and tracking progress. When we built the app, we needed to prepare for spotty network service, as internet connectivity isn’t guaranteed at C Lazy U Ranch – where our Viget20 celebration will be. A Progressive Web Application (PWA) didn't make sense for our tech requirements, so we chose the route of creating a native application. There are a number of options available to build native applications. But, as we were looking to make as much progress as possible in 48-hours, we chose one of our favorite frameworks: React Native. React Native allows developers to build true, cross-platform native applications, using some of our favorite technologies: javascript, the React framework, and a native-specific variant of CSS. We decided on the turn-key solution Expo. Expo has extra tooling allowing for easy development, deployment, and debugging. This is a snap shot of our app and Expo. Our frontend developers were able to immediately dive in making screens and styling components, and quickly made the mockups in Whimsical a reality. On the backend, we used the supported library to connect to the backend datastore, Firebase. Firebase is a hosted solution for data storage, with key features built-in like authentication, realtime updates, and offline support. Our backend developer worked behind the frontend developers hooking those views up to live data. Both of these tools, Expo and Firebase, were easy to use and allowed us to focus on building a working application quickly, rather than being mired in setup or bespoke solutions to common problems. Whimsical is one of our favorite tools for building out mockups of an app. We made impressive progress in our 48-hour sprint, but there’s still some work to do. We have some additional features we hope to add before TTT, which will require additional testing and refining. For now, stay tuned and sign up for our newsletter. We’ll be sure to share when Scurry is ready for the world! Full Article News & Culture
ave Unsolved Zoom Mysteries: Why We Have to Say “You’re Muted” So Much By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:36:00 -0400 Video conference tools are an indispensable part of the Plague Times. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and their compatriots are keeping us close and connected in a physically distanced world. As tech-savvy folks with years of cross-office collaboration, we’ve laughed at the sketches and memes about vidconf mishaps. We practice good Zoomiquette, including muting ourselves when we’re not talking. Yet even we can’t escape one vidconf pitfall. (There but for the grace of Zoom go I.) On nearly every vidconf, someone starts to talk, and then someone else says: “Oop, you’re muted.” And, inevitably: “Oop, you’re still muted.” That’s right: we’re trying to follow Zoomiquette by muting, but then we forget or struggle to unmute when we do want to talk. In this post, I’ll share my theories for why the You’re Muted Problems are so pervasive, using Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom as examples. Spoiler alert: While I hope this will help you be more mindful of the problem, I can’t offer a good solution. It still happens to me. All. The. Time. Skip the why and go straight to the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now. Why we don't realize we’re muted before talking Why does this keep happening?!? Simply put: UX and design decisions make it harder to remember that you’re muted before you start to talk. Here’s a common scenario: You haven’t talked for a bit, so you haven’t interacted with the Zoom screen for a few seconds. Then you start to talk — and that’s when someone tells you, “You’re muted.” We forget so easily in these scenarios because when our mouse has been idle for a few seconds, the apps hide or downplay the UI elements that tell us we’re muted. Zoom and Teams are the worst offenders: Zoom hides both the toolbar with the main in-app controls (the big mute button) and the mute status indicator on your video pane thumbnail.Teams hides the toolbar, and doesn't show a mute status indicator on your video thumbnail in the first place. Meet is only slightly better: Meet hides the toolbar, and shows only a small mute status icon in your video thumbnail. Even when our mouse is active, the apps’ subtle approach to muted state UI can make it easy to forget that we’re muted: Teams is the worst offender: The mute button is an icon rather than words.The muted-state icon's styling could be confused with unmuted state: Teams does not follow the common pattern of using red to denote muted state.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from all the other controls.As mentioned above, Teams never shows a secondary mute status indicator. Zoom is a bit better, but still makes it pretty easy to forget that you’re muted: Pros:Zoom is the only app to use words on the mute button, in this case to denote the button action (rather than the muted state).The muted-state icon’s styling (red line) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:The mute button’s placement (bottom left corner of the page) is easy to overlook.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from the other toolbar buttons — and Zoom has a lot of toolbar buttons, especially when logged in as host.The secondary mute status indicator is a small icon.The mute button’s muted-state icon is styled slightly differently from the secondary mute status indicator. Potential Cons:While words denote the button action, only an icon denotes the muted state. Meet is probably the clearest of the three apps, but still has pitfalls: Pros:The mute button is visually prominent in the UI: It’s clearly differentiated in the visual hierarchy relative to other controls (styled as a primary button); is a large button; and is placed closer to the center of the controls bar.The muted-state icon’s styling (red fill) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:Uses only an icon rather than words to denote the muted state.Unrelated Con:While the mute button is visually prominent, it’s also placed next to the hang-up button. So in Meet’s active state you might be less likely to forget you’re muted … but more likely to accidentally hang up when trying to unmute. 😬 I know modern app design leans toward minimalism. There’s often good rationale to use icons rather than words, or to de-emphasize controls and indicators when not in use. But again: This happens on basically every call! Often multiple times per call!! And we’re supposed to be tech-savvy!!! Imagine what it’s like for the tens of millions of vidconf newbs. I would argue that “knowing your muted state” has turned out to be a major vidconf user need. At this point, it’s certainly worth rethinking UX patterns for. Why we keep unsuccessfully unmuting once we realize we’re muted So we can blame the You’re Muted Problem on UX and design. But what causes the You’re Still Muted Problem? Once we know we’re muted, why do we sometimes fail to unmute before talking again? This one is more complicated — and definitely more speculative. To start making sense of this scenario, here’s the sequence I’m guessing most commonly plays out (I did this a couple times before I became aware of it): The crucial part is when the person tries to unmute by pressing the keyboard Volume On/Off key. If that’s in fact what’s happening (again, this is just a hypothesis), I’m guessing they did that because when someone says “You’re muted” or “I can’t hear you,” our subconscious thought process is: “Oh, Audio is Off. Press the keyboard key that I usually press when I want to change Audio Off to Audio On.” There are two traps in this reflexive thought process: First, the keyboard volume keys control the speaker volume, not the microphone volume. (More specifically, they control the system sound output settings, rather than the system sound input settings or the vidconf app’s sound input settings.)In fact, there isn’t a keyboard key to control the microphone volume. You can’t unmute your mic via a dedicated keyboard key, the way that you can turn the speaker volume on/off via a keyboard key while watching a movie or listening to music. Second, I think we reflexively press the keyboard key anyway because our mental model of the keyboard audio keys is just: Audio. Not microphone vs. speaker. This fuzzy mental model makes sense: There’s only one set of keyboard keys related to audio, so why would I think to distinguish between microphone and speaker? So my best guess is hardware design causes the You’re Still Muted Problem. After all, keyboard designs are from a pre-Zoom era, when the average person rarely used the computer’s microphone.If that is the cause, one potential solution is for hardware manufacturers to start including dedicated keys to control microphone volume: Video conference keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now Let me know if you have other theories for the You’re Still Muted Problem! In the meantime, the best alternative is to learn all of the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts for muting/unmuting: MeetMac: Command(⌘) + DWindows: Control + DTeamsMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + MZoomMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + AWindows: Alt + AHold Spacebar: Temporarily unmute Other vidconf apps not included in my analysis: Cisco Webex MeetingsMac: Ctrl + Alt + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + M GoToMeeting Mac: No keyboard shortcut? Windows: Ctrl + Alt + A Bonus protip from Jackson Fox: If you use multiple vidconf apps, pick a keyboard shortcut that you like and manually change each app’s mute/unmute shortcut to that. Then you only have to remember one shortcut! Full Article Process User Experience
ave Jude Graveson, Artist By traceygrady.com Published On :: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 08:35:53 +0000 Select each thumbnail to view the full image × × Full Article Uncategorised
ave The invisible injury: How concussions have changed our lives By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 09 Mar 2020 14:01:37 EDT 'It can happen to you anywhere, at any moment, and just change your world' Full Article
ave Concussion had made my life a mess. So I gave my brain injury a name By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 09 Mar 2020 14:15:12 EDT By turning 'Stella' into a punchline, laughter became my medicine and sharing my story became my therapy Full Article
ave How to Fix ESLint Errors Upon Save in VS Code By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 03:05:49 +0000 Two of the most prominent utilities in web development today are ESLint and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. I enjoy using both, and I love the integration between both tools, but warnings from ESLint inside Visual Studio Code aren’t fulfilling — I’d rather lint errors be fixed each time I save. Complete the following steps to […] The post How to Fix ESLint Errors Upon Save in VS Code appeared first on David Walsh Blog. Full Article JavaScript Quick Tips
ave 6 Must Have Developer Tools and Services for Your Projects in 2019 By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:17:03 +0000 This is it! Your one-stop shop for developer tools and resources. Designed to save you time and money, streamline project workflows, boost productivity, or all the above, Choosing the right tool for the job is never easy for several reasons. There’s a huge number to choose among, you have to know what to look for, […] The post 6 Must Have Developer Tools and Services for Your Projects in 2019 appeared first on WebAppers. Full Article Best Collections
ave Save time by using these builders for portfolio websites and pages By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 01 Oct 2019 00:03:02 +0000 If you’re a professional wanting to showcase your products, what better way is there to do so than with a personal portfolio? Maybe one that’s presented in a way that invites close study? A portfolio used to be a folder of papers you would carry around with you when visiting one potential customer after another. […] The post Save time by using these builders for portfolio websites and pages appeared first on WebAppers. Full Article Best Collections
ave Unforgettable Road Trips in the UK-A new of enjoying your next travel By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 04 Feb 2016 17:35:42 +0000 Scenic Road Trips in the UK that are Worth Capturing by Camera Some people like hiking. Some people like cycling. But, after chatting with online car dealership Carspring, it seems you can have just as much fun exploring your next trip in the complete, climate-controlled comfort of your car. Here we go through the most unforgettable road trips in England, Scotland and Wales. Drives that offer driving heaven, stunning scenery and plenty of fun along the way. All you need is the right company and you are all set to enjoy! England: Road from Glastonbury to Cheddar Gorge – Check out the route here. This route gives you a proper feel of medieval England. Begin deep in England’s spiritual realm on the outskirts of the hallowed town on Glastonbury (Therefore avoid at a certain summer weekend). Start at the Tor on the edge of town, where hippies will tell you ... Read more The post Unforgettable Road Trips in the UK-A new of enjoying your next travel appeared first on Digital Photography Tutorials. Full Article Uncategorized camera compact digital camera Photo Editing photography
ave How to Master the Elevator Pitch & Leave a Great First Impression By justcreative.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 06:12:24 +0000 Want to master the elevator pitch and leave a great first impression? Use this easy formula to help communicate what you do in a concise pitch! Full Article Business Elevator Pitch
ave Scurry: A Race-To-Finish Scavenger Hunt App By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:58:00 -0400 We have a lot of traditions here at Viget, many of which you may have read about - TTT, FLF, Pointless Weekend. There are others, but you have to be an insider for more information on those. Pointless Weekend is one of our favorite traditions, though. It’s been around over a decade and some pretty fun work has come out of it over the years, like Storyboard, Baby Bookie, and Short Order. At a high level, we take 48 hours to build a tool, experiment, or stunt as a team, across all four of our offices. These projects are entirely separate from our client work and we use them to try out new technologies, explore roles on the team, and stress-test our processes. The first step for a Pointless Weekend is assembling the teams. We had two teams this year, with a record number of participants. You can read about TrailBuddy, what the other team built, here. The Scurry team was split between the DC and Durham offices, so all meetings were held via Hangout. Once we were assembled, we set out to understand the constraints and the goals of our Pointless Project. We went into this weekend with an extra pep in our step, as we were determined to build something for the upcoming Viget 20th anniversary TTT this summer. Here’s what we knew we wanted: An activity all Vigets could do together, where they could create memories, and share broadly on socialSomething that we could use in a spotty network at C Lazy U Ranch in ColoradoA product we can share with others: corporate groups, families and friends, schools, bachelor/ette parties We landed on a scavenger hunt native app, which we named Scurry (Scavenger + Hurry = Scurry. Brilliant, right?). There are already a few scavenger apps available, so we set out to create something that was Quick and easy to set up huntsFree and intuitive for usersA nice combination of trivia and activitiesSocial! We wanted to enable teams to share photos and progress One of the main reasons we have Pointless Weekends is to test out new technologies and processes. In that vein, we tried out Notion as our central organizing tool - we used it for user journeys, data modeling, and even writing tickets, which we typically use Github for. We tested out Notion as our primary tool, writing tickets and tracking progress. When we built the app, we needed to prepare for spotty network service, as internet connectivity isn’t guaranteed at C Lazy U Ranch – where our Viget20 celebration will be. A Progressive Web Application (PWA) didn't make sense for our tech requirements, so we chose the route of creating a native application. There are a number of options available to build native applications. But, as we were looking to make as much progress as possible in 48-hours, we chose one of our favorite frameworks: React Native. React Native allows developers to build true, cross-platform native applications, using some of our favorite technologies: javascript, the React framework, and a native-specific variant of CSS. We decided on the turn-key solution Expo. Expo has extra tooling allowing for easy development, deployment, and debugging. This is a snap shot of our app and Expo. Our frontend developers were able to immediately dive in making screens and styling components, and quickly made the mockups in Whimsical a reality. On the backend, we used the supported library to connect to the backend datastore, Firebase. Firebase is a hosted solution for data storage, with key features built-in like authentication, realtime updates, and offline support. Our backend developer worked behind the frontend developers hooking those views up to live data. Both of these tools, Expo and Firebase, were easy to use and allowed us to focus on building a working application quickly, rather than being mired in setup or bespoke solutions to common problems. Whimsical is one of our favorite tools for building out mockups of an app. We made impressive progress in our 48-hour sprint, but there’s still some work to do. We have some additional features we hope to add before TTT, which will require additional testing and refining. For now, stay tuned and sign up for our newsletter. We’ll be sure to share when Scurry is ready for the world! Full Article News & Culture
ave Unsolved Zoom Mysteries: Why We Have to Say “You’re Muted” So Much By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:36:00 -0400 Video conference tools are an indispensable part of the Plague Times. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and their compatriots are keeping us close and connected in a physically distanced world. As tech-savvy folks with years of cross-office collaboration, we’ve laughed at the sketches and memes about vidconf mishaps. We practice good Zoomiquette, including muting ourselves when we’re not talking. Yet even we can’t escape one vidconf pitfall. (There but for the grace of Zoom go I.) On nearly every vidconf, someone starts to talk, and then someone else says: “Oop, you’re muted.” And, inevitably: “Oop, you’re still muted.” That’s right: we’re trying to follow Zoomiquette by muting, but then we forget or struggle to unmute when we do want to talk. In this post, I’ll share my theories for why the You’re Muted Problems are so pervasive, using Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom as examples. Spoiler alert: While I hope this will help you be more mindful of the problem, I can’t offer a good solution. It still happens to me. All. The. Time. Skip the why and go straight to the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now. Why we don't realize we’re muted before talking Why does this keep happening?!? Simply put: UX and design decisions make it harder to remember that you’re muted before you start to talk. Here’s a common scenario: You haven’t talked for a bit, so you haven’t interacted with the Zoom screen for a few seconds. Then you start to talk — and that’s when someone tells you, “You’re muted.” We forget so easily in these scenarios because when our mouse has been idle for a few seconds, the apps hide or downplay the UI elements that tell us we’re muted. Zoom and Teams are the worst offenders: Zoom hides both the toolbar with the main in-app controls (the big mute button) and the mute status indicator on your video pane thumbnail.Teams hides the toolbar, and doesn't show a mute status indicator on your video thumbnail in the first place. Meet is only slightly better: Meet hides the toolbar, and shows only a small mute status icon in your video thumbnail. Even when our mouse is active, the apps’ subtle approach to muted state UI can make it easy to forget that we’re muted: Teams is the worst offender: The mute button is an icon rather than words.The muted-state icon's styling could be confused with unmuted state: Teams does not follow the common pattern of using red to denote muted state.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from all the other controls.As mentioned above, Teams never shows a secondary mute status indicator. Zoom is a bit better, but still makes it pretty easy to forget that you’re muted: Pros:Zoom is the only app to use words on the mute button, in this case to denote the button action (rather than the muted state).The muted-state icon’s styling (red line) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:The mute button’s placement (bottom left corner of the page) is easy to overlook.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from the other toolbar buttons — and Zoom has a lot of toolbar buttons, especially when logged in as host.The secondary mute status indicator is a small icon.The mute button’s muted-state icon is styled slightly differently from the secondary mute status indicator. Potential Cons:While words denote the button action, only an icon denotes the muted state. Meet is probably the clearest of the three apps, but still has pitfalls: Pros:The mute button is visually prominent in the UI: It’s clearly differentiated in the visual hierarchy relative to other controls (styled as a primary button); is a large button; and is placed closer to the center of the controls bar.The muted-state icon’s styling (red fill) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:Uses only an icon rather than words to denote the muted state.Unrelated Con:While the mute button is visually prominent, it’s also placed next to the hang-up button. So in Meet’s active state you might be less likely to forget you’re muted … but more likely to accidentally hang up when trying to unmute. 😬 I know modern app design leans toward minimalism. There’s often good rationale to use icons rather than words, or to de-emphasize controls and indicators when not in use. But again: This happens on basically every call! Often multiple times per call!! And we’re supposed to be tech-savvy!!! Imagine what it’s like for the tens of millions of vidconf newbs. I would argue that “knowing your muted state” has turned out to be a major vidconf user need. At this point, it’s certainly worth rethinking UX patterns for. Why we keep unsuccessfully unmuting once we realize we’re muted So we can blame the You’re Muted Problem on UX and design. But what causes the You’re Still Muted Problem? Once we know we’re muted, why do we sometimes fail to unmute before talking again? This one is more complicated — and definitely more speculative. To start making sense of this scenario, here’s the sequence I’m guessing most commonly plays out (I did this a couple times before I became aware of it): The crucial part is when the person tries to unmute by pressing the keyboard Volume On/Off key. If that’s in fact what’s happening (again, this is just a hypothesis), I’m guessing they did that because when someone says “You’re muted” or “I can’t hear you,” our subconscious thought process is: “Oh, Audio is Off. Press the keyboard key that I usually press when I want to change Audio Off to Audio On.” There are two traps in this reflexive thought process: First, the keyboard volume keys control the speaker volume, not the microphone volume. (More specifically, they control the system sound output settings, rather than the system sound input settings or the vidconf app’s sound input settings.)In fact, there isn’t a keyboard key to control the microphone volume. You can’t unmute your mic via a dedicated keyboard key, the way that you can turn the speaker volume on/off via a keyboard key while watching a movie or listening to music. Second, I think we reflexively press the keyboard key anyway because our mental model of the keyboard audio keys is just: Audio. Not microphone vs. speaker. This fuzzy mental model makes sense: There’s only one set of keyboard keys related to audio, so why would I think to distinguish between microphone and speaker? So my best guess is hardware design causes the You’re Still Muted Problem. After all, keyboard designs are from a pre-Zoom era, when the average person rarely used the computer’s microphone.If that is the cause, one potential solution is for hardware manufacturers to start including dedicated keys to control microphone volume: Video conference keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now Let me know if you have other theories for the You’re Still Muted Problem! In the meantime, the best alternative is to learn all of the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts for muting/unmuting: MeetMac: Command(⌘) + DWindows: Control + DTeamsMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + MZoomMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + AWindows: Alt + AHold Spacebar: Temporarily unmute Other vidconf apps not included in my analysis: Cisco Webex MeetingsMac: Ctrl + Alt + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + M GoToMeeting Mac: No keyboard shortcut? Windows: Ctrl + Alt + A Bonus protip from Jackson Fox: If you use multiple vidconf apps, pick a keyboard shortcut that you like and manually change each app’s mute/unmute shortcut to that. Then you only have to remember one shortcut! Full Article Process User Experience
ave Here comes Traversty traversing the DOM By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 01:59:37 +0000 The Traversty DOM utility has as its purpose to allow you to traverse the DOM and manage collections of DOM elements. Proponents admit core Traversty traversal methods are inspired by Prototype’s DOM Traversal toolkit, but now in a multi-element environment that is more like jQuery and less like Prototype’s single element implementation. Full Article Front Page JavaScript
ave 10 Exciting Examples of the Beaver Builder Plugin in Use By wphacks.com Published On :: Mon, 03 Feb 2020 08:00:00 +0000 Building a stunning website is a tough job. Even if you have some basic understanding of things like code and […] The post 10 Exciting Examples of the Beaver Builder Plugin in Use appeared first on WPHacks. Full Article Plugins beaver builder plugin web design
ave Insects Are ‘Glue in Nature’ and Must Be Rescued to Save Humanity, Says Top Scientist By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 07 May 2019 22:23:24 +0000 By Jake Johnson Common Dreams Rapidly falling insect populations, said Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, “will make it even more difficult than today to get enough food for the human population of the planet, to get good health and freshwater for everybody.” A … Continue reading → Full Article Endangered Species ET Perspectives
ave Insects Are ‘Glue in Nature’ and Must Be Rescued to Save Humanity, Says Top Scientist By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 07 May 2019 22:23:24 +0000 By Jake Johnson Common Dreams Rapidly falling insect populations, said Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, “will make it even more difficult than today to get enough food for the human population of the planet, to get good health and freshwater for everybody.” A … Continue reading → Full Article Endangered Species ET Perspectives
ave School District Switches to Local and Organic Meals, Cuts Carbon Footprint—and Saves Money By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 23 May 2017 20:01:39 +0000 By Melissa Hellmann Yes! Magazine A new report revealed surprising results when Oakland overhauled its lunch menu at 100-plus schools by serving less meat and more fruits and vegetables. When her eldest son was in elementary school in the Oakland … Continue reading → Full Article Food eat local nutrition school lunch
ave Can Business Save the World From Climate Change? By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 20:29:23 +0000 By Bianca Nogrady Ensia A growing number of initiatives are giving corporations the resources to help achieve global climate goals regardless of government support “We are still in.” On June 5, 2017, with these four words a group of U.S. … Continue reading → Full Article Business & Economy adaptation to climate change Business Climate Change corporations Paris Climate Agreement
ave Save the Planet; Eat an Insect By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 19:49:39 +0000 By David Suzuki David Suzuki Foundation People sometimes get bugged by insects, but we need them. They play essential roles in pollination, combating unwanted agricultural pests, recycling organic matter, feeding fish, birds and bats, and much more. They’re the most … Continue reading → Full Article Food
ave More Than 1,000 Workers at Tyson Plant Have Coronavirus By feeds.drudge.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 23:58:14 -0400 More than 1,000 workers at the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo have tested positive for the coronavirus, a county public health leader said Thursday -- more than double the number Gov. Kim Reynolds had said were infected the day before. Full Article news
ave Scurry: A Race-To-Finish Scavenger Hunt App By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:58:00 -0400 We have a lot of traditions here at Viget, many of which you may have read about - TTT, FLF, Pointless Weekend. There are others, but you have to be an insider for more information on those. Pointless Weekend is one of our favorite traditions, though. It’s been around over a decade and some pretty fun work has come out of it over the years, like Storyboard, Baby Bookie, and Short Order. At a high level, we take 48 hours to build a tool, experiment, or stunt as a team, across all four of our offices. These projects are entirely separate from our client work and we use them to try out new technologies, explore roles on the team, and stress-test our processes. The first step for a Pointless Weekend is assembling the teams. We had two teams this year, with a record number of participants. You can read about TrailBuddy, what the other team built, here. The Scurry team was split between the DC and Durham offices, so all meetings were held via Hangout. Once we were assembled, we set out to understand the constraints and the goals of our Pointless Project. We went into this weekend with an extra pep in our step, as we were determined to build something for the upcoming Viget 20th anniversary TTT this summer. Here’s what we knew we wanted: An activity all Vigets could do together, where they could create memories, and share broadly on socialSomething that we could use in a spotty network at C Lazy U Ranch in ColoradoA product we can share with others: corporate groups, families and friends, schools, bachelor/ette parties We landed on a scavenger hunt native app, which we named Scurry (Scavenger + Hurry = Scurry. Brilliant, right?). There are already a few scavenger apps available, so we set out to create something that was Quick and easy to set up huntsFree and intuitive for usersA nice combination of trivia and activitiesSocial! We wanted to enable teams to share photos and progress One of the main reasons we have Pointless Weekends is to test out new technologies and processes. In that vein, we tried out Notion as our central organizing tool - we used it for user journeys, data modeling, and even writing tickets, which we typically use Github for. We tested out Notion as our primary tool, writing tickets and tracking progress. When we built the app, we needed to prepare for spotty network service, as internet connectivity isn’t guaranteed at C Lazy U Ranch – where our Viget20 celebration will be. A Progressive Web Application (PWA) didn't make sense for our tech requirements, so we chose the route of creating a native application. There are a number of options available to build native applications. But, as we were looking to make as much progress as possible in 48-hours, we chose one of our favorite frameworks: React Native. React Native allows developers to build true, cross-platform native applications, using some of our favorite technologies: javascript, the React framework, and a native-specific variant of CSS. We decided on the turn-key solution Expo. Expo has extra tooling allowing for easy development, deployment, and debugging. This is a snap shot of our app and Expo. Our frontend developers were able to immediately dive in making screens and styling components, and quickly made the mockups in Whimsical a reality. On the backend, we used the supported library to connect to the backend datastore, Firebase. Firebase is a hosted solution for data storage, with key features built-in like authentication, realtime updates, and offline support. Our backend developer worked behind the frontend developers hooking those views up to live data. Both of these tools, Expo and Firebase, were easy to use and allowed us to focus on building a working application quickly, rather than being mired in setup or bespoke solutions to common problems. Whimsical is one of our favorite tools for building out mockups of an app. We made impressive progress in our 48-hour sprint, but there’s still some work to do. We have some additional features we hope to add before TTT, which will require additional testing and refining. For now, stay tuned and sign up for our newsletter. We’ll be sure to share when Scurry is ready for the world! Full Article News & Culture
ave Unsolved Zoom Mysteries: Why We Have to Say “You’re Muted” So Much By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:36:00 -0400 Video conference tools are an indispensable part of the Plague Times. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and their compatriots are keeping us close and connected in a physically distanced world. As tech-savvy folks with years of cross-office collaboration, we’ve laughed at the sketches and memes about vidconf mishaps. We practice good Zoomiquette, including muting ourselves when we’re not talking. Yet even we can’t escape one vidconf pitfall. (There but for the grace of Zoom go I.) On nearly every vidconf, someone starts to talk, and then someone else says: “Oop, you’re muted.” And, inevitably: “Oop, you’re still muted.” That’s right: we’re trying to follow Zoomiquette by muting, but then we forget or struggle to unmute when we do want to talk. In this post, I’ll share my theories for why the You’re Muted Problems are so pervasive, using Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom as examples. Spoiler alert: While I hope this will help you be more mindful of the problem, I can’t offer a good solution. It still happens to me. All. The. Time. Skip the why and go straight to the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now. Why we don't realize we’re muted before talking Why does this keep happening?!? Simply put: UX and design decisions make it harder to remember that you’re muted before you start to talk. Here’s a common scenario: You haven’t talked for a bit, so you haven’t interacted with the Zoom screen for a few seconds. Then you start to talk — and that’s when someone tells you, “You’re muted.” We forget so easily in these scenarios because when our mouse has been idle for a few seconds, the apps hide or downplay the UI elements that tell us we’re muted. Zoom and Teams are the worst offenders: Zoom hides both the toolbar with the main in-app controls (the big mute button) and the mute status indicator on your video pane thumbnail.Teams hides the toolbar, and doesn't show a mute status indicator on your video thumbnail in the first place. Meet is only slightly better: Meet hides the toolbar, and shows only a small mute status icon in your video thumbnail. Even when our mouse is active, the apps’ subtle approach to muted state UI can make it easy to forget that we’re muted: Teams is the worst offender: The mute button is an icon rather than words.The muted-state icon's styling could be confused with unmuted state: Teams does not follow the common pattern of using red to denote muted state.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from all the other controls.As mentioned above, Teams never shows a secondary mute status indicator. Zoom is a bit better, but still makes it pretty easy to forget that you’re muted: Pros:Zoom is the only app to use words on the mute button, in this case to denote the button action (rather than the muted state).The muted-state icon’s styling (red line) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:The mute button’s placement (bottom left corner of the page) is easy to overlook.The mute button is not differentiated in visual hierarchy from the other toolbar buttons — and Zoom has a lot of toolbar buttons, especially when logged in as host.The secondary mute status indicator is a small icon.The mute button’s muted-state icon is styled slightly differently from the secondary mute status indicator. Potential Cons:While words denote the button action, only an icon denotes the muted state. Meet is probably the clearest of the three apps, but still has pitfalls: Pros:The mute button is visually prominent in the UI: It’s clearly differentiated in the visual hierarchy relative to other controls (styled as a primary button); is a large button; and is placed closer to the center of the controls bar.The muted-state icon’s styling (red fill) is less likely to be confused with the unmuted-state icon.Cons:Uses only an icon rather than words to denote the muted state.Unrelated Con:While the mute button is visually prominent, it’s also placed next to the hang-up button. So in Meet’s active state you might be less likely to forget you’re muted … but more likely to accidentally hang up when trying to unmute. 😬 I know modern app design leans toward minimalism. There’s often good rationale to use icons rather than words, or to de-emphasize controls and indicators when not in use. But again: This happens on basically every call! Often multiple times per call!! And we’re supposed to be tech-savvy!!! Imagine what it’s like for the tens of millions of vidconf newbs. I would argue that “knowing your muted state” has turned out to be a major vidconf user need. At this point, it’s certainly worth rethinking UX patterns for. Why we keep unsuccessfully unmuting once we realize we’re muted So we can blame the You’re Muted Problem on UX and design. But what causes the You’re Still Muted Problem? Once we know we’re muted, why do we sometimes fail to unmute before talking again? This one is more complicated — and definitely more speculative. To start making sense of this scenario, here’s the sequence I’m guessing most commonly plays out (I did this a couple times before I became aware of it): The crucial part is when the person tries to unmute by pressing the keyboard Volume On/Off key. If that’s in fact what’s happening (again, this is just a hypothesis), I’m guessing they did that because when someone says “You’re muted” or “I can’t hear you,” our subconscious thought process is: “Oh, Audio is Off. Press the keyboard key that I usually press when I want to change Audio Off to Audio On.” There are two traps in this reflexive thought process: First, the keyboard volume keys control the speaker volume, not the microphone volume. (More specifically, they control the system sound output settings, rather than the system sound input settings or the vidconf app’s sound input settings.)In fact, there isn’t a keyboard key to control the microphone volume. You can’t unmute your mic via a dedicated keyboard key, the way that you can turn the speaker volume on/off via a keyboard key while watching a movie or listening to music. Second, I think we reflexively press the keyboard key anyway because our mental model of the keyboard audio keys is just: Audio. Not microphone vs. speaker. This fuzzy mental model makes sense: There’s only one set of keyboard keys related to audio, so why would I think to distinguish between microphone and speaker? So my best guess is hardware design causes the You’re Still Muted Problem. After all, keyboard designs are from a pre-Zoom era, when the average person rarely used the computer’s microphone.If that is the cause, one potential solution is for hardware manufacturers to start including dedicated keys to control microphone volume: Video conference keyboard shortcuts you should memorize right now Let me know if you have other theories for the You’re Still Muted Problem! In the meantime, the best alternative is to learn all of the vidconf app keyboard shortcuts for muting/unmuting: MeetMac: Command(⌘) + DWindows: Control + DTeamsMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + MZoomMac: Command(⌘) + Shift + AWindows: Alt + AHold Spacebar: Temporarily unmute Other vidconf apps not included in my analysis: Cisco Webex MeetingsMac: Ctrl + Alt + MWindows: Ctrl + Shift + M GoToMeeting Mac: No keyboard shortcut? Windows: Ctrl + Alt + A Bonus protip from Jackson Fox: If you use multiple vidconf apps, pick a keyboard shortcut that you like and manually change each app’s mute/unmute shortcut to that. Then you only have to remember one shortcut! Full Article Process User Experience
ave Arthur packets for $G_2$ and perverse sheaves on cubics. (arXiv:2005.02438v2 [math.RT] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: This paper begins the project of defining Arthur packets of all unipotent representations for the $p$-adic exceptional group $G_2$. Here we treat the most interesting case by defining and computing Arthur packets with component group $S_3$. We also show that the distributions attached to these packets are stable, subject to a hypothesis. This is done using a self-contained microlocal analysis of simple equivariant perverse sheaves on the moduli space of homogeneous cubics in two variables. In forthcoming work we will treat the remaining unipotent representations and their endoscopic classification and strengthen our result on stability. Full Article
ave Solitary wave solutions and global well-posedness for a coupled system of gKdV equations. (arXiv:2002.09531v2 [math.AP] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: In this work we consider the initial-value problem associated with a coupled system of generalized Korteweg-de Vries equations. We present a relationship between the best constant for a Gagliardo-Nirenberg type inequality and a criterion for the existence of global solutions in the energy space. We prove that such a constant is directly related to the existence problem of solitary-wave solutions with minimal mass, the so called ground state solutions. To guarantee the existence of ground states we use a variational method. Full Article
ave On the automorphic sheaves for GSp_4. (arXiv:1901.04447v6 [math.RT] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: In this paper we first review the setting for the geometric Langlands functoriality and establish a result for the `backward' functoriality functor. We illustrate this by known examples of the geometric theta-lifting. We then apply the above result to obtain new Hecke eigen-sheaves. The most important application is a construction of the automorphic sheaf for G=GSp_4 attached to a G^L-local system on a curve X such that its standard representation is an irreducible local system of rank 4 on X. Full Article
ave Generalized Cauchy-Kovalevskaya extension and plane wave decompositions in superspace. (arXiv:2005.03160v1 [math-ph]) By arxiv.org Published On :: The aim of this paper is to obtain a generalized CK-extension theorem in superspace for the bi-axial Dirac operator. In the classical commuting case, this result can be written as a power series of Bessel type of certain differential operators acting on a single initial function. In the superspace setting, novel structures appear in the cases of negative even superdimensions. In these cases, the CK-extension depends on two initial functions on which two power series of differential operators act. These series are not only of Bessel type but they give rise to an additional structure in terms of Appell polynomials. This pattern also is present in the structure of the Pizzetti formula, which describes integration over the supersphere in terms of differential operators. We make this relation explicit by studying the decomposition of the generalized CK-extension into plane waves integrated over the supersphere. Moreover, these results are applied to obtain a decomposition of the Cauchy kernel in superspace into monogenic plane waves, which shall be useful for inverting the super Radon transform. Full Article
ave Improved RawNet with Feature Map Scaling for Text-independent Speaker Verification using Raw Waveforms. (arXiv:2004.00526v2 [eess.AS] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: Recent advances in deep learning have facilitated the design of speaker verification systems that directly input raw waveforms. For example, RawNet extracts speaker embeddings from raw waveforms, which simplifies the process pipeline and demonstrates competitive performance. In this study, we improve RawNet by scaling feature maps using various methods. The proposed mechanism utilizes a scale vector that adopts a sigmoid non-linear function. It refers to a vector with dimensionality equal to the number of filters in a given feature map. Using a scale vector, we propose to scale the feature map multiplicatively, additively, or both. In addition, we investigate replacing the first convolution layer with the sinc-convolution layer of SincNet. Experiments performed on the VoxCeleb1 evaluation dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, and the best performing system reduces the equal error rate by half compared to the original RawNet. Expanded evaluation results obtained using the VoxCeleb1-E and VoxCeleb-H protocols marginally outperform existing state-of-the-art systems. Full Article
ave A Fast and Accurate Algorithm for Spherical Harmonic Analysis on HEALPix Grids with Applications to the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. (arXiv:1904.10514v4 [math.NA] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: The Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelation (HEALPix) scheme is used extensively in astrophysics for data collection and analysis on the sphere. The scheme was originally designed for studying the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, which represents the first light to travel during the early stages of the universe's development and gives the strongest evidence for the Big Bang theory to date. Refined analysis of the CMB angular power spectrum can lead to revolutionary developments in understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy. In this paper, we present a new method for performing spherical harmonic analysis for HEALPix data, which is a central component to computing and analyzing the angular power spectrum of the massive CMB data sets. The method uses a novel combination of a non-uniform fast Fourier transform, the double Fourier sphere method, and Slevinsky's fast spherical harmonic transform (Slevinsky, 2019). For a HEALPix grid with $N$ pixels (points), the computational complexity of the method is $mathcal{O}(Nlog^2 N)$, with an initial set-up cost of $mathcal{O}(N^{3/2}log N)$. This compares favorably with $mathcal{O}(N^{3/2})$ runtime complexity of the current methods available in the HEALPix software when multiple maps need to be analyzed at the same time. Using numerical experiments, we demonstrate that the new method also appears to provide better accuracy over the entire angular power spectrum of synthetic data when compared to the current methods, with a convergence rate at least two times higher. Full Article
ave Using hierarchical matrices in the solution of the time-fractional heat equation by multigrid waveform relaxation. (arXiv:1706.07632v3 [math.NA] UPDATED) By arxiv.org Published On :: This work deals with the efficient numerical solution of the time-fractional heat equation discretized on non-uniform temporal meshes. Non-uniform grids are essential to capture the singularities of "typical" solutions of time-fractional problems. We propose an efficient space-time multigrid method based on the waveform relaxation technique, which accounts for the nonlocal character of the fractional differential operator. To maintain an optimal complexity, which can be obtained for the case of uniform grids, we approximate the coefficient matrix corresponding to the temporal discretization by its hierarchical matrix (${cal H}$-matrix) representation. In particular, the proposed method has a computational cost of ${cal O}(k N M log(M))$, where $M$ is the number of time steps, $N$ is the number of spatial grid points, and $k$ is a parameter which controls the accuracy of the ${cal H}$-matrix approximation. The efficiency and the good convergence of the algorithm, which can be theoretically justified by a semi-algebraic mode analysis, are demonstrated through numerical experiments in both one- and two-dimensional spaces. Full Article
ave Computing with bricks and mortar: Classification of waveforms with a doped concrete blocks. (arXiv:2005.03498v1 [cs.ET]) By arxiv.org Published On :: We present results showing the capability of concrete-based information processing substrate in the signal classification task in accordance with in materio computing paradigm. As the Reservoir Computing is a suitable model for describing embedded in materio computation, we propose that this type of presented basic construction unit can be used as a source for "reservoir of states" necessary for simple tuning of the readout layer. In that perspective, buildings constructed from computing concrete could function as a highly parallel information processor for smart architecture. We present an electrical characterization of the set of samples with different additive concentrations followed by a dynamical analysis of selected specimens showing fingerprints of memfractive properties. Moreover, on the basis of obtained parameters, classification of the signal waveform shapes can be performed in scenarios explicitly tuned for a given device terminal. Full Article
ave Algorithmic Averaging for Studying Periodic Orbits of Planar Differential Systems. (arXiv:2005.03487v1 [cs.SC]) By arxiv.org Published On :: One of the main open problems in the qualitative theory of real planar differential systems is the study of limit cycles. In this article, we present an algorithmic approach for detecting how many limit cycles can bifurcate from the periodic orbits of a given polynomial differential center when it is perturbed inside a class of polynomial differential systems via the averaging method. We propose four symbolic algorithms to implement the averaging method. The first algorithm is based on the change of polar coordinates that allows one to transform a considered differential system to the normal form of averaging. The second algorithm is used to derive the solutions of certain differential systems associated to the unperturbed term of the normal of averaging. The third algorithm exploits the partial Bell polynomials and allows one to compute the integral formula of the averaged functions at any order. The last algorithm is based on the aforementioned algorithms and determines the exact expressions of the averaged functions for the considered differential systems. The implementation of our algorithms is discussed and evaluated using several examples. The experimental results have extended the existing relevant results for certain classes of differential systems. Full Article
ave Detection and Feeder Identification of the High Impedance Fault at Distribution Networks Based on Synchronous Waveform Distortions. (arXiv:2005.03411v1 [eess.SY]) By arxiv.org Published On :: Diagnosis of high impedance fault (HIF) is a challenge for nowadays distribution network protections. The fault current of a HIF is much lower than that of a normal load, and fault feature is significantly affected by fault scenarios. A detection and feeder identification algorithm for HIFs is proposed in this paper, based on the high-resolution and synchronous waveform data. In the algorithm, an interval slope is defined to describe the waveform distortions, which guarantees a uniform feature description under various HIF nonlinearities and noise interferences. For three typical types of network neutrals, i.e.,isolated neutral, resonant neutral, and low-resistor-earthed neutral, differences of the distorted components between the zero-sequence currents of healthy and faulty feeders are mathematically deduced, respectively. As a result, the proposed criterion, which is based on the distortion relationships between zero-sequence currents of feeders and the zero-sequence voltage at the substation, is theoretically supported. 28 HIFs grounded to various materials are tested in a 10kV distribution networkwith three neutral types, and are utilized to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Full Article
ave Wavelet Integrated CNNs for Noise-Robust Image Classification. (arXiv:2005.03337v1 [cs.CV]) By arxiv.org Published On :: Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are generally prone to noise interruptions, i.e., small image noise can cause drastic changes in the output. To suppress the noise effect to the final predication, we enhance CNNs by replacing max-pooling, strided-convolution, and average-pooling with Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). We present general DWT and Inverse DWT (IDWT) layers applicable to various wavelets like Haar, Daubechies, and Cohen, etc., and design wavelet integrated CNNs (WaveCNets) using these layers for image classification. In WaveCNets, feature maps are decomposed into the low-frequency and high-frequency components during the down-sampling. The low-frequency component stores main information including the basic object structures, which is transmitted into the subsequent layers to extract robust high-level features. The high-frequency components, containing most of the data noise, are dropped during inference to improve the noise-robustness of the WaveCNets. Our experimental results on ImageNet and ImageNet-C (the noisy version of ImageNet) show that WaveCNets, the wavelet integrated versions of VGG, ResNets, and DenseNet, achieve higher accuracy and better noise-robustness than their vanilla versions. Full Article
ave Crop Aggregating for short utterances speaker verification using raw waveforms. (arXiv:2005.03329v1 [eess.AS]) By arxiv.org Published On :: Most studies on speaker verification systems focus on long-duration utterances, which are composed of sufficient phonetic information. However, the performances of these systems are known to degrade when short-duration utterances are inputted due to the lack of phonetic information as compared to the long utterances. In this paper, we propose a method that compensates for the performance degradation of speaker verification for short utterances, referred to as "crop aggregating". The proposed method adopts an ensemble-based design to improve the stability and accuracy of speaker verification systems. The proposed method segments an input utterance into several short utterances and then aggregates the segment embeddings extracted from the segmented inputs to compose a speaker embedding. Then, this method simultaneously trains the segment embeddings and the aggregated speaker embedding. In addition, we also modified the teacher-student learning method for the proposed method. Experimental results on different input duration using the VoxCeleb1 test set demonstrate that the proposed technique improves speaker verification performance by about 45.37% relatively compared to the baseline system with 1-second test utterance condition. Full Article
ave An Optimal Control Theory for the Traveling Salesman Problem and Its Variants. (arXiv:2005.03186v1 [math.OC]) By arxiv.org Published On :: We show that the traveling salesman problem (TSP) and its many variants may be modeled as functional optimization problems over a graph. In this formulation, all vertices and arcs of the graph are functionals; i.e., a mapping from a space of measurable functions to the field of real numbers. Many variants of the TSP, such as those with neighborhoods, with forbidden neighborhoods, with time-windows and with profits, can all be framed under this construct. In sharp contrast to their discrete-optimization counterparts, the modeling constructs presented in this paper represent a fundamentally new domain of analysis and computation for TSPs and their variants. Beyond its apparent mathematical unification of a class of problems in graph theory, the main advantage of the new approach is that it facilitates the modeling of certain application-specific problems in their home space of measurable functions. Consequently, certain elements of economic system theory such as dynamical models and continuous-time cost/profit functionals can be directly incorporated in the new optimization problem formulation. Furthermore, subtour elimination constraints, prevalent in discrete optimization formulations, are naturally enforced through continuity requirements. The price for the new modeling framework is nonsmooth functionals. Although a number of theoretical issues remain open in the proposed mathematical framework, we demonstrate the computational viability of the new modeling constructs over a sample set of problems to illustrate the rapid production of end-to-end TSP solutions to extensively-constrained practical problems. Full Article
ave Is Your Website a Failure? 3 Reasons Sites Fail (And How to Save Yours) By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 13:00:05 +0000 Traffic isn’t great, online sales are even worse, and let’s not talk about the lack of phone calls. Everyone, including you, is wondering the same thing — is your website a failure? Not yet, and not if you have anything to say about it. While a failing website can seem like a problem without a […] The post Is Your Website a Failure? 3 Reasons Sites Fail (And How to Save Yours) appeared first on WebFX Blog. Full Article Web Design
ave Need a Website? 6 Reasons to Have a Website for Your Business By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sat, 22 Feb 2020 14:24:37 +0000 Did you know that over 70% of people will research a company on the web before deciding to buy or visit, yet 46% of small businesses in the U.S. don’t have a website? If you don’t have a site, people can’t research your company and determine if you’re a good fit for their needs. If […] The post Need a Website? 6 Reasons to Have a Website for Your Business appeared first on WebFX Blog. Full Article Web Design
ave Regional summer camps hope the pandemic doesn't put activities on pause, but have backup plans ready if it does By www.inlander.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 04:00:00 -0700 [IMAGE-1]After having their school year totally disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, a return to some semblance of normalcy come summer is all many school-age kids and their families are looking forward to. For many, this anticipation includes annual summer camp traditions, from sleep-away adventures on the lake to fun-filled day camps for arts, learning or team sports.… Full Article Summer Camps
ave Key Missteps at the CDC Have Set Back Its Ability to Detect the Potential Spread of Coronavirus By www.inlander.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Feb 2020 06:25:49 -0800 The CDC designed a flawed test for COVID-19, then took weeks to figure out a fix so state and local labs could use it. New York still doesn’t trust the test’s accuracy By Caroline Chen, Marshall Allen, Lexi Churchill and Isaac Arnsdorf Propublica… Full Article News/Nation & World
ave These are are our neighbors. These are readers. These are the people we're all trying to save. By www.inlander.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 01:30:00 -0700 How the coronavirus outbreak has upended people's lives across the Inland Northwest The numbers don't lie.… Full Article News/Local News
ave The Lodge is a lame psychological horror film that will have you checking out immediately By www.inlander.com Published On :: Thu, 20 Feb 2020 01:30:00 -0800 [IMAGE-1] First of all: No. Why would a suddenly single dad to traumatized young children leave said shocked and distressed kids with his new fiancée, who is also the sole survivor of her own massive childhood trauma?… Full Article Film/Film News
ave Coronavirus concerns have put our live music scene on hold. What do we do now? By www.inlander.com Published On :: Thu, 19 Mar 2020 01:30:00 -0700 On any other week, you can rely on the Inlander for information on live shows happening in Spokane and North Idaho, and to read about the artists and music festivals that we think are worth your time.… Full Article Music News
ave CANCELED CONCERTS: Phish and Dave Matthews at the Gorge, the Festival at Sandpoint, Browne's Addition summer concerts By www.inlander.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:36:00 -0700 This is normally the time of year when we're up to our eyeballs in concert announcements, but in these topsy-turvy times, we're instead having to write about all the concerts being canceled due to COVID-19. It's a real bummer.… Full Article Music News
ave Two more residents of the Spokane Veterans Home have died, bringing death toll to five By www.inlander.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 17:54:35 -0700 Two more residents who were staying at the Spokane Veterans Home have died of complications related to COVID-19, according to the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. There have now been five residents of the home who have died following their diagnosis of COVID-19.… Full Article Local News
ave North Idaho's Best Golf Course: Circling Raven By www.inlander.com Published On :: Thu, 19 Mar 2020 01:30:00 -0700 For people who love playing, a day on the worst possible golf course is better than any day not swinging the clubs.… Full Article Recreation
ave Trump Fans Protest Against Governors Who Have Imposed Virus Restrictions By www.inlander.com Published On :: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 07:32:00 -0700 By Michael D. Shear and Sarah Mervosh WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday openly encouraged right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states with stay-at-home orders, a day after announcing guidelines for how the nation’s governors should carry out an orderly reopening of their communities on their own timetables.… Full Article News/Nation & World
ave 'We obviously have a Camp Hope 2.0-type situation': photos from Thursday night's homeless camp police confrontation By www.inlander.com Published On :: Sat, 02 May 2020 08:55:00 -0700 At around 5:30 pm on Thursday, there were two camps of people set up in Coeur d'Alene Park in Browne's Addition.… Full Article News/Local News