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SpatialKey

Background The Journey If you were to map (sorry, pun intended) my journey, in the field we call UX, SpatialKey would certainly be one of my bigger stops. I was the first and only UX person at the time. SpatialKey was a startup under Universal Mind. We had a very small team of people for many years as we built up the product. I learned a lot about more than just product design; the pressures of startups — make money as of yesterday — and especially how difficult it is to design applications that do a lot of very, very complex things. Five-O SpatialKey began as a demo that was on its way to becoming an MVP when I was hired. The intention was to pilot with a police department in Utah, and then explore other industries for product/market fit. For the police department, we were pulling in datasets and then enabling them to map criminal activity and help police officials make informed decisions about staffing and also help their team to investigate crimes. Early version of SpatialKey Start wearing a lot of hats In a startup you learn to wear many hats. So I did more than just work on the interfaces and IA; I designed and coded the first SpatialKey site, and also storyboarded and art directed the launch video.

https://medium.com/portfolio-francisco-inchauste/spatialkey-case-study-595d927a8c7d

['Francisco Inchauste']

2019-03-24 14:07:37.609000+00:00

['Web Apps', 'Case Study', 'Data Visualization', 'UX', 'Design']

To empathise with developers is to learn the basics of coding

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash In early 2019, I started a Codecademy online course to learn the basics of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Every evening after work I would go through each lesson. Let me tell you — it was painful. I didn’t understand any of it. Why did things have to be done a certain way? Why can’t code be much simpler? I just didn’t get it. I didn’t get why coding works the way it does. For example, why do you need to add a Float property to push pixels around the screen? It is very difficult to transition from a UX to a Front End mindset. After a month of the course, I still understood very little and would have no idea where to start if I were to put it into practice. A few weeks after the course, I discussed my need to understand more about coding with a former colleague named Rodolfo, (who is now a good friend) and has agreed to be my mentor, and from then on, things started to change drastically. He agreed to teach me how to code everyday for 1 hour after work including some weekends. I am thankful for that.

https://uxdesign.cc/to-empathise-with-developers-is-to-learn-the-basics-of-coding-6d21818d36f0

['Simon Hoang']

2020-07-05 12:27:02.398000+00:00

['Development', 'Design', 'Tech', 'UX', 'Coding']

Hey, Troll. Can You Not Dump Your Litter In My Comments?

Cleaning up after you is a dirty business. There’s the reading, the blocking, the deleting, the don’t-let-this-get-to-you pep rally, complete with pom-poms and a megaphone. Honestly, I shouldn’t be doing this work — I’m not your parent; my job isn’t to teach you how to be a decent person. By now, you should’ve been schooled in all things human, and yet you still feel the need to unload your refuse all over my hard work. You’re fiending to tell me what a cunt I am for writing that marketing article that sent you over the edge. So, I’m a cunt — your point? I read plenty of non-sensical, self-absorbed garbage on the internet. You don’t see me calling people a cunt in the comments. You won’t find me unloading my trash on your living room floor. I’m a functioning adult, I keep on moving. Maybe in the past five years, I’ve left two less than positive comments on someone’s work? However, I criticized the work, not the person. I didn’t attack them, call them a waste of space. I don’t write about sex, feminism, or any form of catnip enticing men who live to demean and degrade women, or the women who practice misogyny for sport. I used to consider my work safe — customer segmentation studies, brand strategy, depression, strange fiction, and the books that inspire it, the sordid tales about my chubby cat — but au contraire, mon amie, nothing is safe. Apparently, when I write about how I worked years to create multiple income streams so I don’t have to rummage through bins and live on ramen and oatmeal for months at a time, it inspires mockery and vitriol. When I speak up about people stealing and republishing my work, it inspires rage blackouts on the level of a Greek tragedy. Motherfuckers are acting like I drop-kicked their chihuahua. Every single day, people want to tell me how to do the job I’ve been doing successfully for over two decades. Meanwhile, they’ve never worked in marketing or built a brand. People are desperate to explain book publishing to me while the extent of their experience is typing on Medium. And when I’m not being subjected to daily condescending tutorials by people who don’t know any better, I’m called all the names women are always called. I’m told the tutorials I share can be found on Google. Well, yes. You can find anything on Google. Congrats on learning how to use the internet. While I enjoy the occasional rant — and there is much to rant about in the world — keep your rage on your own page. Don’t dump it all over people. And if you’re going to rage, close with solutions. Deliver an alternative. Present and argue your point of view. Don’t simply stomp your little feet and whine for six minutes. You’ll certainly find an audience because anger craves company, but it’ll be composed of people who prefer complaining over creating. Do you think I’m a snob because I’ve read a lot of books? Get a library card. Do you hate my work? Hate me? Fuck you, I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere, but you can take your hate-reading ass elsewhere. While you’re spewing hate and snark on how I don’t get over a thousand claps per article (seriously, this is what people care about?!), I’m consistently closing five-figure projects from people who find my work valuable. Don’t fret, my little liebchen, I’m doing just fine. Instead of kicking sand in your sandbox, write your own articles and tutorials. Spend six hours sharing research on how Alzheimer’s disproportionately impacts African Americans. Spend two months writing the equivalent of a book on how to build a brand. Write hundreds of articles on marketing and freelancing before you come for me. Lay your heart out to bear in vulnerable, personal essays and see how it feels when some random asshole stomps all over them. Pitch an agent, then an editor, and work for years to write, edit, and publish two books. Stop complaining everyone else’s writing is basura but yours. Because agents and editors who google you are so attracted to online whining. People definitely want to hire someone whose sum total of online work consists of you suck comments. Readers who are not in your clique don’t care about your snarky blind-item posts. There’s a difference between criticizing someone’s work and calling them a cunt into the comments. There’s a difference between critiquing a platform you believe is unfair to groups of writers and dropping CLICKBAIT! and THIS SUCKS comments on other people’s work. The former focuses on change and solutions while the latter makes you look petty and small. Years ago, I held scathing opinions about literary journal gatekeepers — the Granta and Paris Review mags of the world. Did I drop rude comments on the fiction and essays published in said journals? No. Instead, I published an online and print literary journal that welcomed debut writers. I created that which didn’t exist. I have strong opinions about bloggers posing as marketers on this platform and online influencers acting like brand strategy experts when their Instagram channel is their sole experience and case study — all of whom dole out advice that is just plain wrong. While I’ve made my opinions known, my larger response has been to publish and share my knowledge, expertise, and experience as a counterpoint. If you don’t like what you read, create. Flood the world with your work. Critique, but publish and share an alternative. Dismantle systems. Build new structures. But don’t think for a second I’ll tolerate you flinging your trash onto my work.

https://medium.com/the-gathering-kind/hey-troll-can-you-not-dump-your-litter-in-my-comments-982e8b502609

['Felicia C. Sullivan']

2020-08-06 18:05:04.653000+00:00

['Women', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Culture', 'Social Media']

What John Green Can Teach You About Writing

What John Green Can Teach You About Writing #1 bestselling author and 2006 Printz Award winner… John Green is one of the most successful authors of this decade, winning multiple awards and writing books that have spent weeks on bestseller lists, and most of which have been adapted to movies. So what can one of the most accomplished authors of this decade teach us about writing? A lot, actually. Reading As Apprenticeship “Reading is just as important as writing when you’re trying to be a writer, because it’s the only apprenticeship we have, it’s the only way of learning how to write a story.” Any author will tell you just how important it is to read as a writer. As John notes, it’s the only real apprenticeship we as writers really have. When you read good, crafted work, you will find that, afterward, you’ll start writing better as a result. John is also strongly in favor of reviewing, and says that thoughtful and constructive analysis of art is vital to your own creation of art. However, he doesn’t like reviews that state everything wrong with X, or 13 reasons why Z is terrible. There will be many things wrong with every piece of art, and so the most important kind of criticism you can do is the one in which you read to go to places you haven’t been, to glimpse worlds you couldn’t otherwise see, to see worlds within yourself. “You always need to look for the good, for what about the piece is valuable and worthy of attention, what stories have expanded your universe or changed the way you think.” It can also be helpful to review books, or look at books, through a lens. For example, looking at Game of Thrones through the lens of climate change. The Writing Process John says that no great book can be written in a first draft, no matter how long it takes you to write it. The important thing is to finish it. Books are made in revision, anyway. John says that he deletes 90% of his first draft anyway, and that everything people like about his books emerges in later drafts. His books aren’t very plot-driven, and so doesn’t go in with any preconceived notions about plot or character. He’s a pantser. He uses the first draft as a way to get to know his characters and their problems well, and a general sense of a beginning, middle, and ending. John tries to write at least 4 hours a day, but is pleased if he can hit 2,000 words a day, and is sad when he doesn’t. When he talked about NaNoWriMo, John said: “NaNoWriMo forces you to be disciplined, and gives you permission to suck, which are two of the things you most need if you’re going to be a novelist.” He says that you should just enjoy the process of writing, the process of even temporarily escaping the real world. Writing should be fun; don’t let it become miserable. He notes that writing, whether you’re doing it well or doing it poorly, always looks the exact same. He also says that you need to be patient as a writer. Lots of times, your second idea will be a better idea. Always be patient, and wonder if the second joke or idea, will be the better joke or idea. Book Proposals John also offers a small point concerning book proposals. He says that very rarely does a first novel sell on just a proposal, and that you almost always need to have a finished manuscript as well. A book proposal basically consists of a plot summary, a list of the characters, and then sample chapters, so that people know what the book is actually about and is going to sound like. The Editorial Process John says that the editorial process really starts when you send your editor a draft, and then they send you back an editorial letter. This letter is not about comma splices, it usually includes overall plot and theme and structure stuff. “The assumption that editors exist primarily to fix grammar errors is really incorrect.” He says that it’s no coincidence that The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises were both edited by the same guy. Conclusion I do really hope that this gave you some direction or help or motivation or inspiration in your creative pursuits. To help, I compiled a playlist on Youtube of John Green talking about writing. Until next time!

https://medium.com/sukhroop-the-storyteller/what-john-green-can-teach-you-about-writing-7b27edb0d9f0

['Sukhroop Singh']

2019-08-28 11:08:07.638000+00:00

['Creative Process', 'Writing', 'Creative', 'Creativity', 'Creative Writing']

Please Put TypeScript Down for a Moment

Code Easily Becomes Verbose As mentioned in the comments, I’m viewing this mainly from a React + Redux perspective. Your experience will highly depend on the libraries you use! In general, the irony of using TypeScript and Flow is that manual typing is something we want to avoid as much as we can! It can make code more verbose, error-prone, and harder to manage. In an ideal world, we let TypeScript infer types from our libraries and those already defined in the language. That way, we get the benefit of type safety while only having to manage custom object types. However, sometimes there is no avoiding the verbosity. Let’s look at a simple class-based React component written in TypeScript: Here is a vanilla class-based React component: The TypeScript version has 248% more code. Yes, props and state are clearly defined, but is that really what we call readable these days? Just look at this example of a type to handle redux actions. It’s very clever and useful — I highly recommend reading it — but why is it necessary in the first place? type InferValueTypes<T> = T extends { [key: string]: infer U } ? U : never; type Actions = ReturnType<InferValueTypes<typeof actions>> I won’t even get into the ugliness that typecasting brings…

https://medium.com/better-programming/please-put-typescript-down-for-a-moment-103f15378d34

['Kris Guzman']

2020-03-17 10:30:17.414000+00:00

['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Typescript', 'Web Development', 'Software Engineering']

How I Write

For me, everything is about that first line and where it takes you. Some writers are driven by plot, the delicate arrangement of chess pieces, while others are drawn in by a character and the ability to go on a journey with a new fictional friend. And some writers live for the music words make — they hold the beauty of the line above all else. There are hundreds of books and essays that purport to teach you the mechanics of writing. Between the books, manuals, writing workshops, and MFA programs, everyone seems to have a magic formula, but few cut through the noise and show you how to find your own way. Few tell you the way can be messy, filled with false starts and experiments gone wrong, manuscripts buried in drawers, and the stories that make you shudder whenever you re-read them. I’ve been at this for 34 years and I can say that the mess is the journey. The mess and mishaps ultimately form a clearing that reveals your distinct voice and style. For five years, I wrote stories that you needed a weedwacker to wade your way through. They were dense, flowery, filled with extraneous exposition. The kind of stories where you found yourself banging your head against the wall, screaming, WILL SHE GET TO THE FUCKING POINT ALREADY? Two years after that, I wrote fiction modeled off the likes of Lydia Davis, Ben Marcus, Amy Hempel, and Gary Lutz because they seemed like word fakirs. They awed me with their language acrobatics; they would take a meaning of a word or an image and upend it, and you would find yourself looking at the world a little differently — it’s sort of like being in the Upside Down, only your experience is with paper. Both styles didn’t fit. I found myself in my thirties unsure of what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it because I was still in the process of mimicry and experimentation. Some writers know their voice and style at the get-go. It took me 20 years of writing to master mine, and I still consider myself a student. Writing is still hard, but the joy is in the work and the possibility of what it can breed. Writers live for this, I think, the magic of seeing the world they’ve architected all the way through. I’m not famous. My books don’t sell a hundred thousand copies. The “cool kids” don’t follow me on social media. But this isn’t about the business of books, rather, this is about the love of what you commit to the page. I’ve devoted my life to the practice of reading and writing and it’s yielded results of which I’m proud (two beautiful books, lots of stories published, and a few awards). But the work is where the joy resides. I love writing, live for it, regardless of the outcome. In 1962, Peter Orr asked Sylvia Plath what sort of things she wrote about as a young poet. She said, “Nature, I think: birds, bees, spring, fall, all those subjects which are absolute gifts to the person who doesn’t have any interior experience to write about. I think the coming of spring, the stars overhead, the first snowfall and so on are gifts for a child, a young poet.” This rang true for me. I wrote in a tactile way about the stories my senses told me. I wrote about how rain felt on bare skin, the sound of my mother’s voice, and the tastes and smells of the food everyone in the neighborhood made. I wrote what was in front of me because as a child that felt big enough. A young writer describes the world as they encounter it with their limited vocabulary. As they grow older they begin to compare the things they encounter with how those things make them feel. The interior world starts to form, their vocabulary becomes richer, yielding a sense of power. They realize that their internal and external worlds aren’t necessarily harmonious. Experience becomes wholly subjective, and although it took me decades to feel confident in my voice and style, what interested me as a child continues to fascinate me as a forty-two-year-old adult. I’ve always been fascinated by familial discord, loss, and broken people in a perpetual state of dressing and re-opening their wounds. I like familial mess and never tire of navigating it. During a workshop in the Columbia MFA program, a student dismissed a story of mine by saying, family stories are so done. We weren’t supposed to talk while our stories were being critiqued, so I had to restrain myself from shouting out IS THIS REAL LIFE? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? What I ended up saying was that every story’s been told, the joy is finding new ways of telling them. Up until 2009, I lived a great deal of my life in the writing world. I worked in book publishing, I founded a literary magazine, I published my first book and a dozen or so short stories. My friends and first readers were writers. I had a Columbia MFA — a decision I’ll keep paying for until the grave. And still I was lost. I found myself copying styles from different writers. I felt guilty because I wasn’t the kind of person who could wake up every day and write (also because I had a full-time corporate job), and there’s this sense of constant competitiveness in publishing that felt, for me at least, suffocating. I didn’t know who I was as a writer because I was focused on the external — everyone else. Someone once told me that a writer is always writing, even when there’s nothing on paper. I spent the next four years as an agency executive, and although I wasn’t writing, I was reading. I stopped reading the bold type authors of the moment, and simply read stories I liked. I read for pleasure and for study. How did this writer structure her novel? How did this writer master a child’s POV and an adult’s in the same chapter? How did this writer pace her novel, knowing when to drop the right clues at the right time? I didn’t write, but I dissected and mapped. I wrote in the margins of the books I loved. Unbeknownst to me, a draining job had manage to compact my free time so I spent it with the books that mattered to me. I had started to winnow down to that which was essential, and in doing so, I spent those four years finding my style and voice. I read Joan Didion and Maggie Nelson and learned how to make effective use of white space. I read Kelly Link, Nick Flynn, Franz Kafka, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Aimee Bender, Alessandro Baricco to learn how to be imaginative with words and rediscover the feeling of play in writing. I read Junot Diaz, Denis Johnson (who once said in a workshop I attended that people never speak the way you want them to. Dialogue isn’t about a Q&A, it’s about not answering the question, revealing what’s between the lines. Dialogue has to reveal, not inform) and Nabokov to understand the mechanics of good dialogue. I read Zadie Smith because she’s Zadie Smith. In short, I created my own program filled with teachers from whom I could draw knowledge. After four years of not writing a single story, I realized that my style was a fusion of traditional and experimental writing. I loved characters and storyline, but writing in a linear way felt daunting, and I wanted to play with language without it being masturbatory. My whole was the sum of many beautiful and disparate parts. When I wrote what would become my second book, for the first time in my life I felt assured. I knew that my style wouldn’t please the masses, but it pleased me and the few people who are impacted by my work. Much like life, writing is about finding your tribe and trimming the fat. After a rough 2017 (I published my second book to tumbleweed and crickets), I transformed my bitterness and perspective and made myself return to the part of writing that brings me joy — the writing itself rather than the business of it. I resolved to write 52 stories this year, sketches, really, but an exercise that will keep me moving and creative. As a result, a few friends asked about my process. I thought it might be helpful to take you through the mechanics of how I drafted the first part in what will be a serial. First, I have a notebook where I collect words and lines. I know that sounds weird, but whenever I come across an image, song, line from a movie — anything really — that puts me on pause, I write it down. For this particular story, I drew inspiration from the Aziz Ansari allegations (please, I beg you, no hot takes about this, as it will derail the purpose of this essay) over the weekend to craft a story about a girl’s disappearance. The story lays blame on a great deal of people in the town with the exception of the girl’s actual killer, whose story manages, oddly, to get dwarfed. I like stories with multiple points-of-view because it gives me freedom. I get to be the Sybil of a story, manipulating speech patterns, language, etc. I started with an image, a line, which is how I start every story. The line may not be the first one, but it has to be a line that draws me in. I have to convince myself that it’s easy to walk into this new world, when in reality it will likely take forever to create it. I wrote the line in my notebook, read it aloud, and tooled with its structure. Rhythm and cadence are important to me; I have to feel like lines are singing as I read them aloud. In this crude, early draft, I got bumped by using the word “photographing” in a line whose syllables were lean. At the same time, I made sure that I had the vocabulary and vernacular of autopsy — or at least the basics. I never get bogged down on getting everything right because that tends to derail me and stops the flow of writing. I tell myself, just get it half-right and you’ll figure out the rest later. No matter what, keep moving. First draft of what will become a paragraph Final result After I get a few core lines down, it’s then I’ll start drafting the story in a Word doc. Then, I ask myself what I want this section to do. What point does it serve? Why is it here? Is every word essential? Does every line or image (or the bulk of them)work on multiple levels? This may sound daunting, but it’s not. Think about when you learn a new exercise or start a new workout routine. There’s a whole set of moves and lexicon you have to master. At first, it may feel overwhelming or confusing, but after a lot practice you get the hang of it. And when a teacher says check your form, it’s a reminder for you to return to the essentials. Now, I write with the moves ingrained, but the tough part is returning to basics, making sure you’ve answered the bigger questions that serve the story, and that you’ve exercised restraint. Everything I write is deliberate. Every character is essential. Every word has been considered. I only introduce a storyline or character because they’ll give the reader something no one else can. In the above brief section, I sought to accomplish three things: Give you clues about what happened to the girl through examination. Only in an autopsy do we learn the time, cause, and manner of death. Contrast the heinous nature of the crime on a child with the everyday goings-on of these character’s lives. We live with daily horror but have somehow become slightly immune to it. This, for me, sets up the world I’m about to dive into. Foreshadow, through some of the technical aspects of this paragraph, elements of what’s to come in the story, hints of who the killer could be, and his/her intention. Once I justify the existence of the paragraph (because don’t you hate when you read something and it has no place in the story and it does nothing to further or inform the character or plot?), I go line by line. Years ago, I had the privilege of studying with Nathan Englander, and it only recently dawned on me that he had a tremendous impact on my work. After workshop, I would spend up to two hours with him in his office. He’d print two copies of my story — one had general comments on plot, character, plausibility, structure, and pacing, while the other was basically the equivalent of a literary bloodbath. In an act of sheer generosity, he would take me through my own story and teach me how to trim the fat. He would ask, Why this line? Why this word? Is this the right word? Could another word do the work of two? Why is this here? Did you write this because it sounded pretty? For Nathan, if the word didn’t have a purpose it didn’t belong in the story. There’s no other way to describe other than to say it was surgery. He was surgical with my work and he taught me how to be surgical with my work. While it’s okay to overwrite and spew in a Word document, you better believe in the editing process there will be a butchering. I go through several passes before something feels final to me. Then, I think about dialogue. The hardest thing to do is capture the rhythms and nuances of how people really speak to one another. For example, one of my friends asked me how my day was going and I said, I hate everyone. I didn’t directly answer her question and dialogue rarely does that. Instead, dialogue is supposed to tell you about the character, how they speak and think, and how close they’re holding the chess plot pieces to their chest. I view dialogue as a puzzle where I come out of it learning something more than what was being told to me. I hear Nathan in my head asking why dialogue versus narrative? Justify it. So, if I just want to reveal facts I tend to play in narrative and if I want to muddy the waters and add some layers to the story, I’ll insert dialogue. The dialogue, at least for me, acts to tell you what’s between the narrative lines. If you want me to have a heart attack, ask me to do an outline. I’m the kind of writer who likes to develop plot as I go, which often leads to dead ends and a lot of rewrites, but it’s the only path that thrills me. However, I have found that when you’re working on a novel, it helps to have a general map of when things happen and an overall working timeline. It gives you a sense of pacing (are you dragging the story out unnecessarily without a payoff for the reader?) and helps reconcile issues with verisimilitude. I owe my life to the copy editors of my last two books because they’ve pointed out inconsistencies that were crucial to earning the reader’s trust. Once a reader is lost or doubts your control of this world, it takes a lot to bring them back. I only use outlines for bigger projects, rarely, if ever, for short fiction. Every writer has their Achilles, and mine is structure. I’m incapable of going from A to Z. I’ve tried it, trust me. I can’t do it. I like to meander, move within spaces of time as a technique. However, this often drives the reader bonkers. Nearly every criticism of my books (with the exception of this writer blows, etc.) is: WHY CAN’T SHE WRITE IN A CHRONOLOGICAL MANNER? For my last book, I spent two years on structure — ripping the book apart, re-arranging chapters, shifting timelines — until the story made sense in my head. I try to answer for: why is this particular chapter (or section) here? There has to be a reason for the timeshift and a larger purpose for the structure. One reason could be to show contrasting states in plot, character, or culture/setting that serves to elevate the story and imbue a larger meaning. Another reason could be pacing or plot-related. Through flashbacks, a character could come to a realization or a story reveals itself. Many readers won’t be there for the structure ride, but remember, not everyone is your reader. Finally, I take a step back and look at all my characters. All my characters have to serve a purpose and I have to enjoy them in some capacity. Often, my favorite characters to write are moral defectives. You hear actors say, as a person I hated him, but as a character I loved him. Moral ambiguity and unlikeable characters are fun for me to write because I get to explore the fringes of societal norm. I get to say the things I’d never to think to say and try to understand why people do the things they do. I wrote an essay on creating polarizing, unlikeable characters. Likeability is tricky and wholly subjective. I like to read and understand people who pull me out of my comfort zone, and in doing so, I hope to exercise a greater sense of empathy. As a child, I wrote to understand the world around me. I wrote because I had a terrifying childhood and writing made sense of it for me. People call it therapy or catharsis, but I aim, as Plath says in her interview, I must say I cannot sympathise with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind. I think that personal experience is very important, but certainly it shouldn’t be a kind of shut-box and mirror looking, narcissistic experience. I believe it should be relevant to the larger things. My work is relentlessly dark and, in parts, personal, but I’ve learned to turn the mirror away from myself and reflect out into the world. With my last book and my new work, I’ve started to think about the bigger things, political and culture norms, and I think this is part of what’s exciting about being a writer right now—looking out at the world and interpreting it. Those are the gifts that only life can bring.

https://medium.com/mastering-the-mechanics/how-i-write-e215f22d8b6f

['Felicia C. Sullivan']

2018-01-24 20:59:38.855000+00:00

['Writing', 'Education', 'How To Write', 'Creativity', 'Fiction']

Surviving as an Empath in the Time of Corona

A few weeks ago, I attended a training about dealing with difficult people, during which the instructor spoke about people being in control of their own emotions. He said we should not let other people’s feelings affect us “too much,” but this fails to recognize that some of us don’t have a choice, or that there is no real gauge of what is too much to feel, to little, or just the right amount. It’s not that I want to take on other people’s emotions, or even that I do that on such a base level. I’m sensitive to energy, and the feeling of a room. The state of the world effects me in much the same way temperature affects me. Vibrations, auras, and planets in retrograde are things I would have made fun of 25 years ago. Through my experiences, I’ve been forced to open my mind and reach for words and concepts that will help me to make sense of my journey in this world. I have to be careful about my consumption of media and social media. Stories of abuse and hardship my eyes fill with tears and my heart aches, and when I reach the end of the page, that isn’t the end of it for me. The lingering heaviness of secondhand grief and the weight of other people’s mourning is not easy to capture. It slithers through my fingers and runs through my veins for hours, my heart beating with the rhythm of our collective pain. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes there is a part of me that wants to let go completely, to curl up in the dark and let all of that pain channel through me, a ground for the emotions people emit. My capacity for love and caring is immense, but in the same ways it lifts me, sometimes it undoes me. My heart breaks over sorrowful things, but also over joy, something hauntingly beautiful might send me reeling for hours or days. These are not choices I make, things I can just be rid of. My receptiveness is also a huge positive in my life because it allows me to make deep connections with people, to love with rapturous abandon. The flipside is that sometimes, the world is really hard to keep moving through without feeling depleted. My capacity for love and caring is immense, but in the same ways it lifts me, sometimes it undoes me.

https://medium.com/rachael-writes/surviving-as-an-empath-in-the-time-of-corona-2e59d2d6b513

['Rachael Hope']

2020-03-15 06:13:53.528000+00:00

['Self', 'Health', 'Mental Health', 'Pandemic', 'Empathy']

Basic Example of Neural Style Transfer

Basic Example of Neural Style Transfer Basic Example of Neural Style Transfer using Tensorflow and Pre-Trained Models This post is a practical example of Neural Style Transfer based on the paper A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style (Gatys et al.). For this example, we will use the pre-trained Arbitrary Image Stylization module which is available in TensorFlow Hub. We will work with Python and TensorFlow 2.x. Disclaimer: This post is totally based on the TensorFlow tutorial where I tried to simplify it. Neural Style Transfer Neural style transfer is an optimization technique used to take two images-a images and a style reference image (such as an artwork by a famous painter)-and blend them together so the output image looks like the content image, but “painted” in the style of the style reference image. This is implemented by optimizing the output image to match the content statistics of the content image and the style statistics of the style reference image. These statistics are extracted from the images using a convolutional network. For example, let’s take an image of the Gold Gate Bridge and the Starry Night by Van Gogh. Now how would it look like if Van Gogh decided to paint the picture of Golden Gate with this style? Example of Neural Style Transfer using Tensorflow Let’s start coding and also download the content and style images. %tensorflow_version 2.x from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function, unicode_literals import tensorflow as tf print(tf.__version__) import IPython.display as display import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import matplotlib as mpl mpl.rcParams['figure.figsize'] = (20,20) mpl.rcParams['axes.grid'] = False import numpy as np import PIL.Image import time import functools def tensor_to_image(tensor): tensor = tensor*255 tensor = np.array(tensor, dtype=np.uint8) if np.ndim(tensor)>3: assert tensor.shape[0] == 1 tensor = tensor[0] return PIL.Image.fromarray(tensor) # Visualize the input # Define a function to load an image and limit its maximum dimension to 512 pixels. def load_img(path_to_img): max_dim = 512 img = tf.io.read_file(path_to_img) img = tf.image.decode_image(img, channels=3) img = tf.image.convert_image_dtype(img, tf.float32) shape = tf.cast(tf.shape(img)[:-1], tf.float32) long_dim = max(shape) scale = max_dim / long_dim new_shape = tf.cast(shape * scale, tf.int32) img = tf.image.resize(img, new_shape) img = img[tf.newaxis, :] return img # Create a simple function to display an image: def imshow(image, title=None): if len(image.shape) > 3: image = tf.squeeze(image, axis=0) plt.imshow(image) if title: plt.title(title) # Download images and choose a style image and a content image: content_path = tf.keras.utils.get_file('Golden_Gate.jpg', ' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/GoldenGateBridge-001.jpg' style_path = tf.keras.utils.get_file('Starry_Night.jpg',' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/757px-Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg' content_image = load_img(content_path) style_image = load_img(style_path) plt.subplot(1, 2, 1) imshow(content_image, 'Content Image') plt.subplot(1, 2, 2) imshow(style_image, 'Style Image') Let’s confirm that we have downloaded and loaded correctly the images. import tensorflow_hub as hub hub_module = hub.load(' stylized_image = hub_module(tf.constant(content_image), tf.constant(style_image))[0] tensor_to_image(stylized_image) # Use the TensorFlow Hubimport tensorflow_hub as hubhub_module = hub.load(' https://tfhub.dev/google/magenta/arbitrary-image-stylization-v1-256/1' stylized_image = hub_module(tf.constant(content_image), tf.constant(style_image))[0]tensor_to_image(stylized_image) Discussion That was a practical example of how you can easily apply for Neural Style Transfer and to be somehow a “digital artist” :-). Note that modern approaches train a model to generate the stylized image directly (similar to cyclegan). In this tutorial, we assumed that the reader is familiar with Images. In the previous post, we have explained how we can extract text from images, how we can iterate over pixels, how we can get the most dominant color of an image, and how we can blend images. References https://www.tensorflow.org/tutorials/generative/style_transfer

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/basic-example-of-neural-style-transfer-b9760b235212

['George Pipis']

2020-10-25 21:57:18.556000+00:00

['Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'TensorFlow', 'Tensorflow Hub', 'Neural Style Transfer']

How to Write a Feminist Story

How to Write a Feminist Story 8 tips to validate characters in your story Photo by Isi Parente on Unsplash Writers around me often ask these questions: how to write in solidarity with feminism, how to make my writing resonate with feminists, and the strangest of all — how to target the feminist audience. It was surprising to me that it’s now a genre in itself! My short response usually goes like this — stories we read impact us, and we impact society with our words. Stories mould our culture, and in return, cultures shape our stories. Society and stories live in a symbiotic equilibrium. Ergo, if you want to write a feminist novel, or want to attract feminist readers, be a feminist. Your work will reflect you. Eliminate sexism, not sexes. Now, of course, everyone who asked this claims to be a feminist, but what they wanted to know was how to become a feminist writer. What does being a feminist means for the writer and their process? The answer is simple: research your characters without gender bias.

https://medium.com/literally-literary/how-to-write-a-feminist-story-eba676e54d18

['Pratik Mishra']

2020-06-06 12:09:35.362000+00:00

['Feminism', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Bechdel Test', 'Essay']

Share Your Story!

Reaching Out is made of raw and honest lives like yours. We are strengthened by hearing your story, wherever it leads. A little about us: We are a Medium publication & community dedicated to LGBTQ people of all backgrounds and religions. We are not afraid of stories of faith lost, deconstructed, or renewed in unexpected ways. Pat Gothman started Reaching Out in November of 2017. If you have a story that relates to… Coming out in a religious community Working through your sexuality with your family Working through your sexuality with your faith leaders or community Celibacy or conversion therapy Intersectionality, especially from POC & women Finding a new faith community or witnessing within the one you grew up Raising an LGBTQ child Pastoring gay members of your faith community Romantic relationships in a faith community WE WANT TO SHARE IT! Basically, if you understand the tension and struggle of being a queer person of faith, we want to hear from you! First, make sure you have a Medium account and follow Reaching Out! Then, fill out this form! If you don’t have a Medium account and want to submit a story anonymously, email Pat at heyreachingout(at)gmail.com. We prefer to publish stories through Medium accounts as they are YOUR stories. But we also understand that sometimes you have something you need to share but aren’t in a place to do so publicly right now. So shoot over a draft and let us know what you are comfortable with sharing! Best, Pat Gothman, Reaching Out

https://medium.com/reaching-out/share-your-story-fbab0f3a5d41

['Patrick Flores']

2018-01-14 21:54:06.056000+00:00

['Storytelling', 'Christianity', 'Writing', 'LGBTQ', 'Muslim']

A Good Support System Will Go A Long Way In Helping You Cope With Your Mental Struggles

I’ve written a couple of times about the mental struggles that I’ve gone through in my life. From being in the darkest moments of my life more than 15 years ago to having smaller attacks of worries and anxieties since then, I’ve shared my experiences with my readers openly. What I’ve not really done though, is shared with people that I know personally in real life. Aside from my wife, I’ve not really spoken about the mental struggles that due to the pandemic that we’re currently facing and all the changes it has brought to our lives, have occurred on more than a couple of occasions in the last couple of months. My Medium community is made up of people that I mostly have known through the platform itself. I do have a couple of other writers/readers on the platform that I know personally in real life and who are good friends too but at the moment, we’re on different continents. Those who are living in the same country as me, who I interact with on an almost daily basis probably don’t really know about my little adventure as a writer on this platform and probably have no idea about the stories and experiences that I’ve shared over the last year and a half that I’ve been writing. But it was about time someone did, someone aside from my wife. That person was my immediate supervisor and the relief I felt after letting her know about the struggles that I’ve been going through, especially over the last couple of months was nothing short of amazing. If a drug addict or an alcoholic was able to go days/months/years without falling back into their addiction, it would be called being ‘clean’ because they were able to abstain from the very thing that caused them harm in the first place. I would like to think that not having had any anxiety or panic attacks for many years would make me ‘clean’ too. When I was in a deep depression at 19 years old, that was the darkest place I’d ever been in my life. It was even worse than the depression that I was in when my dad passed away back in 2013 (when I was 27 years old) and that says something. After I recovered on both occasions, I rarely had any depress feelings nor went through any anxiety or panic attacks. I think when I recovered back when I was 19 years old, I didn’t go through any depressive state until my dad passed away more than 8 years later. And when I recovered and started to get over my dad’s death, I didn’t have any depress feelings nor went through any anxiety or panic attacks — until this year. I don’t know if it’s a direct result of the pandemic or the effects that the pandemic has brought to everyone, but things definitely went downhill for me emotionally after my country went into lockdown. I had one panic attack after another or I would just start to feel really anxious for no reason at all. It affected me personally and also professionally. Needless to say, my colleagues started to notice it and it was getting harder and harder to just brush it off and come up with excuse after excuse as to why I wasn’t performing at the standards that I had been in previous years. Things finally came to a point that I just had to come clean with my supervisor and there was no better time to do that than during my latest performance review. It started off normal, at least for the first few minutes. Then the dreaded question came. “Benny, is everything OK with you? I’ve noticed you’ve been quite different these last few months. Are you having any problems?” I went quiet for a good 10–15 seconds. I then took a deep breath and told my supervisor that there was something that I needed her to know. I started off with what happened to me back when I was 19 years old, to give her a brief history. Aside from my wife (and all you readers out there), no one really knows about what I went through back then. But to tell her what’s happening to me now, my supervisor needed to know what happened to me then. After a short 5 minutes of ‘Benny history,’ I told her that in the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting random panic and anxiety attacks and whenever it happens, I get paralyzed and just crippled. I wouldn’t be able to function properly and it has affected not just my personal life but also the work that I have to do on a daily basis. I told her that I wasn’t sure how to bring it up with anyone because all this while, the only other person who knew about it is my wife. Not even my parents or siblings know about what I’ve been through or am going through. I apologized for any problems that I may have caused my team or department but I just felt that I wasn’t able to handle things by myself anymore and because it was affecting my work more than ever, it was important that someone in my workspace knew and the most logical person for me was my supervisor. She was quiet at first. But she finally broke her silence and told me that she didn’t expect it at all, especially from me as I was always the happy-go-lucky one in the office. I was always the optimist, positive one that would be smiling and cracking jokes. I told her that usually, the ones that seem happiest are usually the ones that have unseen problems or are actually sad like the late Robin Williams used to say. She then told me that she was thankful that I trusted her enough to tell her. She said that she probably doesn’t fully understand what I’m actually going through but that she’s glad she now knows the truth and she can understand why I’ve been the way I’ve been over the last few months. I felt relieved when I heard that. She wasn’t blaming me for anything. She wasn’t blaming me for the delays in some projects that I was handling. She wasn’t blaming me for slowing my other team mates down because I took longer than I should with my portion of the work. Instead, she was thanking me for being honest with her and for trusting her with something that is probably not an easy thing to admit to others (it’s not). But the thing that really got to me was when she said, not to worry as she will help me to figure out ways to beat it again. She said that because I’ve had it before and managed to stay ‘clean’ for quite sometime after that, she said I could do it again and she wants to help and give me any support that I may need. Help and support. Those were the two keywords that I needed to hear, that anyone in a position of feeling down and hopeless, needs to hear. I’ve had tremendous support from my wife over the years but I do feel bad for her because it is a heavy burden. So, to have someone else willing to be my support as well, that was a much-needed thing for me to hear. I immediately felt better. I felt like a big burden had been lifted off of me. What was supposed to be a short 20 minutes session turned into a good 2 hours plus of just talking and listening to one another. She shared some personal stories with me and I shared more with her. We worked out plans on how to manage my workload, especially if I suffered any more panic or anxiety attacks. By the end of the session, I felt so much better compared to when it started. To know that I wasn’t judged for the struggles that I was going through, that I wasn’t blamed for being a burden to others, that I was actually offered help and support, it was a huge relief. And needless to say, it’s definitely helped me in terms of managing stress from work as well. I know that although I’m still expected to perform at a certain level, I’m able to not stress so much about it and am allowed to work according to my circumstances. Having that support has so far helped in keeping the random attacks at bay. Where in the last few months I’ve had over a dozen sudden attacks, I’ve not had any since my conversation over 2 weeks ago. It just goes to show that a good support system (or two) goes a long way in helping to cope with any mental struggles you may have.

https://medium.com/narrative/a-good-support-system-will-go-a-long-way-in-helping-you-cope-with-your-mental-struggles-cba26c50ee82

['Benny Lim']

2020-12-12 07:01:27.289000+00:00

['Health', 'Mental Health', 'Support', 'Mental Illness', 'Mental Health Awareness']

Fix Bugs in Your Swift Code

Fix Bugs in Your Swift Code Squash those critters Photo by David Clode on Unsplash We use the squash, splat and crush analogy from insects when talking about bugs. This is with good reason: Thomas Edison wrote about bugs during his hardware engineering travails and this means the term is probably here to stay. Get used to it, or bug off! Deal with the bugs (Approaches) Clean your area One way to make your code bug-free is to avoid writing them in the first place! Testing Modularity Simplicity and clarity By testing (use this Swift TDD guide) your code is much less likely be to bugged as it is tested before ever getting close to production. The works hand-in-hand with modularity which and making sure that your code is written in separate, testable chunks. You might have chosen MVC, MVVM, VIPER or some other architecture for your project — and there are advantages and disadvantages to each. The third pillar of of well-written non-bugged code is simple clear code. This minimal code should be created with the eventual reader in mind (that is, another programmer should be able to pick up your code and understand it). Writing a //TODO is fine for missing functionality, but code that is incomplete should not be checked in — and is a great use of annotation in your code! Don’t ignore warnings Warnings are there for a reason and should not be suppressed (Ok, you can suppress some without consequence). Using a linter helps to point out your errors before they grow and become real problems that can stop a release or mean that you’ll be working late into Friday night. Another way to put this is: Do it once — do it right. I’m sure this won’t be a problem to you, but of course you’d never ignore a warning in the first place, would you? Some even put their own errors in their code Consider ignoring your problems It seems counter-intuitive, but you can ignore some of your problems and hope they go away. Unprofesssional? Sure. Not-recommended? This is tricky. If you have a bug that affects a very small number of users, and may require a potentially inordinate amount of time to fix it may just be justifiable to leave this bug (even in production code). As an approach, the decision to go with this is probably above the pay-grade of a coder. That is, this should be a team decision and the team should decide whether leaving an extremely difficult to fix bug is…well…too difficult. As a repeated strategy for an individual coder ignoring badly coded solutions may be a sign of incompetence. That is, use this technique with an abundance of care. Use an issue tracker There are many different offers of issue trackers for use in teams and organisations. This enables the issues to be triaged and organised into tiers of importance and urgency so the most urgent and important issues get checked first. Bugs (beyond the initial ones picked up in unit testing) should be logged so an understanding of issues and when they arise (as well as why they arise) can be formulated. Even if you are working on your own, keeping a log of issues that have been encountered can be useful, and GitHub even has a suite of features that can help you out! Check under assumptions One of the most important things in coding is checking that the ideas you have and the way that you think things should work is accurate. This can seem simpler to say than to do and the long term strategy is to understand the technology you are working with from the capabilities to the implementation of the same. In the short term some light rubber duck debugging. You might like to do the following — record assumptions and theories as such for each issue, and then test them when they need to be. How? Here are the definitions: Assumptions: The preconditions for a problem Theories: Ideas that you have that can be tested sequentially in the pursuit of a solution Block of the nest (narrow down the problem) Most IDEs give you some idea of what might be going on in your code. You can step through any given problem using breakpoints and perhaps even more features that can help you find out where the problem is in your code. If you’re using TDD then you probably already have well-tested code that you are slotting together to make a whole. Are you sure that your units are well-tested? Now is the time to take a look. Use your debugger to ensure that your variables are what you expect them to be at any given point. Most of all; rule at general possibilities for error and wind them down into specific opportunities for investigation. This isolate-test-fix strategy should get you closer to a solution than when you started. Go back to when everything was fine (version control) You are using GIT, right? If not you have some method of version control? So when did this issue first appear? When you can narrow down when the problem appeared you can can use this to enhance your investigation. Since you know something about the origin of the error you can use this to help you find the solution. Make a new branch and then add back in code at will. You’ll hunt this down, and get the solution right! Create a MVP Create a test program to reproduce the error. This might work where you (unfortunately) don’t have modular testable code. You can then separate out the code that is likely to have made the issue, and then add sections back into the program until the problem manifests. This would mean that you’ve found out the original issue and can go and fix it! Check the underlying design This one is perhaps the most painful conclusion. The project has not been built on good foundations, and perhaps the whole initial design is not suitable for the project. This can also happen when the project is changed during the implementation stage and then, essentially, can be said to not be the programmers fault. In any case though, it needs to be fixed. If the underlying design is an issue it perhaps does need to be changed, but the costs for doing to may be great which means that you must be sure that the time spent to fix this problem will be worth the rewrite in the end. If you’re in this situation, I hope you found it early… Recording Bugs Even if you follow the approaches detailed above, you are still likely to run into problems and issues (and, dare we say it, bugs) in your code. Recording these also requires some finesse and understanding of the software development approach. Many bug-fixing tools have a workflow integrated into their interface, but remember to record the following: Reproducability: Can it be reproduced? Severity: How important is it that the bug be fixed? You might also have the ability to save crash logs, and this might help you when you are trying to solve a problem that has just come up. After all, you want clarity on the problem and work to solve the issue is easier when you have the full information. When all is lost (Strategies) One of the greatest problem solving strategies is the following: take a break have a stress-free sleep It seems almost ridiculous. However your mind works much better after a rest, and you should leverage that in your problem solving journey and using the fact that your mind can ruminate on things when it’s concentration is elsewhere is a great strategy for trying to solve that unsolvable problem. Bugs away (Conclusion) We all should write perfect code, all of the time. There should never be any bugs, and the software should conform to the requirements and pass User Testing at the first time of asking. Unfortunately, software development is an inherently human process, and humans do unfortunately make mistakes. Unfortunately we do have responsibility as developer to hunt down those bugs and squash them — preferably before they ever existed. I hope this article has given you an idea of how this can happen in a professional environment.

https://stevenpcurtis.medium.com/fix-bugs-in-your-swift-code-e9d53bc11883

['Steven Curtis']

2020-05-14 14:02:46.336000+00:00

['Mobile App Development', 'Swift Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Swift', 'Programming']

How to Teach Students to Love Writing

How to Teach Students to Love Writing Motivating students to write is important. How much time do teachers spend trying to teach proper writing skills, such as grammar, spelling, genre, form, and structure? Probably a lot of time. After all, they are important skills for writing successfully. However, how much focus is left for teaching the most important thing of all? Learning to love writing. If you want to learn how to write better, there is one thing you can’t get away from: the need to practice. And not just a little bit, either. Writing any text is a difficult process. Without motivation, students are likely to either give up or not try very hard. Now that I’ve outlined the importance of being motivated and excited to write, here’s how you can accomplish that with students. Make them believe they can learn to write well. If students believe they are incapable of learning to write, you’ll find it very hard to motivate them for anything. After all, in their minds, what’s the point? A student’s belief in their ability to succeed in a specific situation is called self-efficacy¹. It comes from several sources and learning how to influence self-efficacy can help teachers motivate students. It’s important to note that ‘specific situation’ means that their abilities in something else, such as sports, have no impact on their self-efficacy for writing. Mastery experience are the most important source of self-efficacy. Succeeding at a writing task will help students believe they can succeed at future writing tasks. To provide mastery experiences, you should give them tasks that are challenging, but that you know they can do. Once they have overcome smaller challenges, they will feel more equipped to take on bigger ones. Examples of someone writing well can also help students feel like it’s possible for them. However, it’s important that this is done in an instructional way, and that focus is taken away from the students comparing themselves to others. Even telling them how they can succeed will help, for example with getting them through those initial mastery experiences. It’s so hard to do something when you don’t believe you’re able to. That’s why it’s so important that teachers help students see that they can become good writers, as long as they keep practicing. Give writing a purpose. By this, I don’t mean telling them they have to write because they have an assignment that you need to grade. Why do writers write? Actual writers write because they want to convey something to a reader. Or just to get their thoughts out on paper where they might be a little clearer. Sure, some of them have jobs with deadlines, and might not always write exactly what they want, but they still chose writing over countless other professions for a reason. Help students find that reason, and they will be way more motivated to work on their writing. Give the students authentic writing tasks², where they write for an audience. This can be an article to be ‘published’ at the school, a letter to someone they care about, or a class blog about what’s important to them. With an actual audience and purpose to the text, not only will they be more motivated, but they might find it easier to write, because they know who they’re writing for. Interest is something else that can give the writing a purpose for students. If they’re interested in a topic, they’re more likely to want to write about it, simply to tell someone about their interest². Students want to write about things that are relevant to them!³ The context of writing. The context in which the writing happens is very important for motivation.² Context here applies to many things, such as the writing task itself, the classroom, the social environment, and the emotional context. For the writing task, remember what you read about giving writing a purpose. Here’s where you can do that. Also, the writing task should be as complex as possible without being too difficult to accomplish. People are more motivated by challenges than by tasks that are too easy for them. However, as mentioned earlier, if they don’t believe they can accomplish the task, they won’t be very motivated at all. The classroom environment should be prepared for writing, so that when they write, they’ll have what they need. Information, organized writing tools, a calm environment, enough space, and someone they can ask for help. These are all things that can promote a better writing environment. As much as possible, it’s also important to try to reduce stress and negative emotions in students². Writing can be an unexpectedly difficult process for many, and it’s easy to get discouraged. You can help combat negative emotions about writing with positive reinforcement, and by giving them manageable tasks where they write about what they know. Motivation can also be promoted by making the classroom more of a writing community, where students read and discuss each other’s writing⁴. If you think of the students as writers, expecting them to establish and audience and a purpose for their writing, they could start to think of themselves as writers too. By seeing them as writers, and letting them engage with each other, you can promote an environment where students write not because they have to, but because they want to.

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-to-teach-students-to-love-writing-62d1bedd7d31

['Markus Skårnes']

2020-11-18 03:49:45.016000+00:00

['Teaching English', 'Motivation', 'Education', 'Teaching', 'Writing']

Marketing in the time of crisis

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has brought the world to a standstill, as individuals, healthcare professionals, and businesses scramble to come to terms with the new normal. With several countries imposing stringent lockdowns, businesses find themselves in a precarious position with no revenues coming in to keep them afloat. While some companies that could quickly switch to online are aiming to earn some passive income by accepting orders to fulfill once the lockdown is lifted, a significant majority of them do not have this luxury. Even if there is an online medium to place orders, the environment is not very conducive for customers to even consider shopping for anything non-essential. Brands that quickly adapted to the changing scenario and used a hard-found link between their offerings and the pandemic have faced brickbats from customers for being insensitive, profiteering, and opportunistic. Source: Twitter Organizations seem to be facing a double-edged sword here. On one end, they are facing an unprecedented decline in revenues and an acute financial crunch, and on the other end, they are facing severe scrutiny for marketing communications or advertising in the time of the crisis. Let’s face it. This scenario is not an opportunity a marketeer can maximize upon when there are pressing matters in the minds of the customer. So, does that mean brands completely stop communicating with their audiences? Absolutely not. But these are sensitive times. Companies who are unapologetically trying to hard-sell their products are fighting a losing battle with today’s well-aware customer. The first to go down the drain were companies promoting false claims that their products are anti-coronavirus — these include companies manufacturing sanitizers, masks, and even mattresses. Misrepresentation with a myopic vision to boost sales is nothing short of a suicide mission. Source: Twitter Neither is fear-mongering to create panic amidst extraordinary circumstances. Instead of exploiting fear and trying to capitalize on the crisis, brands should leverage the platform to make a real connection with their audiences. Remember, customers today are much more aware and savvier in the age of information. Social media platforms are a two-way street, and you could face a backlash openly across mediums if you are seen opportunistic. So, How should you go about communicating then? First things first, stop your regular marketing communications. The circumstances today are anything but ordinary and brand conversations cannot be impervious to them. The first step we did at TheSeasonedStorytellers when the lockdown was announced was to pause and go back to our client’s content calendars to check if they were still relevant. Hit pause, and reflect. What does your brand offer? Are they essential? How can they make your customer’s lives easier during this time of crisis? If these answers lead you to a logical messaging, then excellent, reframe your communications along the new lines of thought and distribute it across mediums. If they don’t and you genuinely find a gap between your current offerings, then don’t force-fit your product. Practice empathy Listen to your customers and make an effort to understand their position. Turn the narrative away from selling your offering and keep the spotlight on the customer instead. Communicate what is valuable to the customer. Reach out to them only if you and your solutions can help them without adding to their woes. And even when you do, stick to the facts — realistic communications over aspiration or idealistic brand messages at such times. If you do not find a connection, take a different approach to reach out to your customers. Educate them, uplift their moods, make their lives easier, and win their trust. Revolve your messaging around the current scenario, of how they can protect themselves or their loved ones, curate a list of reliable sources they can trust, and tell your customers, “You understand their situation, and you are there for them.” Period. In the long run, it shall pay more dividends than closing a sale today. Intentions matter Refrain from virtue-signaling in times of crisis. The intentions behind your communications become evident in testing times. Make sure you are very clear with the “why.” Does this communication help your brand recall or puts to ease a customer’s worry? Think this through thoroughly, because it can make or break brands. Your objective in a crisis is purely to build an audience and make them stay — nothing more, nothing less. A few examples of brands genuinely reaching out to make a difference that I came across Be transparent Transparency holds true for every stakeholder. Customer’s loyalty to a brand is not just based on how you treat them, but also on how you manage your own employees, suppliers, and partners. Be transparent in your communications with every stakeholder. Everyone’s resources are stretched thin currently, and your hands might be tied in terms of the extent of the support you can extend to them. But that is immaterial. Your brand’s legacy will depend on how you treat your stakeholders. Keep the communications open, address their anxieties, optimize your resources the best way possible, and avoid chest-thumping these initiatives. While the lockdown maybe for 21 days, the undercurrents of the impact will still be felt by businesses for much longer. Unlike recessions in the past, there is no visibility of the end as the virus continues to spread rapidly. Do not stop marketing altogether. But now is the time to show that your brand is more than just a profiteering machine out to make money. Show that you care, mobilize your communities to stay positive, and hope that the community remembers your efforts once the crisis passes.

https://beingmeraklis.medium.com/marketing-in-the-time-of-crisis-8d62d10be658

['Shwetha Sivaraman']

2020-04-08 02:41:04.294000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Crisis Communications', 'Coronavirus', 'Brand Strategy', 'Communication']

Top Movies, Videos, Books, and Podcast Recommendations That Got Us Through 2020

As we’re getting close to ending what was one rollercoaster of a year, we’ve decided to pay an ode to our faithful companions. Companions who kept our spirits up during the endless days of lockdown restrictions and social distancing. Here’s a round-up of the most interesting books, movies, videos, documentaries, podcasts, and articles that provided us with much-needed mental stimulation. Must Watch Movies and Documentaries of 2020 One can merely stand back and express awe at this 105-year-old artist who’s been active for much of the past century, but sold her first painting in 2004 at the age of 89! Watch Carmen Herrera’s inspiring story to learn how to value your artistic talents from within, sans validation from the outside world. If there’s one thing Ms. Herrera teaches us, it is that the secret to finding happiness is to keep doing more of what you love, no matter what. The Social Dilemma talks about the consequences of our growing dependence on social media — the way it influences what we see, read, and going by that, the way we think. This documentary created is worthy of the buzz it created and the conversations it provoked when it was released this year. Milton Glaser, the man behind the iconic I ♥ NY design is remembered for his sublime graphics as he is for his thoughtful reflections on the role of design as a whole. This wonderful documentary takes viewers on a journey through Glaser’s personal life, his creative process, and his lasting design legacy. Must-Read Articles and Papers in 2020 Designing the right solution calls for identifying the right problem to solve, before anything else. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to frame the problem well. One can only do that by asking the right questions, the answers to which lead to framing the right problem to solve. This short article lists out those pertinent questions. The design process begins with research or the discovery phase. This is the phase that sets the tone for the entire process to follow. Roadblocks in this stage can muddle the rest of the process, sometimes irreparably so. These 10 experiments throw light on how you can manage to offset those glitches. Bad decisions can be attributed to a variety of reasons — unclear alternatives, lack of data, or more. But sometimes the fault does lie in the hands of the decision-maker itself. This paper details 8 psychological traps that are particularly likely to affect the way we make business decisions, and how to steer clear of them. Videos/Series In this video, product discovery coach, Teresa Torres talks about placing different into context and help product teams know what to use when. As designers, we continue to explore the best way to help us prioritize user needs, discover unmet needs, and develop solutions that address those needs. This video helps in figuring out the best way to accomplish that. Can you boost you creativity by doing nothing? Noted designer, Stefan Sagmeister certainly believes so and tells you how in this video. The daily humdrum of our working leaves us with minimal time to refresh our energies which actually dulls the creative brain. Taking time off is more necessary than you think — it renews your creative faculties, helps you engage with new influences, and improve your output. There are little to no chances of anyone in the design profession to have missed this series. But in case you’re among those rare beings, do give it a watch. The series chronicles eight of the most innovative designers working today in fashion, art, cars, and more and learn how design impacts every aspect of life and shapes our world today. From Tinker Hatfield — the mind behind the most popular Nike Jordans ever sold and the first self-lacing sneakers to graphic designer Paula Scher, you’ll find the most awesome creative profiles out there. Top Podcast Recommendations of 2020 99% Invisible is like an ode to the definitive quality of good design, invisibility. This series takes you behind the most intriguing origins of products and services that have seamlessly blended themselves into our lives such as Murphy’s beds, highways, coin mints, and more. Design Matters is one of the oldest and most revered podcasts that started out as a radio show in 2004. Ever since, it has been having insightful conversations with the most brilliant creative minds of our time, including actors, musicians, writers, architects, art historians, and more, besides designers across disciplines. AID is a fun, happy, every day show that talks about everything under the (design) sun. From pathbreaking design to dealing with real-life design challenges, this podcast covers all the topics concerning the discipline and its professionals. The conversations are fun, humorous, and practical, and you’re sure to find something that delights you every day. Books The title says it all, doesn’t it? Every designer ought to read this book, even if they think they’re expert communicators. Talking to stakeholders and communicating the value of design is a tightrope walk for many. This book proffers doable tips, tactics, and actionable methods to talk the talk when it comes to prepping and presenting your designs. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Daniel Kahneman, takes us through a remarkable journey of the mind, revealing the two systems that drive the way we think. The first — fast, intuitive, and emotional, the second — slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The catch is knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. A true classic! The Effortless Experience is a definitive mind reader of customers and is relatable at every level. Here’s an excerpt: Loyalty is driven by how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems, not on how spectacular its service experience might be. Most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. And they are far more likely to punish you for bad service than to reward you for good service. Need we say more? 2020 is going to be a memorable experience for all of us. It packed in enough action and bumps to last us for another 5 years at the very least. What kept us sane were these fine pieces of content and entertainment which led us to think and expand our creative horizons. Do make sure you share your recommendations in the comments section!

https://medium.com/nyc-design/top-movies-videos-books-and-podcast-recommendations-that-got-us-through-2020-a99fc5acbac3

['Bansi Mehta']

2020-12-28 06:38:34.354000+00:00

['UI Design', 'User Experience', 'Design', 'UX Design', 'New York']

How Glossier tapped into customer empathy to build a $1.2 billion brand

How has the company been able to reach these levels of success? With a direct, authentic 1:1 relationship with customers. The value proposition Glossier brings to the table is the extra-special attention individuals receive in every interaction, perfectly serving what they hear about others’ requests. For instance, Glossier allows customers the ability to FaceTime representatives to ask questions about products they may not have time to test in-person. The team has also created a rep-based program to reward those who create social content for their products — flying out top-performers to shadow Glossier’s offices and collaborate with their product and creative teams. Image source: Run UK 2. Involve the customer at every stage. At Glossier, the customer is king (and rightfully so). According to Weiss, the company’s success has been largely attributed to involving customers at every stage of the product lifecycle. For instance, initial ideas for one of Glossier’s earliest products — the Milky Jelly cleanser — originated by asking consumers about their dream face wash. Questions asked pinpointed ingredients individuals were looking for, the kind of texture people looked for in a cleanser, and names of actors who would play the cleanser in a movie (spoiler: Eddie Redmayne got top pick). Image source: Run UK “Their responses proved they have really smart and educated opinions around beauty. You should never underestimate the consumer.” — Emily Weiss From there, the surge of valuable suggestions were sent straight to chemists in Glossier’s lab. It was invaluable towards crafting the perfect product and the team was able to collect product needs they hadn’t thought of on their own: a travel-friendly pump, absence of fragrance, and a balanced pH level. Today, the Milky Jelly cleanser is a top-selling product and has also been dubbed as one of the best cleansers of all-time by Cosmopolitan, Allure, ManRepeller, and Elle Magazine. The team has also since then applied this approach to other products such as the Priming Moisturizer Rich cream, Cloud Paint eyeshadow and blush palettes, and Glossier You fragrance. 3. Promote authentic conversations. When Weiss was working at major beauty editors such as Vogue in her pre-Glossier days, she was often asked for advice on how to create engagement based on her experience as a beauty blogger. Her answer was always to cut the gimmicks and simply involve readers. Ultimately, she learned that customers are micro-influencers for their own circles—it’s imperative to lend a huge voice to those who deserve it in the company that you build.

https://uxdesign.cc/how-glossier-tapped-into-customer-empathy-to-build-a-1-2-billion-brand-f4fa1e36b826

['Michelle Chiu']

2020-11-02 16:15:29.003000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Branding', 'Design', 'UX', 'Tech']

Getting Out of My Comfort Zone Made My Depression Worse

The clash could have been avoided After that initial realization, I was able to pinpoint one major mistake I made in my quest to becoming a better version of myself by moving thousands of kilometers away from my comfort zone: I neglected to work on my self-awareness first. In an interview with Forbes, Andy Molinski, author of the book Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge and Build Confidence, says the best way to successfully get out of your comfort zone without negatively affecting yourself is to start with small actions that match your personality. Overall, start with something that makes sense to you at the moment: The first steps, I believe, should be small and doable. Instead of jumping right into speaking at an industry event, sign up for a public speaking class. Instead of speaking up in the boardroom, start by speaking up in smaller meetings with peers to see how it feels. Molinski calls this “customization”, which is the ability to take into consideration your own quirks when performing a certain task and adjusting it so it doesn’t feel too uncomfortable or unnatural for you. Psychology professor Art Markman also shared his thoughts with Fast Company on the importance of self-awareness before deciding how far you should stretch yourself when looking for opportunities to grow by venturing into the unknown: “Since you can’t really change where your own sweet spot falls, you simply need to get to know yourself: (For example) Are you able to get a lot done without much prompting, or do you need lots of help to energize yourself before getting down to work?” If I had been more self-aware before deciding to just board a plane away from everything and everyone, I would have known that a big move wasn’t what I needed to feel better and that it was more than I could handle at the time. I stretched myself too far when I didn’t have the right tools to do so.

https://medium.com/invisible-illness/getting-out-of-my-comfort-zone-made-my-depression-worse-3000b8cfdaf7

['Mariana F.']

2020-10-31 19:49:32.234000+00:00

['Depression', 'Comfort Zone', 'Mental Health', 'Self-awareness', 'Anxiety']

Better Iteration in Python— 6 Ways to Filter Iterables

5. Conditional Abortion Suppose that you start with an iterable, and for particular business needs, you need to iterate it and the iteration doesn’t stop until some condition is met. In this case, you should consider using a function called takewhile, which is also a higher-order function that is available in the itertools module. Let’s see its usage with some example code before I explain it to you. Use of takewhile Function In the above code, we have a stream of HTTP responses with the code and data saved. We want to log all valid responses until we encounter an error. To do that, we use the takewhile function with a predicate or evaluation function lambda x: x[0] == 200 , which means that the iteration will continue to run until the first element in the iterator can’t satisfy this evaluation criterion. In our case, the first three elements are eligible, while the fourth one isn’t. Thus, the iteration will abort at the fourth position. One thing that can be confusing to beginners is how it’s different from the filter function. The filter function will go over the entire iterable and keep all the elements that pass the evaluation criterion. By contrast, the takewhile function has the conditional abortion feature, and it will stop the iteration completely once the next item evaluates True for the predicate.

https://medium.com/swlh/better-iteration-in-python-6-ways-to-filter-iterables-dde6c8969f89

['Yong Cui']

2020-06-26 15:01:01.449000+00:00

['Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology', 'Data Science', 'Programming']

News: Medium Has Lost Its Way

News: Medium Has Lost Its Way Prepping for a giant loaf of white bread in my future dashboard Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash Medium has always maintained a ‘no clickbait’ policy as long as I’ve been a member. But somehow they’ve lost their way in the basic human behavior department. The latest change in distribution is likely the large reason most of us have lost reader traffic overnight. This is a change all Medium writers must be aware of. In yesterday’s story from the Medium blog, this article digs deep into their ‘clickbait’ policy. And overreaching it has become. The actual definition of clickbait is to use sensational, misleading language to encourage a reader click a link. This link leads to a video, story, or ad that has nothing to do with the text in the link. Medium’s new stance appears to take this to such an extreme level that all basic copywriting strategies will soon be in question. Hence, prepare for a whole pile of stories with titles that read like the owner’s manual for an ’86 Oldsmobile. Medium is cracking-down on the distribution and curation of stories with titles they deem as clickbait. I’d argue to say this could include any title that would actually grab your reader’s attention. I mean we’re talking (these are direct quotes from the story above): Is the title trying to exploit a reader’s personal worries, insecurities, or emotional state? Is the title or story image more provocative than the content of the story merits? Is the title over-reaching or over-promising with hyperbolic claims or absolutes that are not verifiable? Is the title withholding important context; misleading the reader; or using clichés, gimmicks, or cheap language? At the surface these all sound like improvements. But this list is a direct gateway into shutting-out some fantastic, creative titles that encourage readers to open your content. Good writers understand this. As writers it’s our job to encourage people to open and read or content. If your title doesn’t tickle the reader’s emotions and place an unanswered question in her mind, she won’t open your story. Period. This isn’t about lying or deception. I’m not advocating actual clickbait. This is about creative wordplay in order to continue the dance with the reader. Creative titles are a dance readers welcome. We want to be amazed. We want to open stories with unanswered questions. Nobody wants to read a story with a title “How to Turn a Discarded Stuffed Animal into a Dog Toy.” Bo-ring! But you can bet she’ll open “A Free and Clever Way to Entertain Your Furry Friend With Household Waste” This second title is not clickbait. It’s copywriting. And there’s a Grand Canyon’s difference between the two. The story would describe exactly what the title promised. But it would fail Medium’s test. You can’t infer your reader’s emotional state (don’t you dare say this is clever. It’s now only your reader’s decision to decide it’s clever). You can’t use ‘cheap language’ (which could mean anything), so the ‘household garbage’ bit is out too. We probably can’t say ‘furry friend’ either, because someone might get butt-hurt that humans could possibly be friends with an animal. I’m worried. I realize this is an extreme take on their clickbait stance, but the requirements are so overreaching almost any interesting title could tumble into the rejected net. When faced with a glut of over-choice and ever-changing content, the reader will choose a story that strikes her core emotions and wants. A title that stirs fascination. A title that begs to be clicked to find out the answer to an unanswered questions. Our brains are hard-wired to close open-loops. Following Medium’s new direction of ‘reader engagement’ and super-wokeness, the home page is about to be wallpapered with white bread and saltines. The most-popular stories are soon to be the ‘stomach flu’ diet of content. …and it gets better. This new change in reader engagement now says it’s OK for writers to ask readers for claps and feedback. This has been a no-no forever. Since we don’t get paid for claps anymore, it’s now OK to ask for cheap, forced replies from readers, but we can’t give them a compelling reason to open the story in the first place? There is some light, however. I don’t want to leave you with a total rant and not end on a high note. Medium’s new changes apply to their distribution standards-only. This means you can still use any title you wish (and get paid for it). This is the path I choose. But if you want your story curated for broad distribution outside your following, be prepared for white bread and saltines. I hope our stories don’t come to this, but at least you’re aware. We’re waiting for you.

https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/news-medium-has-lost-its-way-3a6eb45dbdf8

['August Birch']

2020-12-10 18:11:28.224000+00:00

['Medium', 'Marketing', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

Don’t let 2021 start without a solid publishing plan.

Don’t let 2021 start without a solid publishing plan. Now is the time to gab a piece of paper and flesh-out your writing plan for next year. Don’t wait until January. January becomes July, then November. Then your here. A year later. Wondering why your audience hasn’t grown. Make a plan now, as the year winds-down. Look at what worked for you. Do more of that. Look at what didn’t work and do less of that. This story may help too: Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/dont-let-2021-start-without-a-solid-publishing-plan-c0da819220f0

['August Birch']

2020-12-16 15:19:36.358000+00:00

['Medium', 'Marketing', 'Money', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

3 to read: Pokemon Go & newsrooms | Who defines your startup’s success?

3 to read: Pokemon Go & newsrooms | Who defines your startup’s success? | Why stats stink (w bad drawings) By Matt Carroll <@MattatMIT>This week: This week: How Pokemon Go will help usher in an era of “augmented reality” stories for newsrooms; don’t let outside expectations define your news startup’s success; and hey, let’s laugh a bit — some bad cartoons about how lyin’ stats. Get notified via email: Send note to 3toread (at) gmail.com “3 to read” online Matt Carroll runs the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab.

https://medium.com/3-to-read/3-to-read-pokemon-go-newsrooms-who-defines-your-startups-success-b6b8cae71dbc

['Matt Carroll']

2016-07-20 12:22:57.351000+00:00

['Journalism', 'Startup', 'Media', 'Pokemon Go', 'Statistics']

Pursuing Your Passions Doesn’t Have to Be About Profits

“Turn your passion into a money-making opportunity.” How many times have you heard that? Bloggers, YouTubers, and life coaches love to tout this idea as a great solution to our financial woes. The “side-hustle” and the “gig economy” are all ways to do this, people say. Most of the time, I just want to relax, and express myself creatively. When did my hobbies become about monetization? Well, when wages started to stagnate, student loans went unpaid, and retirement seemed impossible. That’s when. It’s when the notion of always hustling took over. Having a nine-to-five is great. Steady employment with a stable income is something many of us want. But sometimes it’s not enough. With almost six figures of student loan debt and little income coming in, I understand this. I fill my free-time with low-paying jobs on Upwork and other content mills. I write basic ad copy for $.05 a word. I constantly plan and re-plan about how I can use my skills to make more money. Should I start a blog? A Youtube channel? A digital marketing firm? And I try to upskill as much as possible, so I never have to rely (and therefore pay) others for their share of the work. This all helps me earn more income, but it also has a negative effect: I can never enjoy my passion or even relax. When I try to write for fun, my brain freezes up. The guilt settles in and I get writer’s block. I look at my money making goals and realize there is no time for silly little stories. Moreover, whenever I have downtime and decide to flip on Netflix or complete a puzzle, my anxiety kicks in. A voice in the back of my head tells me I’m wasting time, not trying hard enough. A heavy weight forms in the pit of my stomach, making it hard to unwind. And the harder I try, the worst the feeling gets. But studies have shown us, again and again, that relaxation is important to function as a normal person. Relaxing and working less resets stress levels, makes it easier to sleep, and boosts creativity. All the things we should want during our normal, productive hours. This is proven in studies, but also is true anecdotally: The more I try and force productivity, the less productive I become. But it’s so engrained in me to think it’s never enough. So how can we shake it? It’s hard when we constantly consume media about the hustlers and the entrepreneurs out there making huge salaries off their passions. We want to be like them, earning good money for doing what we love. But when we force something so much, it no longer becomes enjoyable. Writing no longer became something I enjoyed because I was no longer writing what I liked. I was writing for companies and people I will never meet and who will replace me in a heartbeat, for a better price. It’s taken several years for me to realize what has happened. I’ve been so consumed with becoming that person, I forgot what it’s like to enjoy my passion. To enjoy writing and do it for fun. I don’t have the answers on how to fully shake it, but I do know what works for me. Set Boundaries I have set boundaries with myself. When and where I am allowed to work. It varies each day, but no more than eight hours a day, like a normal person. If it’s been eight hours, I am not allowed to work. Or think about working. Or feel guilty for not working. This allows me time to relax, be active, or write for fun. It hasn’t totally stopped the guilty feeling, but it reduces it significantly. Meditate I used to hate the idea of meditation. Sitting in silence is just another way of being unproductive. But now I’ve embraced in and realized how great it can be. Not only does it increase my creativity, it also has great physiological affects. I mostly do moving meditation to engage my body as well as my mind. Even a few minutes a day helps clear the negativity taking space in my mind. Enjoy My Passion Again Another thing I’ve finally started to do again was write without purpose. I’ve upgraded the wide-ruled paper with a keyboard and a blank Word doc. For November, I am participating in NaNoWriMo, a month-long project to finish a novel. Thousands of people around the world join each year with the goal to write 50,000 words in a month. Some people are very competitive, but most are just in it for fun, like me. So far, I am very far behind at only 6,500 words. But I don’t care. Because I have finally embraced the creative writing I have denied myself for years. A few days into the month, I started thinking about how I could eventually pitch this novel to publishers. Old habits die hard, I suppose. And someday, I might try and make something out of it. I would love to get paid for my creative storytelling. But for now, I want to focus on the process, not the end goal. I want to feel the joy I used to feel when crafting a story, without profits on my mind. Because even if I never make a living from my storytelling, it’s still worth pursuing. The joy and calm it provides me is worth more than any dollar amount. It’s time to stop thinking about all our passions as profit-making devices, and start to learn how to embrace being unproductive, even if just for a little bit.

https://medium.com/wholistique/pursuing-your-passions-doesnt-have-to-be-about-profits-788ae8ca024

['Ashley Hague']

2020-12-04 10:00:20.526000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Personal Growth', 'Passion', 'Writing']

Managing A Long-Term Ticket: The Never Ending Apollo Upgrade

This upgrade necessarily had me touching large parts of the application. I took this opportunity to do two things. One of those was to familiarize myself with the large swathes of the front-end that I know exist but have not had a chance to work with previously. This project definitely led to me having a far better understanding of the front-end code for our project on the whole. The other great opportunity I got from seeing and touching so much front-end code, was a side project of modernizing old-style react code. As Tatami/FlooringStores has been an active project for quite a bit now, its existence has spanned multiple paradigms for React. Especially when the application was first being built, class-style components were still quite hot. Now, as we’re in late 2020, it seems like the move has been to go towards functional components. If there are any class-style components that I end up significantly touching, I also make an effort to convert those to functional components. These refactors have been one of the parts of this ticket that I have most enjoyed. Lesson Three: Keeping Up To Date With Master CC4 License, Merge Icon by Daniel Bruce One of the major challenges I faced about three weeks into the project, was that I realized that I had not been keeping my branch up-to-date with master . This could have caused some big challenges when attempting to merge this whole upgrade in when it is eventually completed, had it not been addressed. The first time I merged in origin/master it was a pretty big mess. It took at least an hour, if not longer, to resolve all of the merge conflicts. After that tough lesson, I started merging in master much more frequently. Any day where I am working on this ticket, I start that day with the following command git fetch && git merge origin/master . Keeping this branch up-to-date with master can be difficult at times, especially when there are components that have been touched by tickets that were also components that I converted to being a functional style component. Here is a contrived example to demonstrate what I’m talking about. // Old style class component Old Style Class Component // My conversion to functional type Functional Component // Merge Conflict Merge Conflict This is a bit of a mess to resolve at times, especially for non-contrived, real world examples. Normally what I would do is take whatever methods are on the class and pull them outside to be top-level functions. With the more frequent merges from master , I have been able to catch these problems more quickly. Conclusion It’s very important to update your packages, but you might not want to do so at the very first opportunity. It might be worthwhile closing that dependabot PR, or at least putting it on hold for a bit if it’s a major version upgrade. When you do get around to making that upgrade, use it as a chance to refactor. It really is a great way to get to either learn or re-familiarize yourself with the codebase and is an opportunity to modernize the codebase to current paradigms. Furthermore, make sure that you keep your branch up to date with your master branch when doing the upgrade. Refactoring, while delightful, can be a bit of a double-edged sword if people are making changes to the components that you are refactoring. This can be dealt with more deftly if you regularly update with master and the changes are not too hard to manage in a merge conflict scenario.

https://medium.com/broadlume-product/managing-a-long-term-ticket-the-never-ending-apollo-upgrade-daa88f0b341e

['Eli Sadoff']

2020-10-21 19:47:16.833000+00:00

['Apollo Client', 'Typescript', 'Upgrade', 'Apollo', 'React']

A Guide to Effective Sales and Communication

A Guide to Effective Sales and Communication Quick tips on how to sell better and get things moving in your organisation. Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash The art of selling becomes more prevalent and essential as you progress further in your career or expand your business. When I started as a developer, I only had to sell solutions to my team. After moving onto a consultant role, I had to sell solutions to my team and clients. Now, being in a management role, I find myself constantly having to sell ideas/solutions to my team, partners/vendors, clients, senior management, and other related stakeholders. Progress through Sales I used to have the misconception that management does a lot of talking while the analysts contribute more to the progress of projects and get things done. Having gone through the transition, I’ve started to appreciate the art of sales in contributing to progress. Below are some examples of progress through sales in a business/team: Obtain support and buy-in from stakeholders — project proposals and funding requests for new digital initiatives, support from other departments, i.e. branding and marketing, risk assessment, solution implementation, etc. — project proposals and funding requests for new digital initiatives, support from other departments, i.e. branding and marketing, risk assessment, solution implementation, etc. Offload priorities and venture into new fields — the nature of a digital lean startup is to explore new, potentially disruptive solutions constantly; frequent handovers are required to release capacity for new innovation and ventures. — the nature of a digital lean startup is to explore new, potentially disruptive solutions constantly; frequent handovers are required to release capacity for new innovation and ventures. Recruit capable team members for expansion — positioning the team’s initiatives, culture and achievements in the right light to attract potentially suitable candidates. This applies to partner engagements as well. The above examples are some highlights which I profoundly resonate with at this stage of my career. The list goes on — the point is that almost everything I do emphasises on selling effectively. Enhance Sales and Communication In my short experience so far, I have found some general guidelines which have been helpful in communicating an idea across better. A large part of selling involves conveying our intents clearly across to the stakeholders. Here are three tactics to enhance your sales communication: Appeal to interest — in every conversation or email, always put yourself in the shoes of the recipient and ask “What’s in it for me?”; you can explore putting the question as a placeholder text to guide and contextualise your thoughts. Use visuals, numbers and examples — charts, tables, and statistics are extremely useful in making your case concrete and “legit” — do your homework and reach out to the relevant parties to obtain numbers. Impression plays a great role in getting buy-ins. Keep things short and concise — most important stakeholders are perpetually busy; it’s recommended to begin by going straight to the conclusion/point (address the “What you need from me?” or “What do you suggest?”), and subsequent salient details in point form (limit to about 3). You can include further details and justifications upon request. Applying the above-mentioned tactics require skills and deliberate practice. You’ll have to constantly put in time and effort in sharpening your sales sword. I have found these approaches useful in my attempt to get better: Write frequently and address the right questions — helps to organise, clarify, and guide your thoughts. — helps to organise, clarify, and guide your thoughts. Seek reviews/feedback iteratively — find someone experienced to review your email or pitch deck drafts to highlight points for improvements. — find someone experienced to review your email or pitch deck drafts to highlight points for improvements. Read often and see how others do it — to better present information via charts, etc. you can consider looking at examples of how top consulting firms present research information and sell solutions and ideas to senior stakeholders. Pitfalls to Avoid It’s also important to bear in mind some of the pitfalls that could negatively affect your progress. Here are three pitfalls which I have faced throughout my journey so far: Fear, procrastination and not learning from feedback — a large part of sales is jumping in with two feet and dance to whatever music is playing. Without taking action, you won’t get feedback, which results in a lack of learning and improvement. — a large part of sales is jumping in with two feet and dance to whatever music is playing. Without taking action, you won’t get feedback, which results in a lack of learning and improvement. Ignore the interest of stakeholders — a key challenge is managing and balancing stakeholder’s interest. Often there may be compromises to be made, but it’s ultimately your job as the driver of an initiative to manage the expectations since you’re aware of the big picture. A lack of support from a stakeholder could pose a threat to your objectives. — a key challenge is managing and balancing stakeholder’s interest. Often there may be compromises to be made, but it’s ultimately your job as the driver of an initiative to manage the expectations since you’re aware of the big picture. A lack of support from a stakeholder could pose a threat to your objectives. Overwhelm someone with information — I realised that when the request is too lengthy, there’s a high chance that it gets ignored and unread; this leads to confusion and the need for reminders and follow-ups, which may prompt further clarification — resulting in unnecessary timeline delays and negatively affecting stakeholder’s interest. I hope you won’t make the same mistakes I did.

https://medium.com/the-internal-startup/a-guide-to-effective-sales-and-communication-384c5b540a21

['Jimmy Soh']

2020-06-30 08:19:38.685000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Presentations', 'Communication']

Write for The Indiependent

Learn how to apply as a contributor to www.indiependent.co.uk If you’re interested in joining The Indiependent contributor team then all you have to do is send an email to contactus@indiependent.co.uk with a brief summary of the following: A little bit about you — including your full (preferred) name, age and where you’re from. Any previous journalistic experience you have (doesn’t matter if you don’t have any!) The section(s) that you’re most interested in contributing to out of Music, Books, Film, TV, Gaming, Theatre, Opinion (which includes Politics, Lifestyle, Art, Scientific Interest) An example of your writing — this can be school or university work if you’ve never written an article before. We process applications every month so do not worry if you don’t hear from us straight away! Please read our FAQ below before applying and drop us an email us if you have any other questions. If you’re unsure about anything to do with writing for us then drop us a tweet @indie_pendent or an email — contactus@indiependent.co.uk FAQ If you’ve written for other publications or your own blog before, that’s great, but not something we exclusively look for in applicants. The point of our site is to give aspiring journalists a leg up — we’re here to open doors to people who’ve not written for a site before, therefore it would be pointless if we were to discriminate against applicants depending on their level of experience. Yes, of course! We currently have writers from Australia, USA and parts of Europe. However, our editorial team is English — please do not submit applications in a language other than English, and bear in mind that we will only accept applicants who comply with our standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar. We encourage contributors to create their own portfolio sites to showcase their work — we only ask that you link back to The Indiependent site to encourage maximum traffic for your articles. We discourage contributors from submitting articles they’ve written for us to other sites (or vice versa) as usually they will have strict submission policies which state that they do not want to publish or share content from elsewhere. If you’re ever feeling frustrated by how quickly your piece is put live we would advise you to speak to a member of the senior editorial team before you send the piece to another platform to ensure we’ve done everything possible to publish your work in a timely fashion. We suggest you try and write at least 1 article per month, and have no upper limit regarding how many pieces you can submit. Obviously if you have a busy month because of exams/university or schoolwork, or extenuating personal circumstances (such as illness, or family problems) then our editors will be sympathetic if you do not contribute something in that month. All we ask is you show a continual interest in writing for the site, and we’ll make sure you remain a valued and integral part of our team. The first thing we will assess is that you have proficient spelling, punctuation and grammar. Make sure you read over your application before you hit send! Then, we’ll look for enthusiasm and flair. If we get lots of applicants for one section, we may be forced to choose between you and someone else (this is especially the case for Music, which is our largest section). Therefore, use this application as an opportunity to sell yourself to us. We don’t want a team of people who are all the same — bring your personality to the fore.

https://medium.com/the-indiependent/write-for-the-indiependent-25cd94f32ca7

['Beth Kirkbride']

2020-05-11 10:38:14.326000+00:00

['The Indiependent', 'Journalism', 'Media', 'Writing', 'Write For Us']

Whatsapp Group Chat Analysis with Python

The present analysis is based in the article of Saiteja Kura : Whatsapp Group Chat Analysis using Python and Plotly Lot of people is using whatsapp, and most of the whatsapp user is in a chat group (toxic or not). Some of us ask ourselves questions like “Why this dude is in the group if never send a message” or “I’m for sure that today nobody will send a message”. Next steps are based in Saiteja Kura’s work with some modifications due the OS of the phone and convenience. Detailed process can be found there. Getting data & create data frame. First we need to export the group chat using the option export in the group options in the phone, the chat file is stored in a txt file and saved in data directory. Saved data must be parsed in order to be stored in a data frame, next the function that recognizes the date at start of the line that indicates that is a unique message, if yes the message is splitted in a Date, Time, Author and Message to be stored in a pandas Data Frame. In this case I needed to change some parts of code because the txt file is diferent on iOS. Anonymizing data. To protect privacy of the chat members we need to anonymizing the names, changing all names with LOTR characters. Here, some relevant data from the data frame created, result of df.info and df.head, this small set consts of 914 records that implies a similar number of messages. Group Wise Stats Let see some stats from the data frame, first thing is that we can count the media messages counting the occurrence of “<Media omitted>”. By using emoji library we can found the total of emojis, creating a emoji column we have a emoji for particular message, additionally we create a column to count all URLs in the messages using re library. The group messages has a 914 messages in total, thats because the exported chat has recently started, one interesting data is that are at least one emoji every two messages or an average of two messages by emoji. Next, we separate text messages from media messages in two data frames, messages_df only contain text messages. More Stats Let see more stats, we show the letter count for a message and word count for that message, More stats came from the emojis we already count the total emojis, and we have separate each, let get unique number of each one of them. with that information we can find the most used emoji in the group. With 68 occurences “🙏” is the most used emoji, follow by “😘” with 60 occurences, next we show emoji distribution in a pie chart. With the same library “Plotly”, we can show this chart individually. Word Cloud Word clouds (also known as text clouds or tag clouds) work in a simple way: the more a specific word appears in a source of textual data (such as a speech, blog post, or database), the bigger and bolder it appears in the word cloud. We created a word cloud for all messages. First join all messages in a large message. A stop word is a commonly used word (such as “the”, “a”, “an”, “in”) that a search engine has been programmed to ignore, both when indexing entries for searching and when retrieving them as the result of a search query. We use the word Cloud library including the list already included in the library. We set spanish set of words because the native language of the group. We add some more words to ommit some occurrences. And More Stats We can get the the messages behavior in time, group the messages by date. Day Distribution Using a radar chart, we show the distribution by day of week. Conclusion There’s a lot of information about all our day to day activities, we assume several things about that information but is great when you can probe your assumptions even more using tools like Plotly and Python, in my personal experience was great discover this tools, and see all that trends, charts and info and all we see here is just a star in the sky of data science. Thanks to Saiteja Kura for the original post, go there and see more interesting articles.

https://medium.com/mcd-unison/whatsapp-group-chat-analysis-with-python-ae21f326b32c

['Enrique Alvarado']

2020-10-31 01:43:42.131000+00:00

['Feature Engineering', 'Chart Analysis', 'Python', 'Plotly']

What to Stop and Start Doing in SEO in 2020

Dead SEO Strategies Putting your website in directories and stuffing your post with links This was a good idea in the past. Where the off-page SEO efforts were just as basic as putting your website links into directories and in forums. While for on-page SEO, you just stuffed in backlinks from various sites and wait. There weren’t as many websites, and people were not trying to rank as much either. So, whoever knew these strategies sat comfortably at the top. There are still many people putting their websites in directories, but you have to be smart about it. Put your website links in niche-focused directories. Keyword stuffing Adding keywords is still a top SEO ranking strategy. But it is way different now. Google is like a delivery man that tries to deliver quality content to whoever makes an order for content via Google search. So naturally, they would show the best article for the particular search term. When the Google crawlers check your page and see the keywords and what’s it’s about, you would rank, but if your article is not easily readable, Google will bury your article. Why? Because you didn’t produce quality. You should focus on putting out the best quality and relevant content rather than trying to rank. Stuffing your post with keywords is dead. You should just use about two keywords and mention them not more than five times in the post. Google is more sophisticated, and they can tell if you stuffed in keywords. So, an article with stuffed keywords wouldn’t even be given a chance. Paying for backlinks This has more disadvantages than benefits. In an attempt to try to play on Google, people used to pay for backlinks so they could rank. But when you do this, you put yourself at risk of getting blacklisted. Blackhat SEO practices People used to get away with Blackhat SEO practices in the past. Not anymore. Some of these practices include: Cloaking involves showing one piece of content on the search engine while having another article on the page. Comment spamming. This is one of the oldest tricks used by digital marketers. You know those links on your comment sections that look like if you click on them, you will get hacked? When you continuously do this on different sites, your page and website, in some cases, would be blacklisted. Sneaky redirects. It is keeping links that redirect you to results other than what you wanted to get. Most websites that use these are download websites which have been paid for an ad or something. Blackhat SEO practices automatically make your website blacklisted. So, you shouldn’t expect to rank doing them.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/what-to-stop-and-start-doing-in-seo-in-2020-dd68d6cf25d9

['Tochukwu Okoro E.']

2020-03-28 18:07:37.858000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Content Marketing', 'Writing', 'Copywriting', 'SEO']

A Guide For Those Who Feel Lost In Life

The first few years of our existence are characterized by a wide range of activities, beliefs and commitments that are either inherited or thrust upon us. Rarely challenged to forge a path of our own, who we are becomes more or less the agglomeration of our environment and genetics. Until, of course, that fateful period when the training wheels are ripped off and suddenly we’re under the pressure to find out ‘the right thing to do’ all by ourselves. Do we go to university? Do we entertain the same political beliefs as our parents? Do we flirt with other religions and gods or cast them aside altogether? Do we rebel against the things that had previously constructed our sense of self in an effort to gain autonomy? Or do we attempt to engage, on a deeper level, with the constructs that previously formed us, in an effort to develop a more meaningful sense of identity? All of these questions, met with conflicting answers from guidance counsellors, parents, teachers, friends and internet forums, lead us into a dreadful sense of confusion and hopelessness. One twenty something year old in the psychologist Meg Jay’s “The Defining Decade” describes this feeling poetically: Ian told me his twenty something years were like being in the middle of the ocean, like this vast, unmarked body of water. He couldn’t see land in any direction, so he didn’t know which way to go. He felt overwhelmed by the prospect that he could swim anywhere or do anything. He was equally paralyzed by the fact that he didn’t know which of the anythings would work out. Tired and hopeless at age twenty-five, he said he was treading water to stay alive” Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash When asked how people do get out of the ocean, Ian replied “I don’t know…I guess all you can do is hope someone comes along in a boat or something” This belief that patience will prevail and somebody or something will magically arrive and save us from drowning in a sea of aimless potentialities, is likely a sentiment shared by many lost in life. Unfortunately, it is also a dangerous idea, to give up the idea that your life is up to you. Waiting around, we tend to drift from job to job, relationship to relationship, pushed and pulled by the tides of fate. We distract ourselves from the dizziness of freedom with delicious escapism and occupy our time with tasks we never really wanted to do but, instead, had snuck themselves into our lives through the path of least resistance. We say to ourselves “one day I’ll read that book or watch that movie or meet that person who will set me on a predetermined path where I’ll find what I’m here for”. Our lifelong passion will simply come along and offer itself to us. We will become who we always were. Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash Unfortunately, years pass and our hope for salvation is more or less unfounded. Life happens whether we choose to live it or not. As one character from Kaufmann’s “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things” puts it: “People like to think of themselves as points moving through time, but I think it’s probably the opposite. We’re stationary and time passes through us. Blowing like cold wind, stealing our heat.” And just like that, the time to follow our dreams and stress over the limitlessness of our future swiftly crumbles, weakened by the fact that, like every other animal, we die. So many wrong turns… Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash Although there is no universal guide to identity formation, psychology gives us a few reasonable leads. James Marcia, a clinical and developmental psychologist, was deeply interested in the work of Erik Erikson. Erikson suggests that human development is composed of psychosocial conflicts and tasks that, if resolved, results in positive maturation. For example, Erikson proposes that young adults engage in the struggle to maintain close relationships and avoid social isolation. This is the psychosocial stage of intimacy vs isolation. Those in their middle age will either discover purpose through engaging in the world in a prosocial and altruistic manner or retreat into their own activities, caring little for future generations. This is called generativity vs stagnation. Marcia was specifically interested in the stage slightly before we worry about intimacy: identity vs confusion. In this stage, Erikson argues that individuals will work at developing a sense of self through experimentation, commit to certain initiatives or experience some manner of identity crisis. Erik Erikson Rather than Erikson’s binary argument that one has either found their identity or is confused. Marcia argues that this stage can be characterized by the extent to which an individual has explored and committed to an identity As Marcia put his theory to the test in semi-structured interviews that would explore the extent to which individuals explored and committed to different life areas, generally revolving around ideology and occupation, four identity statuses or types emerged. Those who were entirely committed but made little or no effort to explore alternative were considered to have a “foreclosed identity”. Without thinking, they simply continued the path laid out to them early in life. For example, a child may be told by their parents that being a doctor is the only valid career choice. The child will then form their identity entirely around getting good enough marks to go to medical school, achieving academic excellence in medical school and becoming a doctor. At no point does this individual challenge the idea that they might try another career path. They may even dismiss their more uncertain or artsy friends as being lost. Identity Status Theory Foreclosed identity can also occur when someone develops an identity directly in opposition to what they were told to do. This is called a “negative identity”. That same child, constantly told to work hard and become a doctor, may rebel under the pressure and drop out of high school to pick a life path far from intellectual. Despite feeling that they are behaving freely, their behaviour is nonetheless perfectly correlated with what they are being told to do. As Marcia warns “the individual about to become a Methodist, Republican farmer like his Methodist, Republican farmer father, with little or no thought in the matter, certainly cannot be said to have “achieved” an identity, in spite of his commitment”. The rigidity of those in the foreclosed identity group provides a seemingly strong sense of stability. There is no doubt in their mind over what to do. However, as soon as ones commitments are challenged, the vulnerability of this status is put to the test. The foreclosed identity is undoubtedly susceptible to an identity crisis. Photo by Zach Kadolph on Unsplash The second stage, identity diffusion, is characterized by an avoidance in committing and exploring to anything. Marcia argues that there is little anxiety in this stage because they are invested in little. They show general indecision, indifference and lethargy. The third stage, moratorium, is defined by those who are in a state of identity crisis due to their lack of commitments. Nonetheless, they are actively exploring and experimenting in different areas of their life, forming their values and discovering their interests. “Moratoriums…report experiencing more anxiety than do students in any other status…The world for them is not, currently, a highly predictable place; they are vitally engaged in a struggle to make it so”. This is nonetheless considered to be a far more beneficial stage of development than the previous two, one that characterizes the ideal of university education; the young adult sifting through a catalogue of potential careers, ideologies, identities and relationships without committing to anything in particular. Recent research suggests that more people are spending a greater duration in this stage. Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash After an identity crisis has been worked through, Marcia suggests that the individual will reach identity achievement, the final stage of identity formation. Such an individual will reach a point in their life where they have certain commitments and are still willing to explore alternatives. A true sense of self has been achieved. Perhaps they are entirely happy with their career and simultaneously welcome the idea that they would be willing to explore other careers if necessary. By maintaining a balance between healthy flexibility and the courage to commit to things we care about, we can potentially avoid the dreadful sense of feeling lost. Photo by Nghia Le on Unsplash “The search of youth is not for all-permissibility, but rather for new ways of directly facing up to what truly counts” wrote Erikson. Perhaps we know what counts, deep down, but don’t have the courage or knowledge to pursue it. Perhaps we truly don’t know yet. Nonetheless, by trying out new things, even things we’re lukewarm about, as well as committing to certain things, even if they’re not our lifelong passion, this delicate balancing act of identity formation can be achieved. The important thing is not to wait around. Your life is, above all else, yours to create or destroy.

https://sisyphus089.medium.com/a-guide-for-those-who-feel-lost-in-life-a4d209961d71

['Ben Thomas']

2020-10-18 13:48:07.717000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Philosophy', 'College', 'Psychology', 'Development']

Why Integrate Diversity in the Energy Sector with AI and more?

Why Integrate Diversity in the Energy Sector with AI and more? Integration of technologies and diversity in data sources can act as catalysts towards the energy transition, but it’s easier said than done Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash What does it mean to “Integrate Diversity”? It starts with understanding and recognizing that everyone but also every technology is unique, with a different set of strengths, capabilities and experiences. Integrating diversity is first, recognizing it and then creating environments where you can bring out the best aspects so that when they work together, the sum is much greater than the parts. In this article, I want to focus on the Power sector, where the integration of technologies and diversity in data sources can act as catalysts towards the energy transition, while restrictions and “adversarialisation” (or simple rivalry) of technologies would break the whole process apart. In order to come up with cutting-edge solutions, you really need to have different perspectives and skills. We all know that, on a team, if you have the same type of people working on something (all-male, all-old, all- from the city, etc.), you’re limited to the types of solutions you can create. By integrating differences, it actually allows you to expand your horizons and push the boundaries. Artificial Intelligence can contribute to the integration of different solutions and widen the spectrum of possibilities. AI from books and film have been around a long time in different forms. They are portrayed as sometimes friendly and sometimes menacing. But in real life, we like to think of AI as Augmented Intelligence. Over the years, AI has proven itself useful in many different domains. Before AI, the idea of a computer recognizing people in photographs based solely on examples was unheard of. Today, we even use AI to examine medical images to rapidly identify abnormalities, saving patients’ lives. Andrew Ng, Co-founder of Coursera and formerly head of Baidu AI Group / Google Brain, compares the transformational impact of AI to that of electricity 100 years back, and I surely agree with him. Professor Andrew Ng is the former chief scientist at Baidu, where he led the company’s Artificial Intelligence Group. He is an adjunct professor at Stanford University. In 2011 he led the development of Stanford University’s main MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platform and also taught an online Machine Learning class that was offered to over 100,000 students, leading to the founding of Coursera. In fact, AI means different things to different people. For a video game designer, AI means writing the code that affects how bots play or how the environment reacts to the player. For the majority of us, the AI we see is more likely to be an app on your phone than an intelligent robot (or an Android!). It’s used behind the scenes to manage finances, suggest your next Netflix film, identify credit card fraud, read medical imaging, and find appropriate clinical trials for patients. Artificial Intelligence is involved in the decisions we make each day. Worldwide spending on artificial intelligence (AI) systems is forecast to reach $35.8 billion in 2019, an increase of 44.0% over the amount spent in 2018. With industries investing aggressively in projects that utilize AI software capabilities, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semi-annual Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide expects spending on AI systems will more than double to $79.2 billion in 2022 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.0% over the 2018–2022 forecast period. But still, it has a lot of mileage to do in the energy world. In the Power sector, more than in many other sectors, we can use Augmented Intelligence to extend human capabilities and accomplish things that neither humans nor machines could do on their own. Some of the challenges we face today come from an excess of information. Faster communications, Distributed computing and Internet of things (IoT) have lead to (an exponentially growing) generation of massive amounts of data, while IoT itself and social networking has encouraged most of that data to be unstructured. There is so much data that human experts cannot keep up with all the changes and advancements. Photo by Jose Fontano on Unsplash Unlock the intelligence With Augmented Intelligence, we can “unlock” much more of the substance and interrelations in the data while putting the information that needed at our fingertips, and back that information up with evidence, so that the stakeholders can make more informed decisions. This will allow experts and the decision makers to scale their capabilities so they can better service their customers. The machines doing the time-consuming work so that we’re able to do the things that matter. In traditional programming, everything is deterministic, and the if-then-else loop determines how the software responds to varying conditions. That works well when you are comparing known values, like temperatures, text strings or numbers in a spreadsheet. But when you want to classify objects/decisions/variations into categories, simple if-then statements won’t work. The world is far too complex, with shades of grey and multiple correct answers, and probabilistic answers become a requirement. In the power sector, almost everything is Probabilistic (weather, consumers behaviour, peak management, wind turbine or solar PV output, etc.). Whereas a deterministic system can tell you, “The answer is X because this comparison succeeded”, such as the temperature on a thermostat, a probabilistic system is required in Load Leveling or Renewable Power Generation because you need a system that can tell you, “I’m very confident this is the correct answer, but I also have evidence to support these alternatives” (e.g. to store energy for later use, to slow down wind turbine because wind might exceed limitations, etc.). So, even if for Hollywood, AI generally means a character that acts like a human with some trope computer features mixed in. For a data scientist, and especially in the Energy sector, AI is a way of exploring and classifying data to meet specific goals. But no matter who is defining AI, the crucial point is that AI means intelligence. How do we define intelligence? There are many aspects of AI, each of which is influenced by advances in the sciences and philosophy. Computer science and electrical engineering determine how AI is implemented in software and hardware. Mathematics and statistics determine viable models and measure performance. Because AI is modelled on how we believe the brain works, psychology and linguistics play an important role in understanding how AI might work. Philosophy provides guidance about topics like what intelligence is and ethical considerations. It is the fusion of all these fields of study that make it possible for us to build systems that act intelligently. Power grids, especially with Renewables, need that intelligence. Photo by Arthur Poulin on Unsplash Data learning applied to the Power sector What is AI good at, and what is it not good at? The answer to that often comes down to data. AI technology improves just like any technology does, so today’s limitation may be tomorrow’s breakthrough, but current AI technologies are very good at classification and translation (interpretation). Whether you are talking about natural intelligence or artificial intelligence, nothing is intelligent that cannot learn. Humans are born with some level of innate intelligence, and we can build on that intelligence through learning. The only innate intelligence machines have is what we give them, and common sense is not currently on that very short list of items. What we do provide, though, is the ability to examine examples, and create machine learning models based on the inputs and desired outputs. For supervised learning, we provide the AI with examples. Unsupervised learning is where you provide inputs, but not labels, and let the machine infer qualities. This type of learning can be useful for clustering data, where data is grouped according to how similar it is to its neighbours and dissimilar to everything else. Once the data is clustered, you can use different techniques to explore that data and look for patterns. Reinforcement learning is where the machine makes a decision and is given a reward or retribution depending on whether the decision was a good one. You could use reinforcement learning to teach a machine to play chess or navigate an obstacle course such as a demand-side management or power generation scheme. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that applies to neural networks. Deep learning networks refer to the arrangements of the nodes, and that could definitely be the next generation of energy-related AI application When choosing sources of data for training your machine models, it is important to sample data that is representative of the data that will be encountered in production. One challenge that can occur is when training data will not predict future input data. This has to be addressed soon in the process. Not necessarily that you need all the answers, but rather that you identified a process to take care of the situation. Because garbage in equals garbage out, no AI solution can give good results from bad data. What you can do if some of your data is bad, however, is to identify and keep your usable data, and collect (or build) new data that can be used in your solution. You should be considering the amount, quality, and sensitivity of the data you have to work with. The integration of Renewable Energies, easier said than done This is becoming more and more complex for the grid operator, but also for the smaller facilities or communities. It now involves integrating renewable energy production assets into self-consumption (solar thermal and/or photovoltaic, production of heat from biomass or biogas, geothermal energy, …), to enable manufacturers or communities to reduce their carbon footprint, to diversify their energy mix and reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, which should allow better control of energy-related budgets over the long term. It is, in any case, the lever to activate in priority: “the unspent energy costs nothing and does not pollute”. On the other hand, even if there are some good successes or more specifically attractive sectors, the deployment of renewable energies and recovery technologies is still too little advanced in the industry. There are many brakes to overcome: significant investment costs, competition current with fossil fuels and cheap electricity, the fear of operational risks associated with these innovative technologies, the lack of technical knowledge or operational capabilities, etc. And this is where AI and data science can help greatly. Many positive experiences can be analysed and can be considered as examples to follow in the “learning” phase. That would aim to provide the industry with a light on the possibilities offered in the short term through recovery technologies and renewable energy, focusing on major sectors and a set of technologies. For example, we can think of the optimization of a decentralized power generation (solar PV or wind turbine) with an intelligent energy storage system (IES). In this scenario, if the next day’s weather forecast is communicated to the AI, the storage capacity can be prepared according to the expected state of the network. The AI can decide to unload the storage unit (hybrid energy storage, for example) overnight so that a maximum of current can be stored there the next day. Thanks to this control function, it would also be possible to know the status on the higher voltage grid levels. The distribution side (Lower voltage grid) can then help maintain the voltage on the higher grid levels (and even at transmission level with a sufficient amount of capacity involved). In surplus to that, the electricity produced is either consumed directly (priority 1) or injected into the grid or stored temporarily according to the state of the grid. In case of local voltage problems, the locally stored electricity (battery) can be fed into the grid. In a wider scenario, the energy provider can actively control the intelligent modules based on certain signals (weather forecast, balance group, etc.). That way, the IES positively influences the maintenance of local network voltage and, more generally, the security of supply (local and decentralized system services). It is also an ideal platform for energy suppliers in terms of customer loyalty and the development of new products (services, assignment of contracts, etc.). Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash State of play: a smart dashboard of innovative technologies, integrated and tailored to the needs First, alongside conventional solutions there are numerous relatively mature innovative technologies to produce and self-consume energy, be it heat (at temperature levels compatible with the most uses), cooling or electricity. And, “vis-à-vis” each unitary need, there are even several alternative solutions. In the first approach, these technologies can be classified into three complementary categories: Technologies providing so-called low-temperature heat, such as geothermal energy (very low energy), recovery on drying steam or solar thermal, which are adapted to uses such as domestic hot water production, space heating, or low-temperature industrial processes, such as pasteurization in the food industry. As a reminder, Concentrated solar power, geothermal heat with very high heat (shaded part), and that low and medium energy geothermal energy are presented in the cartography but are not this study. Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) solar complex in northern San Bernardino County, California. The first commercial parabolic trough power plants with a total of 354 megawatts went online in California. By USA.Gov — BLM — BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT — http://www.ca.blm.gov/cdd/alternative_energy.html, Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15957890 2) Technologies providing so-called high-temperature heat, such as biomass, biogas or smoke recovery from certain furnaces, which make it possible to respond to needs, particularly those that can be found in metallurgy, glass or chemistry. 3) Technologies to produce electricity, useful for all processes studied. These can be covered for example with solar photovoltaic, wind energy or biomass or biogas cogeneration unit. Source: Adapted from The National Energy Education Project (public domain) Issues related to the integration of technologies: carbon footprint, competitiveness, conditions integration and exploitation A survey carried out in 2018 among many manufacturers in Europe (ref: www.ademe.fr/mediatheque), showed that these technologies are already deployed on the ground, often successfully, despite the difficulties encountered. The interviewed industrials evoke a first family of stakes: the reduction of CO2 emissions, the development of a responsible corporate image, which can confer a marketing advantage, while coherence with their environmental and societal commitments. The authors added: « Le niveau de déploiement de ces technologies est assez inégal, notamment du fait du niveau historique de leur compétitivité respective face aux énergies conventionnelles, et cela, malgré la visibilité sur les coûts de production qu’apporte une solution EnR&R (indépendants de la fluctuation du prix des énergies fossiles). » or, in the Shakespeare language: The level of deployment of these technologies is quite uneven, in particular because of the historical level of their competitiveness compared with conventional energy sources, despite the visibility on the costs of production that brings a Renewable Energy or Energy Recovery solution (independent of the fluctuation of the price of fossil fuels). However, even if the industrials interviewed mention environmental and branding issues, they agree that competitiveness issues are of the first order: in other words, the deployment of Renewables, or Energy Recovery technologies are only done if it contributes to their competitiveness. Photo by paolo candelo on Unsplash On the road to competitiveness For renewable energies (RE), it’s always a challenge to be considered an add-on to competitiveness. Especially when there are no subsidies available, under current market conditions, with a very low gas price, and apart from a few special cases, they are globally less competitive than traditional reference solutions (electricity and natural gas). It can be noted that these conventional energies are often accessible at even lower cost for large consumers, benefiting from better supply contracts. In this context, public policies, and the support mechanisms associated with them, but also maximization of the outcomes with AI and energy storage (IES) play a major role. Under the impetus for subsidies and technology integration, many solutions can bring competitiveness to industrial. But RE coupled with IES should be seen as a team member into the bigger competitive race. In addition, investing in an energy asset is often a mid-term or a long-term choice, with longer depreciation period. A choice today will have consequences for the next 5, 10, 15 years or more. Choosing to invest in one or more Renewable or Recovery assets today may be a long-term paying choice because it allows to diversify the energy mix and decrease the dependence on traditional energies, whose prices may be particularly erratic. Moreover, such a strategy allows also, at least in part, to overcome the increase in the price of fuel, electricity or even to a lesser extent the CO2 credit market. The integration of technologies must be part of a global reflection on the needs and possibilities of a site. Integrate on an industrial site a solar installation, a wind turbine, a biomass boiler, or a methanization plant, demand for space and adapted infrastructure and even more a good evaluation (if not a good prediction) of the future outcomes. The integration of the cleantech assets may also require a significant overhaul of distribution associated with it. Depending on the topology of the site concerned, integration constraints, location of needs, changes may not be marginal. In a number of cases, it can even be necessary to deploy new grid or to install storage capacities (because of the time lag between when heat recovery can be achieved and when energy recovered can be used, or because of the variability of some RE). Artificial “augmented” Intelligence is required to efficiently perform all this. And this is emphasized by the fact that, in general, due to their relative lack of flexibility, Renewables require more specific operational know-how than their traditional competitors (electricity grid, conventional power generation, heat produced from natural gas). Credit: Optimizing power generation with Hybrid Energy Storage and AI (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0), © Smart Phases Inc. (DBA Novacab) The strengths of one counterbalance the weaknesses of the others Indeed, conventional technologies have the advantage of being (almost) always available, responsive and flexible. They easily adapt to even rapid fluctuations in load and activities and are therefore able to provide load curves with a lot of responsiveness. This is not the case for the majority of Renewable technologies. Solar and wind technologies, on the other hand, are typically variable, producing only electricity and/or heat in the presence of sun and/or wind. It is the same with the global process of production and combustion of biogas or biomass, which may be subject to the availability of resources local (liquid effluents or various wastes). However, it is possible to overcome these difficulties by intelligently combining energies technologies with heat recovery technologies and renewable energies, to provide the different uses of the site. As an example, we can consider the association of district heat with energy storage solutions to cope with the variability of production of certain renewable energy assets or asynchronous heat recovery solutions. To facilitate the integration of renewable energy, industrialists will have to rely on the contribution of all the ecosystem: technology providers, service providers, financing actors through innovative business models, in order to share the risks and overcome the difficulties mentioned. Such projects might seem quite complex to implement for us mortal human, but with the help of AI, they can bring high-performance levels, both from an economic and an environmental point of view. In order to give the most value, it is important to focus on improving training times for our AI and squeezing the most insight from smaller quantities of data. The end results are solutions that require fewer data to build, are faster to train and deploy, and that protect your intellectual property. In short, a mix of energy storage (electric, thermal, hybrid, mechanical, etc.) and AI are jointly able to solve this downside of RE. The combination of conventional technologies and Renewables with Intelligent Energy storage technologies facilitates the integration and exploitation of these. Indeed, while all these technologies might appear implicitly in a competitive situation to each other, these technologies must above all be seen as complementary to the each other, just as they can be complementary to conventional sources (electricity and gas in particular). The whole challenge lies in the construction of an energy system in which the assets complement each other so that the strengths of one counterbalance the weaknesses of the others (each technology brings its share of advantages and disadvantages, which need to be assessed and taken into case by case, at each industrial site), to enable the deployment of efficient energy solutions of an operational and economic point of view. And at each industrial site corresponds a specific solution. Multiple data sources are key here to optimize the solution and AI is necessary to deal with this mountain of information. As Edmund Hillary once said: When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them. The Energy Transition is the mountain range ahead. It challenges us, we need to better join our strengths and “augmented intelligence” to climb it the best way possible! Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash ___________________________________________________________________ This article is part of a series on Artificial Intelligence and Energy Storage by Stephane Bilodeau, ing., P.Eng, PhD, FEC. Chief Technology Officer, Smart Phases (Novacab), Fellow of Engineers Canada and expert contributor to Energy Central. You can find other articles here:

https://towardsdatascience.com/why-integrate-diversity-in-energy-with-ai-and-more-468517e09b76

['Stephane Bilodeau']

2019-06-03 12:45:53.218000+00:00

['Towards Data Science', 'Renewable Energy', 'Data Science', 'Energy Storage', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Why your next product should include a conversational Artificial Intelligence

We learned to use Graphic User Interfaces because we had to, in order to give orders to the machine. We learned the machine’s language. What if we actually make the machine learn our language? I mean real language with sentences and intention, understanding, empathy even. “The Fly” movie shows Seth Brundle having some chat conversations with his computer. He actually asks questions to the machine which will answer to him. Like a chat. The way he interacts with it seems obvious and easy but until recently, it was only science-fiction. Having a computer understanding a human sentence question requires a lot of work. Luckily, it is finally close to our present, even more advanced maybe, where Artificial Intelligence can give us the feeling that they have empathy. And empathy is what makes our brain happy. “The Fly” movie: the conversational interaction with the machine Make me feel something Using the app Slack for a while now, I can tell you that I love Slack bot. I feel like he understands me. For example, when I post a Dropbox link on the app, he is so intelligent that he asks me if he should grab the document itself from my Dropbox and upload it on Slack. I can either answer “Yes”, “Not this time”, “Never”. When I chose “Not this time”, he answered me a full sentence that confronted me that he understood me: “OK, I won’t import this Dropbox file, but I will remember to ash you again next time.” I love you Slack bot ❤ Slackbot answers me using a full clear sentence of his intentions — I felt so well understood! Really, that’s how strong relationships with computer could and should be. They are our assistants 24/7. As a product designer, my goal is to build apps or services the user can emotionally rely on. That means building this trusted relationship, including emotions. Add granularity in the emotions I like using movies as examples of Artificial Intelligence and User Interface as they are spaces where designers can go a bit further on their imagination, not depending so much on feasibility as we do in the real world. On “Interstellar“, Cooper talks with the robot T.A.R.S. to get information and asks him to do some actions. But also, and that’s the most important thing here, he can modify the humor and trust settings. This is really strong Artificial Intelligence there. Empathy, emotion, humor that can be in different degrees to create a more plausible AI. Interstellar T.A.R.S. has humor and trust settings [Sci-fi movie nerd digression: I have to forget the fact that the shape of this robot makes no sense at all to me (seems so instable and could get stuck in so many situations!) and that its screen is showing stupid lines of codes instead of something else that could be, let’s say, useful. Adam Savage from Mythbuster seems to actually find the shape genius on this Youtube video (he still says the main issue is the stability/balance though haha) . Oh and this awesome article about the designs and sets for Interstellar: the part about how they built the Tesseract totally blew my mind! Sorry for the sci-fi movie nerd digression.] Show me you care about me Let’s go back to our subject: interacting with Artificial Intelligence. Remember the computer HAL talking in “2001: A Space Odyssey“? That’s what I felt using Lark app for the past few weeks. Lark, the Artificial Intelligence, is typing me some interesting facts about my health and I am really happy to start a conversation with him. I can even see the 3 dots when he is typing, giving me the feeling that there is actually a soul typing a text for me. Yes, I feel like someone is interacting with me, maybe even care about me and my health, and my human brain is really really happy. Lark app where I really feel the AI is typing to me Same feeling for the Artificial Intelligence used for the scheduling meetings tools Amy. Amy was really nice with me when I told her I was not available on the first days she suggested. (If you want to learn more about Amy, I interviewed Dennis Mortensen, founder of x.ai on the podcast Daily Hunt podcast.) Make me fall in love So when you think about your new product or service, try to have this AI aspect in your mind. How your users will interact with your app or service? How can you trigger the emotions you want from your users? How can you create the trusted relationship the user needs in order to fall in love with your product? If you did not watch the movie “Her“, now would be the best time as this is not so a science-fiction scenario after all. The more we rely on conversational Artificial Intelligence, the better they will be designed (not the UI only but more the overall experience). Designed by us. By you. By me. Or maybe… am I actually an AI without knowing it? *creepy Twilight Zone music* This article was included on the issue#3 my curated publication “Design for startups“. Don’t forget to sign up for it to receive new tips and tricks on your inbox. “Design for startups” is my curated publication that helps you design when you are not a designer. Tips, tools and interesting articles for startups. Originally published at www.sophiemasure.com.

https://medium.com/design-for-startups/why-your-next-product-should-include-a-conversational-artificial-intelligence-a14241408823

['Max Masure']

2015-12-09 14:13:56.137000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Design', 'UX']

Can a gadget addict go green?

Can a gadget addict go green? Thoughts about kicking my conspicuous consumption habit Falling iPhone sales may be bad for Apple, but keeping old iPhones going is good for Earth (photo©babulous) A few days ago, I saw a news article that said iPhone users now wait four years to upgrade their devices. I can relate to that as my iPhone 6S+ is now into its fourth year. Despite being a gadget-lover, I delayed upgrading because of the tear-inducing prices of iPhones in India. An iPhone XS Max (64GB) that’s $1099 in US is almost 50% pricier in India at $1545 (₹1,09,900). However, people rarely do things because of a single reason. My other reason for delaying the upgrade is another snippet of news that I came across on the net. We are currently generating 40,000,000 tons of e-waste, every year. Seems that’s like throwing out 800 laptops every single second. Ouch! I couldn’t help feeling guilty. Just yesterday, I packed up a bunch of old DVDs to throw away as everything is available online these days. The last time I owned a DVD player was nearly eight years ago. Come to think of it, I’ve no idea where that player disappeared. Probably joined the huge pile of e-waste generated by yours truly. The day before, it was an old set-top box that became obsolete when the TV signal went digital. A week before, I disconnected my mother’s old landline. That’s two handsets and a bunch of telephone cables headed for the bin, and that’s not counting the two long looping cables dangling off the roof that lead to the telephone pole on the road. This morning, it was four rechargeable AA batteries that had died. In short, every other day, I’m contributing to the world’s mounting e-waste problem. So what led to my enlightenment? How many gadgets is too many gadgets? Last weekend, I was staying over at a friend’s farm in the hills when something came up, and I had to rush back. On reaching home, I found my travel gadget-bag was missing two gadgets: a power bank and the portable hotspot to which I had connected it. I recalled leaving it outdoors in order to pick up the faint cellular signal in the hills. Fortunately, the rainy season hasn’t begun in India but I still had to make a 45-minute drive the next evening to retrieve my stuff. Driving is thinking the time for me as my brain is relatively free of the distraction of my usual multitasking. So that’s how this question popped up in my mind. What kind of person carries a travel gadget-bag with so much in it that he misplaces two gadgets, and doesn’t even notice he has misplaced them? The answer was uncomfortably obvious. It’s a guy who has too many gadgets! I took a closer look at my travel gadget-bag. Not counting my iPhone and iPad, there were a whole lot of assorted cables (lightning & USB) in varying sizes, three chargers, a couple of pen drives, a flash card, an OTG connector, a wifi range extender, a set of iPhone attach-on lens, an Android phone, an Echo Dot, a bluetooth speaker, a Bluetooth headset, and random adapters and dongles. Once upon a time, the only gadget I would have had on me was a camera. Too many gadgets, and no two ways about it! Stop consuming, start recycling I have been talking about being environment-friendly. But I need to put my money where my mouth is. Ideally, I should get rid of all my gadgets, and go back to reading books and newspapers. However, giving away my expensive gadgets is a bit too much to ask of myself. But all of us can delay acquiring additional gadgets, cut down on our conspicuous consumption habits, and recycle our existing gadgets for a few extra years. That will give Mother Nature some respite from our constant ravaging of her resources. Time to disagree with Amy Winehouse, and go to gadget rehab. What I’m going to do is audit all my electronic devices, see if I can avoid buying more of the same. My goal is to try to make up for all my years of generating electronic waste, and cut down or delay my consumption. It’s the least I can do for my e-waste contributions to our long-suffering planet. So here goes.

https://medium.com/hackernoon/can-a-gadget-addict-go-green-66675aa4a5d1

[]

2019-11-11 08:41:02.621000+00:00

['Recycling', 'Electronic Waste', 'Environment', 'Conspicuous Consumption', 'Apple']

I Stopped Mocking Myself for a Day and the Results Were Amazing

My latest diary entry crowned me a Self-Deprecation Queen. I titled it Confessions of a Terribly Absentminded Trans Girl: How would you save a clown version of Cinderella? I poked fun at myself and portrayed my situation as pathetic. Using myself as a comedic punching bag is JOY. It lets me vent aggression at my inadequacies while savoring the attention. As a sensitive introvert, criticizing myself before anyone else can (but jokingly) seems to disarm and endear. It’s helped me better connect with people. When traditional “confidence” didn’t work, I learned to humorously humble myself. Self-deprecation gave me an unexpected “alt confidence”that’s been all I could ever ask for. Thank you, Natalie Tran. However, there are drawbacks to constantly insulting oneself. When I get too in the zone zapping my own character with creative disses, here’s what I notice happening: I become more self-focused than I want to be. Coming up with jokes at my own expense gets addicting and distracting. I subconsciously set myself up to fail! Because failure = material for my next satire article, right? I don’t try my best, admit my strengths, or truly shine. Success would go against the very core of this self-effacing personality I’ve constructed… I was glad I got the “clown Cinderella” rant out of my system. I wouldn’t take back anything I said. But after entering “Research Day” Wednesday without a plan and doing everything but researching, I was ready for a self-deprecation vacation. On Thursday, I was able to think straight and I pitched to 5 publications that pay per article. I’ve only earned through the Medium Partner Program and have been meaning for months to get pitching! Overall, the latter half of this week has been a poopy dump of a slump that makes me go hrumph. So I just want to re-live what went right Thursday afternoon. See what I can learn. 5 things. I finished making my lists of 28 dares to grow as a writer + 28 adulting challenges. Both are “due” December 11 for my 28th birthday. For Thursday, I would take on this first dare: “In one day, pitch to 5 publications that pay.” When I know what actions and results I’m looking forward to, motivation surges. Took a long walk around the neighborhood and I took my phone with me. I scrolled through my drafts folder and thought about potential pitches. I swear, strolling the beautiful scenery with my vermilion iPhone 12 while generating writing ideas is a special form of self-care I plan to repeat. While still out walking, Stepmama texted me. She and my dad would be home in 20 with a guest on the way — could I sweep the entrance? Ha, that’s one way to send me flying home so I get some dang cardio! Sweeping was fun; then I went downstairs and got the first pitch done. And the second. By this time, I noticed I was as focused and determined as if it were Reset Night on Neopets. A rarity! Basically, my goal every day is to get as completely engrossed in something as I used to be in that excruciatingly-difficult-to-quit online game. Pitch #4 got sent with 15 minutes to spare before bedtime. Scrambling for #5, I quickly found an LGBTQ pub and emailed them 2 of my best articles along with bullet points of essays I’ll write next. Boom, just in time! A deadline a day keeps writer’s block at bay. Your success streaks are SO worth reflecting on. Especially when your name is Phoenix and every success in your life is like a grove of date-bearing palm trees surrounded by miles and miles of desert nothing. Oops, did I just self-defecate — I mean, self-deprecate again? Game over. You made it 638 words without roasting yourself. Your high score is: 638 points. Better luck next time! Speaking of next time, even though Saturday is half over and I’ve done near diddly-squat, let’s turn that around so I can update you more optimistically tonight. I’ll review my lists and decide what to focus on. 9pm will be my deadline a day that keeps the writer’s block at bay. I’ll take another neighborhood hike, I’ll get my heart rate up, and I’ll get to work! Only slightly less self-flagellating than usual, this is your friend Huber the Goober, slacking off! Update: This afternoon I got back to a bunch of friends I’d waited too long to reply to. That was a big relief. My mama needed me to drive my dad to the store to get missing ingredients for their supper, and it made me feel useful and we ate together. On my evening walk, I brainstormed an upcoming article: “X Ways I’d Behave Differently if I Were More Altruistic.” Ahh, yes, this is going to be a good breakthrough post to get back on track with a more service-oriented psychology. Thank you for your patience with me. Sweet Dreams. 💗

https://medium.com/love-everyone/i-stopped-mocking-myself-for-a-day-and-the-results-were-amazing-4d839ae02388

['Phoenix Huber']

2020-11-17 00:51:54.328000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Comedy', 'Productivity', 'Writing', 'Diary']

PixieDust 1.0 is here!

PixieDust 1.0 is here! Notebook data visualizations for everyone Back in October of last year, I introduced the PixieDust open source project. PixieDust is a helper library for Python or Scala notebooks, which lets you generate sophisticated charts, maps, and other visualizations in a few clicks — no coding necessary. It smooths out some other pain points for notebook users too, which you’ll read about in a minute. PixieDust got lots of interest from the community. Thank you all for your feedback, which is helping us refine the tool. The magic is bottled Finally, the wait is over. After much hard work from the team, I am happy to announce the availability of PixieDust 1.0 on PyPi. Can’t wait to see it? Here’s a quick video showing PixieDust’s display() API and chart rendering in action: New features Multi-renderer support PixieDust offers several different rendering engines you can use out-of-the-box to display your data. Depending upon what chart you’re viewing, render with matplotlib, Bokeh, or Seaborn — all without coding a single extra line. You can also generate sophisticated, gorgeous maps from your data using Mapbox or Google Maps. Spark Progress Monitor Track the status of your Spark job. No more waiting in the dark. Notebook users can now see how a cell’s code is running behind the scenes. Installer for local use We’ve made it easier to get started with PixieDust locally. Try our new packaged installer. It will walk you through setup, step by step. Scala in a Python notebook Enter Scala commands in a Python notebook. Variables are automatically transferred from Python to Scala and vice-versa. Improvements Extensibility Guidance Want to create your own visualizations or add a renderer? We help you understand how to build add-ons with a generate wizard, which walks you through a sample setup using Terminal or other command line tools. Display improvements We continue to refine and improve PixieDust’s display() API with smarter introspection of your DataFrames and expanded options for data visualizations. That’s just the latest As before, PixieDust lets you install Spark packages inside a Python notebook, export data, embed a polished app UI in your notebook, and more. For details on these and other features, visit PixieDust’s readme. Coming soon Full Scala notebook support Love Scala, but crave the robust visualizations that only Python can deliver? Fear not, Matplotlib lovers — soon, there’ll be no need to choose! PixieDust will soon work in Scala notebooks too, letting you configure robust and varied data display options in just a few clicks (no coding necessary). To see a preview, watch the video above or jump straight to it on YouTube. Try it yourself To help you get started, we offer some sample notebooks. Give PixieDust a try and share your issues, comments, and ideas on GitHub. PRs welcome! Also, spread the magic. Click the ♡ here to sprinkle a bit of love in the name of PixieDust. Oh, hey. Did we forget to mention? We have a new logo too: Sprinkling data science magic since 2016. Acknowledgements: Since there would be no magic without passion, I want to thank va barbosa, Mike Broberg, Jess Mantaro, Brad Noble, RAJ SINGH, Patrick Titzler, Chetna Warade, Mark Watson , and the rest of the of the IBM Watson Data Platform developer advocacy team for their dedication and long hours trying to make data simple and accessible.

https://medium.com/codait/pixiedust-1-0-is-here-15e0f428df88

['David Taieb']

2017-03-23 22:31:36.123000+00:00

['Python', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Pixiedust', 'Data Science', 'Scala']

How To Take Action When You Have A Lot Of Ideas.

Are you someone who comes up with a new idea almost every day? Yesterday it was becoming an event planner — Today, it’s starting a YouTube channel. Tomorrow it may be writing that book you’ve always wanted to write. Oh, remember back in high school you wanted to become a filmmaker? Time to dust off that bad boy and get snappin’. If this sounds like you then don’t worry — you’re not alone. Like you and many others I also have multiple ideas floating around in my head. I’m the kind of person who can see potential in almost anything. If someone is willing to pay, there is a business to be built around it. Having a lot of ideas is a great problem to have — except when you don’t act on any of them. Sometimes you’ll have so many ideas that you become overwhelmed and end up not doing anything. It’s easy to come up with an idea yet putting them to work is the hard part. Record And Evaluate. When you get a wave of new ideas, jot them down and start looking at them from all angles. Ask yourself a few questions to gain clarity on the ideas. Is this something I can really see myself doing? Is this going to be a side project or a full-time deal? Can I fit this into my schedule? Is this worth my time? You’re not going to have an answer for each idea — and that’s the point. Some ideas will have an entire page filled and others will be like pulling teeth. The goal is to see which ideas can go from paper to reality. You shouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to think about it. If the idea draws a blank then let it go. Evaluation helps you decide which ideas sound as good on paper as they do in your head. Something I like to do is write them down in my notes app and come back to them later. This way I am able to look at things in a different state of mind. If I still like the idea, I’ll keep it. If not, I’ll get rid of it. Do Something You Actually Like (And Can Do). The last thing you should be doing is starting something because it’s popular. When you get ideas you’re going to have a range of things you think about. You may want to start a game app because you saw how much Candy Crush makes in a day — but can you code? If you can’t will you outsource and dedicate the time needed to scale and maintain the app? If not, pass on the idea. On the other hand, you may decide to become a fashion stylist. Unlike the gaming app idea, you actually know a thing or two about fashion — it’s practically your middle name! Because you enjoy fashion and have knowledge about styling yourself and others, this will be something that you can do effortlessly. Filtering through your ideas is essentially trimming the fat — which means to get rid of dead-end ideas. You will have a lot of ideas but after some evaluation, you will end up with the few that’s best for you. Pick One Thing And Get Focused. Did you pick some great ideas? Good. It’s the first step of world domination. Before you decide to take over the world, you have to create a plan of action. What is the end goal? Is this a long or short term idea? Once you’ve made your decisions it’s time to get your hands dirty. Focus on one thing and make that your main idea. You’re going to think about your other ideas often, but now is the time to double down. Before you can eat our cake you have to master patience and commitment needed to get the ball rolling. Once done, you’ll be able to branch off onto your other ideas. What is the most important part of building a house? The foundation. You can’t build a house without it. In the beginning, your goal is to build the groundwork that leads to other things. If you try to build three houses at a time you’ll take three times as long as you should. It’s best to take things one step at a time and give that one thing your full attention. Prioritize Your Ideas The best thing is to choose the idea that can help you segway into your other ideas. This is the gateway idea. Let’s say you have three ideas: Becoming a YouTuber, an author, and running a startup. The YouTube channel will be your gateway because it can bring awareness to your other ideas. Because of this, YouTube will be the top priority and foundation. Once you’ve scaled your YouTube channel to a suitable audience size you can now add your other ideas into the mix. Since you have a following, you will have people who will buy your book and potential customers for your startup. Finish What You Started We want to focus on a question that was asked earlier. What is the end goal of your ideas? Are you in the YouTube game for the long haul? Is becoming an author a one time deal or do you want multiple books? Whatever your plan is make sure you’re able to finish strong. In closing, we’ve created a four-step how-to for taking action on your ideas: List your ideas Evaluate and trim the fat Take action and prioritize your ideas Finish until you reach your goal It’s going to be a challenge to make these things happen and there will be days where you want to quit. The point in finishing is to not end up like those who start something and don’t finish — you want to go all the way. Once you’re able to finish one thing it will give you the confidence to take on something else in completion. Rinse and complete until all of your ideas are in action.

https://arronfornasetti.medium.com/how-to-take-action-when-you-have-a-lot-of-ideas-d6db8f5df3ce

['Arron Fornasetti']

2019-11-04 17:05:30.096000+00:00

['Ideas', 'Startup', 'Productivity', 'Thoughts', 'Work']

One Year Since Julian Assange Was Detained, He Faces Greatest Threat To His Survival Yet

One Year Since Julian Assange Was Detained, He Faces Greatest Threat To His Survival Yet Kevin Gosztola Follow Apr 11 · 8 min read Photo taken and owned by Kevin Gosztola It has been one year since the United States government, with the support of the governments of Ecuador, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, dramatically escalated their political prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On April 11, 2019, Assange was expelled from the Ecuador embassy in the U.K. British police arrested him and charged him with violating bail conditions when he sought asylum in 2012, but the arrest was also connected to an indictment and extradition request filed by the U.S. government. Video showed police carrying the body of a long-haired and bearded Assange, who was in clear distress. He begged the UK to resist President Donald Trump’s administration as officers loaded him into a van. Assange was taken to Her Majesty’s Belmarsh Prison, where he served a 50-week sentence for the bail charge imposed against him. He remains in jail, despite his deteriorating health, the way it inhibits his ability to work with his legal team on his extradition case, and the reality that the global coronavirus pandemic threatens the lives of every incarcerated or jailed person. Vaughan Smith, a friend who allowed Assange to live with him under house arrest in 2010, wrote on April 9 that Assange is “confined alone in a cell 23 and a half hours every day. He gets half an hour of exercise and that is in a yard crowded with other prisoners. With over 150 Belmarsh prison staff off work self-isolating, the prison is barely functioning.” “We know of two COVID-19 deaths in Belmarsh so far, though the [Ministry] of Justice have admitted to only one death. Julian told me that there have been more and that the virus is ripping through the prison,” Smith added. On March 25, British Magistrate Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied Assange bail, despite widespread calls for the release of detainees and prisoners to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Assange’s legal team asked Baraitser to postpone a three-week extradition hearing scheduled for May 18. Baraitser refused to move the date. According to Smith, “[Assange] is convinced this is happening to disadvantage him legally. Unable to meet with his lawyers, he cannot prepare his defense properly.” Baraitser rejected a plea from lawyer Stella Morris to protect her anonymity as Assange’s fiancé. They fell in love while he was living in the embassy, and they had two kids. The tabloid press marked Assange’s one-year anniversary in detention by spreading salacious details. “Forming a family was a deliberate decision to see, to kind of break down those walls around him, and imagine a life beyond that prison,” Morris said. “So, while for many people it would seem insane to start a family in that context, for us it was the sane thing to do. It was what keeps things real.”

https://medium.com/discourse/one-year-since-julian-assange-was-detained-he-faces-greatest-threat-to-his-survival-yet-de088181248f

['Kevin Gosztola']

2020-04-13 01:57:10.980000+00:00

['Journalism', 'Wikileaks', 'Julian Assange', 'Human Rights', 'Coronavirus']

Organization and wellness tips for balancing family and working from home

However, by combining creative problem-solving with an unapologetic focus and time management framework, we can successfully manage our conflicting duties and busy schedules and take back our lives, even during the pandemic. Drawing from the intersection of positive psychology, design thinking, habits, and behavioral change, we uncovered through our research nine daily “win the day” tools. They are: 1. Bring awareness to the here and now. Begin by wiggling your toes, bringing awareness to the now. Research shows us that being more present increases our happiness and well-being. Remind yourself that you are right here, and you have a choice for how you want to show up as an employee, parent, partner, or friend. 2. Limit your choices — perfect is no longer trending. Worrying and reacting to social comparison can quickly creating FOMO and choice fatigue. Satisfying means knowing when to stop, even if something may not be perfect. Limiting our choices and comparisons makes us happier. So, think twice and restrain yourself before opening up your social media, signing up for another activity or even deciding where to order dinner. 3. Create unapologetic boundaries. Juggling work, family, and distractions is like a circus act with no intermission. Some interruptions occur when our brains become overactive or unfocused, while others are caused by external factors, like technology, a coworker or child. Research shows us that boundaries help us protect our emotional energy and give us more control. Consider using awareness apps, time-blocking, or rules around your toleration limits. Also, consider saying no sometimes. Remember that saying no is saying yes to something else. 4. Be your own environmental designer. Research demonstrates that a small change in what we see daily can make a positive difference. Uplifting online and offline environments can spark your sense of connection and vitality and help lower stress. Design your workspace to thrive, with colors, lighting, air flow, visuals, and scents that you enjoy. Make sure your office and computer are free of clutter and organized, and that connecting with others is part of your routine. 5. Find freedom in planning and prioritizing. Continuous distractions and multi-tasking can waste time and wreak havoc on our daily productivity and stress loads. Given limited time and energy, focus on pruning and prioritizing your to-do list. Complete the most important tasks early in the day, and consider chopping work into 25-minute blocks, focusing on one task at a time. 6. Charge your well-being battery. It’s essential to recharge your batteries. Think of your top energy-giving and energy-draining activities and observe the patterns. Rearrange to maximize your timing of certain tasks. Allowing for mini-breaks increases your overall productivity while helping to consolidate memories and new skills. So, when daily fatigue sets in, consider a stretch, a walk outside, or friend-calling instead of another cup of caffeine. 7. Choose and invest in your friendships wisely. Friendships fill us. They boost our self-esteem, quality of work, and decrease illness. To improve well-being, focus on quality and frequency rather than quantity of friends. Social media often doesn’t fill this void. Take a thoughtful approach and consider consistently investing in fewer, quality friendships that will fill your friendship tank (not drain it). 8. Rinse and repeat for happy habits. Establishing consistent habits can help reduce stress by freeing up time spent worrying or overthinking. Make your habits small, easy, and specific.Consider focusing on tiny habits that improve your overall well-being — like physical movement, healthy friendship, and sufficient sleep. Let’s improve our happiness and well-being by beginning with more unapologetic awareness and focus. Don’t forget to celebrate your accomplishments along the way, as few female superheroes are decorated with the accolades they deserve. Clare Davenport is a positive psychology expert, life design coach, CEO and published author. She began her career at Goldman Sachs, followed by over 20 years in management consulting for Fortune 500 companies and managing businesses. Davenport works with business leaders, women’s groups, teams and individuals undergoing life transitions to evaluate and improve their well-being. Elizabeth (Liz) Koehler, CFA, has been in the financial services industry for over 18 years and is currently the head of BlackRock’s Advisor Insights team. Her team develops and delivers educational programs and new insights for financial advisors and the investor clients, focused on business management, team leadership and organizations, portfolio and financial market insights — including women and investing. For more great stories, visit Business Insider’s homepage.

https://medium.com/business-insider/8-organization-and-wellness-tips-for-balancing-career-and-family-while-working-from-home-845e6f20b117

['Business Insider']

2020-12-28 16:03:23.089000+00:00

['Friendship', 'Mental Health', 'Wellness', 'Working From Home', 'Women']

Landing your First UX Design Job with 0 Industry Experience

spyrestudios The question of searching for UX design jobs as a new UX designer gets asked a lot and I receive these kinds of questions a lot to the point where writing a blog post about it might help eager designers search for their first UX job. A question I received out of many pertaining to this topic is: “How can I advance further towards the UX/UI industry as a rookie? How can I land actual UX/UI jobs with 0 experience in working at real companies?” Get an internship the odyssey online The demand for UX designers is growing but this means the competition is as well. If you didn’t do an internship in college or don’t have too much job experience, getting an internship may be a better choice for you than getting an actual job because an internship exposes you to how the design industry works. It makes it easier to transition to a full time position as you have learned how design works in real time and how to apply the skills you learned in school in real situations where your design and the people matter. An internship allows you to learn and make as many mistakes as you can before working full-time. You also learn about how to find and interview for jobs in the process which is an important skill to have if you plan on transitioning from and to different places. Overall an internship allows you to understand your role and duties surrounding your position as well as any expectations and assumptions you may have about working. I have a few tips that have helped me get my first internship here as well as another post about the unspoken expectations of your design internship here. Recruiters are your friend twitter If you have a Linkedin account, refine it and when you feel like it showcases all of your skills and experience, reach out to recruiters on Linkedin who are hiring and introduce yourself. Do not just message recruiters your resume and portfolio without giving them context. Just like meeting a new person for the first time, you need to be thoughtful and honest about yourself to them. Also, first impressions count. From messaging a recruiter perspective, you need to know exactly how you can help them and how they can help you. Tell recruiters about how your skills and background would be a good fit for the company based on what they are doing. If the company has any problems they are currently facing, what can you do to help them? By messaging recruiters about how you can contribute to the company shows them that you have done your research and that you are very passionate about tackling challenges and opportunity. Even if they don’t currently have UX positions, by making a memorable impression, you never know what could happen in the future. Overall, it is good to do research on the company and how that might be a good fit for you. After all, people hire based on how they can help you as well as whether or not you have the potential to grow. Also link them to your portfolio and resume which will help them pass along this information if they are interested. Build a network Find UX networking events around your area that you can to go to and talk to designers. Expanding your design network is key to connecting with awesome people, making meaningful relationships, learning about design and finding people who may be able to refer you a place you may want to work at. Going back to my previous tip, if you have any second connections who know someone (i.e. recruiter) from x company, ask them to intro you. That never hurts and people have gotten jobs through secondary connections because that person knew someone from a company who was hiring. In general, use your connections (friends, professors, Linkedin) and ask them if they could connect you to anymore or a company who is hiring. Don’t wait till you get a job; work on projects! If you have school projects and hackathons, be sure to have a project section on your resume where you can highlight those projects! Side projects are a good way to starting a conversation and an article from Tanner Christensen, a designer at Facebook, did just that despite not having formal design experience here. Once you have projects, curate your portfolio Along with your resume, a portfolio is crucial to applying for any UX design job. It showcases your skills and thinking to people who don’t know you personally. A strong portfolio with well articulated thoughts and design goes a long way and is one of the major factors to getting the job. I have tips on what not to do when designing a portfolio here. It also helps to ask other designers for feedback on improving your portfolio because it is one of the first things recruiters will see and get you through the resume screening. Feedback is not just an important part of the design process, but in real life. It allows you to improve and learn. :) If you have any questions about design, message me on LinkedIn and I’ll write about it! To help you get started on owning your design career, here are some amazing tools from Rookieup, a site I used to get mentorship from senior designers: Links to some other cool reads:

https://uxplanet.org/landing-your-first-ux-design-job-with-0-industry-experience-e4e9cff1e914

['Tiffany Eaton']

2018-02-02 16:52:55.883000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Design', 'UX', 'Life Lessons', 'Startup']

Don’t Let your Kids Crush Your Dreams

Don’t Let your Kids Crush Your Dreams How to Juggle Kids, Career, and a Business One-Handed Source: Tina Bo at Unsplash If you’re a parent, you know what it’s like to have to do things one-handed. Newborn cradled in one arm like a football as you make yourself a coffee to fight the sleep deprivation brought on by waking up every 2 hours. Parenthood. It’s an exclusive club with a lot of members. When I roll into work at my engineering job all my other co-workers who have kids too give me the “sup” head nod of acknowledgement. They know the battles I’ve endured. What they can’t understand is how I manage to be highly functional at work while also running a restaurant business and dealing with a newborn and toddler. They say when you have kids, your life is over. Kiss your dreams goodbye, it’s all about the kids just embrace it. That doesn’t have to be the case. You just have to become more efficient at everything you do. These are the tools I use to squeeze the most out of the day. Organizing Tasks with the Reminders App It started off as a joke but something I used to say at work has now become my mantra. Set your goals low and you will always achieve Now that my brain now has to deal with the parental adventure of keeping mini human beings alive I had to shift my memory banks into an app on my phone. Create smaller, achievable tasks that can be completed in an hour or less Knock out 2–3 a day. I’m able to do this without being an absentee dad by either plugging away while feeding the newborn (not like you need to be engaging them in conversation during a night feeding), early in the morning or late at night when the kids are asleep, and one of the most productive workspaces…the bathroom. Reward yourself for knocking out that quota. For me that’s playing a couple rounds of Clash Royale on my phone or grabbing a brown sugar boba ice cream out of the freezer. I like to create multiple lists and try to rotate between different types of tasks versus focusing on one thing for a long time which helps me from hitting roadblocks or getting tunnel vision on something. Scheduled tasks are great because they remind me to do things that don’t happen often enough for me to remember naturally like scheduling a hood cleaning every 3 months. Source: I Sun Brainstorming with Dropbox Paper Another great app for jotting down anything I’m thinking about at the time is Dropbox Paper. I used to use Google Keep since it was integrated with GMail but I found Paper to have a cleaner feel and more features. I use it as a scratchpad for absolutely any fleeting thought that comes to my head. As we were preparing for the opening of the restaurant my partner and I would collaborate in Paper on operating procedures or share notes about things on licensing and permits. These days we use it more for brainstorming thoughts on improving our operations. Source: I Sun You can track collaborative tasks in here as well but we don’t use it much since I usually have a short phone call with my partner every day. Payments and Payroll with Square As a small business, Square was a good fit for us because of the low startup cost. I already had an iPad laying around, I just had to buy a Square Stand that came with the chip and contactless reader for $100-something. What’s cool about it too is I can do basically everything from my phone: Check daily sales Check time cards Run payroll Find transactions Pro-tip: If you have over $250k in sales and your average ticket is $15 or more get in touch with their customer service to lower your rates. Do Your Numbers with Quickbooks Online While Dropbox Paper and Reminders are free, this one requires a $20/month subscription. It’s totally worth it because if I try to use the desktop version my toddler would materialize out of thin air and start bashing on my keyboard. He’s already pulled out two keys off the keyboard so I don’t want any more smoke there. Source: Quickbooks Being able to access all our accounting data through my phone helps me stay in touch with our cash flows, monitor banking feeds and look over Profit & Loss reports. It’s got a nifty feature where you can swipe through your transactions like Tinder to confirm whether it has been categorized appropriately. It’s not as powerful as using it on your desktop but it gets the job done. Don’t Deal with Checks, Use Bill Pay Most of our bills are on auto-draft, the ones that aren’t I set up with Bill Pay using my bank. It cuts the check from your account and mails it to where I specify without me having to buy stamps or risk getting a tongue laceration licking an envelope. You can schedule them but I typically manually kick them off as driven by one of my reminders. Scheduling with Homebase Managing schedule for our front and back of house staff used to be a hassle. We got rid of that pain with Homebase. Source: Homebase With Homebase I no longer have to deal with the occasional call out or change of shift. Everybody can see their schedules and can trade on their own (which I have the opportunity to approve). Employees can put in their availability which helps with scheduling. Takeaway Just because you have kids doesn’t mean you have to set your dreams of starting or running a business to the side. Find ways to simplify your life by harnessing the power of all the apps out there (most of which you can use for free). Soon you’ll be running your business all with one hand without sacrificing what matters most…spending time with your kids.

https://medium.com/swlh/dont-let-your-kids-crush-your-dreams-c016667706d9

['I Sun']

2020-05-27 12:17:23.612000+00:00

['Work Life Balance', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Kids', 'Productivity']

Your Outrage Doesn’t Mean You’re Right

A while back, I posted the following essay to a Facebook group of women writers that I’m in. In a nutshell, this essay is about me — while I was living in Hanoi — dating a much younger Vietnamese man for 10 months, who turned out to be a covert narcissist. He almost killed me. You would think that the comments about my essay would centre around the cycle of narcissistic abuse, or trauma bonds or intermittent reinforcement. Or how a smart, educated woman like myself could be drawn in by manipulation and lies. How I was gaslighted and controlled. Or why leaving emotionally abusive relationships is so difficult. Or about an older woman was busting stereotypes by dating a younger man. No. There was none of that. The commentators were outraged that I said my ex was Vietnamese, that I described his physical features, that I was attracted to him because of these characteristics, and that I said his manipulation was cold, calculating and reptilian. These are all facts, all true. And this— I’m paraphrasing — is what was said about my essay: You need to think super critically about racial disparities in this piece You have eroticised him You have positioned yourself unflatteringly as a fearful victim, deceived and entrapped You need to take a course about writing memoirs You need to discuss Vietnam’s troubling history and colonialism You shouldn’t be analysing his words and actions. Say what? The commentary completely missed the point of my essay: that I was a victim of narcissistic abuse. Yes, it was perpetrated by a Vietnamese man who was much younger than me, but would this even be a bone of contention if the narcissist were an older, white guy? I don’t think so. Narcissistic abuse is narcissistic abuse, no matter who perpetrates it. I was deflated by their outrage. Then I got curious. Who were these women who were so outraged about my writing? Why had they missed — or completely ignored — the point of my story? Turns out one is a cultural critic. Another is an editor. The other offers writing coaching. Aha. They have criticised my story through their own lenses, their own agendas, their own positioning. Just as I have written my story through mine. And I’m the bad guy? Please.

https://medium.com/vox-virtus/outrage-doesnt-mean-you-re-right-136d378b5702

['Diane Lee']

2020-10-01 23:22:06.762000+00:00

['Nonfiction', 'Experience', 'Outrage', 'Viewpoints', 'Writing']

Multidimensional scaling for dissimilarity visualization

Multidimensional scaling for dissimilarity visualization An implementation with Python Multidimensional scaling is a powerful technique used to visualize in 2-dimensional space the (dis)similarity among objects. The idea is that we can derive to what extent two objects are similar, based on the geometric distance they exhibit in the 2D plan. Namely, imagine we see the following: We can think that pizza and pasta are kind of similar food items (they are both carbohydrates, both typical Italian food, and people tend to like them both), while cucumber is far from them (it is not that similar). But which are the data from which this visualization is retrieved? The starting point is building the so-called distance matrix: given N objects, a distance matrix is a MxM, symmetric matrix which determines how dissimilar from each other are all the couples of objects. Retrieving the example above, we can namely make a survey asking people whether or not they would eat a given food item. Imagine we interview N people for M food items. If individual i would eat item j, then the cell (i,j) will be filled with a 1, otherwise, it will be filled with a 0. Then, for each pair of food item, we can derive a 2x2 dissimilarity matrix as follows: Where: a is the total amount of time both item 1 and 2 are eaten d is the total amount of time neither item 1 nor 2 are eaten b is the total amount of time item 1 is eaten, while item 2 is not c is the total amount of time item 2 is eaten, while item 1 is not Finally, we can compute a dissimilarity score. In this case, I will use the Jaccard dissimilarity index, given by: Now, each couple of food items will have a corresponding Jaccard dissimilarity score: we can hence build an MxM distance matrix filled with corresponding scores. Where J_ik is the score corresponding to the couple of food items i and k. Note: the principal diagonal of the distance matrix is filled with 0. Indeed, the Jaccard score for a couple of the same food item is 0 (b and c are indeed 0). Now let’s implement it in Python. I will initialize a random dataset with 10 food items and 100 interviewed. Then, I will compute the corresponding dissimilarity matrix, which will be a 10x10 square matrix. #importing necessary packages import numpy as np import scipy import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from sklearn.metrics import pairwise_distances #jaccard diss. from sklearn import manifold # multidimensional scaling foods_binary = np.random.randint(2, size=(100, 10)) #initial dataset print(foods_binary.shape) Output: (100,10) Now let’s initialize the distance matrix, using the Jaccard dissimilarity: dis_matrix = pairwise_distances(foods_binary, metric = 'jaccard') print(dis_matrix.shape) Output: (100,100) Finally, let’s fit the multidimensional scaling algorithm to the distance matrix and plot the results: mds_model = manifold.MDS(n_components = 2, random_state = 123, dissimilarity = 'precomputed') mds_fit = mds_model.fit(dis_matrix) mds_coords = mds_model.fit_transform(dis_matrix) food_names = ['pasta', 'pizza', 'meat', 'eggs', 'cheese', 'ananas', 'pear', 'bread', 'nuts', 'milk'] plt.figure() plt.scatter(mds_coords[:,0],mds_coords[:,1], facecolors = 'none', edgecolors = 'none') # points in white (invisible) labels = food_names for label, x, y in zip(labels, mds_coords[:,0], mds_coords[:,1]): plt.annotate(label, (x,y), xycoords = 'data') plt.xlabel('First Dimension') plt.ylabel('Second Dimension') plt.title('Dissimilarity among food items') plt.show() Note that we initialized a random original dataset, hence those results might be counterintuitive, yet they drive an important message. Imagining our dataset being true, they are telling us that eggs, cheese, and meat are almost perfect substitutes, since they satisfy the same need (represented by the area on the graph). On the other side, bread lies in a very isolated area, meaning that it has no competition in terms of substitutes. Note that all the empty areas represent potential needs which have not been satisfied yet. That’s why multidimensional scaling might be a very powerful tool to investigate whether there is room for intervention in some markets, whether there are opportunities that have not been sized yet. References

https://medium.com/dataseries/multidimensional-scaling-for-dissimilarity-visualization-9fb061396cf3

['Valentina Alto']

2020-05-30 15:26:19.928000+00:00

['Python', 'Dimensionality Reduction', 'Distance Matrix', 'Multidimensional Scaling', 'Dissimilarity']

Nurture trust through cost transparency

Internet access and cost challenges are common and can cause frustration, anxiety, panic, and — worst of all — lack of trust in your products. Before exploring design options to alleviate these problems, it’s important to understand the different ways access and cost influence how users interact with apps and websites. Internet access varies along the lines of Wi-Fi access and post-paid and pre-paid mobile data plans. Post-paid In the United States, parts of Europe, and other countries, most mobile internet users rely on post-paid or contract mobile data plans. These users also have frequent access to broadband Wi-Fi networks at home, work, and public areas such as parks, squares, and plazas. The combination of post-paid mobile data contracts and Wi-Fi allow for continuous internet access. Post-paid customers: Pay regularly, such as once per month, for a guaranteed allocation of data (e.g. 5 GB) via a credit card, bank payment, or other automated bill pay Are usually guaranteed continual connectivity May pay extra money for additional usage above a cap or experience a slowdown of their internet speed Pre-paid In the majority of the world, users rely on pre-paid mobile data plans, and may have little to no access to high-speed Wi-Fi networks. There are various forms of pre-paid mobile data plans: Customers purchase a fixed amount of data in advance, such as $5 for 1 GB with a one-week expiration. Once the data is gone, the user tops up (refills). Mobile data providers in much of South Asia (such as in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines) often allow users to refill their data packs using a mobile app or dialing code. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa (such as in Nigeria and Kenya), customers top up by paying cash at neighborhood shops. If the consumer doesn’t have cash, or the shop is closed, the consumer does not know when they will have internet access again. The access to topping up at a shop can vary dramatically depending on location, if the user has access to cash or an open bank and shop. Depending on these variables, a user may experience a delay in internet access from a few minutes to several days. Variations exist. Some people in the US, Canada, Western Europe, and other regions face the same internet access issues as those in Sub-Saharan Africa or India. There are Kenyans, Brazilians, Indians, and Filipinos with easy access to the internet. People on short stays, such as vacations or business trips, may buy pre-paid data plans in countries where most residents use post-paid plans. However, when designing for truly global internet usage, it is important to be mindful of just how diverse internet access can be. How does cost influence usage? According to the Alliance for Affordable Internet, the prices for mobile data vary significantly from country to country and in some countries, can be prohibitively expensive. In 2019, 1 GB of mobile data in Argentina was equal to 0.66% of monthly gross national income per capita, whereas in Zimbabwe 1 GB was 10.06%. Circumstances vary, but internet frugality and frustrations are similar. In countries, such as Brazil, where mobile data is expensive, but Wi-Fi is easy to find, users may complain that getting on the internet is costly when they can’t find Wi-Fi and they have run out of mobile data on their pre-paid plans. Across the world in Indonesia, people have relatively inexpensive data, but limited Wi-Fi. Indonesians may face challenges accessing the internet when they can’t find an internet shop to top up their mobile data. Even when users have an affordable, large data pack, they still prioritize which kinds of content are worth spending data. Expensive mobile data leads to: Preferring apps with zero-rating or low data usage Close monitoring of how much data apps and websites use Borrowing data loans from carriers. Customers borrow data from their future pre-paid balance when they run out and pay a fee, sometimes as high as 20%. Switching off mobile data at night, when out of the house, or anytime not actively in use Sharing media and app files via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi direct apps like Files Sharing data via hotspots Being transparent about costs develops trust with your users. During a mobile data price transparency study in Ghana study, Google researchers piloted SmartBrowse, a prototype informing users of the cost of accessing a given web page prior to and immediately after incurring that cost. There was a control group that used the internet without SmartBrowse and another group that used SmartBrowse. The research findings demonstrated that “…compared with the control group, using SmartBrowse led to a significant reduction in internet credit spend and increased online activity among SmartBrowse users, while providing the same or better mobile Internet user experience.” Strategies to minimize cost: Design for intermittent, slow and offline connectivity Use data compression to reduce image file sizes Keep updates frequency low and size small Explain the value of updates (such as “the app is now more stable on older Android devices”, instead of “v3.5.6 released and 5 bugs fixed”) so users can decide if it’s worth the data cost to update Be transparent about your app’s data consumption Allow user control over when your app can use mobile data vs. Wi-Fi Be clear about how much data it will cost the user to view a video, download, or save a file, listen to music, and more Display options for the user to decide whether to download or not Examples: To minimize user frustration due to connectivity we’re sharing some examples of how to design apps that are transparent about data usage and give the user control about their data consumption. Be transparent about data consumption For large file downloads, clearly communicate the amount of data needed and give the user the option not to download. This messaging example gives the user the option to download an image, by displaying a download icon with the size of the file, 24MB. Provide flexible options that allow users to customize their features corresponding to how much data they consume. (1) The Google Maps app’s “Offline maps” feature allows users to save multiple maps for offline consumption, clearly indicating how they will update over time. (2) When selecting a map, the map area UI allows flexibility by showing how much data the area would consume when downloaded. For high quality media streaming, offer options to save mobile data, or alert the user when data consumption reaches specified thresholds. (1) Android TV’s Data Saver helps extend watch time by adjusting video quality when using a mobile hotspot. (2) Data alerts prevent the excess usage of data when a user is on a limited data plan. (3) Data alert notification shown while watching TV content once the specified limit is reached. Enable control over data consumption A user may wonder if a video is worth the data it will cost to watch it. Reducing video size is becoming common practice. The New York Times reported that various video streaming companies have reduced video file sizes to account for high demand over the past few months. Offer options to download large files or stream content at different levels of quality. Some users are on limited data plans or on throttled plans that initially offer one internet speed and then slow down. When possible, offer user control over data consumption options, clearly labeling the data cost of each choice. (1) The YouTube app’s Premium service offers the choice to save videos in varying qualities: High (720p) or Medium (360p). (2) The YouTube Music app’s Premium service allows saving music videos in varying qualities (High or Medium), as well as providing an “Audio Only” option. Allow users control over connectivity and data management settings, like media quality or Wi-Fi connectivity. While offering a Wi-Fi-only setting is useful, be cautious of enabling this by default as not all users regularly access Wi-Fi. This default setting could keep the app from connecting to the internet.

https://medium.com/google-design/nurture-trust-through-cost-transparency-b61a5947d2fc

['Susanna Zaraysky']

2020-09-23 16:57:03.492000+00:00

['Cost Transparency', 'Design', 'Next Billion Users', 'Trust', 'Transparency']

How to use Pipenv with Jupyter and VSCode

Currently, I study Artificial Intelligence at the JKU university and for some exercises, we need to use jupyter notebooks. Having worked a little bit with Python the package manager pipenv proofed to be valuable. Now, I encountered some problems using it with Jupyter notebooks and within VSCode. Therefore, a short guide on how I solved it. Table of Contents The Issue As I described in my last article Working with Jupyter and VSCode I use pyenv and pipenv for managing all packages in my python development. I also referenced some articles why this way is helpful and easy to use. Now, it is necessary to dive a little more into it. There are two ways you would want to develop with jupyter notebook. Either you work with it directly in the browser or inside VSCode. In both use cases, there can emerge problems. Developing with Jupyter Notebook in the browser Jupyter Notebook in the browser Let’s say you already have the proper python environment on your system and now you want to create a specific one for a project. First, create a Pipenv environment. Make sure to navigate into the correct directory. Use pipenv install <packages> to install all your packages. Then use pipenv shell to activate your shell. Then use pipenv install jupyter and afterward pipenv run jupyter notebook . Now the jupyter server is started and your notebook will have access to the correct environment. Activating the right environment for Jupyter notebook in the browser Develop with Jupyter Notebook in VSCode

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-use-pipenv-with-jupyter-and-vscode-ae0e970df486

['Daniel Deutsch']

2020-09-28 09:32:46.481000+00:00

['Python', 'Vscode', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Pipenv', 'Pyenv']

8 Things to Know to Master Python Function Arguments

8 Things to Know to Master Python Function Arguments All you need to know to write readable Python functions Photo by Marc Marchal on Unsplash. We always use functions in our projects — no matter what our projects are about. When we call functions that are written by others, we need to understand the function signature (i.e. what parameters we should pass to get the desired function output). Sometimes, we need to write functions for others to call when we should be clear about the desired use cases without causing any ambiguity. In either case, it’s not the easiest job. In this article, I’d like to provide a comprehensive overview of arguments in Python functions. Specifically, I’m referring to the input parameters. I hope this article can eliminate any questions that you may have when you’re calling others’ functions or defining your own.

https://medium.com/better-programming/8-things-to-know-to-master-python-function-arguments-75ed7597463e

['Yong Cui']

2020-12-09 21:05:37.573000+00:00

['Programming', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Google Colab 101 Tutorial with Python — Tips, Tricks, and FAQ

Introduction Google Colab is a project from Google Research, a free, Jupyter based environment that allows us to create Jupyter [programming] notebooks to write and execute Python [1](and other Python-based third-party tools and machine learning frameworks such as Pandas, PyTorch, Tensorflow, Keras, Monk, OpenCV, and others) in a web browser. 📚 Check out our editorial recommendations on the best machine learning books. 📚 A programming notebook is a type of shell or kernel in the form of a word processor, where we can write and execute code. The data required for processing in Google Colab can be mounted into Google Drive or imported from any source on the internet. Project Jupyter is an open-source software organization that develops and supports Jupyter notebooks for interactive computing [4]. Google Colab requires no configuration to get started and provides free access to GPUs. One of the main functionalities of Google Colab is that it allows anyone to share live code, mathematical equations, data visualizations, data processing (cleaning and transformation), numerical simulations, machine learning models, and many other projects with others. Why We Use Google Colab? Google Colab has unique and critical features: It provides a free Jupyter notebook environment. It comes with pre-installed packages. It hosts entirely on Google Cloud. Users do not need to set up on servers or workstations. Notebooks save automatically on a user’s Google Drive. It provides browser-based Jupyter notebooks. It is completely free of cost and offers GPU and TPU power (unless you need more resources and decide to go pro with Colab Pro ). ). It supports Python versions 2 and 3 (however, Google Suggests migrating important notebooks to Python 3 [2] [5]). It provides two hardware accelerators: 1. GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). 2. TPU (Tensor Processing Unit). Start Google Colab Python code can be executed directly on the web browser by using Colab. We can launch it with the URL below: The launch window opens with a popup offering many features: Figure 1: Screenshot of Google Colab’s start page. It provides options to create a notebook as well as to upload and select from different sources such as: GitHub Google Drive Local computer Uploading a Notebook from GitHub Python code can be directly uploaded from Github by using its project’s URL or by searching the organization or user. The steps below highlight how to upload a project using a Github URL: Launch Google Colab. Select the GitHub tab from the popup box. Figure 2: Screenshot of Google Colab’s upload code using a Github URL. Enter the GitHub’s project URL and search it to fetch the code Figure 3: Screenshot showing how to upload a Github repository with Google Colab. It will upload the complete code with one click to the Google Colab notebook. Figure 4: Screenshot showcasing the uploaded Github repository using a URL. Similarly, the code can be uploaded directly from Google Drive by filtering saved notebooks by name, date, owner, or modified date. Figure 5: Screenshot showing how to upload a notebook directly from Google Drive to Google Colab. Uploading Data from Kaggle Data from Kaggle can be uploaded directly into Colab for processing. An API token from Kaggle is required to accomplish the data import. Steps to generate API token from Kaggle Open Kaggle Go to “My Account” Scroll down to the “API” section Figure 6: Screenshot of Kaggle’s website showing the API section. Click on “Expire API Token” to remove the previous token if required. Click on “Create New API Token.” It will generate a new token and download a JSON file named “ kaggle.json ” ” The “kaggle.json” file contains the username and key like: Figure 7: Screenshot of IDE showing test API key for Kaggle. Steps to upload data from Kaggle Save the “kaggle.json” file on your local computer. Install the Kaggle package !pip install -q kaggle Import packages: from google.colab import files Upload the local file “kaggle.json” files.upload() Figure 8: Screenshot of the output of the uploaded file “kaggle.json” Check if the Colab notebook connects with Kaggle correctly. !kaggle datasets list Figure 9: Screenshot showing a dataset list from Kaggle. Download any competition data from Kaggle (i.e., competition name — predict future sales) !kaggle competitions download -c competitive-data-science-predict-future-sales Figure 10: Screenshot showing the output of data downloads from Kaggle. Data from Kaggle will be downloaded and uploaded in Colab, like: Figure 11: Screenshot of Google Colab showing the uploaded data from Kaggle. Read Files from Google Drive Google Colab provides functionality to read data from google drive too. Import packages import globimport pandas as pdfrom google.colab import drive Mount Google Drive drive.mount('/gdrive') This will ask Google to drive authorization code. Figure 12: Screenshot showing Google Colab asking you to insert Google Drive’s authorization code. Input box for the authorization code Click on the link and generate the authorization code. Read a CSV file from the drive. file_path = glob.glob("/gdrive/My Drive/***.csv")for file in file_path: df = pd.read_csv(file) print(df) Figure 13: Output from the test CSV file on Google Drive. Setting up Hardware Accelerator GPU for Runtime Google Colab provides a free cloud service with a GPU hardware accelerator. High configurations GPU machines are very costly and required in machine learning and deep learning to simultaneously process multiple computations.

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/google-colab-101-tutorial-with-python-tips-tricks-and-faq-7689bd4d24b4

['Towards Ai Team']

2020-12-09 23:43:45.984000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Innovation', 'Technology', 'Education', 'Science']

Design for Place Matrix

Humans are increasingly displaced and distance-enabled. Without a sense of connection, knowledge, and commitment to geographically-bound places over longer periods of time, we design out of context and relationship, abstracted from the direct experience and consequences of our actions. Design for social innovation often seeks to make systems-level change towards more sustainable and equitable futures. However, longevity and embeddedness in a place is often absent and projects are left un-stewarded towards their long-term intended aims. If we are to transition towards a living future, awareness of our own orientation to ‘place’ is important for designers of all kinds to grasp, understand, and embed in our design work. This article explores the concept of place and its role in design through a pilot project conducted for Design Theory and Seminar at Carnegie Mellon University. It offers a ‘place matrix’ with four potential lenses of human orientation to ‘place’, informed by the fields of human geography, urban planning, anthropology, and philosophy. Building off of the ‘place matrix’, a prototype of an imaginative ‘Place Labyrinth’ offers experiential exercises and prompts to grow knowledge, connection and affection towards the places we inhabit and design. A Place Orientation Matrix ‘Place’, defined for this article, is the human habitat created through an ongoing process with the human and more-than-human world. ‘Places’ might include towns, cities, and settlements where humans create a collective home. ‘Place’ differs from space in that place is finite and holds meaning, space is infinite yet becomes place through built and social human and more-than-human interaction overtime (Tuan, 1974; Watts, 2013; Mortan, 2018). ‘Places’ are made up of many forms of infrastructure, some more visible than not. Our actions and more specifically our intentions, spontaneous or not, are often translated into designs that form the places we inhabit and relationships therein. In that sense, what we design, designs ‘place’. Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in his 1974 seminal book titled ‘Topophilia’, explored the human relationship to place historically and into the modern area. His work greatly informed the fields of human geography, architecture and urban planning, as well as this research. Topophilia refers to ‘love of place’ and place attachment theory which suggests that ‘places’ like people, operate as living systems. Positive attachment to ‘place’ can result in pro-social and pro-environmental behavior. However, humans are increasingly displaced, over many thousands of years. Detachment, especially from ancestral lands and traditions has instilled a disconnection from the places we inhabit, often out of fear of future loss of connection (Tuan, 1974). How can we experience a deeper sense of connection and commitment to a ‘place’, once we’ve adopted, chosen, or been forced into a globally dependent and networked system? The following the ‘place matrix’ explores four orientations to place — to be ‘on-place, ‘with-place’, ‘of-place’, and ‘for-place’. By categorizing these potential orientations to place, designers and practitioners of social impact might better understand how we inhabit and create the world around us. On-Place Orientation To be ‘on-place’ is to see and experience the earth as something that humans dominate. In this orientation, the earth and places within it are more like destinations, or projects, than relationships or even living beings unto themselves (Auge, 1995). In our modern era, design and business have often aspired and aimed towards one global and homogeneously designed planet. The perpetuated abstraction of human beings from other life forms has accelerated and manifested in ‘non-places’, ‘placelessness’, and ‘geography of nowhere’ (Auge, 1995; Tuan, 1974; Kunstler 1993). A planet made-up of places that look almost identical to each other and the purpose of visiting them is to put a pin in a map, is just another symptom of the accelerating loss of biodiversity of many forms on the planet (Auge, 1995). When we design from a place of being ‘on-place’ we tend to see ourselves as superior to everything else. Most humans on earth today experience ourselves as abstracted and deeply separate from the other forms of life that we surround (Auge, 1995; Watts, 2013; Mortan, 2018). This way of being and communicating manifests in our built environment, how we interact with it, and how we experience it, and how we care for it, others, and ourselves. There can be an assumption made that most designers working towards social change are not interested in perpetuating colonialism in any of its catastrophic forms, therefore being ‘on-place’ is no longer viable as a sustainable way of inhabiting the planet. With-Place Orientation To be ‘with-place ‘offers an orientation that aims to restore an ecological balance. However in this orientation, the designer may still sees themselves as separate from other earthkin — the human still dominates and is believed to hold superior agency (Mortan, 2017). The sustainability movement, among others like it, has brought a more ecological way of thinking about the human role in a complex web of life. However, in our aim to bring humans into better relationship with all life we may have cast ourselves away as an invasive species on the planet. There may be trouble with believing we can build a better future by operating out of a sense of shame for being human. Furthermore, to be able to think and act ecologically today can often come from a position of privilege. Ecological consciousness can often manifest in an urgency to ‘save the planet’ and perpetuate a cycle of acceleration, quick decision making, and hence the colonizer mentality all over again. In our efforts to repair and restore, we yet again deplete and degrade in a vicious cycle of unintended consequences (Brown, 2017;Mortan, 2017). In the film Examined Life, philosopher Slavoj Zizek is seen at a garbage dump professing that if we are to think ecologically, we’d have to love even our waste. What’s important about this image and this message is that, if we are to truly love the earth we might also love the parts that we wish to castaway. In this sense, to be ‘with-place’ may still be entrenched in older notions of the human as separate from nature, and therefore we must look into other orientations that embrace more radical forms of ‘place’ love. Of-Place Orientation To be believe that the human is made of humus and interconnected with all of life expresses an orientation ‘of-place’. To be ‘of-place’ is often associated with an indigenous way of knowing and being and sees the human as of the earth and interdependent with all of life (Watts, 2013). Much can be said about the importance of indigenous ways of knowing and being, and the crucial significance this knowledge plays in a living future. Indigenous scholar Vanessa Watts describes how in indigenous knowledge thoughts are inseparable from the ground and place from which they come. She goes further to say that ‘our truth, not only Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee people but in a majority of Indigenous societies, conceives that we (humans) are made from the land; our flesh is literally an extension of soil’ (Watts, 2013 p.27). In this sense, to be ‘of-place’ is not an abstract statement, instead a complex truth about the human relationship to the earth. To deeply believe and operate as inseparable from the soil offers a profoundly different experience and intent for design and our connection to place. To be ‘of-place’ is often the result of many generations of direct ties to land, and certainly longer term commitments to a place. In that sense, the experience of indigeneity and ‘of-place’ orientation may be inaccessible, at least in the short-term, for many designers today. For-Place Orientation Many humans on earth today may possess a sense of deep interconnection with all of life but may be unable to fully access and live out this way of being in the day-to-day modern existence. If the orientation to be ‘of-place’ is inaccessible in a modern western-mind, then what might being ‘for-place’ orientation offer us? To be ‘for-place’ offers an orientation that sees the modern human as de-centered and in interdependence with all other life and operates from a place of service to other lifeforms. From a design perspective this means that we de-center the human as the superior being and operate from a place of being in service to the more-than-human beings with which we co-create and inhabit the earth. ‘Modern man has conquered distance but not time. In a life span, a man now, as in the past can establish profound roots only in a small corner of the world’ (Tuan, 1974 p. 64). If we are to assume a relationship to ‘place’ that is in service to it, we might scale it appropriately and develop a longer-term relationship to it. When we operate from an orientation ‘for-place’ we specify our sense of place while enlarging our sense of community. That is to say that we can begin to include the more-than-human world in the places that we root. Knowing, loving, and designing ‘for-place’ doesn’t have to require big actions, in fact it is in the everyday awareness of our relationship to place, the trees, the weeds, squirrels, rats, people, empty cans, and soil beneath our feet that can bring about affection and it’s benefits. ‘Place Labyrinth’ as Homing Device The digital ‘place labyrinth’ is hosted at iamerica.work/placelabyrinth. Its purpose is to support designers of all kinds to apply the ‘place matrix’ and offer experiences that help to reconnect to place. Viewed through the lens of the ‘place matrix’ there are corresponding exercises in the ‘place labyrinth’ that offer insights into the embodied experience of the various ‘on/with/of/for’ place orientations. As one moves through the four stages of the labyrinth there are instructions offered for participating in self-guided reflections and experiences, including journaling, gazing, pondering, lingering, tracking, meandering and creating. Prior to entering the Labyrinth there are guidelines that include: Once inside the Labyrinth visitors imaginatively remain there until exiting the labyrinth by drafting a ‘place manifesto’. Visitors may decide to spend a few hours, a few days, or longer (remember just imaginatively) in the labyrinth exploring the various orientations via individual own place contexts. At various points you will be given a ‘place’ research question that will provide you with the ‘password key’ to access the experiential exercises. Practice appreciative inquiry and deep listening to optimize learning and reflection. Once imaginatively inside the labyrinth, the exercises in each quadrant are intended to build on each other and deepen the level of experience and complexity as visitors move from ‘on place’ to for-place’. Some of the exercises include: Reflections on all the places one has visited in the world. Which ones evoke the most positive or the weakest memory? Write an ‘ecoduction’, an autobiography told through landscapes and places that have formed who you are today, rather than what you’ve done. (Recommended 500 words) Grieve and mourn any loss of connection to place. Write a eulogy for a place and/or create a ritual real or imaginative to mourn. Write a letter to an ancestor. Interview an elder that has lived in the same place over a long period of time. To imaginatively exit the ‘place labyrinth’ you are prompted to draft a ‘Place Manifesto’. The manifesto includes prompts and questions such as: Reflect on what brought you to the place you currently inhabit and whether you intend to continue inhabiting it for a longer period of time and why? What are three places on earth that you could imagine inhabiting for extended periods of time in your life? Consider that longevity in a place be important for designing for systems-level change. What period of time would be necessary for you to develop knowledge and relationships, and to experience and iterate on outcomes of your work? What guidelines might you give yourself for staying connected and committed to place? How do you continue to reduce your carbon footprint or offset it in the place you inhabit? How might you continue to deepen and grow your relationship with your place? How might what you do and design for your place to leave it better than had you not been there or done nothing at all? Designers who complete the labyrinth will have entered into an exploration intended to deepen understanding of ‘place’, orientations to it, and how this might better inform design for ‘place’, towards living futures. Onwards We have to account for the fact that most design work is embedded within a capital-driven system that prioritizes short-term profits. The ‘wicked problem’ that is late capitalism and its hierarchical and highly imbalanced ownership structure, means that there is tremendous amounts of slow untangling required for a notion of ‘designing for place’ to be viable and in its fullest integrity. My hope is that this research serves the growing population of digital nomads and designers, often who design for social change. The ‘place matrix’ may supporting designs for various lifestyle, business, and economic models that support globally networked and locally placed existences. ‘Possibly, in some ideal future, our loyalty will be given only to the home region of intimate memories and, at the other end of the scale, to the whole earth’ (Tuan, 1974 p.100). Hyper-mobility via the internet and cheap flights, has afforded many a globally connected community and access to knowledge, information, and interactions that have also become enhancing, if not essential for survival. We might imagine into a world that is biodiverse, living, and equitable. To do so we will need to operate as if we were dependent on the earth and in service to the more-than-human world with whom we inhabit ‘place’. References

https://medium.com/research-for-into-through-design-ing/design-for-place-matrix-9914498f52bf

['Erica Dorn']

2020-07-28 18:55:02.449000+00:00

['Environment', 'Design', 'Design Thinking']

A Guide to Our Copyediting Process: Common Errors, Grammar Pet Peeves, and Advice for Writers

Ask the Copy Editors: Q&A with Deirdre, Lelo, Brittany, Ayanna, and Vinh Note: These answers apply to all publications within the “Better Publishing” network — Better Humans, Better Marketing, and Better Programming. What are some common errors that you see in articles? A very common one is unnecessary capitalization, especially for job titles. (Lelo) Basic grammatical mistakes (“it’s” vs. “its,” “there” vs. “their” vs. “they’re,” etc.) and unnecessary capitalization are the most common issues I encounter. (Vinh) Run-on sentences. Keep your readers in mind, and let them take a breath! :) (Lelo) Using Medium’s quotation styling for passages that aren’t quotations. (Deirdre) Sometimes writers don’t know when to close compounds. For example, “my work out.” In this case, it should be “workout” because it is being used as a noun. (Lelo) Often authors use capitals in places where capitals don’t belong. Those places include the phrases that an acronym stands for, job titles, the names of corporate departments, and general concepts, principles, and disciplines. Some examples of incorrect capitalization: “IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment.” “To apply for a job as a Senior Developer, contact the Human Resources Department.” “There are Bootcamps for everything from Data Science to Machine Learning to Object-Oriented Programming.” (The correct forms would be: “IDE stands for integrated development environment.” “To apply for a job as a senior developer, contact the human resources department.” “There are bootcamps for everything from data science to machine learning to object-oriented programming.”) (Deirdre) Using “he/she” (or more usually “he”) instead of “they”. “They” is now standard in many style guides, including ours— and using it makes life so much easier! (Deirdre) What kind of style and structure changes do you make to an article? The main publication I edit for at the moment (Better Programming) doesn’t require much structural editing. I do, however, try to keep the flow in mind in order to provide a good reading experience. As such, I will tweak run-on or messy sentences to that end. Style-wise, I follow our in-house guide, which covers everything from formatting to site-specific spelling preferences and diversity/inclusion guidelines. (Vinh) I try to fix unclear sentences by using punctuation first. If that doesn’t work, I reorganize, break up, or combine sentences, and I reorder or replace words. As a last resort, I rewrite, but minimally. I repair awkward constructions and smooth out bumpy transitions. I add, remove, or replace conjunctions to avoid confusion (e.g., the conversational “because,” the one that’s just a filler). At the word level, I add missing words and remove those that are redundant, and I fix eggcorns (e.g., “for all intensive purposes”), mangled metaphors, and words that are simply wrong. I correct misused prepositions and verb forms (more on that in the attached list.) I always try to make list constructions parallel because they have so much more punch that way. (Deirdre) When I’m editing authors who aren’t fluent in English, I often have to make a fair number of changes, some of which occasionally require mindreading. It must seem pretty invasive to the writers sometimes. If the writing is already strong but there’s a missed opportunity for it to really shine, I try to raise the whole piece to a consistently high level, e.g., by varying repetitive words and phrases or pruning writing tics heavily. I admit I have a soft spot for authors who have a strong voice but aren’t quite there stylistically. (Deirdre) I hate side-aligned images and will almost always center-align all images in an article. I think the side-align usually make articles a little hard to read and breaks up the flow. (Brittany) I often have to change titles to title case and subtitles to sentence case. It would help me a lot if writers did this on their own. And a lot of writers do not insert page breaks between sections, so I find myself having to do this a lot as well. (Ayanna) Do you have any copyediting pet peeves? Overuse of filler words, like “that.” Only use “that” where it’s necessary. Read the sentence out loud to see if it makes sense without the filler word. If it works without it, leave it out. (Lelo) Dealing with plagiarism has to be the single most irritating part of the job. It isn’t always intentional (some writers don’t know any better), but it’s a real pain nonetheless. Also, just on principle, people should always get credit for their work. So give it to them. (Vinh) This is a Medium-specific pet peeve, but when you submit an article to a publication, the publication editors can see all the comments on the article. That means every comment: the line-edit suggestions from your writer’s group, your “thanks but no thanks” note from other publication editors, etc. I don’t mind seeing peer-edit comments as much, but rejection notes from other publications are a great way to let us know that you didn’t write this specifically for us and you’re just shopping your article around to different publications — which may make us feel less inclined to publish it. (Brittany) A surprising number of Better Programming authors are sloppy about the names of the programs, libraries, and frameworks that are the bread and butter of their work. It’s not unusual to see “javascript,” “Javascript,” “JavaScript,” “JS,” and “js” in the same article. Authors are unwittingly undermining their credibility. Every time I have to make this kind of fix, I think, “I really hope you aren’t this careless when you’re writing code.” Since Medium has no global find-and-replace, making program names consistent is a pain. (Deirdre) Crazy amounts of bold formatting for every other word. So many authors do this and it makes your writing hard to read! If there’s too much extraneous formatting, I will just highlight the entire article and strip all of the bold away. (Brittany) What are things that make you happy to see in articles? Consistency makes me happy. If you’re writing in British English, stick to it throughout. The same applies if you’re writing in American English. (Lelo) Proper attribution is wonderful to see. I also enjoy an article that manages to be informative and easy to read. Striking that balance is trickier than you might think. (Vinh) Properly formatted headings, properly credited and linked images. Gists. Credit given to the people whose work the author has quoted from or paraphrased. Good alt texts! OK, let’s face it: any alt text at all. A distinctive voice that’s neither pompous nor frenetic. If all those things are in place, I can focus on making the article super professional. (Deirdre) A few suggested alternate titles. Your first article title idea is rarely the best one. Leaving a private margin note at the top of an article with a comment like “hey, here are some other title ideas I had” is helpful, and we appreciate the extra effort. (Brittany) What would you love to see a little less of in articles? Any type of content that doesn’t offer enough input/insight from the author (aggregate content, lists, etc.). Bring something to the table. (Vinh) Walls of text, especially those created by never-ending sentences. Keep all your sentences short and sweet if you can. (Lelo) Images that are uncredited. Please make sure you credit your images correctly. It’s important! (Lelo) I would like for writers to refrain from using Wikipedia as a source. It makes the writer lose credibility since Wikipedia is not reliable. (Ayanna) It makes me sad on their behalf to see authors trying too hard to generate excitement or bolster their credibility. These are the people who pepper their articles with emojis and GIFs, bolding and italics, exclamation marks, and phrases like “we’re gonna make something awesome!!!” This comes across as anxiety that their idea, app, or analysis can’t stand on its own — when it probably can. (Deirdre) Some authors repeatedly start sentences with “so” when the causal connection to the previous statement is perfectly clear. When “so” is used in excess, it makes authors look like they doubt that their argument is clear, when it almost always is. This is different from starting every second sentence with “so” just to be conversational and informal, which also happens a lot and is a distraction in its own right. (Deirdre) We see the same feature photos over and over again. I’d love to see more unique photos, photos that reflect more diversity, and other image types (like illustrations, cartoons, DIY graphics). If you’re using Unsplash, scroll down a little — don’t pick the first image that comes up in your search. Also, photos that are overly literal but don’t have much to do with the content otherwise: for example, an article about a product launch and a rocket launch photo, sigh. In my opinion, an image that’s less related to the article but is interesting is better than a boring-but-related header image. (Brittany)

https://medium.com/better-marketing/a-guide-to-our-copyediting-process-common-errors-grammar-pet-peeves-and-advice-for-writers-2a363e7ff29d

['Brittany Jezouit']

2020-12-17 22:54:24.709000+00:00

['Editing', 'Ｍedium', 'Marketing', 'Writing', 'Grammar']

The Kessler Syndrome: Closing Off Earth From Space

When writing about outer space, I often compare it to the vast and plentiful oceans here on Earth. Both are mysterious frontiers as yet largely unexplored and with magnificent potential — from sunken cities and trench inhabitants to strange planets tidally locked to their stars, creating a surface of duality where scorching temperatures coexist beside glacial, shimmering tundras. They’re also immense; looking out across the faceted blue of the waters it seems to be infinite. Grand and indomitable. It’s because of this illusion that we’ve had a terrible effect on the ocean’s ecosystem. We’ve depleted fish populations, killed half the Great Barrier Reef, and continue to add more than 8 million tons of plastic into the ocean each year. We’re treating the space around Earth in much the same way. It’s difficult to believe with such clear night skies — freckled with luminous bodies of stars and planets — that anything exists up there which might hinder space exploration. And yet much like the iconic rings around Saturn, there’s a growing ring of debris circling Earth. It’s composed of dead satellites, slivers of paint, fragments of solar panels and rockets from missions long ago. Altogether there are millions of pieces of debris in orbit with only 22,300 of those pieces regularly tracked by the US Military. Theoretical models are needed to predict the path of any debris under 10 cm, which can’t be tracked. And while the military has the largest public database of space debris, even this doesn’t include satellites omitted by international governments, commercial companies, or our own ongoing projects. The most frightening aspect is that all of this material is not merely tame and floating around but rather moving at speeds as high as 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 km per hour) with each object varying in direction as it’s affected by the Earth’s gravitational field. Friction of an object against the atmosphere will also cause some objects to fall in altitude. At these speeds, a screw can have the same impact as a high-speed car, potentially destroying an entire satellite. These are the same satellites we depend on for everything from communication to ATM withdrawals to monitoring of the Earth’s ecosystems. Avoiding collisions through evasive maneuvers uses up the satellite’s fuel and time, making it less efficient than it could be. Even more problematic is the fact that most objects in orbit cannot be controlled from Earth so there’s no way to interfere with debris on a collision course. The 2013 film “Gravity” explores the devastating effects of space debris hitting a space shuttle. While nothing so devastating has happened in real life, the ISS has been hit before, with NASA cautioning crew members to take refuge in the Soyuz capsules which can detach and return to Earth. However, the capsules themselves have damage from debris. This is the fear addressed by the Kessler Syndrome. It was a theory proposed 41 years ago by NASA scientist Donald Kessler. The theory describes an ongoing collision of debris where an initial incident continues to cascade into another and another, giving way to an exponential rise of debris around the planet. In fact, some scientists believe the effect might already have been put into place by the events of 2009. That year, an operational Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian satellite struck one another at the rate of 26 miles per hour (42 km) and created 2,000 new pieces of debris. This occurred at Earth’s polar orbits at a height of 490 miles (789 km) in altitude. This area at the poles is considered to carry the highest risk of debris collision. While most causes of debris are accidental, like the incident above, an unsavory plan in 2007 angered many countries across the world. China destroyed a weather satellite and created thousands of new pieces of junk orbiting above us right now. The test itself was already controversial, aimed to test their capabilities of destroying objects in space. The US also caused a lot of pollution in the 1960’s when it sent millions of copper needles into space to improve radio communications. While some of these needles came back down, thousands of clumps of copper still reside up there to this day. And since the 1960’s, space’s artificial population of objects continues to grow rapidly with 400 new satellites having entered orbit in 2017 alone. This number doesn’t seem to be going down. SpaceX received approval last year to launch 12,000 new satellites and they’re only one among many companies with plans to deploy similar satellites in the near future. Technology like CubeStats — small scale satellites enabling research groups and companies to have access to space — are cost effective and accessible, meaning they’re being increasingly deployed as well. If these rates continue to increase and nothing is done about the problem, collisions can become up to 25 times more likely, meaning that spaceflight would be almost impossible. A little over a decade ago, agencies developed guidelines for the launch of spacecraft. Satellites should turn off batteries and vent all fuel and combustible material to avoid in-orbit explosions. The altitude of these satellites should also be low enough that they will naturally burn up after 25 years, meaning they should come below 372 miles (600 km). This foresight is known as the passivation of objects. Debris will burn up upon re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere, though this does come with the potential for larger pieces of debris to land in populated areas. Only half of all missions abide by these guidelines. Unfortunately, a critical point for space debris has already been reached. Even if no further launches were to take place, the number of objects would continue to increase as more and more collisions occurred. The only long-term solution is to remove 5–10 large objects from orbit each year. And experts urge us to begin this process of removal now. Proposals for cleaning up space include nets to capture objects, lasers to guide them into re-entry, and large magnets to attract the pieces. But technology for managing space debris is still under testing and development. For now, the best agencies are able to do is to track the moving objects. RemoveDEBRIS is a project that utilizes nets to capture trash. It has shown to successfully retrieve targets during experiments. Artificial intelligence with neural networks — the machine equivalent of a human brain — can be used to track debris and give a prediction of where it will be in the future. The AI is capable of learning from its mistakes and becoming more accurate as time goes on. It could also suggest the best launch times since research shows that even a difference of 15 minutes in launch time can influence how long it will take a satellite to come back down. Massive data sets are not only cataloging objects but also studying sizes and shapes in order to better asses the danger a piece of debris will pose.

https://medium.com/predict/the-kessler-syndrome-closing-off-earth-from-space-8126bd13bebb

['Ella Alderson']

2019-04-20 17:39:08.463000+00:00

['Environment', 'Technology', 'Science', 'Space', 'Universe']

Why Long Walks Will Change Your Life

Over the years, I must have walked this same route a thousand times, yet I’ve never tired of its charms. If one is attentive enough, every walk is an opportunity to see new sights and hear new sounds. On many occasions, I walked off the track and ended up in some unfamiliar landscape I never could have imagined. For the most part, the landscape of West Yorkshire is not very diverse; it’s mostly green fields and green hills that seem to stretch on forever. But on my local walks, I am an explorer, a pioneer, I am involved in the landscapes, and I notice the wonderful capabilities of the landscape to bend and fold over short distances. I learn the shapes and curves of different trees and plants, and I notice how they change throughout each season. On my walks I am in a constant, slow-burning rapture. Usually, I walk without a plan. I have nothing to achieve; the beauty is in the walking, in the journey itself. I depend on instinct and walk interminably, one foot in front of the other, breathing in the cold air, marveling at the stature of the oak trees, nodding and greeting the dog walkers who pass me by. And then, quite suddenly, ideas arrive. Stories unfold. Meaning and purpose are restored. Beautiful words, long sentences, poetry and rhyme, answers to dreaded questions — these all come in flashing moments when I am absorbed in the landscape, in the eternity of the natural world. It always takes me by surprise, and I often regret not carrying a notepad to write my thoughts down; I just have to hope I will remember everything when I get back home. In nature, you leave yourself behind. You are nobody in the woods. When faced with a particularly difficult problem, I find it’s always healthier to just get out of the house and go for a walk rather than trying to force the answer. For in the repetition of walking you empty yourself out, free yourself of opinion and expectation, and embody once again humanity’s innate character. In this state of emptiness, your mind begins to clear — and then the gods descend to fill the void. Freedom of movement stimulates the mind, bringing forth divine wisdom. A free body is a free mind; which is why, I suppose, the powers that be prefer we sit in offices and cubicles day and night, so that we are made forever stupid and loyal customers. In nature, you leave yourself behind. Indeed, like everyone else, I have days that require I sit inside the office or the library all day and work until the end. And on these days I always feel as if there is a small stove slowly burning in my stomach, a hollow pain, which grows fierier the longer I stifle my vitality. If evening comes and I have not walked far at all, then this fire cannot be contained and it becomes impossible to remain sitting still. I get so anxious that I cannot concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. My mind is exhausted but my body’s energy is idle and unsatisfied. If this energy does not find release through physical exertion, it seeps into the mind and transforms into worries, doubts, fears — what’s more, I can’t sleep, because the untapped life force whirls and spins around my mind, desperately trying to exert itself, keeping me awake. The life force I should be expressing through physical exertion turns back on my body and slowly destroys me. I take long walks because I have a body, and if I do not use my body then I become bad-tempered and apathetic. Those who concentrate solely on their intellect and leave the body behind tend to be rigid, stern characters, and unhealthy. As far as I can tell, each of us seems to have a primal drive toward life, which finds its easiest expression in the act of walking, in the act of moving forward through the natural world and marveling at its beauty. In my experience, all anxious and depressive feelings seem to dissipate when walking along a woodland path. And if you walk far enough you eventually achieve a state of joy — a quiet, inner happiness — and you are relieved, as you have escaped the walls, the squares, the eternity of sitting, of stagnation; now you are moving over the landscape, over the hills and far away, fighting against gravity, breathing fresh air, with a pulsing heart and an appetite for flowers and sunlight. You are free in search of the springs of life. A long walk is a rebirth of consciousness; one never returns quite the same, and is always better off for it.

https://humanparts.medium.com/walking-is-medicine-why-long-walks-will-change-your-life-59297e955a49

['Harry J. Stead']

2020-05-26 17:51:26.671000+00:00

['Psychology', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Inspiration']

Neural Networks from Scratch with Python Code and Math in Detail— I

4. What is a Perceptron? A perceptron is a neural network without any hidden layer. A perceptron only has an input layer and an output layer. Figure 6: A perceptron Where we can use perceptrons? Perceptrons’ use lies in many case scenarios. While a perceptron is mostly used for simple decision making, these can also come together in larger computer programs to solve more complex problems. For instance: Give access if a person is a faculty member and deny access if a person is a student. Provide entry for humans only. Implementation of logic gates [2]. Steps involved in the implementation of a neural network: A neural network executes in 2 steps : 1. Feedforward: On a feedforward neural network, we have a set of input features and some random weights. Notice that in this case, we are taking random weights that we will optimize using backward propagation. 2. Backpropagation: During backpropagation, we calculate the error between predicted output and target output and then use an algorithm (gradient descent) to update the weight values. Why do we need backpropagation? While designing a neural network, first, we need to train a model and assign specific weights to each of those inputs. That weight decides how vital is that feature for our prediction. The higher the weight, the greater the importance. However, initially, we do not know the specific weight required by those inputs. So what we do is, we assign some random weight to our inputs, and our model calculates the error in prediction. Thereafter, we update our weight values and rerun the code (backpropagation). After individual iterations, we can get lower error values and higher accuracy. Summarizing an Artificial Neural Network: Take inputs Add bias (if required) Assign random weights to input features Run the code for training. Find the error in prediction. Update the weight by gradient descent algorithm. Repeat the training phase with updated weights. Make predictions. Flow chart for a simple neural network: Figure 7: Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Basic Flow Chart The training phase of a neural network: Figure 8: Training phase of a neural network 5. Perceptron Example: Below is a simple perceptron model with four inputs and one output. Figure 9: A simple perceptron Figure 10: A set of data What we have here is the input values and their corresponding target output values. So what we are going to do, is assign some weight to the inputs and then calculate their predicted output values. In this example we are going to calculate the output by the following formula: Figure 11: Formula to calculate the neural net’s output For the sake of this example, we are going to take the bias value = 0 for simplicity of calculation. a. Let’s take W = 3 and check the predicted output. Figure 12: The output when W = 3 b. After we have found the value of predicted output for W=3, we are going to compare it with our target output, and by doing that, we can find the error in the prediction model. Keep in mind that our goal is to achieve minimum error and maximum accuracy for our model. Figure 13: The error when W = 3 c. Notice that in the above calculation, there is an error in 3 out of 4 predictions. So we have to change the parameter values of our weight to set in low. Now we have two options: Increase weight Decrease weight First, we are going to increase the value of the weight and check whether it leads to a higher error rate or lower error rate. Here we increased the weight value by 1 and changed it to W = 4. Figure 14: Output when W = 4 d. As we can see in the figure above, is that the error in prediction is increasing. So now we can conclude that increasing the weight value does not help us in reducing the error in prediction. Figure 15: Error when W = 4 e. After we fail in increasing the weight value, we are going to decrease the value of weight for it. Furthermore, by doing that, we can see whether it helps or not. Figure 16: Output when W = 2 f. Calculate the error in prediction. Here we can see that we have achieved the global minimum. Figure 17: Error when W = 2 In figure 17, we can see that there is no error in prediction. Now what we did here: First, we have our input values and target output. Then we initialized some random value to W, and then we proceed further. Last, we calculated the error for in prediction for that weight value. Afterward, we updated the weight and predicted the output. After several trial and error epochs, we can reduce the error in prediction. Figure 18: Illustrating our function So, we are trying to get the value of weight such that the error becomes minimum. We need to figure out whether we need to increase or decrease the weight value. Once we know that, we keep on updating the weight value in that direction until error becomes minimum. We might reach a point where if further updates occur to the weight, the error will increase. At that time, we need to stop, and that is our final weight value. In real-life data, the situation can be a bit more complex. In the example above, we saw that we could try different weight values and get the minimum error manually. However, in real-life data, weight values are often decimal (non-integer). Therefore, we are going to use a gradient descent algorithm with a low learning rate so that we can try different weight values and obtain the best predictions from our model. Figure 19: Formula representing the final 6. Sigmoid Function: A sigmoid function serves as an activation function in our neural network training. We generally use neural networks for classifications. In binary classification, we have 2 types. However, as we can see, our output value can be any possible number from the equation we used. To solve that problem, we use a sigmoid function. Now for classification, we want our output values to be 0 or 1. So to get values between 0 and 1 we use the sigmoid function. The sigmoid function converts our output values between 0 and 1. Let’s have a look at it: Figure 20: Sigmoid function Let’s visualize our sigmoid function with Python: Figure 21: Python code for the sigmoid function Output: Figure 22: Sigmoid function graph Explanation: In figure 21 and 22, for any input values, the value of the sigmoid function will always lie between 0 and 1. Here notice that for negative numbers, the output of the sigmoid function is ≤0.5, or we can say closer to zero, and for positive numbers, the output is going to be >0.5, or we can say closer to 1. 7. Neural Network Implementation from Scratch: We are going to do is implement the “OR” logic gate using a perceptron. Keep in mind that here we are not going to use any of the hidden layers. What is logical OR Gate? Straightforwardly, when one of the inputs is 1, the output of the OR gate is going to be 1. It means that the output is 0 only when both of the inputs are 0. Representation: Figure 23: The OR gate Truth-Table for OR gate: Figure 24: Set of truth-table data for the OR gate Perceptron for the OR gate: Figure 25: A perceptron Next, we are going to assign some weights to each of the input values and calculate it. Figure 26: A-weighted perceptron Example: (Calculating Manually) a. Calculate the input for o1: Figure 27: Formula to calculate the input for o1 b. Calculate the output value: Figure 28: Formula to calculate the output value Figure 29: Result output value Notice that from our truth table, we can see that we wanted the output of 1, but what we get here is 0.68997. Now we need to calculate the error and then backpropagate and then update the weight values. c. Error Calculation: Next, we are going to use Mean Squared Error for calculating the error : Figure 30: Mean squared error formula The summation sign (Sigma symbol) means that we have to add our error for all our input sets. Here we are going to see how that works for only one input set. Figure 31: Result of the MSE We have to do the same for all the remaining inputs. Now that we have found the error, we have to update the values of weight to make the error minimum. For updating weight values, we are going to use a gradient descent algorithm. 8. What is Gradient Descent? Gradient Descent is a machine learning algorithm that operates iteratively to find the optimal values for its parameters. It takes into account, user-defined learning rate, and initial parameter values. Working: (Iterative) 1. Start with initial values. 2. Calculate cost. 3. Update values using the update function. 4. Returns minimized cost for our cost function Why do we need it? Generally, what we do is, we find the formula that gives us the optimal values for our parameter. However, in this algorithm, it finds the value by itself! Interesting, isn’t it? Figure 32; Formula for the Gradient Descent algorithm We are going to update our weight with this algorithm. First of all, we need to find the derivative f(X). 9. Derivation of the formula used in a neural network Next, what we want to find is how a particular weight value affects the error. To find that we are going to apply the chain rule. Figure 33: Finding the derivative Afterward, what we have to do is we have to find values for these three derivatives. In the following images, we have tried to show the derivation of each of these derivatives to showcase the math behind gradient descent. d. Calculating derivatives: Figure 34: Calculating the derivatives In our case: Output = 0.68997 Target = 1 Figure 35: Finding the first derivative e. Finding the second part of the derivative: Figure 36: Calculating the second part To understand it step-by-step: e.a. Value of outo1: Figure 37: Value of outo1 e.b. Finding the derivative with respect to ino1: Figure 38: Derivative of outo1 with respect to ino1 e.c. Simplifying it a bit to find the derivative easily: Figure 39: Simplication e.d. Applying chain rule and power rule: Figure 40: Applying the chain rule, along with power rule e.e. Applying sum rule: Figure 41: Applying sum rule to outo1 with respect to ino1 e.f. The derivative of constant is zero: Figure 42: Derivative of the constant is zero e.g. Applying exponential rule and chain rule: Figure 42: Applying exponential rule and a chain rule e.h. Simplifying it a bit: Figure 43: Simplifying the derivative e.i. Multiplying both negative signs: Figure 44: Multiplication of both negations e.j. Put the negative power in the denominator: Figure 45: Moving the negative power to the denominator That is it. However, we need to simplify it as it is a little complex for our machine learning algorithm to process for a large number of inputs. e.k. Simplifying it: Figure 46: Simplifying the algorithm e.l. Further simplification: Figure 47: Step two of the simplyfication e.k. Adding +1–1: Figure 48: Adding the values e.l. Separate the parts: Figure 49: Separating the algorithm e.m. Simplify: Figure 50: Simplify the separation e.n. Now we all know the value of outo1 from equation 1: Figure 51: Value from outo1 e.o. From that we can derive the following final derivative: Figure 52: Deriving the final derivative e.p. Calculating the value of our input: Figure 53: Final calculation of the output f. Finding the third part of the derivative : Figure 54: Formula to calculate the third derivative f.a Value of ino : Figure 55: Value of ino f.b. Finding derivative: All the other values except w2 will be considered constant here. Figure 56: Finding the derivative f.c Calculating both values for our input: Figure 57: Calculating both values for the input f.d. Putting it all together: Figure 58: Calculating it as a whole f.e. Putting it in our main equation: Figure 59: Putting it on the main equation f.f. We can calculate: Figure 60: Calculation of second weight Notice that the value of the weight has increased here. We can calculate all the values in this way, but as we can see, it is going to be a lengthy process. So now we are going to implement all the steps in Python.

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/building-neural-networks-from-scratch-with-python-code-and-math-in-detail-i-536fae5d7bbf

['Towards Ai Team']

2020-12-09 23:49:02.768000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Innovation', 'Technology', 'Education', 'Science']

Cooling crops become hot airport topic

An innovative project that lowers runway temperatures by using recycled water to grow commercial crops at airports will be shared with global aviation leaders in Abu Dhabi this week. The world-first project is expected to generate strong interest from numerous airports in hot regions, especially those with busy long-haul schedules through the heat of the day. Trials at Adelaide Airport in South Australia in conjunction with state-owned utility SA Water have shown that planting lucerne around runways can drop air temperatures by more than 3C on warm days and therefore improve the performance of departing airplanes. In warmer, less dense air, planes must travel faster down the runway to produce the lift needed for take-off. When a runway lacks the distance required to reach these speeds, a plane’s weight must be reduced by removing passengers, luggage and cargo. This reduces profit for the airline. There is also a threshold temperature above which some smaller domestic aircraft simply cannot take-off. Adelaide Airport is working up a business case to extend the project from its current 4ha trial plot to 200ha of airport land. The lucerne is being irrigated by stormwater captured as part of SA Water’s aquifer storage program but will also include recycled water from SA Water if the project is extended. SA Water Environmental Opportunities Manager Greg Ingleton, who developed the Adelaide Airport concept, will present the findings to more than 1000 delegates at the Airports Council International’s Airport Exchange, one of the aviation industry’s peak annual conferences. Ingleton’s presentation will be part of the Airport Development and Sustainability stream tomorrow (Tuesday, November 26), the middle day of the three-day conference. He said the aim of the presentation was to further raise awareness about the Adelaide trial and generate interest in other locations. “The main aim is to present the facts and figures to the airport stakeholders from around the world and to potentially raise the opportunity to explore the implementation at other airports with us,” Ingleton said. “One of the interesting things to come back from the recent aircraft performance analysis was because Adelaide doesn’t have a busy schedule in the heat of the afternoon, particularly for international flights, the benefit is modest compared to what it could be at other airports where it is a bit hotter and they’ve got a busier schedule during those peak periods particularly for those larger long-haul planes. “We’re also investigating the ability to create carbon credits from growing the crops, demonstrating carbon sequestration whereby the plants absorb CO2 and use it as fuel for growth by locking it in the soil.” Ingleton said the hot daytime temperatures and high air traffic volumes experienced in the Middle East made Abu Dhabi an ideal location to be discussing the project. “Ultimately because of where the conference is being held a lot of the attendees will be from some of these Middle Eastern countries where they do have pressure on their airports to function well, particularly as climate change kicks in and the risk of impacts on aircraft performance, payloads and cancellations increase,” he said. “The extensive hard surfaces and cleared land around airports means they can often become sources of increased heat, which impacts both terminal and airside operations.” Adelaide Airport is the fifth-largest domestic airport and sixth-largest international airport in Australia and processes more than 8 million passengers annually. It has the potential for up to 200ha of lucerne and a further 50–100ha of irrigated turf around the main runway and other infrastructure. Adelaide is known for its hot, dry summers. The city has experienced 12 days in the first three months of 2019 where daytime temperatures exceeded 37C, including a maximum temperature of 46.6C on January 24. The 4-hectare Adelaide trial site is 600 metres south of the airport’s main runway. A number of grass species were initially tried including tall fescue, couch and kikuyu but lucerne, which can be cut into hay and sold as a premium stock feed, had the greatest impact on ambient temperatures. During the study, which has been running for three years, between 12 and 15 millimetres of recycled suburban stormwater was applied to the area up to three evenings a week, with more than 40 temperature and humidity sensors monitoring conditions in the irrigation area, and the persistence of cool air outside of the test zone. This has led to a reduction in average ambient air temperatures in and around the irrigation area of more than 3C on warm days. “Our recent economic analysis, which was based on an expansion of the irrigation area to 200ha, suggests innovative initiatives like this can provide a range of operational efficiencies and wider benefits for airports, and we’re hoping these findings will turn a few heads in Abu Dhabi,” Ingleton said. “The beauty of it from an agricultural production perspective is that the business case stacks up so the cooling is actually free and I think that’s important because any benefit you get from the cooling is a bonus on top of the revenue on the agribusiness side of it.”

https://newsleads.medium.com/cooling-crops-become-hot-airport-topic-e2a7318f9227

['Solstice Media']

2019-11-29 03:50:26.643000+00:00

['Airports', 'Global Warming', 'Physics', 'Sustainability', 'Science']

Bokeh 2.2

Bokeh 2.2 is out this week, with DataTable improvements, SVG export fixes, performance enhancements, a new DocumentReady event, and lots of other small fixes and features. DataTables The DataTable got a style update! The header row and overall theme have been lightened, resulting in a more modern look. #10363 New Datatable! The DataTable also got some improved layout options. A new property was added, autosize_mode , replacing the fit_columns property. This property allows four possible approaches for determining DataTable column widths: fit_columns : compute column widths based on the column’s cell contents, and then pad until viewport is filled. : compute column widths based on the column’s cell contents, and then pad until viewport is filled. fit_viewport : compute the column widths, and then adjust the viewport size to match the computed sizes. : compute the column widths, and then adjust the viewport size to match the computed sizes. force_fit : equally split the total table width across all columns. : equally split the total table width across all columns. none : will not auto-compute widths. DataTables also now allow row and column freezing, similar to the Excel functionality where the first row/column stays static while the rest of the table can be scrolled through. #10353 Color Mapping This release also included the addition of the EqHistColorMapper , which uses a technique called histogram equalization to make structure visible in highly skewed distributions of data. While this technique loses information about the absolute values of data points, it can be very valuable in determining a dataset’s high-level structure. Particularly when combined with the ability to hover, you can get the best of both worlds: make out the global spatial distribution of the data, while also being able to reveal the underlying values. In the next release we will also add support for rendering a ColorBar for this color mapper to help with interpretation of the actual values. Comparison of colormapping approaches SVG Grid Export + Backend Redesign A major redesign of the SVG backend was also completed with this release, fixing some layout and rendering issues: Glpyhs being drawn slightly out of place, or not at all — axis ticks overlaying their axes, missing arrow tails, only a subset of a plot’s glyphs being rendered in the final SVG #9551 SVG export now handles NAN values correctly #10305 Removes extra whitespace in bar charts #8046 See a full list of corrected issues on the PR for this update. #10402 Currently, SVG export is available for individual plots. In the next release, an entire gridplot will be exportable as a single file with a new export_svg function. DocumentReady This release adds a new event type to Bokeh Server, the DocumentReady event. Previously, all components had to fully initialize before a Bokeh Server app would display. This change allows the basic page elements to be rendered quickly, so that the end user sees some visual framework, and any larger computations or data loading can be added as they complete. #10265 Performance Enhancements Several of the features and fixes in 2.2 are direct or indirect improvements to overall performance and efficiency. Some of the notable changes are: Remove excessive re-rendering of toolbar (also fixing a flickering effect) #10191 Speed up hovering, selection, and filtering on plots with many data points #10161 #10162 #10234 Fix over-quoting of Bokeh JSON when embedding, reducing output size #10271 Reduce memory usage by ensuring smaller types arrays are used by default for storing numerical data #10176 #10329 Fixes and Features And finally, some tweaks and additions: Fixed a bug where the SaveTool generated a smaller image than the plot. SaveTool now respects device pixel ratio #10249 Addressed a couple of issues with glyphs (Band, Arrow) not updating when data source updated #10216 #10217 Require authentication to open Bokeh app websocket connections. (Authentication has always been required for the initial HTTP request—this change adds an additional layer of protection.) #10316 Correct instances where typed arrays were being returned as dicts #10153 A new color palette with the colors of the Bokeh logo #10298 Bugfixes and UX improvements for Spinner widget #10367 Season of Docs Bokeh is participating in Google’s Season of Docs, a program to foster collaboration between the open source community and technical writers. After a wonderful application phase with over 50 interested candidates, we are glad to announce that Timo Cornelius Metzger will be working with us to improve the process of creating, reading and sharing Bokeh’s documentation. Welcome, Timo! Next Steps If you have questions after upgrading, we encourage you to stop by the Bokeh Discourse! Friendly project maintainers and a community of Bokeh users are there to help you navigate any issues that arise. If you are using Anaconda, Bokeh can most easily be installed by executing conda install -c bokeh bokeh . Otherwise, use pip install bokeh . Developers interested in contributing to the library can visit Bokeh’s Slack for guidance on best practices and technical considerations. As always, we appreciate the thoughtful feedback from users and especially the work of our contributor community that make Bokeh better!

https://medium.com/bokeh/bokeh-2-2-d9096a223df6

[]

2020-08-24 20:35:00.259000+00:00

['Python', 'Data Science', 'Web Development', 'Visualization']

Design Patterns Saga: Manta Ray vs Butterfly

What’s the problem? Before you jump to create a swimmer guide, take a look at the description of the movement of each stroke. Just to make it visual, I organized everything into a spreadsheet and highlighted things that caught my attention. The Freestyle and Backstroke both swim in a horizontal position, but Backstroke swimmers do it on their back (obviously). Breaststroke and Butterfly use a prone position, but in different ways as well. Butterfly’s body executes a wave-like undulation. The same notes on arm movements. Now, take a look at leg movement and breathing. Freestyle has exactly the same flutter kick as Backstroke and same breathing instructions as Butterfly. In Backstroke, there are no special instructions at all, since breathing is not restricted. Consider the implementation of the swimming guide above. We can override each behavior by concrete swimming stroke classes. Let’s assume that flutter kick is the default leg movement, then whip kick and dolphin kick are overridden behaviors. Butterfly with Manta paddle and Dolphin kick, that’s what I call a naming embarrassment. So far so good. Now you want to add the additional swimming stroke, let’s call it Pupa (still think about 🐛 → 🦋) that has a 100% dolphin kick. I’m guessing you will add an additional base level (or will just copy the Breaststoke’s leg movement implementation). Then you will add some additional strokes, heaven forbid, Synchronous Swimming, that has hundreds of positions. From here on it’s a short slide into madness 🤪. It’s becoming apparent that our previous example suffered from excessive tight-coupling. When code is tightly coupled to a specific solution (or the current model of the problem) it becomes difficult to extend it. The world, for better or worse, is a dynamic place. The problems we already fixed change and our old solutions become irrelevant like yesterday’s news. The Strategy Design Pattern is an attempt to provide extensibility in a dynamic world that achieves a set goal. The method of doing things may change but the end goal remains the same.

https://medium.com/swlh/design-patterns-saga-manta-ray-vs-butterfly-db6622167a04

['Gene Zeiniss']

2020-07-05 05:07:40.269000+00:00

['Design Patterns', 'Object Oriented', 'Composition', 'Java', 'Programming']

“Anxiety likes a blank canvas…”

As a clinician in private practice, one of the phrases that I hear myself repeating often is “Anxiety likes a blank canvas.” This emphasizes several aspects of anxiety: Anxiety is about a possible future that has not happened yet. Anxiety explores options, especially dangerous-feeling “what ifs”. And when there is a lot of blank canvas, there is ample room to paint. Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash Anxiety is about a possible future. The blank canvas is full of possibilities. We can paint happy trees or scary monsters. The future is open to us! But the physical feelings of anxiety are very present. In this present, you may feel your muscles tighten, your heart rate increase, that “itchiness” in your abdomen, the changes in breathing so that your breath becomes shallow and short instead of long and relaxed. Yet in our minds, our thoughts are generally consumed with the future. As I have noted before, anxiety likes to “time travel” to a possible future. Because this future is unwritten (or unpainted), our wonderfully imaginative brains can fill in lots of gaps as to what MIGHT happen, eventually creating such a detailed picture that it feels as if this imagined outcome IS actually happening. Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash Remember that your brain is trying to protect you. We can spend a lot of time being frustrated with an anxious brain, or we can see it for what it is: our armor. Generally, those of us who have more anxiety have had an event (or multiple events) that involved a lower-grade threat to a potentially life-threatening catastrophe. But no matter the intensity or duration of the anxiety-producing event, our present brain wants to make sure that we do not go through that again. So our brain becomes a sort of sentry, a protector, a lookout for danger. And this is where having a “blank canvas” future is challenging. The anxious “lookout” brain begins to see all sorts of “what ifs” in the blank space of the canvas. What if I didn’t turn off the oven? What if that noise is someone in my apartment? What if my child is still doing this when they are an adult? What if I lose my job? Remember that the “what ifs” are about a possible future that has not happened yet, whether that future is something that could happen in the next hour (an anticipated “disastrous” meeting) or in several decades (dying alone). That future has not happened yet, even though it may feel as if it is. This is just how our brains work. Photo by Alice Achterhof on Unsplash So what do we do with a blank canvas? We start to choose how to fill it in instead of letting our “anxious” brain do it for us. So we pause, take a deep breath, remind ourselves to be in this present moment. Then from that calmer place, we can acknowledge the possible anxiety-producing outcome. Once we have acknowledged it (not fought it) we can look for other possible futures, not only the ones from which our brain is attempting to protect us. We may paint using reminders about past good outcomes. Remember back to when this scenario went “just OK” or even when everything worked out well! We may paint with some research that shows us that statistically, our chances of getting attacked by a shark are pretty low. That anxious part of your brain is typically not interested in statistics, but the calmer, more present part of us can better acknowledge what is a real risk and what is not. We may paint with the colors of our present as a way of filling in the space on the canvas. This way our “protector” doesn’t have room to imagine all the potential nightmares. Above all, remember to be kind to yourself. That also means being kind to that part of your self that worries. Be gentle with events that have happened in your past. They have shaped you and made you aware of dangers that might happen, that did happen at one time. But then come back to the present, look at that blank canvas, and choose what you paint next. Hmm, maybe some happy trees?

https://medium.com/whenanxietystrikes/anxiety-likes-a-blank-canvas-9b34ca3f2304

['Jason B. Hobbs Lcsw']

2019-08-23 00:30:10.890000+00:00

['Mental Health', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Anxiety', 'Therapy']

Dieting Addiction

Dieting Addiction A poem about poison Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash She is addicted. She has been hooked since she was young. Sold it as the solution for life. She was told it’s health-giving, necessary. That it will save her. Yet, it’s taken away her life. Stolen precious minutes of every hour. Robbed her of other thoughts, dreams. Her life is no richer. She’s never known the fruits of her labor. Rather, she even denies herself fruit. Yet, she labors on. Believing in the promises they fed her. Believing she will never be enough until she loses “the weight.” Believing she is not enough as she is. She has been fed lies. The “cure” is the poison that keeps her sick. As long as she diets, she will never be free.

https://medium.com/invisible-illness/dieting-18b27e022d9b

['Rachel Miller']

2020-08-08 18:43:47.971000+00:00

['Poetry', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology']

Work with private repositories and other updates of the FlyElephant platform

Work with private repositories and other updates of the FlyElephant platform The FlyElephant team has prepared a number of upgrades that allow you to work with private repositories with an improved system security and good task functionality. FlyElephant is a platform for scientists, providing a computing infrastructure for calculations, helping to find partners for the collaboration on projects, and managing all data from one place. FlyElephant automates routine tasks and helps to focus on core research issues. The Azure cloud is used as a computational resource. Users can run computing tasks written in C++ (with support for OpenMP), R, Python, Octave, Scilab, Java, Julia, OpenFOAM, GROMACS, Blender on servers from 1 to 32 cores and up to 448 GB. Here is a list of our updates: · Working with private repositories. The possibility of working with a private repository using a RSA key, which you can get at your account settings. · The process of running computational tasks was improved. Now the starting command can be specified directly in the form of a task creation. The necessary files — run.sh and build.sh — were removed from repository. · The functionality for saving, stopping, deleting and duplicating tasks was added. · Improved log system. On the task details page you can check in real time all logs of the computing task. · Public API. The public API was realized, which allows to interact with the platform (to manage tasks and data), also to integrate FlyElephant with your solutions or to build a new one on the platform. · New payment system. Users have two accounts now: Computing Hours (CH) and General ($). CH is a bonus account that gives users free calculation time. General — the main account, can be replenished using a credit card. · Referral Program. Invite your friends using a personal link, which you find in the account settings and you’ll receive a bonus (200 CH). · Implemented SSL. · New Documentation. Updated documentation is placed here: https://flyelephant.net/documentation/. We invite you to try the new features of the system. If you haven’t registered yet, go here. After registration, 500 CH will be in your account. Use the promo code 145124070132 and enter it in the Dashboard and you can recharge for another 300 CH. We will be happy to hear your feedback and suggestions on how to improve the platform. We also can hold a 30-minute demo presentation for you with great pleasure. You can book time for a demo presentation right here.

https://medium.com/flyelephant/work-with-private-repositories-and-other-updates-of-the-flyelephant-platform-ab3addf580d2

['Dmitry Spodarets']

2016-03-16 18:00:25.980000+00:00

['Science', 'Data Science', 'Big Data']

Engage Your Audience By Writing In Different Styles

One of the biggest challenges that a new freelance writer faces is the “voice”. When you are writing for clients, your writing voice might not resonate with every single client. You need to speak their branding language. At the same time, you need to figure out the style of writing that your client wants to see. Before bringing on any client, you can expect to spend at least 2 to 4 hours researching the client by reading through the client’s website and supporting materials to adopt their voice. There’s a short cut to this process. If you practiced switching between different styles of writing on your blogs, it becomes infinitely easier to adapt your voice to a company’s voice, a brand’s voice, and an influencer’s voice. I liken the process to acting. Instead of channeling the writer in me, I channel the actor in me. What does a method actor do when they want to play a part well? They have to research and figure out what makes this “person” tick. At the same time, they practice by playing a variety of parts to be able to embody any “person” at anytime The difference between a good writer and an experienced writer is that an experienced writer will mix elements of different writing styles to truly engage the audience with a customized “voice” that fits. For an experienced writer, writing becomes an art form and you create new colors rather than just using the colors. Practice writing these types of articles, you will see your writing improve drastically. You will learn the nuances of each writing style and be able to mix them to write more engaging articles.

https://medium.com/jun-wu-blog/engage-your-audience-by-writing-in-different-styles-fd745c496790

['Jun Wu']

2020-04-15 11:48:15.766000+00:00

['Audience', 'Freelancing', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Writing Tips']

It’s Time to Take a Serious Break, and You Can Do This

It’s Time to Take a Serious Break, and You Can Do This If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s the need for real downtime Photo: AsiaVision/Getty Images Sitting in my usual chair in front of my computer at a ridiculously early hour on a Friday morning, uninspired by every single story idea I was mulling after 11 months and 11 days of writing or thinking about writing every single day, I looked around my home office and said to myself: “Rob, you kinda just don’t wanna write any of these.” My next thought: “These are some good ideas. Why don’t you want to write them? Where is your motivation?” Then finally: “Dude, you really need to take some time off.” “But I suck at taking time off,” I said aloud. (Yes, I talk to myself out loud when dealing with the most intractable challenges — it’s the best way to get my attention.) And I had the usual fear pop into my head: “If you don’t write something today, you’ll slip out of the flow, become irrelevant, never making a living wage again.” That’s when my next story idea germinated: This year, let’s actually work really hard to take a real break. Because we’re terrible at it. Everyone needs a break right now. Among the 75% of U.S. adults who say they’re burned out at work, 40% blame the pandemic and the sudden disruption of working from home. Meanwhile, we Americans are, compared to other developed countries, terrible at taking time off. When we do vacate, however, we tend to return to work more motivated. In a survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association in 2018, 57% of Americans said they return to work more motivated after a vacation, 66% said they come back with more energy, and 68% report a more positive mood upon getting back at it. There’s a flip side, of course: Most Americans say their organization isn’t supportive about time off, so the whole idea of a vacation proves stressful. This is where your willpower must take over. You need time off. You must take it. You will enjoy it. And then you should do it again. Survey says. Getting away from it all is particularly challenging when your home is your workplace. Whether that’s your situation or not, it’s more vital than ever right now to truly shut things down for a stretch. Here are three easy (really!) ways that you can make this happen and ensuring your time off is truly time away from it all, drawing from back in the day when it was much easier to slip away and nobody could contact you even if they tried: First off, tell, don’t ask, your boss about your time off. Be firm about the fact that you will be unreachable. Set email auto-responders for work and even your personal account. Change your voicemail to let everyone know you’re outta here. Delete social media apps from your phone. You can reload them when you get back and everything will be there — every last depressing, sorrowful, aggravating bit. Then go do something you love and something that’s good for the soul. Cook, read a book, hike, bike, create some really long Spotify playlists, sleep in, snuggle for hours in front of your kids’ favorite movies, or even hit the road (safely, of course) with no particular destination in mind (other than where people aren’t). So. I’m publicly vowing here and now to take two weeks off (!) from work and social media and everything, all before 2021 starts to kick our collective butts. Honestly, it will be really, really hard. But I must do it, I can do it, I will do it. Join me?

https://forge.medium.com/its-time-to-take-a-serious-break-and-you-can-do-this-bcae4989274f

['Robert Roy Britt']

2020-12-16 06:33:12.455000+00:00

['Wellbeing', 'Vacation', 'Motivation', 'Mental Health', 'Burnout']

To Read More Books, Practice “The Bill Gates Effect”

To Read More Books, Practice “The Bill Gates Effect” Implement these strategies if you want to read more frequently. Photo via Flickr I’ve reached a point in my life where I enjoy nothing more than sitting down and reading a good book for several hours. But I wasn’t always like this. More often than not, I struggled to find the time, energy, and motivation to sit down on the sofa and read the first page. So how did I become an avid reader in a short amount of time? The answer is adopting the habits of passionate readers, such as Bill Gates, and then implementing them into my own life. So below are several strategies that will help you to read a lot more frequently. Each of these insights changed my life for the better, and I’m confident they will do the same for you, too.

https://medium.com/curious/to-read-more-books-practice-the-bill-gates-effect-4b691854521a

['Matt Lillywhite']

2020-08-14 16:39:29.818000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Education', 'Books', 'Reading']

First $500k: Request for Biotech Startups

Biotech founders, apply to Boost VC for your first $500k! Boost VC is looking to invest in 2 biotech companies in the next 2 months for Tribe 14. Apply at www.boost.vc/apply Over the last couple years we have backed biotech companies: InterVenn (AI driven mass spectrometry), NewCulture (lab grown cheese), Dynomics (regenerative molecules to reverse heart failure), NextBiotics (engineered viruses for good) and are looking for more! Here is a non-exhaustive list of things we are interested in backing: Food to Change Your Mind: 🍄 Whether it be nootropics or psilocybin it is becoming more mainstream to explore how chemicals and food can enhance us all. Read Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” and tell me this wave isn’t coming. Super Babies: 👶 Instead of fixing problems when they happen, can we start out human life minimizing the threats of cancer and disease. Although a delicate subject, more people are becoming comfortable using tools to help conceive healthy children. Software solutions for process problems in life sciences: 💻 As Benchling (Adam angel investment) enhanced and scaled the R&D process for life science, what other processes need improving? Using biotech to solve mass hunger and thirst: 💧More people than ever to feed and less drinkable water. What technological breakthroughs are happening to solve these problems that we can bring to scale? Still the best founders we back are ones who convince us of their vision of the future. We want to hear your idea and tell us how you will make it happen! www.boost.vc/apply

https://medium.com/boost-vc/first-500k-request-for-biotech-startups-a6355b4b01ec

['Brayton Williams']

2020-06-01 18:52:08.824000+00:00

['Venture Capital', 'Biotechnology', 'Startup']

Become a Writer for Chance Encounters

Guidelines Once we’ve added you as a writer, follow these guidelines to submit your story. We only have a few, so take a moment to read them. They do matter. New Stories Only We only accept unpublished drafts. This is so we can ensure proper scheduling and that each story spends ample time on our front page. Follow the Theme Our name is Chance Encounters for a reason. We’re open to all genres and approaches. Stories can be any length but must contain an element of ‘coincidence’ or ‘the unknown’. For more on what we’re looking for, read our intro here. Use Original Images All submissions must include an original featured image right BELOW the title and subtitle. We only accept original images. This can be a photograph, painting, sketch, etc — created by you. Add your credit in the image caption. We do not accept images from Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, etc. Using original images brings an individual quality to each story. It also helps us support and celebrate the artists who create these visuals for a living. The quality of the image you submit matters. We are a visual publication and want our work to reflect that. If you can’t find a unique image for your story or are worried about the quality, don’t worry. You have options: Collaborate with someone who is willing to contribute their own image(s). Credit them in the image caption area and feel free to mention your experience in the story. We call this a chance collaboration. See more about how this works here . with someone who is willing to contribute their own image(s). Credit them in the image caption area and feel free to mention your experience in the story. We call this a chance collaboration. See more about how this works Ask for help. If you still can’t find an image, insert a description of the idea/mood you’re looking for at the beginning of your post. If we like your story, we’ll try to find a photo from our own archives. This may take a few days, but we will leave you a private note with an update. Tag It Please use Chance Encounters as one of your tags. The rest are up to you. Titles, Subtitles, and Text Please proofread your work and create original titles and subtitles for your story. We ask that you avoid using the term ‘chance encounters’ in your post, as that’s the name of our publication. Use your imagination. Often times, less is more. Look at some of our favorite stories for ideas: Questions If you have any questions at all, leave a comment below or send an email to: cewritingteam[at]gmail[dot]com. ~ LB and Attila

https://medium.com/chance-encounters/write-for-us-90705054fba0

[]

2020-10-19 22:01:43.986000+00:00

['Community', 'Collaboration', 'Storytelling', 'Writing', 'Submission Guidelines']

Become More Self-Aware in the Next 3 Minutes

Become More Self-Aware in the Next 3 Minutes Deciding to be alone is always the hardest part Photo by Houcine Ncib on Unsplash Everyone wants to be self-aware, but no one wants to be by themselves. Unfortunately, if we never spend time alone, we’ll never know who we are. Often, it’s not being alone that’s hard, it’s deciding to be alone. The prospect of loneliness — what we might feel when no one’s around — scares us so much that we never make time for it. We might end up alone by coincidence, but we don’t plan for it, and we definitely don’t plan for it frequently. Thus, we rarely ever get there. Once we actually are on our own, however, almost always, we realize: “Hey! This isn’t so bad. The world is still turning!” And then we learn something new about ourselves. One such thing you can learn in the next three minutes, and it might not even require physical solitude. All it takes is finding your reflection. Grab the small mirror in your bag or stand in front of your large one at home. Go to a restroom or turn on your laptop’s camera. You could even use the front cam of your phone, look at its shiny back, or stare at a window. Wherever you can find it, once you see your twin inside the glass, take a deep breath. Sit or stand straight. Close your eyes. Inhale through the nose, hold for a second, then exhale through your nose as well. Then, open your eyes. What you see right now is your face at rest. What does it look like? Is it a happy face? A bored face? A sad face? Are you smiling? Do you look grumpy? Whatever it looks like, without realizing it, this is the face you’re wearing 95% of the time you’re awake. It’s the face people see when you pass them in the street. It’s the face looking at your screen as you work, at your phone as you chill, and at your TV while playing games. It’s the face behind the windshield of your car, the face that walks into a grocery store, and the face that looks at new people as you meet them for the first time. Unless…you change it. If you don’t smile, people won’t see you smiling. If you don’t laugh, no one knows you’re having fun. If you don’t look focused, how should we know not to interrupt you? Facial expressions matter. Knowing ourselves is our responsibility, and it starts with the look on our face. It may seem small, but every day, that’s the message we’re carrying into the world. If we want to change that message, we first have to know what it says. Self-awareness is something we all aspire to, and yet, because of what’s necessary to get there — being alone — we shy away from it at the same time. Today, spend three minutes with the person in the mirror. Get to know them. Take a bathroom break, pretend you’re fixing your makeup, or spend a long time “preparing for a selfie.” It’s okay to make up an excuse. If it helps you know yourself better, it’ll be worth it. Self-awareness is a skill. It takes practice, and to practice, we must make time. Staring at yourself in the mirror won’t be the end of it, but it sure is a start.

https://ngoeke.medium.com/become-more-self-aware-in-the-next-3-minutes-58310d556d12

['Niklas Göke']

2020-06-08 15:04:37.628000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Body Image', 'Self-awareness']

How to Boost Your Productivity While Working From Home

I’m writing this from North Carolina where I’m hunkering down at home with my family. Since I’ve worked from home for over ten years, my daily routine hasn’t been affected very much. Everything feels like normal until I read the news or hear my neighbor’s high school age son playing basketball in the driveway during school hours. But maybe you’re like many of my friends and family members and suddenly find yourself working from home for the first time. It can be a big adjustment from working in an office, especially if you have kids at home too. That’s why I’ve written this article for you. I’m sharing several tips and strategies I’ve collected over the years that help me boost my productivity while working from home. I hope they will help you too as we all adapt to this difficult situation we’re currently experiencing. Let’s dive in. 1. Set up a dedicated workspace I’ve found that one of the number one factors that’s helped me stay productive while working from home is having a dedicated workspace. In the previous house I lived in, I had my desk in my bedroom. In my new home, I have a separate room for my office. I love this because it helps me separate my work from my personal life. It also is a much more professional environment for doing live video calls with my writing and web design clients (I like using Zoom for live calls). If you don’t have a separate room you can set up as an office, here are three tips for making a productive work environment in the space you do have: 1. Try to find a place that’s outside your bedroom, and especially avoid working from your bed in your pajamas. Sitting in bed will make you sluggish, wreck your productivity, and might also threaten your quality of sleep at night. The Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard observes, “Keeping computers, TVs, and work materials out of the room will strengthen the mental association between your bedroom and sleep.” Of course, if you can’t find a private place in your home besides your bedroom, then you can set up a desk and chair in that room. Just make sure you’re not tempted to move to your bed and do your work there. 2. Pay attention to your posture. A desk and ergonomic chair is the optimal workspace, but even then you might need a laptop stand in order to work comfortably. I sometimes raise my laptop up on top of several books so I don’t have to bend my neck down to look at the screen. If you don’t have a desk where you can work, be careful about sitting on your couch for hours. It’s much better to move your workspace around your house throughout the day. In fact, I find that I don’t like working in one place for a long period of time. I’ll start out in my office working on an intensive writing project that requires my full attention. Then I might move to the kitchen table to respond to emails. Afterward, I might work on less intensive projects while sitting on the couch in the living room, but I time myself when I sit there and make sure to get up when the timer goes off. 3. If the only place in your house where you can work is in the living room in front of the TV, and you’re finding it difficult to focus because you usually use that room to relax, try to change the environment. Usually, I work on my fiction projects in the evening when I’m tired and don’t want to sit at my desk. But I still want my brain to be focused. I love putting on ambient scenes on the TV of a fireplace crackling and the sound of rain falling outside. Here are several YouTube channels where you can find these types of scenes: Ambience of Yesteryear, New Bliss, and p12oud. You might prefer playing music. I wrote this article about the different writing rituals of famous authors that helped them get into a flow while they were working. And for more tips on setting up an inspiring workspace, check out my article where I take a peek at the workspaces of several famous writers. 2. Create a Structure to Your Day With a Morning and Evening Routine I’ve run into two challenges while working from home: One, it’s easy to procrastinate on getting started on your projects. And, two, it’s easy to get so caught up in working on your projects that you don’t stop until late into the night. Creating a morning and evening routine is an efficient solution that will help create a structure to your day so you don’t become a workaholic (or lounge about the house all day). I write up a schedule with the exact time I’ll wake up in the morning, what activities I’ll complete before breakfast (for example, reading the Bible, writing in my journal, exercising), then what time I’ll have breakfast, and, finally, the time that I officially have to get started on my workday. Similarly, I have an evening routine. First, I have a set time for when I stop working on any business projects. Usually, this is around 5:00 since I like to spend my evenings working on my fiction writing. I also have a time for when I must shut down my computer completely so I’m not tempted to start working on a business project again late at night. It’s critically important to decide on your working hours. If you’re living with family or roommates, you can tell them exactly when you’re working so they’ll know not to disturb you during that time. Of course, your working hours might be completely different than mine. Maybe you like working on business projects in the evening and prefer to keep your afternoons for other activities. Or maybe you have kids and have to adapt your schedule to their activities. Experiment until you find the solution that works best for your job, your personal life, and your productivity. 3. Make Schedules and Keep Track of Your Projects Aside from your evening and morning routines, I also recommend creating specific schedules and to-do lists for your projects. During your working hours, what will you be working on? You can time block this part of your schedule. For example, from 9am — 11am, you’re working on a copywriting project for a client. From 11am — 12:30pm, you’re replying to emails. When creating your to-do list for the day, don’t make the list so long that it becomes overwhelming. A good medium is 3 to 5 tasks that you could reasonably complete during your working hours. Make sure the tasks are specific. For example, I don’t write, “respond to emails”. Instead, I’ll write something like, “respond to emails from Harry, Larry, and Susan”. In order to keep your daily to-do list short, you should keep track of your projects and deadlines on a single master list. (You could keep it in Evernote, Todoist, or in a physical planner.) The master list is where you write down everything that you need to accomplish (it could be a year-long list of projects or maybe it spans the upcoming three months). Then every night write up a separate to-do list for the next day, pinpointing which items on your master list are your top priorities. Organize the tasks on your daily to-do list according to importance and complete them in order. Begin with the items that are your “Most Important Tasks”. You should try to tackle the MITs first thing in the morning before moving on to the other tasks. It becomes more difficult to complete them the longer and longer you put them off. Depending on what kind of projects you’re working on, you might find it helpful to devote an entire day to working on one project, rather than switching your focus between multiple projects. For example, I might devote Mondays and Tuesdays to writing blog posts, Wednesdays and Thursdays to working on client projects, etc. In this article, I wrote about the journaling method I use to boost my productivity and keep track of all of my projects. 4. Limit Distractions and Take Breaks In today’s world, multitasking has become such an acceptable part of our daily life that it’s a tough habit to break. As we work on a project, we might stop every few minutes or so to check a text on our phone or a notification from Facebook or Instagram. However, our brains can’t focus on a handful of tasks all at the same time. Instead, the brain has to scramble to switch its focus every time we start doing something different. When we’re multitasking while working on an article or any kind of writing project, that means that our brains only have a matter of seconds to jump back and forth as we check Facebook, then write a few lines, then quickly check our email, write a few more lines, then check our text messages, then return to our writing project. According to this Wall Street Journal article, “It takes more than 25 minutes on average to resume a task after being interrupted.” Even worse, “It takes an additional 15 minutes to regain the same intense focus or flow as before the interruption.” That’s forty entire minutes, and that doesn’t even take into consideration multiple interruptions. In order to prevent multitasking, I keep my phone in another room while I’m working. Sometimes I need to access Facebook for my work, but I’ve installed an extension in Chrome that disables the feed so I can only read notifications or visit people’s profiles directly. It’s called Newsfeed Eradicator (it displays an inspirational quote in place of the feed). Additionally, I often use noise-canceling headphones and listen to music to drown out distractions from my surroundings. I also use the Pomodoro technique to sharpen my focus while working on projects. I’ve written more about it here. Essentially, you set a timer for twenty-five minutes during which time you work on your project, and then you take a short five-minute break. Those breaks allow your brain a little bit of time to reenergize but still keep you in the flow. When I’ve been working for about an hour and made good progress, I’ll reward myself with a longer break and might allow myself to check social media or watch a YouTube video. I’ll time this, though, so I don’t take too much time away from the other work I need to do. 5. Stay Healthy Working from home all day can be harmful to your physical and mental health if you don’t take the necessary precautions. As I mentioned before, you need to pay attention to where you’re working. Sitting on a couch all day long can lead to neck and back pain. And that’s not helpful for your productivity at all. Even if you’re careful to have good posture while working, it’s still not healthy to sit for hours. Get up from your desk, stretch, and move around during your breaks. I go for a 30-minute walk outside when the weather is warm. In the wintertime, I like to go for 10-minute walks on a treadmill in my house throughout the day. (I wrote about how walking can boost your creativity in my article here.) I also lift weights and have a stretching routine. My family set up a little gym in our garage where I can lift weights, but if you don’t have access to a gym, you might like to try bodyweight exercises. Here’s a 7-minute bodyweight workout. (Of course, make sure to check with your doctor before beginning any vigorous exercise plan.) Another danger is skipping meals because you get so busy working. Or you might end up binging on unhealthy foods because you’re working right next to the kitchen. Here are some ways to combat that: prepare your lunch the night before (maybe make a big dinner so you have leftovers you can quickly reheat for lunch the next day). Create a meal plan for the week. Stock up on healthy snacks. You also might experience eyestrain if you’re staring at a screen for hours on end. The blue light from computer screens can also disrupt your sleep. To combat this, you might be able to download an app on your computer that changes the tint of your screen at nighttime. I bought a pair of blue light blocking glasses. I wear them in the evening, and sometimes throughout the day too (I also wear them to watch TV in the evening). Here’s an article I wrote all about blue light and about the glasses I bought. Finally, working from home can feel confining if you live alone or if your spouse, family members, or roommates work outside the home. You don’t have colleagues to talk to and bounce ideas off of. With everyone isolating now, you’re probably staying at home as much as possible. But, if you continue working from home in the future, you might find you like working at a coffee shop once a week (or more often) to get out of the house and experience a different environment. Or maybe you try to be more proactive about making sure to meet up with friends. Right now, this could mean a video call. The Takeaway I love the flexibility that working from home provides. If you’re working for yourself, you have complete control over your schedule and when you accomplish certain tasks. But you do need to be disciplined and establish processes that will help you get your work done and also make sure you’re keeping your brain and body healthy. I wish you all the best with your projects and hope these strategies will help you.

https://medium.com/copywriting-secrets/how-to-boost-your-productivity-while-working-from-home-35caafa1c6f0

['Nicole Bianchi']

2020-03-19 20:48:55.780000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Freelancing', 'Work', 'Writing', 'Remote Work']

Resources to Supercharge your Data Science in 2021

Web Resources 🔦 ML Showcase — great for project inspiration, this repository of data science projects from Team Paperspace should certainly get your wheels turning. 🎓 Codecademy — time after time, I find myself recommending this powerful learning platform to folks breaking into coding or looking to pick up new languages. The strength of Codecademy lies in its simplicity — these exercises will get your muscle memory trained up so that you’ll be typing code like a master in no time. 🖌 The Data Visualization Catalogue — this site offers archetypal renderings of all the creative chart options available to help you get your data science point across. Plus, check out i want hue as a data-science-based tool for making your color palette selection. 💻 StackShare —a powerful platform for comparing tools side-by-side. StackShare also offers the perusal of stacks used at titans of Data Science such as Stitch Fix, Uber, Airbnb, and many more. 📚 Git Style Guide — just like PEP8 for Python, git has its own guidelines for naming, commenting, and walking forwards and backwards while elegantly balancing a stack of books on your head. Thanks Agis Anastasopoulos for this resource!

https://towardsdatascience.com/supercharge-data-science-562d891ef7f9

['Nicole Janeway Bills']

2020-12-28 14:13:57.676000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Statistics', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Best Machine Learning Blogs to Follow in 2020

Best Machine Learning Blogs to Follow in 2020 Keep up with the best and the latest machine learning (ML) research blogs through reliable sources From researchers to students, industry experts, and machine learning (ML) enthusiasts — keeping up with the best and the latest machine learning research is a matter of finding reliable sources of scientific work. While blogs usually update in a more informal and conversational style, we have found that the sources in this list are accurate, resourceful, and reliable sources of machine learning research. Fit for all of those interested in learning more about the scientific field of ML. Please know that the blogs listed below are by no means ranked or in a particular order. They are all incredible sources of machine learning research. Please let us know in the comments if you know of any other reliable blog sources in machine learning. The machine learning blog at Carnegie Mellon University, ML@CMU, provides an accessible, general-audience medium for researchers to communicate research findings, perspectives on the field of machine learning, and various updates, both to experts and the general audience. Posts are from students, postdocs, and faculty at Carnegie Mellon [1].

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/best-machine-learning-blogs-to-follow-for-reliable-ml-research-towards-ai-6730ea2df3bd

['Roberto Iriondo']

2020-08-28 03:21:45.407000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Science', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning Blog', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Running a Jupyter Notebook in an Astronomer Airflow Local Development in 6 easy steps

Step 1 Add the following to packages.txt in your Airflow project root directory. These packages are to support the running of Jupyter within your docker image. build-base python3-dev zeromq-dev Step 2 Add the jupyter package to your requirements.txt which also resides in the airflow project root directory jupyter Step 3 Now we’ll need to either create or add to a file named docker-compose.override.yml within the Airflow projectroot directory. This file allows you to append/modify the default docker-compose file for the Astronomer Airflow image. We’re going to open the default port of 8888 for our Jupyter Notebook on the webserver docker container. version '2' services: webserver: ports: - 0.0.0.0:8888:8888 Step 4 Start your local instance with astro dev start if currently running, first run astro dev stop Step 5 Find the docker container id for your Airflow webserver by running docker ps The output will show you 3 images running, one for the webserver, one for the scheduler and another for postgres. In this case we want the container id for the webserver. It should be around 10 characters a mix of lowercase letters and numbers as seen in the image below. Step 6 (Last!) Now we’ll want to execute jupyter notebook from the webserver container by running docker exec -it xxxxxxxxxxxxx jupyter notebook --ip 0.0.0.0 --port 8888 --no-browser Let’s break down the statement above a bit further: docker exec -it — executes a command -it interactive text terminal xxxxxxxxxxxxx is the id of the container found in step 5 jupyter notebook is the command to run jupyter notebook everything after this line are options for running --ip 0.0.0.0 because we’re in a docker image we need to define the ip running as 0.0.0.0 in order to port forward to your local machine --port 8888 is the running port that we defined in earlier steps. If you chose to run on a different port you can put that number here instead --no-browser because this is running within the docker container airflow web server, we do not need a web browser to auto launch as we will handle that on our own. Assuming this all ran correctly you should see output similar to this: Console output from running Step 6 Load up Jupyter Notebook in your favorite browser Now you can use this dockerized notebook as you would any other notebook. By visiting the http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token= link at the bottom of the output we are now running a Jupyter Notebook in our Airflow web server. Note: If you are prompted for a token, you will need to leverage token seen in the output, in the example above it is aa4234d685bf1f43799fd55e49cc86fb2b9feb9da445bd73 This token will be different on every start of the jupyter notebook Jupyter Notebook running in Airflow project root directory Within this notebook you can now write code as you would for a DAG being able to leverage connections, variables and native hooks interactively

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/running-a-jupyter-notebook-in-an-astronomer-airflow-local-development-in-6-easy-steps-5f134da392a0

['Kyle Shannon']

2020-07-24 16:13:40.448000+00:00

['Airflow', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Etl', 'Astronomer', 'Python']

What AI Can Teach Us About Failure

What AI Can Teach Us About Failure Please don’t buy into failure-ism. Train for strikes not gutter balls. Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash If you’ve read anything on business in the last two decades, there’s a good chance you’ve heard that failure is significant, something to be proud of, a badge of entrepreneurial prowess. Ostensibly, the more you fail, you are somehow more successful. This approach is undoubtedly accurate to a point. I agree that failure is a needed part of the process of success, only that we may have emphasized the wrong thing. Now, I’m certainly all for reframing our mistakes as something else, especially when this helps us move forward more productively, gaining resilience and flexibility. This thought process is one of the core ideas behind CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. And the reason is that it works. Studies show that CBT can help us move past some of our worst failures and emerge on the other side, happier, healthier and wiser. But speaking from experience, I’d rather have one success than ten failures, and here’s why. It’s not just me. Experts have been cautioning for a while that this culture of “failure-ism” might not be the best way to achieve our goals. At the heart of Failure-ism is an unsubstantiated, almost romantic notion of the value of randomness. Many motivational speakers seem to be saying that if we open ourselves to the possibility of failure, something positive will happen, almost by a kind of magic. Indeed, recent studies have confirmed that failing is not precisely the panacea that many are making it out to be. Some studies have shown that people do indeed learn from their mistakes, but only if you’re in the same ballpark to the right answer Here’s what the research says: The Centre for European Economic Research, for example, had found that entrepreneurs who previously failed were no more likely than novices to launch a successful venture, echoing another study that found those who had failed before were less likely to succeed than complete neophytes. I don’t know about you, but this reminds me a little of the recent trend of so-called gurus taking a pile of cash, renting a Lambo, and flashing all of this in your face on a YouTube ad. Buy their 1000 dollar course, and you’ll be rolling deep in a Malibu crib with an infinity pool dropping off the edge of a perfectly manicured cliff into your private beach. I read a great article the other day on this subject. It all makes sense, however. How easy it is to reframe failure as success and ironically go out and make money doing this. But you may want to rethink trusting in failure as a sign of success, the same way you’d be wary of a skinny chef. The whole fake it until you’ve made it routine. While I know, many psychologists have recommended this strategy as a coping mechanism, especially in situations like social anxiety, this has taken it to an entirely different level.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/what-ai-can-teach-us-about-failure-52d925fcceab

['Nate Rutan']

2020-09-30 18:21:34.884000+00:00

['Failure', 'Life Lessons', 'Success', 'Psychology', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Can You Really Make Money on News Break?

Can You Really Make Money on News Break? The News Break difference that makes it a revelation Photo: Roman Kraft on unsplash Lately, a couple of my beloved friends/fellow writers have noticed that (once again) I’ve been strangely absent from Medium. Taking lengthy breaks from the platform is always a good indicator that I’ve discovered something new and exciting, and am instead dedicating my time to pursuing this new interest. Yes friends, this has indeed happened. Except unlike with times gone by, the interest I’ve discovered isn’t something unique to me and my situation, I’m merely following the current that has carried many other writers in this new direction. As you already know from reading the title, I’m talking about News Break. Scam? News Break is the news aggregate service we all thought was a scam a month ago. Some of us received emails inviting us to join their new creator program, others of us (including me) did not. Some of those that were invited were turned off by the minimum payment promise of $1,000 each month, because of how fake that sounded. I actually discovered it from a post I deleted from the Medium-focused Facebook group I help moderate. Someone had posted a referral code to the page, which is strictly against the rules, but it did pique my curiosity. I assumed that this kind of new platform would probably be catnip for the types of writers that are drawn to Medium, so I searched ‘News Break’ in Medium and was greeted with a treasure trove of results. The enlightening accounts of everyone’s positive experiences gave me the confidence I needed to apply for the program. I figured that it’s free, so I don’t have anything to lose by giving it a try. Photo: Matthieu Stern via unsplash What does it offer The News Break Creator Program hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to get paid yet, so we won’t know for another week whether or not this program is absolutely, without a doubt, legitimate. (Payment is sent on the 15th of each month for royalties earned during the previous month). But the regular aggregate site that existed before the program has been around for 5 years, and was started by a former executive at Yahoo. So we can assume that News Break probably isn’t selling snake oil. Instead, the site features breaking news and informative articles pulled from all over the web, and has made a lot of money doing so. But now they’re ready to invest a lot of that money into producing original content. That’s right, just like Netflix before them, they’re splashing money all over the internet looking for creators to produce new content just for them. Here’s what they’re offering; They’re willing to pay a minimum of $1,000 per month for writers who will commit to contributing 3 articles per week. I see it as a twist on a conventional advance for novelists. Writers will need to sign a contract to that effect, although the contract states that either parties can cancel at any time. Contracts are really turning off some writers, which I understand. Another interesting element is that the site won’t offer contracts to just anyone, you’ll need to apply and be accepted first. I received my acceptance about 2 weeks after applying. Right now we’re in an early adoption period, so for three months, writing 3 articles per week is the only condition to receive the minimum payment. After three months however, writers will also need a minimum of 500 followers and a viewership of 500 unique readers on each article. While on Medium this would be a near-impossible ask, I’ve personally found that attracting views is a lot easier on News Break. The Difference Since joining the site three days ago, I’ve uploaded 24 articles onto the site. Here are my dashboard stats so far. Screenshot from News Break These stats are actually lower than my real numbers because the dashboard only updates about every 24 hours, which the company claims they’ll improve. The whole platform on the creation end feels like Wordpress did 10 years ago, or blogger did 15 years ago. It’s very basic, and there’s no app for creators. But it’s exciting to be part of something while the paint is still drying. I appreciate being a part of something while it’s still in its infancy and before it gains all the bells and whistles, and drops all the perks. Remember when Medium used to pay bonuses for quality writing? Infancy is a wonderful thing. News Break welcomes previously published work, so I’ve boosted my presence on the site by uploading a bunch of my existing articles that have fleshed out my profile and made me more visible. It turned out to be a smart move, because I’m now well on my way to achieving the follower and viewership requirements, even though I won’t be obliged to until February. Dumping dozens of articles at once onto Medium would be social suicide for this site. It’s far better to upload slowly and regularly, while interacting with all of your readers. News Break feels like a numbers game, where you really need to be present in a big way to be noticed at all. Writers are complaining that they’ve gained 30 followers over two weeks while publishing on a Medium-style schedule. Those writers may have to get a lot more aggressive or risk being lost by the algorithm. Audience Interaction After scanning the hundreds of comments I’ve received, I’ve definitely gained the impression that there are a lot more people on News Break than on Medium. I’ve also gained the strong impression that these are the same people who watch and comment on YouTube videos, because these comments are (for the most part) vile or crazy. For more than a year, I’ve stayed in the relative safety and comfort of Medium. During my time on Medium, I’ve received lots of harsh comments on a couple of my stories. But they all felt like comments written by people who read a lot, and had a strong opinion one way or another. On News Break, I’m getting random racist comments mixed with jokes mixed with others asking about bran muffin recipes. It’s a mess of loud conversation and crazy accusations. While for the most part these comments go down some dark holes, they also make the site feel alive and well trafficked. I’m someone that writes with the hope of exposure, and on News Break I’ve received in three days the amount of views I’d normally get on Medium in a week. That might not sound like a huge difference, but I’ve been a writer on Medium for over a year and a half and have amassed hundreds of stories. I’ve uploaded just over two dozen articles onto News Break and in three days my stats are (by my standards) exploding. The Real Consideration The most important reason News Break works for me lines up with the exact reason Medium has stopped working for me in recent weeks. Once upon a time, my views on Medium were from paid members about 90% of the time. Lately, I’d estimate that roughly 5% of my views are from paid Medium members. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. One factor might be that I’m not producing content that Medium readers care about anymore, another is that I’m producing work that shows up well in a Google search. Unfortunately, it has meant that while my viewership hasn’t decreased, my royalty payments have sharply decreased. My payment for last month was the first that I’ve ever felt was unacceptable for my stats, so News Break is coming at the perfect moment for me in my journey. So I’m not going to quit Medium, but I’m also not going to take it as seriously as I have in the past. I’m going to stop checking my royalty payments, and instead only write for Medium whenever inspiration dictates. I’ll also continue running Money Clip, but won’t check daily as I have before. This may mean that stories will be published a bit slower than they have historically. I won’t be following a schedule, or submitting to outside publications. Instead, all my effort will be going into News Break, which is the platform that best suits my goals and priorities in this moment. Since I’m someone that attracts attention from people who seem disinterested in subscriptions, I’ll be writing articles that aim at attracting attention from everyone, and will enjoy that fact that every read (no-matter where they’re from) counts as a monetised view. Think of the potential when taking away the paywall that prevents so much royalty income. I’ve always said that I’d prefer ads over a lower income stream, and now that’s what I’ve got. I understand that some writers feel that News Break is too crass, and not artistic enough for your personal brand of expression, and I respect that. I agree that not everything is right for a site like News Break, which is why I’ll continue to contribute to Medium sometimes. But for the most part, News Break is exactly my style, and I’ll be giving it all I’ve got. I’ll check back in once I’ve received my first royalty payment in January to confirm once and for all whether or not this is legit.

https://medium.com/money-clip/can-you-really-make-money-on-news-break-b2a45a3a74fa

['Jordan Fraser']

2020-12-07 09:28:10.189000+00:00

['Money', 'Success', 'Writing', 'Finance', 'Entrepreneurship']

Things I Learnt Working For Myself

It’s been over a year since I quit my full-time job to make my way in the world in the ship of ATRIUM Consultancy. I got smart with myself and my social circles and decided to leverage my skills to my broad network. Having been in the Hospitality and Tourism trade for 6 years enabled me to not break into new territory but to use knowledge in an industry I am well versed in. Being an independent worker, people are paying you for your time and for your skill. Once you have established yourself as someone who moves within that industry it’s much easier to reach out to newer clients. My first few breaks came from friends and acquaintances I made during my work years. They have seen the result of my direct involvement of the company I worked for and wanted to see it in theirs. After ten years of working fulltime with a freelance gig on the side, I was able to transcend to being a fulltime-freelance worker. These are a few thing’s that I learnt during my journey. Know Your Worth To be a good consultant you need to have a string of victories behind you. The more ownership you have of those victories, the more you can charge. Even if you don’t and you’re starting up, even as a freelancer make sure that you price yourself well. There are times that people would take this advice without doing a quick reality check of themselves, it may be tough but it’s needed to gauge where you stand. If you do have success stories behind you then you can charge a much higher rate but always check the market for a rough price idea. The habit of overselling and under-delivering is very persistent in the services and consulting industry. So being too cheap to get more business will make you look desperate, whilst overcharging will have no one looking at you. After a year of doing business at various price points, I entered the new year with a higher and more consistent price tag for my services. I weighed the experience I had, the success stories of my life and the service I was offering and decided to mark up my prices and increase the time and energy per client. This meant I would take on fewer clients, but this way I get compensated more which pushes me to work harder, smarter and better.

https://medium.com/the-lucky-freelancer/things-i-learnt-working-for-myself-8cae36bb5592

['Ahamed Nizar']

2020-08-21 23:58:33.035000+00:00

['Tips', 'Startup', 'Freelance', 'Consulting', 'Entrepreneurship']

Monday Marketing Meeting at the Chateaux de la Swine

THE SALSA DIARIES #2 Monday Marketing Meeting at the Chateaux de la Swine There’s a time and place for cock Salsa dyed cock. New from the Chateaux de la Swine. Photo by laura adai on Unsplash At the Chateaux de la Swine it was time for our daily dose of marketing. A meeting that often descended into chaos as each flamboyant hipster tried to outwit the previous. No idea was a dumb idea but I contest that the Pitbull of Chronic Humping™ may have been one step too far. Our mission is to turn the world into a waste dump for our cheaply produced Salsa themed products. ‘If it ain’t got the heat then it ain’t got the salsa’. The meeting coincided with our once a month special endurance celebration. Yes, it was ‘Break An Intern Week’®. Seven days of physical and psychological torture for the thrill of destroying young spirits overflowing with optimism. This was the real world and there are no easy rides at the Chateaux (except for Hilda in Accounts Payable). At the podium stood Smith and Weston. Two young bucks who were yet to break. I hadn’t the faintest idea what their actual names were but was assured that both were aptly titled. Apparently, they went off in your hand Jerry said. I liked Jerry. A loose cannon of a product tester whose ability to smear Salsa on his buttcheeks was legendary. Smith, the Californian blond, was holding erect a large salsa themed, throbbing cock. And by cock, I mean chicken. And by salsa themed, I mean somebody had taken the time and effort to dye the cock in an unceremonious salsa red. The pungent cock was clearly aggrieved as it wrestled in the firm grip of Smith. Weston was beaming. He began to talk. I wasn’t pleased. That damn cock was making a mess all over my expensive boardroom carpet. I had it imported from a whorehouse in Eastern Mongolia. The embedded smell alone reeked of a thousand years of cum related debauchery. I scrabbled around in my second drawer trying to find my Silencer. Weston was now visibly shaking and had started to leave large patches of sweat under each armpit. Jerry meanwhile was fondling his balls under the board table. He knew I was about to make another intern shit his pants. Just then, the cock broke free and ran head-on at Jerry. Unable to free his hands from his pants, the cock flew at his face, beak armed to peck. It was going to be a bloody mess…again. I placed the Silencer on the desk and sat there, gently massaging my forehead as another migraine started to take hold. I wondered if my nemesis Ev Williams ever had days like this. I imagined that even Ev never had to deal with the sight of Janet on all fours probing for a detached eyeball. Roll on Tuesday.

https://medium.com/title-and-picture-gag/monday-marketing-meeting-at-the-chateaux-de-la-swine-72672ff234e2

['Reuben Salsa']

2020-12-13 17:25:02.184000+00:00

['Satire', 'Humor', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Salsa']

User Management With Firebase and Python

Set Up a New Firebase Project and Credentials First things first, we need to set up our Firebase credentials so we’re able to use their APIs. Their documentation is detailed and easy enough to follow. You can find it here. Anyway, let’s still go through the setup process so everybody is on the same page. We’ll only discuss the necessary steps here, so if you’d like to know more details, please visit the page I linked above. Python version and pip installation Firstly, your Python version needs to be 3.5 or above. Ensure you have it installed. Next, we can install the Firebase Admin SDK using pip. Here’s the command you can run from your terminal to do that. $ pip3 install firebase-admin Just a reminder, it’s always better to install a package like this in our virtual environment to keep it contained in just the project that needs it. Generate Google Application Default Credentials Before we can use the SDK, we need to generate our Google Application Default Credentials. Firstly, go to your Firebase console, and click on “Add project.” Firebase console Let’s give our project a name: python-admin-sdk-demo . Name the Firebase project The next step is to enable Google Analytics. For the purpose of this tutorial, we don’t need this to be turned on, so let’s just turn it off. After you disable it, click on “Create project.” Google Analytics — turned off Firebase will then set up and generate the new project for you. Once it’s finished, click on “Continue” to go to your Project Overview page. Project Overview On the top left-hand side, click on the cog icon next to “Project Overview,” and select “Project settings.” Project settings Then, navigate to the Service accounts tab. Click on Python for the Admin SDK configuration snippet. Service accounts Go ahead and click on “Generate new private key.” A window like below will pop up. As it says in the warning on the window, remember to keep the private key secure. Do not commit this to your project repository. All right, we can continue and click on “Generate key.” Generate a new private key Firebase will open a prompt and ask you where you want to save the JSON file. Let’s create a new folder called python-admin-sdk-demo and store the file in there. Great! We have what we need to be able to call the Firebase Admin APIs now. Let’s see how we can set it up in Python. Here’s the instruction from Firebase: “When authorizing via a service account, you have two choices for providing the credentials to your application. You can either set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable, or you can explicitly pass the path to the service account key in code. The first option is more secure and is strongly recommended.” So let’s follow their recommendation to set an environment variable named GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS and give a value of the path to the JSON file we just downloaded from Firebase. From your terminal, let’s execute the following command to set the environment variable. ~/demo/python-admin-sdk-demo ❯ export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/Users/billyde/demo/python-admin-sdk-demo/python-admin-sdk-demo-1a64n-firebase-adminsdk-ze72a-5a36713w1q.json ~/demo/python-admin-sdk-demo ❯ echo $GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS /Users/billyde/demo/python-admin-sdk-demo/python-admin-sdk-demo-1a64n-firebase-adminsdk-ze72a-5a36713w1q.json Cool. Let’s write the Python code now. Create a new file in your project directory and call it initialise_firebase_admin.py . This is what the content will be: initialise_firebase_admin.py Now, if we go back to the terminal and execute the following command, we’ll be able to see that the Firebase Admin App was successfully initialised. ~/demo/python-admin-sdk-demo ❯ python initialise_firebase_admin.py <firebase_admin.App object at 0x125d19wg3> Perfect! We’re ready to move on to more exciting stuff now.

https://medium.com/better-programming/user-management-with-firebase-and-python-749a7a87b2b6

[]

2020-03-13 23:41:49.551000+00:00

['Data Science', 'Firebase', 'Python', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering']

Unleash Your Full Potential With The Power of Mindfulness

Unleash Your Full Potential With The Power of Mindfulness 10 wise quotes to inspire success in your life by Eckhart Tolle. Photo by Lukas Rodriguez from Pexels You feel stuck in your life? Do you wonder when the magical moment will come when you have the energy to do what is necessary to fulfill your wildest dreams? Why are we not fulfilled? Why is a success not coming for us? Eckhart Tolle is one of the most inspiring spiritual teachers of our time. His simple teachings have helped millions to live happier lives, but for advice on becoming successful we look up to entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. Mindfulness is for private stuff, so we think. But everything is connected. Being aligned with the present moment is the start of every success story. Here are 10 powerful quotes to help you escape mediocrity and fulfill your wildest dreams. Get inspired to unleash your full potential with the power of mindfulness.

https://medium.com/change-your-mind/unleash-your-full-potential-with-the-power-of-mindfulness-cdedaf243548

['Karolin Wanner']

2020-12-23 11:03:09.372000+00:00

['Success', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Psychology']

Amazon Is at War With Its Workers

Stories about working conditions in Amazon’s warehouses — and efforts by Amazon’s warehouse workers to change those conditions — stretch back nearly a decade. But like other systemic crises, Amazon workers’ fight for dignity and safer jobs has been greatly amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. With a rising count of warehouse workers confirmed infected with the coronavirus—at least 153 cases across 65 warehouses worldwide—and nine walkouts and shutdowns around the world, the urgency of this fight has become far more evident. The activism of Amazon workers in recent weeks feels different than previous organizing efforts. Workers seem to be more coordinated and widespread. Previously reticent white-collar tech workers are starting to speak out more publicly about the treatment of Amazon workers. And these actions are producing results: After efforts by part-time workers in Detroit and Sacramento to ensure paid time off accelerated because of the coronavirus pandemic, Amazon granted PTO to warehouse workers nationwide. When Amazonians United NYC, a logistics workers’ group, launched a petition for basic protections and resources, the company agreed within days to provide paid sick leave to all workers who test positive or are quarantined. The company also pledged $25 million for a hardship fund to support workers. Following recent walkouts at several Amazon warehouses, the company announced that it will be handing out masks and taking workers’ temperature when they arrive at a warehouse. That’s a far cry from meeting all the demands that Amazon workers sought, but it’s a sign the company is aware that it needs to respond to the unfolding public health and public relations crisis. Does this mark a fundamental shift in the dynamics between Amazon’s workers and company management? To get a proper sense of the scale of Amazon worker actions right now, it’s important to take a global perspective. Amazon runs almost 1,100 warehouses around the world, with about 600 of those outside the United States. Some of these workers are more organized and active than others, but nearly all of them have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. “There is a culture of fear. It has always been like that at Amazon.” Since March 15, Amazon fulfillment centers in Italy, Spain, and France have seen strikes, walkouts, and protests demanding greater safety precautions for workers. Some of these actions are generating results: In Italy, an 11-day strike at a warehouse in Castel San Giovanni sparked by the discovery of a coronavirus case and poor prevention measures at the facility led to the adoption of such measures as maintaining two-meter separations between workstations and longer break times to accommodate rigorous hand-washing. In Spain, safety complaints led the Ministry of Labor to install an independent safety commission at the San Fernando de Henares facility in Madrid. Eugenio Villasante, senior communications manager of UNI Global Union (formerly Union Network International), an international labor federation, says his organization is hearing from a lot of Amazon workers. “From Poland to Czech Republic to Slovakia, the U.K., the U.S., we hear very similar stories. People are [so close that they’re] rubbing each other’s shoulders in the locker room. They are putting [people on] microbuses to take them to warehouses where they don’t feel they are protected.” Although there haven’t been explicit, formal gestures toward widespread U.S.-Europe work stoppages, it has happened in the past, most recently in July 2019 on Prime Day. There are some informal indicators of international warehouse worker solidarity. As of April 3, around one-fifth of the 5,000-plus signatures on the Amazonians United NYC’s petition for worker protections are actually from warehouse workers in Poland. There’s also evidence to suggest a greater sense of solidarity among Amazon workers across subsidiaries and ranks. Another one-fifth of those signatures of the Amazonians United’s petition came from white-collar workers like software engineers, film producers, and executives. Signatories included Amazon Air staff, customer service representatives, and even one third-party seller. Apparently, it’s not just Amazon’s warehouse workers worried about their health and safety on the job. Whole Foods employees recently staged sick-outs, and organizers are maintaining a public inventory of coronavirus cases among workers (currently 149 cases at 100 stores). In the Philippines, subcontractor employees at an Amazon Ring call center were made to choose between sleeping in their office in “subhuman” working conditions and forgoing pay. They instead wrote a scathing letter to their employer and worked with BIEN, a local organizing network for call center workers, to demand the option to work from home. While the majority of workers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters are now working from home, hourly contractors like receptionists, janitors, and security staff have had to show up to the empty HQ, putting themselves and their families at risk of exposure. An anonymous online petition demanding the HQ close so contractors can stay home has gathered more than 200 signatures. While not as attention-grabbing as a walkout, such petitions speak to the fact that Amazon workers are articulating their demands and organizing themselves with the resources they have. A quick search of Change.org and Coworker.org show workers articulating demands — everything from an appeals process for termination to shutting down and cleaning facilities with Covid-19 cases. The many anonymous signatories of these petitions are also a reminder of the risk workers take when speaking out. Amazon workers seeking to organize also have to face the prospect of losing their jobs in the midst of a major economic depression. Although Amazon denied that the firing of Staten Island warehouse worker and walkout organizer Christian Smalls was an act of retaliation, a leaked memo in which senior leadership planned to smear Smalls somewhat undermined their claims. In mid-April, Amazon fired an additional two white-collar employees who had been critical of working conditions within the company’s warehouses. “There is a culture of fear. It has always been like that at Amazon,” says Sarah Fields, a returns center associate at an Amazon warehouse in northern Kentucky. “Especially with unemployment as high as it is, people aren’t trying to risk their jobs, their health insurance.” After learning about a potential coronavirus case at her warehouse, Fields tried contacting state agencies about the company’s failure to inform workers about the potential case. Then she began encouraging co-workers to do the same. Frustrated by state inaction, she contacted Smalls, who suggested she walk out. It was an action Fields didn’t know how to do on her own, let alone convince her colleagues to do. Smalls tells OneZero that he’s been receiving messages from Amazon workers across the country and around the world who are eager to organize. The derogatory memo apparently drew outrage from some white-collar employees within Amazon, and Staten Island workers held a second walkout a week after Smalls’ termination. This week, Gizmodo reported on Tech Speaks Out, a campaign organized by workers at tech companies, including Google, Amazon, and Facebook, to voice their support for Amazon’s warehouse workers. Amazon workers are realizing their own power at a moment when Amazon’s influence on the economy has never been larger. Smalls says he’s been involved in the development of a still-nascent national strike fund to financially support Amazon workers who may lose their jobs over protesting — which, alongside efforts like a recently established Amazon Whistleblower Support Fund, could soften the blow of potential retaliation. Amazon workers are realizing their own power at a moment when Amazon’s influence on the economy has never been larger. Last year, Amazon made up 37% of all retail sales in the United States — 4% of all retail spending in the United States. To keep up with a spike in customer demand during the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, the company hired 100,000 employees in the last month alone and wants to hire 75,000 more. Most of the videoconferencing, chat services, and binge-watching that’s maintaining some semblance of a status quo right now depend on Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud platform and the most profitable arm of the company. If workers at Amazon really did engage in a cross-company shut down, it would cripple much of the commerce that still exists and bring most of the internet to a grinding halt. With every new action, questions about the role Amazon plays in our economy and the conditions of its workers are coming to the fore. When asked about the recent actions by workers, Dania Rajendra, director of anti-Amazon coalition Athena, said, “Amazon’s failure to consider the needs of the people who make the corporation function is not new. There already was a worker health crisis at Amazon before the pandemic.” The coronavirus may be the most high-stakes manifestation of why Amazon’s labor policies need to change, but it’s far from the first. Turning those high stakes into a moment for worker unity — across borders, across class lines, with public support — is a challenge, but not an impossible one. And it’s not entirely unprecedented. As Villasante of UNI Global Union points out, “This is how the labor movement was built: on the backs of workers who made very difficult decisions on factory floors, in supermarkets.” He believes we are approaching a tipping point where “workers [are] more afraid of a virus than their boss.” For its part, Amazon is trying to reclaim the narrative, pointing to small improvements in working conditions and to the company’s plans to build coronavirus testing facilities. For now, workers seem to be saying those efforts are too little, too late. Fields is impassioned about improving the conditions in her facility. In reiterating the call for paid sick leave, she got to the heart of the workers’ struggle: “Bezos’ money is our money. Give us our money now. That is our money. It’s all ours.”

https://onezero.medium.com/amazon-is-at-war-with-its-workers-661673e9dbc4

['Ingrid Burrington', 'Mary Jirmanus Saba']

2020-04-14 13:36:18.007000+00:00

['Amazon', 'Labor', 'Protest', 'Workers Rights', 'Coronavirus']

Event-driven autoscaling of Kubernetes workloads using KEDA

In my previous article, we explored how to use RabbitMQ Extension for Azure Functions. We discussed how to create an Azure Function using RabbitMQ Extension. The function gets triggered when we send a message to a RabbitMQ Queue. We also discussed how to generate a Dockerfile so that we can use it in production environments. In this article, we will explore how to deploy this function in a Kubernetes cluster and autoscale it using KEDA. What is KEDA? KEDA is Kubernetes Event-Driven Autoscaling. KEDA is a lightweight component that determines when a container should be scaled. KEDA works along with Kubernetes’s Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. KEDA can scale any container in Kubernetes from 0 to n based on how many events are waiting to be processed. KEDA can process Kubernetes Deployments and Jobs. Deployments are a common way to scale the workloads. When there is a long-running task, we have to use Kubernetes Jobs. Some of the crucial concepts in KEDA are: Scaling Agent: The primary goal of the Scaling Agent is to activate and deactivate deployments. Metrics Server: The Metrics Server acts as a Kubernetes Metrics Server. Metrics Server sends scaling parameters like Queue Length, Number of messages in a stream to HPA so that HPA can initiate scaling. Scaler: Scalers are responsible for collecting metrics from an event source. The scale handler talks to the scaler to get the event metrics. Depends on the reported event metrics by the scaler, the scale handler scales the deployment or job. Scaler acts as a bridge between KEDA and external event sources. KEDA provides many built-in scalers. Kafka, RabbitMQ, AWS Kinesis, Azure Service Bus, NATS are some of the built-in scales. ScaledObject: ScaledObject is a Kubernetes Custom Resource Definition (CRD). We should deploy a ScaledaObject to scale a Deployment. ScaledObject defines the deployment name, minimum replicas, maximum replicas, metadata for scaler. Deploy KEDA to the cluster KEDA provides Helm charts to deploy to the cluster. First, we need to add the Helm repo. helm repo add kedacore https://kedacore.github.io/charts helm repo update Then we need to create a namespace (this is not a mandatory step, you can install KEDA to the default namespace). After that, we can install KEDA using Helm. I suppose you are having Helm 3. kubectl create namespace keda helm install keda kedacore/keda --namespace keda Now we have deployed KEDA to our cluster. We can verify it by getting the pods. kubectl get pods --namespace=keda You can see the KEDA operator and metrics server pods are running. Now we need to deploy our function and enable KEDA. Deploy Azure Function on Kubernetes and enable KEDA To deploy our Azure Function on Kubernetes, we need to generate the YAML file with Deployment resources. We can manually create the YAML file or use the Azure Functions Core Tools to create the file. We will use the Azur Functions Core Tools to create the file. We can use the func kubernetes command to generate the YAML file. To generate the YAML file, go to the project folder, and run the following command: func kubernetes deploy --name <name-of-function-deployment> --registry <container-registry-username> --dry-run This command will create a YAML file and deploy it to the cluster. The name parameter specifies the name of the deployment. The registry parameter specifies the container registry. The registry parameter tells the tool to run a docker build and push the image to the registry/name. Alternatively, you can use image-name to pull an image. The registry and image-name parameters are mutually exclusive. The dry-run parameter will display the YAML. Use output redirection operator to save the content. func kubernetes deploy --name <name-of-function-deployment> --registry <container-registry-username> --dry-run > func-deployment.yml This command will generate a Deployment resource, ScaledObject resource, and a Secrets resource. The Secrets resource is generated using the contents in the local.settings.json file. Here is the generated resource definition. data: AzureWebJobsStorage: VXNlRGV2ZWxvcG1lbnRTdG9yYWdlPWZhbHNl FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME: ZG90bmV0 RabbitMqConnection: <base64 of RabbitMQ connection string> apiVersion: v1 kind: Secret metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default labels: app: mqfn spec: selector: matchLabels: app: mqfn template: metadata: labels: app: mqfn spec: containers: - name: mqfn image: <image name> env: - name: AzureFunctionsJobHost__functions__0 value: fn envFrom: - secretRef: name: mqfn --- apiVersion: keda.k8s.io/v1alpha1 kind: ScaledObject metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default labels: deploymentName: mqfn spec: scaleTargetRef: deploymentName: mqfn pollingInterval: 5 # Optional. Default: 30 seconds cooldownPeriod: 30 # Optional. Default: 300 seconds minReplicaCount: 0 # Optional, Default 0 maxReplicaCount: 30 # Optional. Default: 100 triggers: - type: rabbitmq metadata: type: rabbitMQTrigger queueName: sampleq name: inputMessage host: RabbitMqConnection --- We need to make one more change manually to deploy to the cluster. We need to add a metadata queueLength. The queueLength represents the number of messages in the RabbitMQ Queue, the HPA scales pods based on this number. For example, if the queueLength is 10 and there are 30 messages in the RabbitMQ queue, the HPA will scale to 3 pods. Here is the final template. data: AzureWebJobsStorage: VXNlRGV2ZWxvcG1lbnRTdG9yYWdlPWZhbHNl FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME: ZG90bmV0 RabbitMqConnection: <base64 of RabbitMQ connection string> apiVersion: v1 kind: Secret metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default labels: app: mqfn spec: selector: matchLabels: app: mqfn template: metadata: labels: app: mqfn spec: containers: - name: mqfn image: <image name> env: - name: AzureFunctionsJobHost__functions__0 value: fn envFrom: - secretRef: name: mqfn --- apiVersion: keda.k8s.io/v1alpha1 kind: ScaledObject metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default labels: deploymentName: mqfn spec: scaleTargetRef: deploymentName: mqfn pollingInterval: 5 # Optional. Default: 30 seconds cooldownPeriod: 30 # Optional. Default: 300 seconds minReplicaCount: 0 # Optional, Default 0 maxReplicaCount: 30 # Optional. Default: 100 triggers: - type: rabbitmq metadata: type: rabbitMQTrigger queueName: sampleq name: inputMessage host: RabbitMqConnection queueLength : '20' --- Let’s deploy the function to the cluster. kubectl apply -f func-deployment.yml Let’s check the deployment. kubectl get pods -w You cannot see the function pod since KEDA scaled it to zero. Now let’s run the RabbitMQ producer in another command shell to send a message to the queue. node send.js TemperatureReading 19.2 If everything goes well, you can see the function pod running. pods creating and terminating Now we have successfully installed KEDA and deployed a function. Since we send only one message to the RabbitMQ queue, there is only one pod. If you send around 40 messages then the HPA will create 2 pods since our queueLength is 20. The ScaledObject Let’s look at the ScledObject in detail and understand it. Given below is our ScaledObject. apiVersion: keda.k8s.io/v1alpha1 kind: ScaledObject metadata: name: mqfn namespace: default labels: deploymentName: mqfn spec: scaleTargetRef: deploymentName: mqfn pollingInterval: 5 # Optional. Default: 30 seconds cooldownPeriod: 30 # Optional. Default: 300 seconds minReplicaCount: 0 # Optional, Default 0 maxReplicaCount: 30 # Optional. Default: 100 triggers: - type: rabbitmq metadata: type: rabbitMQTrigger queueName: sampleq name: inputMessage host: RabbitMqConnection queueLength : '20' This object contains apiVersion, kind, metadata as usual. Then comes some of the interesting elements: scaleTargetRef — tells the HPA which deployment to scale. minReplicaCount — Minimum number of pods to maintain, in our case it is 0 minReplicaCount — Maximum number of pods to create pollingInterval — Polling Interval, how often to contact the event source for new metrics. We should select the value judiciously, otherwise, there will be a performance hit. cooldownPeriod — Cool Down period specifies how long the system should wait before terminating the pod. type — Type specifies the scaler, in our case it is rabbitmq. metadata — Metadata is scaler specific, it will be passed on to the selected scalar. In the next article, we will explore how to create a custom scaler.

https://medium.com/swlh/event-driven-autoscaling-of-kubernetes-workloads-using-keda-12524f8ade3

['Krishnaraj Varma']

2020-05-20 13:00:27.202000+00:00

['Keda', 'Kubernetes', 'Azure Functions', 'Rabbitmq', 'Event Driven Architecture']

How Authors Can Test Their Writing Before Publishing

How Authors Can Test Their Writing Before Publishing Building a following and getting eyes on your writing before you publish Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash As authorpreneurs, we understand the impact an audience has on our success. We want to make sure we are delivering content that people want to read. But what happens when you’re a new author and haven’t published yet? Maybe you’ve adopted a pen name to write in a different genre, or maybe you haven’t quite found that sweet spot. You aren’t sure how to cater to your audience the right way. Testing your work before publishing is a great way to understand what your audience wants and what they are willing to buy from you. Fear not! If you don’t have a mailing list or an audience yet, these tips are still extremely helpful for building a following and growing your readership. Start a blog The age old solution to building a mailing list or getting eyes on your work is posting on a blog. Fiction or non-fiction, blog writing is a great way to practice some SEO strategies and get some authentic page reads. Non-fiction writers have the upper hand with blogs — writing about their topic and establishing themselves as a thought-leader on the subject. Fiction writers can still benefit from blogging, but don’t let it take away from the important work — writing fiction. You can even write your book via blog posts for each chapter. You’ll gain some interest, and if you don’t share all of your work, you can have an audience ready to purchase your book so they can figure out the ending. Make sure you have a clear call to action in each post. Give them a link to your mailing list and encourage sign ups. Promise a few extra chapters if they sign up for your mailing list or give them a small freebie to keep them interested. Make it worth their while. Share on Medium Another great place to get eyes on your work is through Medium. While there is a price tag subscription, you’re reaching an audience that is actively looking for your kind of work. Fiction is less prominent on the site, but it’s a great way to establish yourself and grow your talents. You can learn a lot on the site, and it’s always worth the investment to improve your skills. Create on Patreon While this is incredibly useful if you already have an audience, it’s also a great way to connect with your fans and keep them interested in your work. Offer some chapters or stories for free, show some behind-the-scenes material, and give your fans something extra for following along and paying you. There are tons of ways to post for free but you can also offer premium content like free books in the future, extra stories, or exclusive first-looks at material. Post on Wattpad While you have to work to grow readers on Wattpad, this is a great place to test out your chapters and get some feedback. Most people on Wattpad are avid readers and writers, so they are always looking for new content. Plus, with a fiction focus, you can test out your chapters and specifically ask for comments and feedback. There are also several groups that offer reading and comment swaps so you can actually get feedback from people who are searching for it themselves. You can offer bonus content on Wattpad like different perspectives, or you can test out new story ideas. Post a few chapters and ask if people are interested in the story, the things they like or dislike, and whether they think the characters are relatable. Treat it like a pre-beta reader. Share on Scribophile With both free and premium options, Scribophile is potentially a step up from Wattpad because the people there are actively working to publish their work. It’s a better model in that you have to give feedback in order to get it. If you haven’t participated in the writing community, you won’t be rewarded with the option to post your work. It’s a good way to develop your review skills as well as study other writing with a specific focus on producing good work rather than just writing and writing and not giving back to the community. Build a beta reader list Once again, this is easier if you do have some published work, but you can start to build a beta reader list now. Ideally, you have only a few (3–5) beta readers who are actively looking to give feedback on your work. You get a free community to showcase your work to and ask them for advice or direct them with questions about your work. Test new book ideas with them, share your outline and ask for feedback, and make sure they are within the target market for your story.

https://medium.com/the-winter-writer/how-authors-can-test-their-writing-before-publishing-f78f0c12cd11

['Laura Winter']

2020-10-30 10:06:55.703000+00:00

['Publishing', 'Nonfiction', 'Fiction Writing', 'Authorpreneur', 'Writing']

7 Ways To Get More Energy And Motivation Daily

Be Proactive & Strategic For Maximum Results… Image Courtesy of Unsplash Sometimes we get caught up in our own daily lives which may lead to not accomplishing our goals because of lack of energy, focus and even motivation. Looking for a quick fix in making us feel better can include things that are hurtful to our bodies that could hurt us long-term. Struggling through days where enough energy is expended, a change has to occur. I started implementing a few things that made me feel better, gave me lots of energy and a ton of motivation in order to complete daily tasks. Eating The Right Foods Most fitness experts will tell you that 90% of what you put in your body will change the scope of your health in a positive way. Eating the right foods is definitely something that you should do to get more energy and subsequently be healthier. You can start by doing research on the food that you eat and writing a detailed plan out for accountability. Know that details matter when you are dieting because some grocery products are loaded with sugar and other harmful ingredients. Image Courtesy of Unsplash Fruits and vegetables along with plenty of water can be a start for anyone that’s struggling to get their energy back. Take A Multivitamin That Works For You For the past 15 years, taking multivitamins seem to give me a lot of energy and I can actually feel when I haven’t taken them as well. Make sure you consult with your doctor before taking any multivitamins and do some research because you need to know exactly what your body is consuming. You probably will go through a couple of different brands until you find a multivitamin that works for you. I would suggest making sure that iron is a core ingredient because it seems to correlate with energy. Adequate Sleep And Rest It is so important to get proper sleep and rest because it’s the core of having higher energy focus and the start of motivation. I couldn’t imagine anyone being motivated to do anything without adequate sleep. Naps can be very important too because it allows your body to rest in a short period of time. A quick 1 to 2-hour nap can give you so much energy and relaxation and should make you feel like you can accomplish a lot. If you sleep with the TV on at night, be sure to get maximum rest and as much silence as possible by turning it off when possible. Sleep, energy and motivation are compatible with overall adequate rest in order to function properly. Get Excited About Accomplishing Goals As you start putting ideas in place, you should get motivated and excited to accomplish anything. Waking up every morning excited should be your norm because it’s a blessing to be alive and you are one day or maybe even an hour closer to something special. It can be hard if you don’t go about things the right way but for a person that is confident and understands his or her journey, nothing should stop you from being excited. Image Courtesy of Unsplash As you start checking off personal goals (even if they’re small), you should be energized and motivated to getting one step closer to accomplishing your goals. Daily or Weekly Exercise Exercising is the one thing that you can do to get more energy. The thing that you must understand about exercise is that it’s a process. It starts with a plan so just don’t get up and start exercising without structure and approval from your physician. You don’t have to spend money by getting a gym membership or hiring a personal trainer. Remember that you can always start stretching and doing that alone is better than zero physical activity. Be encouraged to implement daily or weekly exercises so you can have a little more pep in your step for energy and motivation. Avoid Negativity At All Cost One of the most important ways to get energized and motivated daily is by avoiding negativity at all cost. It can be completely draining and frustrating when someone is constantly being negative towards you. The reason you should avoid it at all cost is that it can consume you by having self-limited beliefs. Some people can be extremely toxic but don’t let their ways steer you from your greatness. Be prepared because some people want you to fail but you shouldn’t adhere to their belief system only yours is important. Think about all the great people that ever lived especially the ones we look up to. They all had haters, doubters, or just someone that was filled with bad energy. Image Courtesy of Unsplash It’s your responsibility to be successful, to be around better people and put yourself in a better position. It’s up to you in order to embrace positivity even from within regardless of how things may appear. If you are motivated by the negativity of other people, then so be it if that works for you. Always welcome criticism but at the same time reject constant negativity at all costs. Find Time For Yourself To Reflect In order to get energized and motivated to do anything, you must find time for yourself to reflect. This can be very helpful to motivate you if you can find time to think about a situation whether its short term or otherwise. It doesn’t matter if you find time to reflect privately or publicly. People are different and operate independently in their own way according to comfort levels. Don’t live in a bubble so go out and have some fun in the process. Be safe in a great environment and be responsible but find a reflection point to be proud of at that moment. Have one of your favorite beverages if that’s your thing. It might be helpful for you to get out of your comfort zone in a celebratory way while reflecting. Remember this is your only life so make the best of it. Get energized, find your motivation and be happy! How Do Find More Energy And Motivation In Your Life?

https://medium.com/thrive-global/7-ways-to-get-more-energy-and-motivation-daily-ecdbfa30af58

['Andre L. Vaughn']

2019-02-05 18:28:05.737000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Wellness', 'Success', 'Motivation', 'Energy']

Growing up in post-Blackout London

It was very pretty and very green. Grass went all the way from the wall right up to the edges of the big, glass building in the middle. It must have been seventy stories high and it sat on top of an old red-brick building, a little bit like the ones near the market, but far bigger. The houses near the market were long and tall, squatting next to each other in rows. This one was much wider, almost as wide as our entire block, but it wouldn’t have been tall without the skyscraper. Grandma once tried to explain to me the difference between a high-rise and a skyscraper, but I hadn’t fully understood what she was saying until that moment. It looked like it could really cut the sky open with its pointed tip. I bet you could see the whole world from the top. I wondered if perhaps this was the world outside of the city that grandma had told me about. It was difficult to say. The grass did stretch pretty far, but the wall and the city were still on all sides. Maybe this was a bit of the outside but inside the city. I made a mental note to ask her when I got back. Steps climbed up towards the red-brick house. Steps not stairs, I decided. Each single stair would be much higher than these steps. These steps seemed more decorative than functional. I wondered why the builders even bothered to put them in. It’s not like the families who lived in this house needed to be a little bit higher, they had a skyscraper; and it didn’t look like this road was likely to overflow with toilet water like ours did sometimes. My nose wrinkled instinctively at the memory. Staring up at the house and the skyscraper on top of it, I felt suddenly uncertain. There didn’t seem to be any papers flying around here. I got the feeling that I shouldn’t just walk into someone’s house without knowing anyone inside. What if they thought I was trying to steal something? And so, like this, I froze, staring up at the house, one foot stretched out ready to climb the steps into it. While I had been busy wrestling with my own conscience and the morality of entering a house unannounced, an old lady emerged from between the open doors. She must have been my grandmother’s age, perhaps a little bit older — her hair was whiter but thicker, arranged nicely in a ropey coil around her head, her skin was more wrinkled but also a little lighter, a pale woody beige — as she got closer, her eyes glinted from beneath heavy lids, just like my grandma’s. She smiled and I smiled back. “Hello,” She said. Her English sounded a little bit like mine, but softer, like someone had rubbed the edges from her words. I pondered this for a moment before hurriedly returning her greeting. “Hello.” “What are you doing out here, all alone?” She asked, looking around as though trying to locate someone who might claim me. “I’m looking for words.” I said, letting my eyes slip away from hers to look at the house once more. “Words? What kind of words?” “Hmm, I like long ones best, but it doesn’t really matter.” I admitted, “My grandma can’t write anymore, so I have to find words that we can use to tell stories, otherwise — ” I choked a little, surprised by my own emotion. I swallowed it, annoyed. “Otherwise there will be no stories and that would be sad.” I concluded with a little nod of my head. “I see…” The old lady looked thoughtful. “Would you mind waiting here one moment? Perhaps I can help you.” I nodded several times in quick succession to show her I meant it and planted my feet firmly at the base of the steps. I would not be going anywhere. By the time the old lady returned, I had sat down. The walk had tired me more than I’d thought, my stomach ached with emptiness. I almost hoped that she’d conveniently forgotten my quest for words and had come back instead with something for me to eat. She hadn’t. “Oh, good.” She said. “You’re still here.” I stood up hastily, brushing the back of my trousers with one hand. “Now, I don’t know exactly which kind of words you like, but this — ” My heart almost stopped as she spoke. “Has lots of stories.” It was a book. A whole book. Thick, but not heavy, I held it in my hands as though to judge how many stories might be inside. The outside was shiny black with a blue moon peeking out from behind three big mountains — one tall and two small, just like the big door. Its name was emblazoned in thick silver letters across the top. I sounded them out: S-I-L-M-A-R-I-L-L-I-O-N. My mouth had fallen open as my finger traced the letters. The woman gazed down at me with a strange look on her face. “Is it…” I started, but swallowed the words before they made it out. I tried again. “Is it for… Me?” “Of course. I read it more than a hundred times, I don’t really need the book anymore.” She smiled, clasping her hands in front of her. “Words are powerful.” I glanced up sharply. “The words in this book saved me from many things.” I looked down again in awe. This book, a real book, was mine. I opened the first page. Someone had written a message on the inside cover. Anna… A little piece of home to carry with you wherever you go. The old lady had already turned and was making her way back up the steps. “Missus… Are you Anna?” I called up after her. She turned, smiling. “Yes, that’s me.” I didn’t want her to go, but I didn’t know how to make her stay. “My name’s Wren, I’m Wren. That’s me.”

https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/growing-up-in-post-blackout-london-4b1b07db7d54

['Abbey Heffer']

2020-05-30 21:37:01.613000+00:00

['Writing', 'London', 'World', 'Fiction', 'Books']

Automating Multi-Environment Kubernetes Virtual Clusters with Google Cloud DNS, Auth0, and Istio 1.0

Kubernetes supports multiple virtual clusters within the same physical cluster. These virtual clusters are called Namespaces. Namespaces are a way to divide cluster resources between multiple users. Many enterprises use Namespaces to divide the same physical Kubernetes cluster into different virtual software development environments as part of their overall Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). This practice is commonly used in ‘lower environments’ or ‘non-prod’ (not Production) environments. These environments commonly include Continous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD), Development, Integration, Testing/Quality Assurance (QA), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Staging, Demo, and Hotfix. Namespaces provide a basic form of what is referred to as soft multi-tenancy. Generally, the security boundaries and performance requirements between non-prod environments, within the same enterprise, are less restrictive than Production or Disaster Recovery (DR) environments. This allows for multi-tenant environments, while Production and DR are normally single-tenant environments. In order to approximate the performance characteristics of Production, the Performance Testing environment is also often isolated to a single-tenant. A typical enterprise would minimally have a non-prod, performance, production, and DR environment. Using Namespaces to create virtual separation on the same physical Kubernetes cluster provides enterprises with more efficient use of virtual compute resources, reduces Cloud costs, eases the management burden, and often expedites and simplifies the release process. Demonstration In this post, we will re-examine the topic of virtual clusters, similar to the recent post, Managing Applications Across Multiple Kubernetes Environments with Istio: Part 1 and Part 2. We will focus specifically on automating the creation of the virtual clusters on GKE with Istio 1.0, managing the Google Cloud DNS records associated with the cluster’s environments, and enabling both HTTPS and token-based OAuth access to each environment. We will use the Storefront API for our demonstration, featured in the previous three posts, including Building a Microservices Platform with Confluent Cloud, MongoDB Atlas, Istio, and Google Kubernetes Engine. Source Code The source code for this post may be found on the gke branch of the storefront-kafka-docker GitHub repository. https://github.com/garystafford/storefront-kafka-docker.git git clone --branch gke --single-branch --depth 1 --no-tags \ Source code samples in this post are displayed as GitHub Gists, which may not display correctly on all mobile and social media browsers, such as LinkedIn. This project contains all the code to deploy and configure the GKE cluster and Kubernetes resources. To follow along, you will need to register your own domain, arrange for an Auth0, or alternative, authentication and authorization service, and obtain an SSL/TLS certificate. SSL/TLS Wildcard Certificate In the recent post, Securing Your Istio Ingress Gateway with HTTPS, we examined how to create and apply an SSL/TLS certificate to our GKE cluster, to secure communications. Although we are only creating a non-prod cluster, it is more and more common to use SSL/TLS everywhere, especially in the Cloud. For this post, I have registered a single wildcard certificate, *.api.storefront-demo.com. This certificate will cover the three second-level subdomains associated with the virtual clusters: dev.api.storefront-demo.com, test.api.storefront-demo.com, and uat.api.storefront-demo.com. Setting the environment name, such as dev.* , as the second-level subdomain of my storefront-demo domain, following the first level api.* subdomain, makes the use of a wildcard certificate much easier. As shown below, my wildcard certificate contains the Subject Name and Subject Alternative Name (SAN) of *.api.storefront-demo.com. For Production, api.storefront-demo.com, I prefer to use a separate certificate. Create GKE Cluster With your certificate in hand, create the non-prod Kubernetes cluster. Below, the script creates a minimally-sized, three-node, multi-zone GKE cluster, running on GCP, with Kubernetes Engine cluster version 1.11.5-gke.5 and Istio on GKE version 1.0.3-gke.0. I have enabled the master authorized networks option to secure my GKE cluster master endpoint. For the demo, you can add your own IP address CIDR on line 9 (i.e. 1.2.3.4/32 ), or remove lines 30–31 to remove the restriction (gist). Lines 16–39: Create a 3-node, multi-zone GKE cluster with Istio; Line 48: Creates three non-prod Namespaces: dev, test, and uat; Lines 51–53: Enable Istio automatic sidecar injection within each Namespace; If successful, the results should look similar to the output, below. The cluster will contain a pool of three minimally-sized VMs, the Kubernetes nodes. Deploying Resources The Istio Gateway and three ServiceEntry resources are the primary resources responsible for routing the traffic from the ingress router to the Services, within the multiple Namespaces. Both of these resource types are new to Istio 1.0 (gist). Lines 9–16: Port config that only accepts HTTPS traffic on port 443 using TLS; Lines 18–20: The three subdomains being routed to the non-prod GKE cluster; Lines 28, 63, 98: The three subdomains being routed to the non-prod GKE cluster; Lines 39, 47, 65, 74, 82, 90, 109, 117, 125: Routing to FQDN of Storefront API Services within the three Namespaces; Next, deploy the Istio and Kubernetes resources to the new GKE cluster. For the sake of brevity, we will deploy the same number of instances and the same version of each the three Storefront API services (Accounts, Orders, Fulfillment) to each of the three non-prod environments (dev, test, uat). In reality, you would have varying numbers of instances of each service, and each environment would contain progressive versions of each service, as part of the SDLC of each microservice(gist). Lines 13–14: Deploy the SSL/TLS certificate and the private key; Line 17: Deploy the Istio Gateway and three ServiceEntry resources; Lines 20–22: Deploy the Istio Authentication Policy resources each Namespace; Lines 26–37: Deploy the same set of resources to the dev, test, and uat Namespaces; The deployed Storefront API Services should look as follows. Google Cloud DNS Next, we need to enable DNS access to the GKE cluster using Google Cloud DNS. According to Google, Cloud DNS is a scalable, reliable and managed authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) service running on the same infrastructure as Google. It has low latency, high availability, and is a cost-effective way to make your applications and services available to your users. Whenever a new GKE cluster is created, a new Network Load Balancer is also created. By default, the load balancer’s front-end is an external IP address. Using a forwarding rule, traffic directed at the external IP address is redirected to the load balancer’s back-end. The load balancer’s back-end is comprised of three VM instances, which are the three Kubernete nodes in the GKE cluster. If you are following along with this post’s demonstration, we will assume you have a domain registered and configured with Google Cloud DNS. I am using the storefront-demo.com domain, which I have used in the last three posts to demonstrate Istio and GKE. Google Cloud DNS has a fully functional web console, part of the Google Cloud Console. However, using the Cloud DNS web console is impractical in a DevOps CI/CD workflow, where Kubernetes clusters, Namespaces, and Workloads are ephemeral. Therefore we will use the following script. Within the script, we reset the IP address associated with the A records for each non-prod subdomains associated with storefront-demo.com domain (gist). Lines 23–25: Find the previous load balancer’s front-end IP address; Lines 27–29: Find the new load balancer’s front-end IP address; Line 35: Start the Cloud DNS transaction; Lines 37–47: Add the DNS record changes to the transaction; Line 49: Execute the Cloud DNS transaction; The outcome of the script is shown below. Note how changes are executed as part of a transaction, by automatically creating a transaction.yaml file. The file contains the six DNS changes, three additions and three deletions. The command executes the transaction and then deletes the transaction.yaml file. > sh ./part3_set_cloud_dns.sh Old LB IP Address: 35.193.208.115 New LB IP Address: 35.238.196.231 Transaction started [transaction.yaml]. dev.api.storefront-demo.com. Record removal appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. Record addition appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. test.api.storefront-demo.com. Record removal appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. Record addition appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. uat.api.storefront-demo.com. Record removal appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. Record addition appended to transaction at [transaction.yaml]. Executed transaction [transaction.yaml] for managed-zone [storefront-demo-com-zone]. Created [https://www.googleapis.com/dns/v1/projects/gke-confluent-atlas/managedZones/storefront-demo-com-zone/changes/53]. ID START_TIME STATUS 55 2019-01-16T04:54:14.984Z pending Based on my own domain and cluster details, the transaction.yaml file looks as follows. Again, note the six DNS changes, three additions, followed by three deletions (gist). Confirm DNS Changes Use the dig command to confirm the DNS records are now correct and that DNS propagation has occurred. The IP address returned by dig should be the external IP address assigned to the front-end of the Google Cloud Load Balancer. > dig dev.api.storefront-demo.com +short 35.238.196.231 Or, all the three records. echo \ "dev.api.storefront-demo.com " \ "test.api.storefront-demo.com " \ "uat.api.storefront-demo.com" \ > records.txt | dig -f records.txt +short 35.238.196.231 35.238.196.231 35.238.196.231 Optionally, more verbosely by removing the +short option. > dig +nocmd dev.api.storefront-demo.com ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 30763 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;dev.api.storefront-demo.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: dev.api.storefront-demo.com. 299 IN A 35.238.196.231 ;; Query time: 27 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) ;; WHEN: Wed Jan 16 18:00:49 EST 2019 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 72 The resulting records in the Google Cloud DNS management console should look as follows. JWT-based Authentication As discussed in the previous post, Istio End-User Authentication for Kubernetes using JSON Web Tokens (JWT) and Auth0, it is typical to limit restrict access to the Kubernetes cluster, Namespaces within the cluster, or Services running within Namespaces to end-users, whether they are humans or other applications. In that previous post, we saw an example of applying a machine-to-machine (M2M) Istio Authentication Policy to only the uat Namespace. This scenario is common when you want to control access to resources in non-production environments, such as UAT, to outside test teams, accessing the uat Namespace through an external application. To simulate this scenario, we will apply the following Istio Authentication Policy to the uat Namespace. (gist). For the dev and test Namespaces, we will apply an additional, different Istio Authentication Policy. This policy will protect against the possibility of dev and test M2M API consumers interfering with uat M2M API consumers and vice-versa. Below is the dev and test version of the Policy (gist). Testing Authentication Using Postman, with the ‘Bearer Token’ type authentication method, as detailed in the previous post, a call a Storefront API resource in the uat Namespace should succeed. This also confirms DNS and HTTPS are working properly. The dev and test Namespaces require different authentication. Trying to use no Authentication, or authenticating as a UAT API consumer, will result in a 401 Unauthorized HTTP status, along with the Origin authentication failed. error message. Conclusion In this brief post, we demonstrated how to create a GKE cluster with Istio 1.0.x, containing three virtual clusters, or Namespaces. Each Namespace represents an environment, which is part of an application’s SDLC. We enforced HTTP over TLS (HTTPS) using a wildcard SSL/TLS certificate. We also enforced end-user authentication using JWT-based OAuth 2.0 with Auth0. Lastly, we provided user-friendly DNS routing to each environment, using Google Cloud DNS. Short of a fully managed API Gateway, like Apigee, and automating the execution of the scripts with Jenkins or Spinnaker, this cluster is ready to provide a functional path to Production for developing our Storefront API. All opinions expressed in this post are my own and not necessarily the views of my current or past employers or their clients. Originally published at programmaticponderings.com on January 12, 2019.

https://garystafford.medium.com/automating-multi-environment-kubernetes-virtual-clusters-with-cloud-dns-and-istio-885e598b345b

['Gary A. Stafford']

2019-01-20 19:17:14.407000+00:00

['Istio', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Kubernetes', 'Microservices', 'Cloud Native']

4 Unique Traits of an Extremely Likable Person

1. Be curious and ask interesting questions. According to several studies published in the Greater Good Science Center, curious people have better relationships. The research suggests that people who are curious are “often viewed in social encounters as more interesting and engaging and they are more apt to reach out to a wider variety of people.” As a result, people are naturally drawn to others who display a sense of curiosity. They are seen as more confident and ultimately, more attractive. Next time you meet someone new, instead of asking them the typical “what do you do for a living?”, hit them up with some open-ended questions that will lead to a more interesting conversation. Ask them what the highlight of their day was or what their dream job was growing up. Note: Of course, you may have to ask some basic questions to build some rapport initially. But once you move past that, you can dive into deeper questions that may provoke a more engaging interaction. 2. Acknowledge others and always use their name. We don’t really think much about names, but using them often actually makes other people feel more important. If you don’t believe me, try using this at work more often this week and see how others react to you. The other person will most certainly pick up on this and with every mention of their name, they will naturally turn towards you and remember how you made them feel. It will create a good impression on that person and naturally create a more positive bond between you two. Another important thing is remembering other details about their lives that they have shared with you previously, like the names of their partner or what they did over the weekend. 3. Describe other people in a positive way. Research has found that when it comes to winning people over, speaking positively of others makes you a more likable person. It puts other people at ease and shows that you are kind and non-judgemental. Positivity is contagious. Try acting positive around people and you’ll find that they’ll tend to become more positive too. So smile more, tell jokes and be enthusiastic around others. They will most likely walk away with a warm and fuzzy feeling that they will pass onto somebody else. 4. Mirror body language and speech patterns. Mirroring is a social phenomenon where people mimic another person’s body language or terms that they use. It’s often subconscious but can be very powerful to showing comfort, trust and empathy. By repeating back what people say, we are showing them that we understand them and that we are listening. It is a way to step into somebody else’s shoes and see things from their perspective. Politicians are actually fluent in mirroring and go through intensive training to get as good as they are. It is a powerful tool in communication and helps us genuinely connect with other people.

https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/4-unique-traits-of-an-extremely-likable-person-9facb92d2608

['Katy Velvet']

2020-12-14 07:25:22.903000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Relationships', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health']

This One Silly Notebook Will Unlock 50% More of Your Hidden Potential

This One Silly Notebook Will Unlock 50% More of Your Hidden Potential I uncovered this gem by accident Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash I’m a content junkie. I read 100 books a year. I watch hundreds of hours of YouTube videos and thousands of hours of audio. Most of what goes in doesn’t stick. I do other things while I consume much of this content. …but sometimes you get a lightning bolt. This story is one of those. Now I share it with you. This is the story of one silly notebook. As a fairly far-introvert (no idea what to call it… severe, left of center… who knows), I live in my head a lot. I juggle ideas constantly. I’ve got 50 balls in the air. I drop them a lot. Thoughts come and go. Sometimes I capture the best ones. But the endless thinking is distracting from life. It’s hard to be fully-present when you’re always thinking. Hell, as I write this, I’ve got Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer in my ears (on double-speed). I know I have a content problem, but the more I stuff-in the more fantastic ideas that come out. Even if I only absorb 10% of the stuff I consume. I don’t recommend what I do. I do it so you don’t have to. I consume an insane amount of stuff, so I can stay fresh and innovative. …but I didn’t know about the notebook. I love paper notebooks. While I use my phone a lot, if I need to work through an idea, the first place I turn, is paper. I’ve got notebooks everywhere. Every time I go to a store, the first place I visit is the office supply section. This notebook isn’t any notebook. Some call it a distraction journal. I found it watching a YouTube video on productivity… or something. I don’t remember. I got distracted. I named my notebook the ‘Squirrel Notebook’ (for obvious reasons). I’ve got a squirrel’s attention span. It doesn’t take much to grab my attention and yank me from my working mind. The idea is that you keep the Squirrel Notebook on your lap as you consume content. There are no rules for the notebook. No format. This isn’t some bullet journal with all the bells and a whistle. This is a date and whatever comes to mind. The conscious mind — the present, listening one, is the weak part of our brain. The subconscious — that secret, bigger part, is the workhorse of our brain. The Squirrel Notebook helps us access this idea-generating part of the brain. As you consume content (read, watch, listen), your mind will occasionally wander. If you’ve got my mind there’s more wander than attention-payment. Every time you get a little wander, tune-in instead of tune-out. If you get an idea that might be worth something, write it down. If you forgot something on the grocery list, write it. If you have a new story idea, write it. Draw little pictures Use arrows and codes if you want Scribble the idea as fast as you can and return to your content I’ve found by using my Squirrel Notebook as an idea dustpan, it allows me to get all those distracted thoughts from my melon, so I can return-focus to the content at hand. By allowing myself the moment of distraction I’m more-focused. AND I get to keep all those ideas for later, instead of trying to juggle them in my head. This week alone, my Squirrel Notebook helped me uncover a few game-changing ideas for my publishing business. I’m willing to bet the same will happen for you. If you’re into notebooks like me, you probably dictate certain purposes for each. You can’t take a certain note in a book designed for a different purpose. Not so with the Squirrel Notebook. It’s a catch-all. I date the spine so I have some idea of the idea-span, should I need it later, but beyond that, the Squirrel Notebook is a free-for-all. What happens to the good ideas? You curate later. If you want to develop an idea further, you can move it to the proper location. Or, you can allow the idea to marinate a few months. The best ideas return. Try the Squirrel Notebook. You’ve got my permission to write anything you want. While I can’t guarantee you’ll get exactly 50% more hidden potential, you might get 200% more. I’ve got something. Just for you… I want to invite you inside the fence. When you build a tribe around your best work, even if you’re starting-out, you’ve got an instant audience when you’re ready to fly. No matter what kind of work you create. I want you inside the fence, but you’ve got to move fast, so I can shut the gate behind you. Therefor, I built a free email masterclass for you. I hand-crafted the whole thing. It took me a couple months. I call the masterclass the Tribe 1K. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 (or your next 1,000) readers without spending a hot nickel on ads. Past students include New York Times bestselling authors. Yep, the ones you see in the bookstore. Your email list will help you build a legacy creative business. If you want to grow your creative business you need email before you lose that valuable reader’s attention. Start your list before you need one. Once you need a list it’s almost too late. Tap the link. Guarantee your seat before I start to charge an enrollment fee. We’re waiting for you.

https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/this-one-silly-notebook-will-unlock-50-more-of-your-hidden-potential-fbe4c3839f30

['August Birch']

2020-12-16 15:59:04.994000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing', 'Life']

Use Google Fonts for Machine Learning (Part 1: Annotation)

The first time I tried to learn machine learning a few years ago, I felt miserable. I had a hard time installing dependencies, let alone understanding any basic machine learning algorithms. Fast forward to 2020, with more time at home, I decided to give ML another try. This time, it was much easier to find friendly learning resources and tools. Thanks to Tensorflow/Keras, Kaggle, Youtube, and the likes, I was finally able to understand the basics enough to do some experiments of my own. A quick experiment with GAN trained on Google Fonts. Image by Author. One thing I really wanted to try and learn was to train Generative Adversarial Network models with fonts. Working with the simple MNIST hand-written digits is fun at the beginning, but I wanted to create or curate my own dataset to continue with the experiments. What better place to find lots of free fonts than Google Fonts? This will give me more control over the dataset and the ability to create high-resolution images (MNIST is only 28x28 pixels). It also comes with helpful annotations for each font family. Here, I would like to share my experience so far starting with downloading and managing thousands of Google Fonts and generating PNG images of each glyph. If you are experienced, this may seem too easy, but for someone like me who is just starting a journey in ML, I hope my post will be a little bit useful. This post is a documentation of my learning process. Download Google Fonts and JSON Annotations If you go to Google Fonts Github repository, they conveniently provide a zip archive (click to download) that includes all the font files (TTF), but I noticed that this zip archive is not always up to date. Instead, we can simply clone the entire Github repo from your terminal. This should give you the most up-to-date list of fonts. If you don’t want to go the Terminal route, find the green Code button to download the repo as a zip file. If you simply want to use the whole archive to do experiments, this will be enough, but I will use Google Fonts API to get a bit more information about each font in the list. Follow this link to the Google Fonts Developer API. You will need to get a free API KEY to download the JSON file, which we will use for the rest of this post. https://www.googleapis.com/webfonts/v1/webfonts?key=YOUR-API-KEY Although we may not use the JSON directly in the model training (say, GANs), we can easily and quickly extract useful information about thousands of fonts such as what weights, styles, subsets are supported in each font family. Setup Jupyter Notebook I will treat this post as a Jupyter notebook, so if you want to follow along, you can open up a new notebook in your own environment, and run each code cell one by one. By the way, I am running Jupyter Lab on a Conda environment on MacbookPro. Let’s first import the main modules we will be using: Load JSON Annotations Let’s first take a look at the JSON data by loading it as pandas.DataFrame. The JSON file has only 2 columns, kind, and items. The kind column doesn’t seem so useful, but the items column has a lot more information. A problem is that it is nested and it is in dict format. We can simply use pd.json_normalize() to flatten the items column. We can display one of the font families to see it up close. data.loc[data.family == 'Encode Sans'] Clean Up and Encode Data I decided that I will not need many of the columns for my machine learning training. The columns that I find particularly interesting are family , variants , subsets and category as these will directly affect the letterforms. Let’s just select these columns. I am also removing any space from family string because that is how the font files are named. It will make things a bit easier when we later load the file paths. You may have already noticed that variants and subsets column values are enclosed with square brackets as Python lists. (ex. [regular, 500, 600, 700, 800] ) We will create new columns for each value and assign either 0 or 1 for each font family. This one-hot encoding will make it easy to filter fonts with different conditions. (ie. filter fonts that have regular weights that support Thai character set.) I have tried a few different methods and the Scikit-Learn module gave me the result I needed. Now, we have separate columns for each variable, and the font families have a value of 0 or 1 for each column depending on whether they support each variable. The variants columns are named 100, 100italic, 200, 200italic, 300, 300italic, etc. which can work just fine, but I wanted to go one step further by renaming them so that it will match the way the font files are named. (ex. Barlow-BlackItalic.ttf instead of Barlow-900italic.ttf) This hand labeling could definitely be improved, but this worked for me anyway. Export as CSV File I think our DataFrame is looking pretty good at this point. Let’s export as a CSV file. The numerical index values do not seem to have any significant meaning for our purpose so I decided not to include in the file. df.to_csv('google-fonts-annotaion.csv', index=False) What‘s Next In the next part, we will load this CSV file into another Notebook, and filter the fonts and then generate a bunch of PNG images. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions, and I will see you in the next post.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/use-google-fonts-in-machine-learning-projects-part-1-annotation-7cb6533d4790

['Erratic Generator']

2020-11-03 19:47:13.600000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Typography', 'Fonts']

Debugging Rust code on WSL2

Install Debug Tools We’ll write a new application to go through the setup steps. You can also clone the application from Github if you don’t want to set it up locally. cargo init rustapp cd rustapp code . For a linux backend(WSL2 in this case), install the CodeLLDB extension on Visual Studio Code.

https://harsimranmaan.medium.com/debugging-rust-code-on-wsl2-37bdc1aed5cb

['Harsimran Singh Maan']

2020-08-14 01:20:34+00:00

['Debugging', 'Vscode', 'Development', 'Productivity', 'Rustlang']

What I’ve learnt building a Machine Learning project for a medium-sized enterprise

5 Lessons I’ve Learnt building ML models for enterprise Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash 1. Understand your ultimate goal and intermediate milestones Mistake #1: I was obsessed with the conventional CRISP-DM process and focused too much on the general data mining tasks and deviated from the actual business goal — which was to identify the potential customers. Self-illustrated by the author. It is important to have a clear definition of what you are trying to achieve from the get-go and have this goal in context when laying out specified tasks following the CRISP-DM process. For instance, the research question for my topic is to find out how many additional customers are there in the observed period who might still have at least 80% chance to convert. After knowing this ultimate goal, I can brainstorm backwards to derive intermediate milestones to help me march towards this goal. In this case, I first have to find out the probability estimation based on the models with good prediction results, and for that, I have to feed relevant features and good quality data into the models for optimised performance. By mapping out all these milestones while adhering to the CRISP-DM blueprint, you make sure that you are following the right approaches in a data mining process, but at the same time not losing sight of your ultimate goal. 2. Walk a mile in their shoes Mistake #2: I have always presented the results in a way how I interpreted them, slides that were filled with confusion matrices, classification report, and cool buzz words. The truth is nobody really cares how good your data are or how accurate your model predicts, what matters to them are what did your work achieve and how will your work affect other people’s work? Photo by Jaclyn Moy on Unsplash When working for a Machine Learning (ML) project, chances are you are not working alone. Whether you are working with other data engineers, research analysts, marketers, salespeople, or executives, put yourself in their shoes and try to see the big picture from their perspectives. Storytelling rather than fact-telling. For example, your marketing colleagues might be frustrated by failed marketing campaigns for not being able to convert the targeted audience. You can offer them a solution to identify potential customers, by helping them to increase the chances of a successful campaign. But if you presented your results by highlighting the accuracy of your models, they might not be able to immediately relate them. Thus, don’t just speak your language but also theirs. 3. You don’t have to build everything from scratch Mistake #3: There were times when I attempted to build an ML algorithm from scratch and only halfway thru it did I realize that there was already a Python library for it. Photo by Max Duzij on Unsplash Whenever you have an idea to implement an ML model, don’t rush to build it from ground zero. No matter what programming languages you are working on, it is highly unlikely that you are the first one to implement it. Github is always a good starting point to explore existing projects similar to yours and Stack Exchange would probably be able to answer most of your questions. As building an ML model is not just about doing the prediction, your codes would also include snippets for data pre-processing and post-prediction performance evaluation. Building the entire codebase from scratch would consume a lot of your time and resources which would otherwise be better-spent for other workflows. Take Python, for example, there are many established ML libraries like Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, and PyTorch. 4. The 80/20 rule Mistake #4: At first I thought my model was really bad and kept on finetuning the algorithm, little did I know that the culprit was actually the data I fed into the model. I ended up spending 80% of the time cleaning and preparing the data. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash Every data analytics rookie will learn this the hard way and I wish I knew this earlier. Just as the conundrum “garbage in, garbage out”, sometimes the most obvious thing is also the most unnoticed. When you are trying to ETL the data from its unadulterated source, make sure the integrity and the data quality are preserved in the process. Besides, the features you select to train an ML model should also fulfil the common convention of feature selection for not being redundant and non-informative. In the end, you should not be surprised at how little time you spent on the actual task of “building an ML model” but how much time you would one step prior — i.e. on the data preparation and cleaning. 80:20 ratio is a good rule of thumb to gauge this highly disproportionate distribution. 5. Learn how to learn Mistake #5: I was initially complacent with some of the habitual practice I have been comfortably doing for a long time and refused to step out of my comfort zone. For example, I used a chain of and and or operators to conditionally check a string(s). My colleague suggested me to use Regex but I thought the learning curve was too steep. However, after I finally ported over to Regex, I realized how much leaner my codes have become and it definitely improved the versatility of string search. Photo by Ben White on Unsplash Attitude, attitude, attitude! And not just any attitude, but the attitude to learn with an open heart. We live in an era where technology evolves so rapidly that a programming language you’ve mastered during your college times can quickly become obsolete the moment you land your dream job. Therefore, my advice in data analytics is to constantly explore and read about new developments in the topics you are familiar with. And whenever you are confronted with an entirely new concept, try to understand and embrace it instead of riding against the wave. Data analytics is, after all, a novel industry with every aspect of it regularly being flooded with new innovations and methodologies, be it evolutionary or revolutionary. In a long run, learning how to learn is what that really differentiates you from your peers. Of course, the importance of learning extends well beyond building an ML model and can also be applied in improving your general well-being too.

https://towardsdatascience.com/what-ive-learnt-building-a-machine-learning-project-for-a-medium-sized-enterprise-ef6960f99bee

['Jack Tan']

2020-12-11 19:31:35.651000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Lessons Learned', 'Python', 'Motivation']

5 Life Lessons Told Over 5 Glasses of Wine from a 99-Year Old Filled With Regret

2. I Wish I Was More Willing to Forgive “Lara, I can tell you countless examples of when this applied to my life. Professional, personal, you name it, I was known for holding an intense grudge. But nothing hurts me more than two scenarios in particular. One in which I was unable to forgive my mother. And one in which I was unable to forgive my closest friend. My mom and I never had a great relationship. She had a very difficult life. My father left before I was even born, so I’m sure that was devastating. Then she’d go from man to man to man searching for love, support, care. But it seemed she always found the wrong one. She always found the abusive types, the drinkers, the yellers, the criminals, the deadbeats. When I was old enough to understand her pattern, I attempted to put an end to it. When I was 19, I was already off at college, and I came back to my mother overjoyed about having finally found ‘the one.’ A good egg she told me. And he did seem fine, he really did. Until I saw him one night at a local bar with his hands all over a woman who was certainly not my mother. I told my mom. I had to, I was honest, direct, no matter the consequence. And she berated me. She called me names I had never been called before. She accused me of ruining her happiness. Ruining her life. She told me she never wanted to see me again. So that’s what happened. I never saw her again. I never forgave her for how she reacted to me that day. I learned she died years later. We hadn’t spoken since that day. The other person I never forgave was my closest friend. I met him at work. He was strikingly handsome, charming, all that good stuff, you know what I mean Lara. But he was not available. He was married to some trust fund baby, and as flirtatious as he always was, I would not stoop so low as to sleep with a married man. After working together for fifteen years, the day finally came where he told me he and his wife were splitting up. This was my chance. I waited a few months before I finally made my move. We were walking home after a few work drinks as we often did, and I just threw myself at him. I didn’t have a plan because I just expected everything to fall into place. But he rejected my advance. He told me we were better off as friends, and he didn’t see me that way. I flipped. I brought up every single moment in which I believed I was the one for him, and he apologized for giving off the wrong signs. He asked if we could remain friends still, but I refused. He moved to a different team within the same firm, but we never spoke. I never forgave him for not feeling about me the way I felt about him. I lost my best friend. When it comes to my mom Lara, I want to tell you this. Words are more reflective of the person saying them than they are of the person they are directed toward. My mom said nasty nasty things to me, which she probably would have said she didn’t mean had I given her the chance to apologize. But what I realized was that her words were more reflective of how she felt about herself. They revealed her insecurities, her flaws, her hidden beliefs about the life she was living. When you feel like you cannot forgive somebody because of the words they said, please remember this. The situation with my best friend is complex. But my main message is this. You want to be surrounded by people who make you a better person. Don’t push people away who make you better. Situations change, feelings change, we must adapt and accept change. I was resistant to change because I was so certain about the future. My interpretation of the future. I wish I could have put my ego, my pride, my feelings aside and just be friends with him, because my life was honestly worse off without him. Forgive for you, Lara, not for others. Living with the pain of losing somebody because of a grudge or vendetta, or a feeling that I could not control, well it almost killed me on several occasions.” Lara simply smiled and filled their third glass with a Riesling, a smooth white wine.

https://medium.com/mind-cafe/5-life-lessons-told-over-5-glasses-of-wine-from-a-99-year-old-filled-with-regret-e05c9fb48a66

['Jordan Gross']

2020-06-22 17:13:19.444000+00:00

['Inspiration', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Life', 'Mental Health']

Getting Started with Applied ML Research

So you are interested in applied machine learning (ML) research? Oftentimes, a lot of young aspiring machine learning researchers jump straight into reading papers and either get discouraged with the amount of work published on a particular topic or get too caught up reading a lot of papers with very little progress on generating new and exciting research ideas. To avoid these situations and ensuring a healthy start on your research journey, here are some of my tips on how to get started with applied ML research. These tips do not guarantee success but they give you a useful framework for enabling creativity and avoiding common pitfalls in research. Identify a problem that matches your background and skills For instance, if you have studied biology maybe it makes more sense to conduct health-related research. If you have a physics background, there is plenty of interesting work contributing to space exploration/discovery. It also matters that you work on a topic you are passionate about. If you are passionate about law, there is plenty of opportunities to propose new legislation to improve artificial intelligence accountability. This is the great thing about machine learning, it’s everywhere! Once you have an idea on the topic you are interested to investigate, follow the next few steps. Conduct a bit of research Don’t read papers yet, just do a small search on articles or summaries of machine learning related techniques that have been applied in the domain of interest. Every day there are plenty of news outlets and newsletters that publish quick summaries of how companies and research labs are applying machine learning to all sorts of problems, these can help you find what you are looking for. One great way to get informed about the topic of interest is to read survey papers or books on the subject matter. These are okay to read at this point. Remember, you are just looking on the surface. I am of the belief that if it hasn’t been done before, then you need to think carefully about whether you will have the time to conduct the research you are interested in. This is the reason why there are Ph.D. programs to host students that want to work on entirely new research ideas and want to spend a good amount of years doing the research. If you are not interested in a Ph.D., that’s fine. Just make sure you have a good idea of how much time you are willing to invest in the research. Your idea doesn’t have to be completely new but it should tackle a fundamental problem you have identified. This is important as it is here that you start to understand and begin to think about the motivation and importance of the research. Read with a critical mind. Think about what could be done better. What hasn’t been done? Take notes. Begin to formulate a rough draft of your research questions. Look for implementations and datasets No paper reading, yet. Paper reading can derail your progress at this point. Instead, begin to look for implementations of projects that tackle very similar problems as yours. If you can’t find code for similar ideas you want to tackle here is where you make an assessment of how much time you may need to commit. In the extreme case, you have access to tools and starter code to get you going. In the worst case, you have nowhere to start. The point is not that you are looking to copy code. Here you are mostly looking for work that has been done already so that you don’t have to start from scratch. This is the reason why open source exists. For instance, if you will be working on cell segmentation, there are plenty of implementation for either cell segmentation or related tasks involving segmentation tasks. This could be your starter code. You will need to modify it, but a lot of that initial work has been done and you will be working on top of it. There is no shame in that. In fact, most scientists, even the greatest minds of our generation, rely on the ideas of others. If you do find code, make sure to test it and see if it’s still running. It may be filled with bugs which means there is a bit more time you need to commit here. But try to get it to work. If you don’t find code, then at least have a plan of what kind of implementations you will be coding. I am sure there is plenty of basic examples out there that can also be reused. Make sure to always provide the proper credit. Remember, a lot of the research will be about implementation and experimentation and so you will need to get your hands dirty with code unless you are working on a big team. To find relevant code, search in places like GitHub, Papers with Code, or Made with ML. If you can’t find anything there, you can always ask on Reddit or Twitter. There is a very helpful community out there. In this step, it is also important to identify datasets you will be working with initially. The great thing about looking for implementations is that they already provide you a hint on the type of dataset you will be working with. You can perform dataset searches on websites like Google Dataset Search or Kaggle. In the best case, you find something that you think will help. In the worst case, you don’t find anything relevant in which case you may need to manually collect your datasets which is a tedious and time-consuming task on its own. Here is where you think carefully about whether you have the necessary time to collect and manually label a new dataset. Consult with your research advisor on this topic. I will write about this topic later on in this blog. Write a draft of your proposal After having an idea of the topic you want to focus on and the time you may need to commit to this project, write a short 2-pages draft of your proposal. Your proposal should have at least an introduction, motivation for the research, proposed methodology and experiments (it doesn’t have to be all fleshed out yet), the timeline of the research, and the expected output. After finishing that draft, don’t let it just sit there. Pass it by a colleague first, then refine it. Try to reach out to friends and let them review it as well. Refine it a bit more. Talk to your research advisor and other researchers Even though it is highly likely that you are working on this research on your own, you have a plethora of people and experts that can provide you guidance. Discuss your proposal with your research advisor or other experts in the field. There is this misconception that research is a lonely process, it doesn’t have to be that way. Expect a lot of feedback mostly about what the proposal is lacking and what potential new ideas you can try or things you overlooked. Take this feedback with an open mind. Your ideas may be great but they could also be very marginal or not worth pursuing. However, there is always something good that comes out of this process. You know a lot more about what you are interested in and what you want to work on. If you need to go back to the drawing board do so. This is rarely the case but just be prepared and keep an open mind. If all goes well, use the feedback to keep improving your proposal and refine those research questions. Once you have finalized the research questions, move on to the actual research. The real research begins Once you have some starter code and datasets that you think will help you in your research, it’s now time to begin addressing those research questions. By this time, you have an idea more or less what are the problems worth addressing and are possible given the time constraints and data available. Adopt code and begin to conduct preliminary experiments. Very basic experiments could include simple baselines using basic ML algorithms designed to address the type of problem you are working on. For instance, if you are working on text classification, maybe an implementation of a Naive Bayes classifier could be a good model to start with. You don’t have to jump straight into a state of the art deep learning model like RNN or Transformer, although those usually perform better on these tasks considering you have enough data. But just keep it simple at the beginning. Later on, you will have enough time to experiment with those fancy models. All you are interested in here is to have a proper framework for experimenting. This is where things get really interesting and challenging. While you are working on code and experiments, at this point in time it wouldn’t hurt to look for relevant papers to see if others have conducted similar experiments. Use that knowledge to keep improving your experiments. For instance, maybe there is a feature engineering trick you would like to try or a new technique to preprocess data. In the process, make sure to save those references. When you are stuck with code, read a few more papers, and continue where you left off. Mix it a bit. Too much coding or too much paper reading is not a good recipe for success as a researcher. It’s just simply not sustainable. Keep building on top of that knowledge and revise your research questions if needed. You avoided paper reading initially mostly to avoid being discouraged about others scooping your work and ideas. This tends to happen a lot but because you didn’t read papers in the beginning it could well be that your ideas offer a new take on the problem. In fact, if you chose this route I proposed here, there is a high chance that there is a bit of overlap and there is also a high chance there is something new and creative you are bringing to the table. I think it’s very important to avoid reading papers at the beginning as there is a high chance that you are influenced to work on similar things to what other researchers have done. That’s not interesting and it’s actually not a good practice. You want to work on a problem that’s important to you, not a problem that is popular in the community. Get it out there Once you have some results, get your work out there. Blog about it even if no one reads it. Tweet about it. There is a whole ML community out there waiting to hear about exciting new ideas. In fact, I also built a community (dair.ai) to help surface the work of people that don’t have a platform. Part of being a researcher is also being able to communicate your work properly. There is no running away from it. By getting it out you are practicing for the final step in the research journey: either a publication, thesis defense, or pitching it to your manager for consideration as a product. Excellent. Keep working on those ideas. If new ideas come along consider tackling them. These days a lot of students are quick to publish. Don’t be one of those. Take your time. Enjoy your research. Dig deep. Commit to a long relationship with your research. It pays off tremendously in the long run. Learn more interesting things about the topic. Challenge yourself to go further. Don’t be too stressed about publishing. That time will come. The point is that you should spend some time refining your work before you consider publishing it. Getting it out there helps with feedback and other considerations. Publish it! After many iterations and feeling a bit more comfortable with the progress of your research, it is now time to consider submitting it to workshops or conferences. Although some universities or companies don’t force you to publish, I truly believe as a researcher you need to have a taste of the peer-review process. A rejection doesn’t say anything about you as a researcher. This is an opportunity to get others excited about reading and assessing your work. If you get a publication, great for you! This is the kind of progress you want to show as a researcher. You are headed in the right direction. The next step is to keep building on top of this research. Get others involved. Collaborate. You have a bit of experience now and that will take you a long way as a researcher. Be patient. Accept rejections. Keep learning and keep a healthy mind and body. But more importantly, keep an open mind. Happy researching!

https://medium.com/dair-ai/getting-started-with-applied-ml-research-3abab1ac33b6

[]

2020-10-08 13:57:58.013000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Science', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Master any skill by sucking at this one

We all learn at a very young age it’s easy to justify almost any action with a well-crafted explanation. We’re punished more severely without one, and so it becomes natural as we grow up to develop this on a subconscious level. Renowned social psychologist Bernard Weiner published a study in 1987 detailing the investigation to his three defined factors of a ‘good excuse’: External; when it comes from outside the offender. (“My car broke down”) Uncontrollable; when the offender lacks control (“I was unwell”) Unintentional; highlighting the perpetrator was not malicious (“I slipped”) “Communicated reasons tended to be external to the person, uncontrollable, and unintentional, whereas withheld reasons tended to be internal, controllable, and either intentional or unintentional.” The external, uncontrollable excuses were anticipated by the study participants to lessen the anger of the wronged party. Here’s where you come in: Identify when the wronged party is in fact, also the offending party. We’re only human, so for many of us, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to excuse our shortcomings, because moving quickly on from an unfavourable situation detaches us from the pain. The problem is, we are wired biologically to avoid slowing down to consider who we’re trying to fool. If you want to make a real dent in that thing you’ve been putting off for so long, don’t take the path of least resistance because it often leads back round to square one, using a route that you yourself have created using shiny golden signs made of excuses. Don’t be a professional rationalist. We have the unfortunate ability to take our ambitions and possibilities, then over-think and over-process, which leads to talking ourselves out of them. There is a fragile part of the typical ego that clambers to excuse one’s self from anything difficult, complicated, or potentially embarrassing even if the embarrassment is internal. Because of our ridiculous, innate ability we have to unlearn or escape the habit with practice. Take your most recent failed endeavour and fill in the blank: “I probably can’t ______ because a, b, and c.” If you are unable to come up with a, b, and c you are much more likely to succeed in blank, this is the key. Justification vs Excuses Distinguishing between these two terms may help. A justification (or a reason) becomes an excuse when it’s used to avoid responsibility. This is true in law and it is necessary to hold the actor accountable for an act. Dave Anderson tells us there should be no difference when applied to your internal conflict. “An excuse defense concentrates on the actor rather than the act. It accepts the act may have harmed society in some way, but seeks to show that the person is not really to blame.” It’s important to ask yourself ‘This happened, what am I going to do about it?’ Instead of exiting responsibility, we must push past what our lazy human brains want us to do. Don’t settle for an equilibrium, but find a way to work around problems rather than deflecting them because ultimately, they swing back around and hit you in the face. Keeping our goals strict and weekly, rather than monthly or yearly encourages relentless progress. What frequently happens if a schedule is ignored, whether group or self-appointed, is that misused time passes at an exponential rate. It’s unfortunately all too easy to try rationalising our failures, and missing the first deadline will usually make us miss further deadlines. Sure you missed your self-appointed goal, so what? life goes on! Is not something you should be saying in regards to anything important or anything you are passionate about. If you’ve followed so far, it should be easy to recognise that while there are no immediate repercussions to failure, you’ll never taste the progress you crave. It’s important to set goals you can measure, because you are more able to see just how far off the mark you are. Noticing you’re sliding down a slippery slope is not always easy. The difference between “I’ll finish writing my book this year” and “I’m going to write two chapters over the next six weeks” is huge and it’s easy to see only after you fall into the right mindset.

https://dmassi.medium.com/master-any-skill-by-sucking-at-this-one-72b858d3465e

['Davon Massi']

2018-10-21 23:15:22.805000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Self', 'Education', 'Psychology']

The Reason Behind if __name__ == ‘__main__’ in Python

Let’s Get Right Into It! Let’s start out by deconstructing the statement from left to right. We already know what an if statement is; however, the most important part of the statement are the two things being compared. Let’s start with __name__ .This is used to denote the name of the file that is currently being run, but there is a trick to this. The file currently being run will always have the value __main__ . This sounds confusing at first but let’s clarify. Let’s create two Python files: current_script.py other_script.py Please ensure these files are in the same directory/folder. Inside the other_script.py file, we’ll add a two-print statement, just as shown below. print("****inside other script.py*****") print("__name__ is ",__name__) Run this other_script.py file. Note: I will be running this file while using Python within the terminal, just as illustrated below. Also note that I am working from a Windows operating system. python other_script.py Output: ****inside other script.py***** __name__ is __main__ Now you realize that it’s just as I stated before. The file being executed will always have the value __main__ . This represents the point of entry into our application. In Python and pretty much every programming language, we can import other files into our application. We’ll now go into our current_script.py and input the following code: import other_script print("") print("****inside current script.py*****") print("__name__ is ",__name__) The code above imports the other_script.py with the import statement at the top, which is followed by print(“****inside current script.py*****”) to verify that we are in the current_script.py file. Be aware that because we imported other_script at the top of the file, this therefore means that the entire contents of other_script.py will now be injected into where import other_script is. Before we continue, take keen note of the input of when we ran other_script.py . Now observe what happens when we execute current_script.py . python current_script.py Output: ****inside other script.py***** __name__ is other_script ****inside current script.py***** __name__ is __main__ You will now realize that previously when we ran other_script.py , it gave us the value for __name__ as __main__ . But now since we ran it as an import in current_script.py , the value of __name__ suddenly changed to the name of the imported script which is other_script . Furthermore, the value of __name__ for current_script.py is __main__ . This goes back to what I had highlighted previously: The file currently being run will always have the value __main__ . Let’s put this all together now.

https://medium.com/better-programming/the-reason-behind-if-name-main-in-python-e633634f0dd0

['Jordan Williams']

2020-11-02 15:14:08.189000+00:00

['Python', 'Data Science', 'Learning To Code', 'Java', 'Programming']

Learning at the Edge

Overview This article looks at the unique challenges introduced by Edge computing for AI/ML workloads, which can have a negative impact on results. It applies available machine learning models to real-world Edge datasets, to show how these challenges can be overcome, while preserving accuracy in the dynamic nature of Edge environments. Context The field of machine learning has experienced an explosion of innovation over the past 10 years. Although its roots date back more than 70 years when Alan Turing devised the Turing Test, it has not matured significantly until recently. Two primary contributing factors are the exponential growth in both compute power and data that can be used for training. There is now enough data and compute power (some in specialized hardware like GPUs/FPGAs) that new, real-world problems are being solved every day with machine learning. Examples range from facial recognition and disease identification, to drug discovery and assembly line quality assurance. Today’s most successful machine learning applications follow a fairly straightforward process. 1. Curate a large set of training examples containing a signal that we would like to predict. 2. Feed the large set of training data into a machine learning model to train at a centralized hyperscale data center with an almost limitless capacity of compute resources. 3. Iterate over feature engineering and model hyperparameters retraining the model until a desired performance metric is achieved. 4. Deploy the training model into its product environment and let it predict. This process works well when we have enough training examples required to find the appropriate predictive function; there is enough compute power to train over large datasets in a realistic timeframe; and the environments in which the model is deployed are consistent and stable. Edge computing changes all of this. It’s the next frontier for cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Edge computing brings the compute closer to both the data and the end-user/device that is generating that data. This presents a number of advantages over a more traditional, centralized computing paradigm. · Improved Latency: Between 1 and 20ms latency enables an entirely new class of use-cases including connected vehicles, remote AR/surgery, intelligent video, etc. · Reduced Data Transference: Data does not need to be transferred to a centralized processing center anymore. This saves significant backhaul and improves security and compliance of workloads deployed to the Edge. · Localization: Workloads can be customized more easily for the specific locale in which they are being deployed by sensing the environment and the specific data being generated in those locales. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are busy rolling out their 5G plans, in part to enable and capture this emerging Edge market. In order to address a variety of use-cases with different latency and security requirements, MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing) architectures are being deploying that will provide the communications foundation to enable Edge workloads on a spectrum of locations from Edge Device, to Radio Access Networks (RANs) and Central Offices (COs). However, CSPs will need to think differently if they want to again avoid being disintermediated by the next generation of OTT providers. Emerging players are looking at new spectrum to provide the last mile into the enterprise where Edge computing will initially experience its largest growth. In some cases, the mega cloud providers are building partnerships with incumbent Telecommunications companies. In other cases, they are looking at acquiring or developing the needed capabilities themselves. Challenges The potential use cases are diverse across markets including industrial, healthcare, automotive, retail, etc. However, it is anticipated that 80–90% of those use-cases will require AI/ML. Edge computing introduces the following new challenges for AI/ML workloads: · Portability: Workloads will need to be able to run on a wide variety of devices · Tethering: Workloads can’t rely on always being connected. In fact, some use-cases are specifically oriented towards being disconnected or having a very long latency to connect to the ‘mother ship’ (i.e. oil rigs or Mars) · Reduced capacity: Environments at or near the edge will have reduced compute, storage and network capacity compared to centralized data centers. · Differing locales: Each locale in which a workload is deployed can differ slightly. A model trained for one locale may perform poorly in another. Think of an autonomous vehicle model trained in Boulder, CO. Drop that in Florence, Italy and you will likely have some accidents. · Dynamic environments: Edge environments change over time due to a variety of characteristics like weather, financial markets, etc. Portability and tethering are being addressed by standardized open-source operating models like KubeEdge, Linux Foundation Edge, etc. However, as we look at the nature of AI/ML workloads at the Edge, the remaining challenges can be interpreted in the following areas. The first is a concept known as drift that can be introduced as a result of differing locals and/or the dynamic nature of the Edge environment, which will result in degradation of a previously trained AI/ML model. When a model is trained, it defines a function that maps the independent variables to the targets. In a static and uniform environment where none of these predictors nor the target evolve, the model should perform as it did initially because there is no change. Drift occurs when either there is a change in the definition of the target class (i.e. Concept Drift) or there is a change in the features (i.e. Data Drift) that define the target class. Drift is much more common in Edge environments because each locale can be slightly different such that the original training set does not accurately represent the environment in which the AI/ML model is being deployed (i.e. Boulder vs Florence). In addition, the dynamic nature of Edge environments is much more likely to introduce drift over time in both the features and targets used for prediction. Most of these environments are in “the wild” and have much less control over the specific characteristics under which these AI/ML models operate. Changes in temperature, wind, pollen levels can all drastically affect a predictor’s accuracy at the Edge. The second challenge that must be addressed for AI/ML at the Edge is the ability to adapt with minimal resources and/or data. These models must be capable of adapting quickly to a changing environment without overfitting to noise, but at the same time be able to incrementally learn with minimal compute and or new training examples. Reduced compute is well-documented for Edge environments, but the operating environment for most Edge locations also result in less supervision of the model performance and/or exemplars being generated. In other words, we cannot rely on an army of machine learning supervisors available to label candidates in many Edge locations. More importantly, the models must adapt to changes quickly. In fact, a model’s ability to adapt is more important than its initial predictive accuracy. In most cases, the process of re-curating the needed data from the Edge, retraining the model at a centralized datacenter, and then redeploying the updated model back to the Edge will take too long. By then the Edge environment will already have changed again. Adaptation must be done at the Edge locale in near real-time. Experiments The scikit-learn Python package has a number of machine learning models that lend themselves to addressing these Edge challenges. This article documents the use of one of those models: Stochastic Gradient Decent Classifier (SGDClassifier). The experiments were conducted on a real-world streaming data set with incremental drift that includes six different species of mosquitos. The ‘INSECTS-Incremental (balanced)’ dataset is made available at the USP Dataset Repository hosted on Google (https://sites.google.com/view/uspdsrepository). The SGDClassifier has a number of benefits that makes it well suited for Edge workloads. First, it is fairly simple and lightweight and can be run on devices with minimal compute or other resources. Second, it can incrementally learn so that after a model has been deployed to the Edge it can be updated with new exemplars using the partial_fit() function. Lastly, due to the stochastic nature of this algorithm, it allows training over a randomly selected singleton, or subset instead of needing to train over each candidate in the set. This allows the algorithm to be extremely adaptable with very little training data needed. Below is a conceptual architecture that was implemented for experiments where Proteus is a wrapper Python class that services up the SGDClassifier functions via JSON APIs using Flask. Conceptual Architecture — Edge Learning The following experiments began by training the SGDClassifier model with 80% of the first 5,000 training examples from the ‘INSECTS-Incremental (balanced)’ file, deploying the initially trained model to the Edge (in this case a Raspberry Pi 3 B+), and then iterating through the rest of the file one at a time in chunks of 5,000 measuring the accuracy. 1. Feed 80% of the first 5,000 examples (4,000) from the original training file into the SGDTrainer to train the model. 2. Write the model to a file using the Pickle Python library. 3. Read the SGD Model into the testing program 4. Measure the accuracy with the 20% holdout from the first 5,000 examples; and repeat the process above by tweaking hyper parameters to get the desired accuracy. 5. Once accuracy is at an acceptable level, deploy Proteus to the Edge location (in this case a Raspberry Pi 3 B+) and read the trained model in via the Pickle Python library. 6. From the Edge applications, send data to Proteus for inference. 7. Provide inferences back to the Edge applications. Repeat as long as performance is acceptable. Once a drift has been detected, raise an alert to the operators/supervisors. Drift can be detected by change in the feature data being sent from the Edge applications without monitoring changes in the model’s accuracy. Leveraging a drift detection algorithm like scikit-learn multiflow will provide the early warning alerting needed. 8. Unlabeled data is sent to queue to be labeled by a supervisor 9. The label data is sent back for incremental learning of the SGDClassifier model. The model adjusts to the drift and resumes the inferencing cycle at the desired accuracy. Simulations of this lifecycle were run over the first 55,000 elements of the timeseries in the ‘INSECTS-Incremental (balanced)’ file in chunks of 5,000. The model was originally trained on 80% of the first 5,000 elements. Then the model was tested on the remainder 20% holdout to get the original baseline. This initial training was conducted on a centralized server in a larger datacenter. Finally, the model was saved and deployed to a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ for inferencing and accretion. The model was tested on each chunk of 5,000 from the original timeseries file, again holding out 20% for testing from each chunk. Three experiments were run after an initial baseline was captured: 1. Baseline with no updating 2. Full update: 100% of the training subset from each chunk is fed back into the model for updating. 3. 10% update: 10% of the training subset from each chunk is fed back into the model for updating. 4. 1% update: Only 1% of the training subset from each chunk is fed back into the model for updating. Results Classification accuracy was measured on the hold-out subset from each chunk. The results are as follow: Edge Learning Results In the baseline with no updating, the accuracy falls incrementally as each chunk is fed into the model for inference. This reflects a classic example of drift that you might see in the real world. The accuracy fell to such a level that for the last few chunks of data, accuracy was no better than a random guess. Now as we feed portions of each chunk back into the model for updating, you can see the performance is restored to its pre-deployment accuracy. In fact, accuracy improves as the experiment progresses through the entire series. The improvement is most likely due to the nature of the data in the later chunks rather than anything related to the model and/or update approach. However, it is clear that the model has been able to adapt to the changes in the data and that its accuracy has been maintained. In addition, the following observations were made that are relevant to operationalization. · Only a fraction of data must be labeled and fed back to the model for additional training to adapt to the changes without losing accuracy. In fact, as little as 1% of the data appears to hold accuracy at pre-deployment levels for this data set. · One additional experiment was run that fed back only those exemplars that were classified incorrectly. This approach did not improve or maintain performance as desired. The implication is exemplars can be randomly selected for updates to preserve accuracy, and it does not matter which ones are chosen. The second requirement is that learning at the Edge must be done with minimal compute resources. Each edge location must be analyzed to determine capacity and fit for the workloads you want to deploy. However, a very crude measurement for this workload was conducted as part of these experiments running on a single Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with just a simple desktop GUI running. They showed relatively low requirements for compute. 1. Full update: 2.25 seconds on average (4,000 examples) 2. 10% update: .3 seconds on average (400 examples) 3. 1% update: .14 seconds on average (40 examples) Because of the nature of Stochastic models this makes sense. These models randomly select a small subset from the dataset for re-training the model. It does not require training over each element in the entire set. Finally, memory did not significantly change or peak during the accretion function of these experiments. Summary These experiments show that with fairly mature and already available machine learning models from scikit-learn, we can adapt to drift in our data sets due to differences in locale or changing environments. The models can adapt with very little training data and few compute resources while preserving model accuracy at the Edge. In addition, these experiments indicate that we don’t need to wait until a full training data set is available in order to begin our Edge machine learning deployments. We can begin training with a fairly small subset, achieve an acceptable accuracy and then deploy the models to the Edge for refinement.

https://brentcty.medium.com/learning-at-the-edge-d2f85d614051

['Brent Taylor']

2020-12-01 17:40:22.200000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Edge Computing', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Lets build a Command line app in Swift

With Swift being open source and server side swift gaining more and more traction, command line apps built with swift can be extemely powerful for server side applications. There have been some libraries which helps to build useful command line apps and today we’ll explore few libraries and build a simple command line app. We’ll build a command line tool to group files of a particular type and move them into a sub directory. For example, taking all png files in a folder and moving them to a sub directory within that folder. We’ll explore three packages from awesomeiOS list on GitHub. Setting things up… Make sure you have the latest version of Swift(4) installed and you can check it using the command swift --version as shown below. mac:~ username$ swift --version Apple Swift version 4.0.3 (swiftlang-900.0.74.1 clang-900.0.39.2) Target: x86_64-apple-macosx10.9 2. Now we need to setup a basic Package structure using the command swift package init --type executable . Note that the command will create a package with the same name as the present working directory. As you can see in Fig 1, the command creates a directory structure. Fig 1. Creating a new Package One of the file created is Package.swift which contains 3 important aspects of the package Products : The executables and libraries which are the end products of the package : The executables and libraries which are the end products of the package Dependencies: All the other libraries which we’ll use in this package All the other libraries which we’ll use in this package Targets: These are basic blocks of the package like test suite or the main module, and can be interdependent. Like the test suite refers to the main source module. Moving on to the source file, Swift has a simple hello world boilerplate code in the source file. A look at the main.swift is as below print("Hello, world!") We can now build the package and make sure there are no issues. swift build command will compile all the modules and handle the dependencies in the Package.swift file. mac:FileOrganizer sandeepjoshi$ swift build Compile Swift Module 'FileOrganizer' (1 sources) Linking ./.build/x86_64-apple-macosx10.10/debug/FileOrganizer Now running the executable FileOrganizer in the debug directory should print Hello World mac:FileOrganizer sandeepjoshi$ .build/debug/FileOrganizer Hello, world! Now that we have basic package setup, lets use some libraries and build the tool. Adding dependencies For this project we’ll use three command line libraries/packages from awesomeiOS list on GitHub. To add a package, we need to edit the manifest file Package.swift as in Fig 2 and then swift build command will fetch, clone and resolve the added packages as shown in Fig 3. Edit the Package.swift file like the one below Package.swift file Fig 2. Adding packages to manifest file Fig 3. Downloading all the packages Note: Adding a package in Package.swift for older swift versions has a slightly different syntax and this will not work. Building the tool The package CommandLineKit is used as a base package to create the command with an option to get input as a string. The following code takes a directory path as an input for the specified option import Foundation import Swiftline import ColorizeSwift import CommandLineKit let cli = CommandLineKit.CommandLine() let dirPath = StringOption(shortFlag: “t”, longFlag: “filetypes”, helpMessage: “List all the types of files in current directory”) cli.addOptions(dirPath) do { try cli.parse() } catch { cli.printUsage(error) } print(dirPath.value!) Lets build and run this code and you should get an output similar to the one below. So the CommandLineKit package gives a class Commandline which is analogous to any bash command and an instance of StringOption is analogous to an option for a typical command. So we instantiate string option(s) and add it to the option list of the commandline instance. Now lets find all the available file types in that directory. We’ll use FileManager to get fileUrls of all the files in the directory and get the extensions of the files. Finally an array is created to store the unique file types/extensions. The following code does just that. Remove the print statement from the code above and paste the following code. var extensions = [String]() // Array to hold types of files present in the given directory let fileManager = FileManager.default let dirURL = URL(fileURLWithPath: dirPath.value!) do { // fileURLs contains urls of all the files in the given directory let fileURLs = try fileManager.contentsOfDirectory(at: dirURL, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil) // Getting the unique file types for file in fileURLs { if !extensions.contains(file.pathExtension) { extensions.append(file.pathExtension) } } // To remove a empty string at the begining extensions.remove(at: 0) print(“ ”) print(“Found \(extensions.count) types of files:”.bold().blue()) print(“ ”) print(extensions.joined(separator: “ “).bold()) } catch { print("Error while enumerating files \(error.localizedDescription)") } Upon building and running the code now should produce an output similar to the one below — Now using the SwiftLine package, we can ask the user which type of files should be grouped and moved into a subfolder. ask is a method provided by SwiftLine which presents a prompt and accepts the entered string. let fileType = ask(“Choose the file type to be grouped into a folder…”.bold().green()) Again using another method agree of SwiftLine, we can confirm if the user really wants to group files of the entered type. let choice = agree(“Are you sure you want to group files of type: \(fileType)?”.bold().white().onRed()) Now we just check the user’s choice and ask user for the name of the subdirectory and move the files of that type to the newly created subdirectory. Consolidating the above two code snippets, below is the code which needs to be added after printing the file types/extensions. . . print(extensions.joined(separator: “ “).bold()) let fileType = ask("Choose the file type to be grouped into a folder...".bold().green()) print(" ") let choice = agree("Are you sure you want to group files of type: \(fileType)?".bold().white().onRed()) if(choice == true) { print(" ") let dirName = ask("Choose the folder name to store files of type: \(fileType)".bold().blue()) print(" ") print("Grouping files by chosen filetype".bold().green()) let baseDirPath = dirPath.value! let newDirPath = baseDirPath + dirName + "/" let _ = run("mkdir" ,args: newDirPath) var noOfFilesMoved = 0 for file in fileURLs { if (file.pathExtension == fileType) { do { try fileManager.moveItem(atPath:file.path, toPath: newDirPath+file.lastPathComponent) noOfFilesMoved = noOfFilesMoved + 1 } catch let error as NSError { print("Ooops! Couldn't move the file: \(file.lastPathComponent) because of error: \(error)") } } } print(" ") print("Successfully moved \(noOfFilesMoved) no of files!".underline().bold().green()) } The complete main.swift looks like this — Upon building and running this, the output should look something like this.. mac:FileOrganizer sandeepjoshi$ swift build Compile Swift Module ‘FileOrganizer’ (1 sources) Linking ./.build/x86_64-apple-macosx10.10/debug/FileOrganizer Note: As you can see, the prompts and output is styled. I have used the ColorizeSwift package to style the strings which are pretty straightforward and as simple as calling a method on a string. Check out the resources below for more information on this. Obviously there can be a ton of improvements in this tool. This should serve as a good starting point to build command line apps in Swift. Resources:

https://medium.com/quick-code/lets-build-a-command-line-app-in-swift-328ce274f1cc

['Sandeep Joshi']

2018-02-02 16:20:16.109000+00:00

['Swift', 'Mobile App Development', 'Swift Programming', 'Command Line', 'Apple']

Pivoting Your Startup? 4 Ways To Do It Right

Cash In Reserve — At the early stage, especially seed, chances are you will keep pivoting till finding product-market fit. At Tau Ventures we advise entrepreneurs with four main principles: i) to start fundraising at least 6 months before running out of cash ii) to raise 10% more than what their plan calls for iii) to keep that 10% for emergency iv) to have a strong syndicate that will be active (usually in the form of a lead) rather than a party round of many investors that will be passive. That said we have seen almost every conceivable situation, from startups raising small rounds that can barely increase their dwindling reserves to startups raising huge rounds while having overflowing bank accounts. Whatever specific financial strategy an entrepreneur chooses though will most certainly affect the success of their pivot. If you like to fly the plane close to the ground that won’t leave a lot of room for experimentation or error. VCs that do their diligence and invest in companies with that profile are going to be averse to pivots, as should be the entrepreneurs. 2) Timing — Entrepreneurs naturally gravitate towards pressing needs. But there is a fine line between opportunity and fad and nothing illustrates that better in 2020 than covid. At Tau Ventures we have been pitched numerous companies this year addressing the pandemic, from drug development and diagnostics, to food delivery and social interactions. If a company was built solely around covid we passed on that investment opportunity because we didn’t see a long-term need. We did have companies in our portfolio that did significant pivots with covid, in some cases completely revamping their business model. We were supportive if those decisions were existential (without the pivot they would have failed) or well-thought (with the pivot they could get some gains without jeopardizing the core focus). But we actively discouraged our entrepreneurs from chasing two birds if they already had one in hand, and it continues being our counsel for a well-executed pivot. 3) Refactoring — Refactoring is one of the scariest words in tech, it means restructuring your code without changing its external behavior. It is usually a few months of work and means you probably built your architecture in a less scalable way to start with. There is indeed a fine balance between planning for the long-term and hacking for the short-term when you have limited resources, time and people included. At Tau Ventures, given we are seed investors in applied AI, we look more for entrepreneurs that are invariably thinking ten steps ahead. Refactoring, in fact pivoting overall, is fine as long as it is intentional rather than forced upon the company. There are certainly investors at different parts of the spectrum, for instance if you are investing or building a company on fast-changing consumer tastes. 4) Reincorporate — Should you dissolve the current company, returning as much of the funds to existing investors as possible, and then restart fresh? If there is a board you will need their approval — you may actually control the vote — and should be prepared for some reputational impact at least in short-term. There are also pending contracts, partnerships and IP that would need to be transferred which would escalate legal costs. Finally there is an impact on morale and you could lose employees. That said, if you can work through these three main challenges there are certainly three worthwhile benefits. A company having started 2 years ago will definitionally have stronger momentum than the same entity being 5 years old. You could argue it is a matter of perception but it does matter, especially to future investors and hires. So does a clean cap table. Doing a reincorporation removes the spectre of a recap i.e., a new investor requiring the current cap table to be wiped away for them to invest. Lastly, if you position it correctly the reset button can actually reenergize your workforce. Originally published on “Data Driven Investor,” am happy to syndicate on other platforms. I am the Managing Partner and Cofounder of Tau Ventures with 20 years in Silicon Valley across corporates, own startup, and VC funds. These are purposely short articles focused on practical insights (I call it gl;dr — good length; did read). Many of my writings are at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amgarg/detail/recent-activity/posts and I would be stoked if they get people interested enough in a topic to explore in further depth. If this article had useful insights for you comment away and/or give a like on the article and on the Tau Ventures’ LinkedIn page, with due thanks for supporting our work. All opinions expressed here are my own. Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/pivoting-your-startup-4-ways-to-do-it-right-c7b51da29ae

['Amit Garg']

2020-12-26 08:47:15.016000+00:00

['Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Pivot', 'Entrepreneur', 'Entrepreneurship']

Bounce! A Therapist’s New Year Resolution for Tough Times

Let’s face it. We are in a collective and personal crisis. It’s been going on for almost a year, and though there are reasons for optimism, their impact won’t be felt for quite a while. The Covid pandemic has conspired with the ugliest and sometimes frightening political and cultural issues of our history. It’s like the band-aid that has covered several wounds, has been ripped off, and we are left with all our hurts exposed and not yet healed. A vulnerable wound is at risk for more pain, as well as the potential for new complications like spreading or infection. As a therapist and a person who already suffers from mental illness, I can testify about this vulnerability, combined with uncertainty about how to keep my equilibrium. I am not alone. Mental health problems are real and common In the past several months, the toll of the pandemic on mental health has received more attention and is alarming in its sweeping and growing impact on people who already suffer from mental illness, as well as those who never have. A study by the CDC in late June showed that 40.9% of people reported at least one mental health complaint, and there were significant increases in anxiety, depression, a worsening of previous trauma, and an increase in substance abuse. They judged their symptoms to be 3–4 times what they’d been the year before. One of the most disturbing findings was that almost 11% reported seriously thinking about suicide. Across a number of studies, 18–30 year-olds report high levels of significant distress in a number of areas, reporting dramatic increases in depression, anxiety and loneliness. These numbers are likely to rise for several reasons: Symptoms of distress don’t stay static over time. Untreated, they often worsen with time. It is not a good thing to expect to acclimate to them. The impact of stress on mental health doesn’t just magically disappear once difficult circumstances abate. In fact, often, when things calm down, symptoms can worsen, as in the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorders Effective, affordable mental health services are unavailable to most people in the best of times. We are stressed in an incomprehensible range of ways: the illness itself, with psychiatric and neurological syndromes that will likely be more apparent over time, with more research. protracted recovery and uncertainty after illness constricting rules involving separation and isolation which influence covid patient and loved ones financial reversals that are far-reaching and sometimes permanent need to work at low pay, low benefit jobs classified as necessary overworked healers who battle the illness and the inundation of limited resources, leading to exhaustion and powerlessness. disruption of the rituals that make life expectable and controllable, such as going to school every day. To make it worse As individuals and as a culture, we have always had ways of dealing with the experience of stress and loss. They don’t take away the pain. But they help us get through it. The cruelest blow in our current situation is that the things that usually help us through hard times aren’t available For example Religions, cultures and families observe traditions of bereavement that are remarkably similar. They include a recognition of the death, a memorialization in the form of rituals in which friends and family walk through the initial stages of grief together through a variety of practices. The shared grief and social support are integral to the healing process. One after the other, the announcement of people’s deaths includes statements about how these events will be deferred until after the pandemic subsides. This leaves us in suspended animation grief, which is very unsettling. On an individual level, many people have found that exercise is helpful in managing stress. Closing gyms, swimming pools, exercise rooms in apartments reduce access to good habits. To make things more difficult, the cold weather is now making outdoor exercise more challenging. Even physical therapy and massage therapy may be curtailed. We may also let our decent nutrition behavior go. In a domino effect, sleep may also suffer. Disruptions in our basic rhythms is both a cause and an effect of the stress we experience and wears us down over time. Photo by Michael Walter on Unsplash Think of yourself as a rubber band Imagine a new rubber band around your wrist. Pull it just a bit and it will give your skin a pop. Now imagine it as time goes by. It loses its elasticity or resilience. You will need to pull on it harder, until no matter how much effort you make, it sags on your wrist, or breaks entirely. This is what stress does to our mental health. Sometimes without knowing how or when, we find ourselves working harder to make less progress. We become less able to bend, stretch, go with the flow. Whatever things we expect of ourselves become harder, or impossible to do. We are frayed and weak. It’s hard to recover our elasticity once it’s gone. And the thing is, we often don’t recognize the harm until it happens. Yes, there are lightning strikes that hit us (like an anxiety attack or an outburst of anger or tears). Wow! “Where did that come from?” we ask ourselves. It gets our attention as a signal of stress. But stress doesn’t always present with drama. Thunder, lightning, and pounding rain are recognizable signs that a storm is happening. But sometimes a “storm” that is even stronger is going on without our notice. Think of a steady, light rain landing on the soil for a long time. Its impact doesn’t register until the soil can’t take anymore and the water floods and destroys. Bounce Photo by Samuel-Elias Nadler on Unsplash Resilience is the way we come back from the small and huge insults to our equilibrium 1. Cut yourself some slack Lower your expectations of yourself. This isn’t the year for a lot of ambitious resolutions for change. Sometimes you have to just “coast.” We are all in situations in which we must deal with illness, death, separation, loss, constriction of normal life, uncertainty, hostility, political confusion and dramatic divisions, and no clear sense of an ending. How could we not be thrown off? Something has squashed the ball and there isn’t enough air for a good strong bounce, so we adjust. Maybe we can toss it up in the air, rather than throw it down on the floor. 2. “Dare to be Average” Psychiatrist David Burns, in his book Feeling Good coined that wonderful phrase. We need to change our expectations of ourselves when they are unrealistically high, or the situation is too demanding so we don’t feel constantly angry at ourselves. In the words of composer Stephan Sondheim in his musical “Bounce,” — “You needn’t have brilliance, just resilience.” 3. Maximize your sense of control in an out- of- control situation. Get real. This is a bad time. You have to be Superman not to be negatively affected. Do things that make you feel competent. Do what the experts tell you to do. This will end. But it isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon, requiring new skills, endurance, flexibility and patience. Be informed, but not overwhelmed . Exposure to too much media has been identified as a common stressor. It’s just too much. . Exposure to too much media has been identified as a common stressor. It’s just too much. Identify areas in which you feel most vulnerable , for example, isolation increased anxiety, loss of “anchors” during the day with a lack of structure. , for example, isolation increased anxiety, loss of “anchors” during the day with a lack of structure. For each vulnerability, set goals to deal with the stress that collapses your coping, and deflates you. Set a limit on the amount of time you spend with media coverage of the pandemic and/or the current political chaos. Social media may be appealing, but it, too, can lead to overload, especially when the content is aggressive or conflicting. Take charge Redesign your life to fit your current situations. Flexibility is imperative in maintaining resilience. Set a schedule — keep sleep and eating in regular rhythms. keep sleep and eating in regular rhythms. Distraction — there’s nothing wrong with “escape” (watching a movie, reading, trying your hand at creative activities (even if you suck, painting or constructing, even “coloring books, allow you important “shifts) to interrupt stressful states. — there’s nothing wrong with “escape” (watching a movie, reading, trying your hand at creative activities (even if you suck, painting or constructing, even “coloring books, allow you important “shifts) to interrupt stressful states. Substitution — learn something new, try different things. Pick up a new language, discover music that’s different from your usual. Cook. Keep a large puzzle “in process” on the table. Pets, from dogs to goldfish ease isolation, introduce an original element into your constrained existence, and provide their own “social support.” — learn something new, try different things. Pick up a new language, discover music that’s different from your usual. Cook. Keep a large puzzle “in process” on the table. Pets, from dogs to goldfish ease isolation, introduce an original element into your constrained existence, and provide their own “social support.” Move — even though exercise is more challenging, there are exercise programs online, on television. Be creative, walk the halls of your apartment building. Dress warmly and walk. The upside of this is that it can combine with social interaction by including a “walking buddy.” — even though exercise is more challenging, there are exercise programs online, on television. Be creative, walk the halls of your apartment building. Dress warmly and walk. The upside of this is that it can combine with social interaction by including a “walking buddy.” Connect — even with social distancing, it is imperative to maintain human contact with family, friends and work associates. Contact online with social support groups can be helpful. You may have to experiment to find one you like. — even with social distancing, it is imperative to maintain human contact with family, friends and work associates. Contact online with social support groups can be helpful. You may have to experiment to find one you like. Be vigilant — Even if you have no history of mental health issues, you are still vulnerable. Pay attention to problems with your sleep, anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking. If you see these things worsen, remember that your reactions make sense. They arise from a perfect storm of influences that make most people distressed. They are uncomfortable, but they are likely to resolve. Self-help approaches like meditation, breathing techniques, prayer, and contact with others can be helpful. — Even if you have no history of mental health issues, you are still vulnerable. Pay attention to problems with your sleep, anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking. If you see these things worsen, remember that your reactions make sense. They arise from a perfect storm of influences that make most people distressed. They are uncomfortable, but they are likely to resolve. Self-help approaches like meditation, breathing techniques, prayer, and contact with others can be helpful. But — if these feelings interfere with your general sense of well-being, you might want to seek mental health intervention. If you have a history of mental illness, you are at increased risk of exacerbation of your symptoms. Stay on top of your current treatment. if these feelings interfere with your general sense of well-being, you might want to seek mental health intervention. If you have a history of mental illness, you are at increased risk of exacerbation of your symptoms. Stay on top of your current treatment. Consult — the wide variety of mental health resources online to give information about the virus, coping with the stressors of the pandemic, and locating national and local organizations that can be helpful in educating, and also connecting you to care when you find you need more structured mental health treatment. Compassion One of the major components of resilience is compassion. We need to exercise empathy for people who are stressed similarly or worse than we are. To mangle Shakespeare, I would add the adage, “To thine own self be kind.” We will emerge from this long nightmare. But it’s not going to be quick or easy. So we have to “chill.” We have no choice. With this new year, it’s time to learn to bounce. In the lyrics of the play, “Bounce” by Stephen Sondheim, he gives some hints. “Don’t dwell on the times that you fail Remember the times When you said Find a new road — Forge a new trail — Bounce.” Happier New Year!

https://medium.com/invisible-illness/bounce-a-therapists-new-year-resolution-for-tough-times-f010092fb9c

['Martha Manning']

2020-12-28 20:09:39.768000+00:00

['Resilience', 'Mental Health', 'Stress', 'Coronavirus', 'New Year']

Get any UX job with a stellar portfolio presentation by reading this

Get any UX job with a stellar portfolio presentation by reading this Advice I received from people at Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more This article was co-written with Angela Nguyen ❤ Link to talk (Youtube) Link to follow up article with additional tips Featured on Marvel, Fall 2018 You passed the initial phone interview and now comes the final test to show potential employers what you are capable of: the portfolio presentation. Portfolio presentations are the norm for any design position. It shows employers your thought process through design problems and how well you communicate to others. It’s the perfect opportunity to prove that you are the most qualified designer for the job. If you never gave a portfolio presentation before, it might feel pretty intimidating (I know because I have been in that position) but don’t worry! I have given a fair amount of portfolio presentations and I still get nervous before each one. You can’t avoid portfolio presentations, or any presentation for that matter (especially working in the design industry), but you can definitely get better and conquer your fear of presenting. Here are steps and tips which have come from my experience of interviewing at different tech companies as well as my friends/mentors who work at some of the biggest companies in tech. As a student, I have interviewed with Microsoft, Amazon, Intuit, Google and more, enhancing my understanding of the interview process as well as my presentation skills. I have one more year of school left with an internship lined up for the summer. I am writing this article with the help of my good friend and co-author, Angela. Angela currently works at Amazon and has had the opportunity to interview with tech giants, receiving multiple offers after graduating. For the integrity of the companies and the people working there, we will not be specifying what each of these companies are looking for, but will provide tips on how you can execute a kick-ass presentation of your work. 1. Before the portfolio presentation: Prepare the slide deck When I am given the task to prepare a portfolio review, I ask if there are any requirements in regards to the structure of how my presentation should look or what information my potential audience would want to know most about. Some companies want you to emphasize your design process while other companies will provide resources to help you prepare your presentation based on specific guidelines. Regardless of what is expected, I first create a basic framework for my presentation. Based on which company I’m presenting to, I’d later make changes accordingly. Here is the basic frame work we typically start with when designing for any portfolio presentation: Title Slide Introduction Overview of projects Outcome (the what and why of your project aka elevator pitch) Brief (problem) Outline (approach) Process (struggles and success) Outcome Next steps (what would you do differently if given the chance? Remember, a project never ends after the due date) Learnings Appendix The Title Slide Here’s a slide before beginning your presentation. It helps when people are settling down or still coming into the room. You can use it as a breather too! Introduction Never jump into your presentation without introducing yourself. Interviewers want to know who you are! Typically, your interviewers are meeting you for the first time so this is an opportunity to make a good impression, just as though you were meeting a new friend. I like to give my design statement in my introduction. I also bring up past places I’ve worked, to give a context of the types of projects or environments I’ve experienced. Overview of Presentation Your design work should cover a wide range of problems and approaches, as well as describing the what, why and how of each project and your contributions. Every company puts emphasis on different things, whether it’s on teamwork or a more user-centric process, so the kinds of projects you show should change depending on who you are presenting to. Before diving deep into a particular project, I give an overview of my presentation to give the audience a heads up on what I will be showing. The overview assures employers that you’re going to cover a range of things, as to not keep them in suspense on whether or not you’re going to talk about something they had in mind. It is okay to be picky about the projects you present. Portfolio presentations are a great opportunity to tell your audience about a project you really enjoyed vs not so much. Sometimes we learn more from the project that wasn’t so great and employers want to know how you handled that situation. Projects (Address the Big Picture) Start by showing the final outcome while giving the elevator pitch; not going into details but showing a surface level of what the project is and why. Emphasize your design statement or high level takeaway on your projects. This way the audience can keep in the back of their mind what you’re talking about, just not to leave them hanging when you’re going through the millions of hours and efforts in the process portion. Interviewers know how designers invest their time into every project. It’s about sharing how the idea evolved over time. But overall… Here is helpful resource that has 10 rules to instantly improve your presentation. Things to think about when curating your presentation Questions to keep in mind Your presentation has a purpose. Every slide and every word that comes out of mouth should provide insight and meaning to how you think. Here are questions I use when I create a framework for my presentations in order to have a better sense of what I will be presenting to the audience. What is your project about? In team projects, how did you contribute? Who are you designing for? What is the main problem you were trying to solve? How did you execute your project? Why is this part of the process important and how does it help you in understanding the problem? How does your solution connect to the problem? What are the key things you want your audience to learn? Presentation Design Regarding the design of your presentation, you do not want to incorporate too much text into it. You probably have heard the saying in that if you add a huge amount of text into a presentation, people will divert their attention from you to reading the slide itself. You do not want to take people’s attention away from you because the point of a presentation is to have people listen to you. If you have less text and more pictures, it allows people to wonder and focus. pictures are the teaser while you are the one giving meaning to those pictures. Now that is what people came for. More show in slides, Tell in person Don’t show all of your process if it doesn’t add to your story. You only want to highlight the aspects that were especially fundamental to understanding the problem and creating the solution. Be Concise You only have a limited amount of time to present so you need to get to the point. You want to intentionally explain how each part of your process helped you in getting to your solution, solving the problem, and understanding your user. Don’t stumble and get to the point . What is the point of showing a picture of a system flow or insights from your research? You want to intentionally explain how each part of your process helped you. Stories are powerful Tell a story about your design process, explaining the WHY instead of WHAT behind your decisions. We have a tendency to state what we did, but we do not always connect it to our users who should be our main focus surrounding the design. You also want to frame your story as though you overcame great obstacles because people love hearing stories with high stakes and fulfilling, meaningful endings. At the end of every project (especially towards the end of the presentation), have a strong ending, present the solution, summarize findings, and have a message whether it is emphasizing your design ethos and/or how your skills can help the company. This is your chance to not leave people confused or hanging. You want to be able to address any lingering questions during the presentation so after the presentation can be more emphasized on the interviewers getting to know you. Be honest and upfront. Not every project went smoothly and it’s okay to call that out in your process. Employers wants to know how you handle problems and how you would fit in their design team. They care more about how you execute the content versus what the content is. Remember the most important thing is that you are presenting the work YOU did. If you cannot explain YOUR work, then how can other people understand it? This is a guarantee to leave a bad impression and not job. The speaking part of the presentation Practice Practice, and if you aren’t great at public speaking, practice A LOT. Practice presenting your portfolio to other people in order to build confidence and develop a flow on how you will be storytelling. In the context of presenting anything important, repetition is key. Always go through your presentation with someone to pin point where you lack to emphasize key points; the person you practice with might even have helpful tips for you! Time Be VERY flexible. A senior designer from Microsoft taught me the importance of being very intentional about what you say under constraints. This will allow you to present your ideas and process more efficiently and effectively. If you had 5 minutes or even 1 minute to pitch your design to someone, say a product designer or even the CEO of said company, how would you explain your work to them? Tailor the presentation based on the time you have, such as creating a hierarchy and outline. What are the three most important things about a project? Are they the pros of a project, next steps, learnings, etc. By time boxing your presentation as well as framing the way you present your information based on importance (what is lvl 1 stuff to talk about, lvl 2, lvl 3), it allows you to find the core of your project and the key points that will most likely draw attention. 2. During the portfolio presentation: Be thoughtful Always enter and leave with a good impression. Show your appreciation and enthusiasm for being invited to present. Provide your audience with your resume or an outline of your agenda so your interviewers can easily follow along your presentation. Relax Breathe and show good body posture. When nervous, we tend to do worse on performance because we can’t focus. My teacher wrote an article that talks about the importance of moving while speaking and how that can contribute to a great presentation. It helps you ease your nervousness while engaging to the audience. Break your information down Prime your interviewers to make sure they know what to expect before diving head on into your projects. Your interviewers are probably looking at your work for the first time or if they have looked at your work, they most likely have not looked at it in depth. Don’t expect them to remember every project without telling them directly. Before you go into presenting your projects, it’s okay to state the obvious such as “Hey this my work and I want to walk you through it.” It’s also beneficial to give an overview of what you are going to talk about to and give a scope of how long and what will be in your presentation. An example of this is breaking down your projects to show diversity or your skill set (Project 1: UI, Project 2: UX Project 3: UX Research, etc.) It is better to tell them what they will be seeing BEFORE so they have an easier time to process everything, especially during a short time period. The interviewers have to understand everything about you in less than one hour. Talk slowly When speaking in general between slides or ideas, leave breathing time for not only yourself but for the audience to ask questions. A presentation is best when it becomes a discussion. And you don’t want to rush through talking anyway because it doesn’t allow the audience to digest what you are saying, causing them to zone out and not follow you. The purpose of a portfolio presentation is to have people follow YOU. Show excitement “Don’t give a speech, put on a show” By showing excitement, you give an impression that shows how much you want the job. Even beyond that, showing excitement is what makes other people excited. It can also influence your performance in a positive way. People want to work with someone who is passionate and isn’t afraid of tackling challenges, such as presentations! Open the floor for questions It is important to present under the time given so you can have more time for Q and A. Be careful when asking questions in between projects; it can risk your presentation from shifting completely into a Q and A session. Be prepared to answer questions and always have questions for the interviewers. They want to know what you are curious about and if you have any questions that spark interesting discussions about the company or what they do. 3. After the portfolio presentation: Ask for feedback Most big companies will not provide feedback when they share your results, but during the interview, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for feedback on a project if the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes after describing a project, the interviewer will provide their feedback because it’s almost instinct for designers to help other designers. If the company doesn’t explain their policy about feedback after the interview, it never hurts to ask. Keep in touch Always follow up with an email to everyone in the room, within a week, to say thank you. It also helps remind them to follow through on your interview process. You can even hand out business cards at the end of your presentation. It is like a nudge that indicates “Hey, let’s keep in touch.” Conclusion In the portfolio presentation, you get assessed based on your skills (background in design, experience, design thinking), personality (is this person someone who can take feedback, work with the team) and your ability to present (can this person explain things clearly, tell compelling story about their work, communicate). These days, skills alone aren’t enough to get the job. Just like choosing the best candidate, a portfolio presentation is a multi faceted experience to show employers the whole package of who you are and the potential of what you can bring to the table. Designers who can make great work AND communicate are better than those who do one or the other. We hope this little guide to creating an amazing portfolio presentation and what to do before, during, and after will help you in your design interviews. Good luck! For a detailed view on interviewing for design jobs, read Andrew’s article: If you want to master the top interview questions in every design interview, read my article: If you want to improve your portfolio, read my article as well as Christina’s If you have any questions about design, message me on LinkedIn and I’ll write about it! To help you get started on owning your design career, here are some amazing tools from Rookieup, a site I used to get mentorship from senior designers: Links to some other cool reads:

https://uxplanet.org/get-any-design-job-with-a-stellar-portfolio-presentation-by-reading-this-1b9ede9a479a

['Tiffany Eaton']

2019-11-26 17:52:53.784000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Design', 'Life Lessons', 'UX', 'Startup']

Reverse Image Search — Find Similar images

Photo by Format from Pexels Have you ever wondered how google image search works or How amazon can retrieve products similar to the image that we upload in the app/site? To achieve this task we will be using one simple method. We are going to pick a pre-trained deep learning model, remove the top layers, and extract the convolutional features for the images in our dataset. Then we will use these feature vectors to find similar images by using sklearn’s nearest neighbor algorithm. Let’s get started. Import libraries import requests import os import numpy as np from numpy.linalg import norm import joblib as pickle from tqdm import tqdm import os import PIL import time import tensorflow as tf from tensorflow.keras.preprocessing import image from tensorflow.keras.preprocessing.image import ImageDataGenerator import gc from tensorflow.keras.applications.resnet50 import ResNet50, preprocess_input #from tensorflow.keras.applications.MobileNet import MobileNetV2,preprocess_input #from tensorflow.keras.applications.mobilenet import MobileNet,preprocess_input import math from sklearn.neighbors import NearestNeighbors import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import matplotlib.image as mpimg from sklearn.decomposition import PCA We will be using Caltech101 object dataset. A small description of the dataset — Pictures of objects belonging to 101 categories. About 40 to 800 images per category. Most categories have about 50 images. Collected in September 2003 by Fei-Fei Li, Marco Andreetto, and Marc ‘Aurelio Ranzato. The size of each image is roughly 300 x 200 pixels. To know more about the dataset checkout http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/Caltech101/ url = 'http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/Caltech101/101_ObjectCategories.tar.gz' r = requests.get(url) filename = '101_ObjectCategories.tar.gz' folderdername = filename.split('.')[0] open(filename , 'wb').write(r.content) # reference https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30887979/i-want-to-create-a-script-for-unzip-tar-gz-file-via-python import tarfile if filename.endswith("tar.gz"): tar = tarfile.open(filename, "r:gz") tar.extractall() tar.close() elif filename.endswith("tar"): tar = tarfile.open(filename, "r:") tar.extractall() tar.close() In the dataset we have ‘Background google’ folder which contains random google images. So let’s remove it. #!rm -rf '101_ObjectCategories/BACKGROUND_Google' #Linux #os.removedirs('101_ObjectCategories/BACKGROUND_Google') #windows Now we will use Resnet50 model which is pre-trained on the imagenet dataset (http://www.image-net.org/) to extract the features from the Caltech101 images dataset. In other words we will convert the images in the dataset to feature vectors using Resnet50. Why resnet ? We chose resnet because of the relatively small feature size. It converts images into 2048 convolutional features compared to 25088 features in vgg 19 or 51200 features in inception architectures. It will be easy for the nearest neighbor algorithm to find neighbors and also it will minimize the effects of Curse_of_dimensionality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality Create Resnet50 model without top layers so we get convolutional features as output instead of the image class probability. img_size =224 model = ResNet50(weights='imagenet', include_top=False,input_shape=(img_size, img_size, 3),pooling='max') Here are creating a Keras image data generator object and preprocessing the images. After that we are passing the data generator object to the ResNet-50 model to extract the features. batch_size = 64 root_dir = '101_ObjectCategories' img_gen = ImageDataGenerator(preprocessing_function=preprocess_input) datagen = img_gen.flow_from_directory(root_dir, target_size=(img_size, img_size), batch_size=batch_size, class_mode=None, shuffle=False) num_images = len(datagen.filenames) num_epochs = int(math.ceil(num_images / batch_size)) feature_list = model.predict_generator(datagen, num_epochs) print("Num images = ", len(datagen.classes)) print("Shape of feature_list = ", feature_list.shape) Num images = 8677 Shape of feature_list = (8677, 2048) We have 8677 images in our dataset after removing the google background images. Each image is converted into a 2048 feature vector. # Get full path for all the images in our dataset filenames = [root_dir + '/' + s for s in datagen.filenames] We will fit the nearest neighbor algorithm to the extracted features. We have picked ball_tree algorithm as it works well with sparse data. neighbors = NearestNeighbors(n_neighbors=5, algorithm='ball_tree', metric='euclidean') neighbors.fit(feature_list) Let’s pick a new image that is not present in our dataset and try to find similar images for it. from google.colab import files uploaded = files.upload() Once the image is uploaded extract the features for the image using the ResNet-50 and find the nearest neighbors for it. # ref # ref https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/31167/how-to-predict-an-image-using-saved-model img_path = 'ant.jpg' input_shape = (img_size, img_size, 3) img = image.load_img(img_path, target_size=(input_shape[0], input_shape[1])) img_array = image.img_to_array(img) expanded_img_array = np.expand_dims(img_array, axis=0) preprocessed_img = preprocess_input(expanded_img_array) test_img_features = model.predict(preprocessed_img, batch_size=1) _, indices = neighbors.kneighbors(test_img_features) Helper function to plot the images def similar_images(indices): plt.figure(figsize=(15,10), facecolor='white') plotnumber = 1 for index in indices: if plotnumber<=len(indices) : ax = plt.subplot(2,4,plotnumber) plt.imshow(mpimg.imread(filenames[index]), interpolation='lanczos') plotnumber+=1 plt.tight_layout() With the nearest neighbors indices provided by the model let’s find out the images similar to the one we uploaded. print(indices.shape) plt.imshow(mpimg.imread(img_path), interpolation='lanczos') plt.xlabel(img_path.split('.')[0] + '_Original Image',fontsize=20) plt.show() print('********* Predictions ***********') similar_images(indices[0]) Here we observe the image of a scorpion in the similarity images which is incorrect. Due to the large dimensionality of the features, the NearestNeighbors algorithm is not able to cluster similar features accurately. To overcome this we will apply PCA to our features and reduce the dimensions and try to find similar features again. pca = PCA(n_components=100) pca.fit(feature_list) compressed_features = pca.transform(feature_list) Fit the nearest neighbors algorithm to the new features. neighbors_pca_features = NearestNeighbors(n_neighbors=5, algorithm='ball_tree', metric='euclidean') neighbors_pca_features.fit(compressed_features) Transform the test image features as well and try to find similar images. test_img_compressed = pca.transform(test_img_features) distances, indices = neighbors_pca_features.kneighbors(test_img_compressed) print(indices.shape) plt.imshow(mpimg.imread(img_path), interpolation='lanczos') plt.xlabel(img_path.split('.')[0] + '_Original Image',fontsize=20) plt.show() print('********* Predictions ***********') similar_images(indices[0]) Great! Decreasing the dimensions of the feature helped us in getting better results. What next ? Try different pre-trained models like mobilenet,vgg16 etc. and check the accuracy. Try data augmentation on the dataset. We have used n_componets in PCA is 100. We can try changing these numbers and see how it affects our predictions. Try cosine distance metrics for the nearest neighbor algorithm. Note : As each class have only 8–20 images, accuracy may not be uniform accross all classes. Please try the model on a large dataset to get optimal accuracy. Please let me know if you encounter any issue or unable to follow the blog.I am always open to feedback. Cheers ..! Code is available here Connect with me on Linkedin Based on my learning from the book

https://medium.com/swlh/reverse-image-search-using-resnet-50-f305d735385a

['Mani Kanta']

2020-05-26 07:50:04.797000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Deep Learning', 'Resnet50', 'Image Processing']

k0s: Kubernetes in a Single Binary

Adding a User Version 0.8.0 of k0s brings the user subcommand. It allows us to create a kubeconfig for an additional user/group. For instance, the following command creates the kubeconfig file of a new user named demo , which is inside an imaginary group named development . Note: In Kubernetes, users and groups are managed by an administrator outside the cluster, meaning there’s no user-not-group resource in K8s. $ sudo k0s user create demo --groups development > demo.kubeconfig To get a better understanding, we’ll extract the client’s certificate from this kubeconfig file and decode it from its base64 representation: $ cat demo.kubeconfig | grep client-certificate-data | awk '{print $2}' | base64 --decode > demo.crt Then, we use an openssl command to get the content of that certificate: ubuntu@node1:~$ openssl x509 -in demo.crt -noout -text Certificate: Data: Version: 3 (0x2) Serial Number: 71:8b:a4:4d:be:76:70:8a:...:07:60:67:c1:2d:51:94 Signature Algorithm: sha256WithRSAEncryption Issuer: CN = kubernetes-ca Validity Not Before: Dec 2 13:50:00 2020 GMT Not After : Dec 2 13:50:00 2021 GMT Subject: O = development, CN = demo Subject Public Key Info: Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption RSA Public-Key: (2048 bit) Modulus: 00:be:87:dd:15:46:91:98:eb:b8:38:34:77:a4:99: da:4b:d6:ca:09:92:f3:29:28:2d:db:7a:0b:9f:91: 65:f3:11:bb:6c:88:b1:8f:46:6e:38:71:97:b7:b5: 9b:8d:32:86:1f:0b:f8:4e:57:4f:1c:5f:9f:c5:ee: 40:23:80:99:a1:77:30:a3:46:c1:5b:3e:1c:fa:5c: The issuer property is kubernetes-ca , which is the certification authority of our k0s cluster property is , which is the certification authority of our k0s cluster The Subject is O = development, CN = demo ; that part’s important as this is the place where the name and the group of the user appears. Because the certificate is signed by the cluster’s CA, a plugin in the api-server is able to authenticate the user/group from the common name (CN) and organisation (O) in this certificate’s subject. First we tell kubectl to use the context defined in this new kubeconfig file: $ export KUBECONFIG=$PWD/demo.kubeconfig Then we list the cluster’s nodes once more: $ kubectl get no Error from server (Forbidden): nodes is forbidden: User “demo” cannot list resource “nodes” in API group “” at the cluster scope This error message was expected. Even if the user has been authenticated by the api-server (the certificate sent alongside the user’s request has been signed by the cluster certificate authority), they don’t have the right to perform any actions in the cluster.

https://medium.com/better-programming/k0s-kubernetes-in-a-single-binary-224bb43f4520

['Luc Juggery']

2020-12-07 21:51:32.939000+00:00

['Kubernetes', 'DevOps', 'Containers', 'Programming', 'Startup']

The Speaker, Silent

after Laurie Halse Anderson Her silence is a virtue, so they say with hands that cover mouth and words and breath awake and sleeping. Should she bite today or is she best left bleeding? Little deaths now crawl within and take over her skin an hour or a month. She blinks her eyes, pretends that there’s a person past the sin, regret becomes her middle name, the lies become a sterling shield until they fold like tissue paper in a child’s hand — when every pretense fails she must be bold or else she shatters, statue made of sand and trauma. Silence ever breaks her bones and steals away the moments that she owns.

https://medium.com/sonnetry/the-speaker-silent-f1525c86d8e7

['Zach J. Payne']

2020-08-01 19:38:10.326000+00:00

['Ninjabyob', 'Storytelling', 'Poetry', 'Life', 'Mental Health']

How You Can Be A More Successful Writer Than I Am

How You Can Be A More Successful Writer Than I Am A few tips on how you can make more money than I do — and why I’m not raking in the bucks, like you can. Photo: Steve Halama / Medium / Irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright to use and distribute for free. I’ve been writing on Medium long enough to get a sense of what draws clicks — and it’s not me or my writing. To be sure, not all of my articles have been duds. My most-read pieces were two articles I wrote on race: one on what you should never do to a Black person (P.S., I’m white), and another on what I learned about race from dating a Black woman. Despite these small wins I haven’t made the grand slams that would garner me 130K followers and millions of views. If you aspire to be a Medium influencer, don’t do what I do. This is what I do (and don’t do). Writing about sex Jed Diamond wrote a lovely article about the one thing that men want more than sex. The article got 91K claps. I don’t write about sex, especially if it has to do with me, because I find that way too personal. So I’m missing out on the views, claps and followers that go along with writing about your sex life, a topic that Medium writer Catherine Cohen delights in. Writing political articles Umair Haque wrote a piece on how Donald Trump could steal the next election that got 10.2K claps. But I don’t write political articles, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that doing so could get me fired. Writing deeply personal essays Sarah McBride wrote a deeply personal essay about losing her husband at 24, and earned 12.3K claps for it. I, on the other hand, am reticent to share such personal moments in my life with the world. It runs in the family. When my mom died of cancer, most of her friends didn’t even know she was sick. She had been undergoing treatment, and was responding — but her body gave out unexpectedly. I applaud Sarah for sharing her personal experiences of loss. Put in the same position as her, I couldn’t write about it, the same as she has. Writing poetry I do like to write poetry. For example, I wrote a poem about my car getting COVID-19. It got a respectable 14 reads. While I appreciate the 135 claps I got for my poem, I recognize writing poetry for Medium is always a losing strategy for anyone who wants to become a Medium influencer. Writing about the future Frank Lukacovic posted an article on October 17 predicting a Biden landslide. He was wrong, in his prediction — which is why I steadfastly avoid predicting the future. When you’re wrong it cuts into your credibility. Nevertheless, Lukacovic was rewarded for his article with 6.4K claps and 186 responses. I congratulate Lukacovic for his winning Medium strategy. I’ve also seen a lot of people write articles about surefire ways to make money on Medium. But frankly, that’s so 2019. I really try to avoid advising people on how to get rich quickly, because the only way to get rich quickly, is to do a lot of hard work — and there’s nothing quick about working hard. So what I’m really saying, is if you want to be successful on Medium, you should write deeply personal articles about the political sex you predict in not just your future, but in each and every American’s future — but don’t be poetic about it.

https://medium.com/bulletproof-writers/why-im-a-failure-as-a-writer-375b3e3fedb

['Jay Krasnow']

2020-11-29 02:17:51.759000+00:00

['Money', 'Success', 'Influencers', 'Writing', 'Marketing']

Some People Just Suck — and It’s Not Your Fault

Some People Just Suck — and It’s Not Your Fault Someone else’s baggage is not your baggage. Photo by Velvet Morris on Unsplash I like to agonize over things that I can’t change. Okay, I wouldn’t say that I like it necessarily — but that doesn’t stop me from obsessing over things that are out of my control anyway. I also “like” to mull over my past actions and mistakes, retracing my errors and missteps with laser precision, thinking about all the things I could have done differently, or where I went wrong. It’s this kind of mind-trench that eventually drove me to starting therapy — and it really helped dig me out of my self-inflicted woes. Not everything is your fault “Not everything is your fault,” my therapist said to me, after listening to another one of my tearful monologues peppered with self-loathing. Her words surprised me, like a blow to the head. I stopped in my tracks. What an interesting concept. I had been telling her about a breakup that broke me in two. I agonized over every detail, over every word that was said between me and my ex. I punished myself endlessly for “screwing up” and being too open about my feelings to my ex, ultimately driving them away and ruining the relationship. Or that’s how my twisted, emotionally clouded mind saw it. My therapist opened my eyes to the fact that while I may have erred in certain things, the whole entire breakup did not rest on my shoulders. I was not entirely to blame. It takes two people to break up. It was this particular breakup that taught me that some people just suck, and it’s not my fault that they suck. Some people just suck Another more recent breakup reminded me of this — that some people just suck. I dated someone who was thoughtless and self-centered, but in such a nuanced way that it took me a while to notice. His ego manifested itself in the way where he’d withhold affection or divvy it out carefully just to keep me interested, communicate infrequently, and just generally ignore my feelings. Several of my close friends were not fans of the way he treated me, and they made their objections known, but I chose to ignore their warnings. The final straw was when I went out of my way to visit him for a weekend — a journey of several hours — and it seemed like the whole time, he didn’t even want me there. That was finally enough for me to wipe the grime off of my rose colored lenses and see the truth of who he really was.

https://medium.com/moments-matter/some-people-just-suck-and-its-not-your-fault-1a62d5a8a9b8

['Megan Boley']

2020-07-27 12:01:01.123000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Psychology']

The ABCs of Design Systems

A is for Adoption Measure how people are using (or not using) your design system There are two groups who need to adopt your design system: designers who use UI kits and engineers who use a code library such as React. Design adoption is easy — just swap out the UI kit and voila. However, code that is even one day old comes with technical constraints that make it hard to just flip a switch and expect all engineers to use it overnight. To measure adoption at SurveyMonkey, we plot every product team on a five-point color scale: Red: Team does not know we have a system. Orange: Team has not adopted any part of the system. Yellow: Team has prioritized adopting the system to their roadmap. Green: Team is using the design language but not the code. Blue: Team is using both the design language and the code. Get your engineers involved up front to foster healthy adoption. Design systems solve a design problem, but with an engineering solution. B is for Beta Pilot new releases to a small group of beta testers A small change to any component could break the kits that your adopters are using and require them to make a change on their end to support it. This can get really taxing over time and can get expensive as things scale. To avoid this, we always ship big releases to a small group of early adopters first. Then we learn from them before releasing to everyone. Some things we’ve learned early on was that our naming conventions were not clear and that some components needed more robust variants. If we had not caught those kinds of small but crucial things up front we would have run the risk of creating more work for our adopting teams when we asked them to upgrade to a new version. C is for Canon Your official criteria for adding new things to the system We organize by design tokens and UI components, and we carefully curate what gets added so that the wrong parts do not get inducted without meeting every check mark in our induction criteria. Our canon is the truth, and it’s how we distinguish between a sanctioned decision versus a pattern that is being circulated unofficially. Tokens and components must both be available in Sketch and code before they are inducted so that designers and engineers are always working from the same set of tools. We also look at things like if it’s an industry best practice, is it context agnostic, has it been proven in production, etc. Be strict curators of your canon and communicate how your team decides when and why tokens or components are or are not ready to be inducted. Design systems solve a design problem, but with an engineering solution. D is for Distribution How you communicate and deliver changes to your teams You can spend months crafting brilliant symbols in Sketch, writing guidelines, and partnering with engineers to build everything in code. But have you stopped to think about what the experience is like for people using the system? How easy is for them to receive updates? Is it a manual process or do changes get synced automatically? Good distribution starts with great encapsulation. Most modern design tools have disruption tools built right into them. But how might a Sketch plugin replace your need to use a Sketch library that has to manually download each update? For engineers, how might you improve their need to copy and paste raw values and/or HTML? Instead of 50 lines of HTML, how might you encapsulate it down to one line of code? Most modern tech libraries are built with this philosophy of encapsulation (React and web components, for example). E is for Ecosystem The delicate balance of everything that makes up your design system Just like a rainforest ecosystem, every part of a design system plays an important role, and it all needs to work effectively together to keep everything running smoothly. And the design system ecosystem reaches far beyond UI components. We like to think that our design system ecosystem contains these four systems inside it — all of which need to work together to keep the system healthy: Distribution: Automating release and communication of updates (Deploying, npm, change logs, Slack). Tooling: Streamline how people use the system (Sketch plugins, VScode plugins, prototyping tools, etc.). Education: Helping people use the system better (docs, guidelines, onboard training). System: The design language and UI components. (The fun stuff!) Imagine dropping a polar bear into the middle of a rainforest. It’ll wreak havoc on the wildlife around it, and the polar bear will suffer too. We think of our system just like that. If you introduce things into your design system that don’t make sense in the larger context, the system will slowly deteriorate. F is for Forever Each addition to the system is a vow to maintain it Who doesn’t celebrate when they ship a new component and move onto something else? It’s tempting to never look back, but it’s important to remember that every time you add more features to your design system, your commitments and responsibilities increase. If you’re not careful, you might bite off more than you can chew, and all of a sudden you only have time to maintain the core system — and no time to grow the system further. Before you add anything new, think about the long-term cost of support. As your system takes on more responsibility, grow your team at a relative speed. G is for Glue Be the reason that other teams break out of their silos and work together Your design system sits central to everyone and gives you a holistic view of the entire product experience. You have the powerful advantage to spot when people are working on similar problems and bring them together to solve them when otherwise they might not have looked up to notice the opportunity. I call these missed opportunities “the seams” and your design system is the glue that holds the seams together. Your design system is the glue that holds the seams together. H is for Help Be clear and specific about how others can contribute A design system shouldn’t exist in a vacuum, so it’s important to set up a process for accepting help and contributions from the people using it — similar to an open-source model. But not just any help. Be crystal clear about what your team does and doesn’t need help with, and establish guidelines for contributing. Our design systems team wasn’t ready to accept outside contributions until we did a ton of work up front to set a good foundation. Once we were ready, we created a roadmap and a process that made it clear how to be an effective contributor. I is for Invisible Disrupt your adopters’ process as little as possible One of our design system’s guiding principles is to disrupt the workflow of our teams as little as possible. Aim to fit into their workflow instead of asking them to fit into yours. Everyone works differently and every team operates differently. It’s not your role to determine their destiny for them. Instead, it’s your role to listen to how they work and design your system to accommodate so it can be invisible during their process. J is for Job All the small tasks you do today can become a full-time job later It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s a lot of work to do on design systems. Every small responsibility you’re taking on today has the potential to be a full-time job later on. Small tasks today are easy to juggle until they balloon in scope as your system scales. Being blindsided by increasing scope is a shock to the operation of your system. Prioritization becomes your key ally in recovering your operations — decide which tasks you can drop until you have more people on your team. K is for Knowledge Document and share the knowledge you gain from being centralized Being central to the process of so many designers and engineers means you have a wealth of undocumented knowledge brewing in your head. That sounds great if you’re okay being the gatekeeper, but documenting the knowledge in your head is very powerful and can empower your entire organization to do better work. Find a process to document your knowledge in an informal way and see what your team finds valuable. Share it with your team until your system is ready to formalize it in your documentation and guidelines. L is for Live Design files are just a static representation of your design system — they’re not the actual design system As we’re moving toward modern technology stacks like React, changes can automatically sync across your entire ecosystem (docs, Sketch, and code). Philosophically, that means every UI component in your system exists everywhere, together. First, make sure your system’s source of truth is the code. Build a doc site that renders that living code right inside its examples. Build tooling, like a Sketch plugin, that automates converting your coded components to Sketch symbols so that your team doesn’t have to manually draw your UI kits by hand. This helps avoid bugs downstream due to human error. M is for Measure Prove the value of your design system by measuring its impact Early-stage design systems teams measure different things than mature ones. Early on, you focus on delivering what you promised: UI components. At this stage, you’re measuring how many tangible things your team is able to produce and deliver — like your UI kit or new components. But once you’ve done that, you need to start measuring the impact and value your design system brings to your organization. The metrics at this stage should align with the metrics your company already cares about. For example, our engineering teams already measure “time to close a pull request.” Separately, we keep track of which teams use our design system, and which teams don’t. When we map that data together, we can show that engineering teams that use our design system take less time to close a pull request. This is a win-win — it helps us prove the value of our design system, and it gives an incentive to engineering teams to adopt our design system to increase their efficiency. Find out what your design and engineering departments are measuring and segment the data. N is for Need Your system doesn’t get dedicated resourcing because it hasn’t solved a business need No one is listening if you pitch your system as solving design problems (for example, improving color and typography). Even if you pitch that it will improve the customer experience, leading to more money downstream. While that may be true, it’s usually not how the business thinks about priorities. Instead, start by identifying a need that the business has and propose that you can solve that need with a design system. What they care about is that you’re going to solve that need, not necessarily that you are going to do it by spinning up a design system. At SurveyMonkey, our business need was to apply our new brand throughout the entire product as quickly as possible. At another company, the legal team had the business need of ensuring that we were meeting accessibility guidelines across the site — and we promised to solve that need with a design system. Identify a need that the business has and propose that you can solve that need with a design system O is for Onboarding Educate and train teams on how to adopt your design system One day you’ll get to a point when the foundation is stable and the number of new components being added has slowed down drastically. Add an uptick in adoption to that mix and your design system’s bottleneck will no longer be that a pattern doesn’t exist yet. The new bottlenecks will be the unknowns of how to get started and how to use the system correctly. To solve that, you need to invest in training at the right time — not too early when shipping new components is more important, but not so late that you’re creating huge barriers for getting more teams to start adopting your design system. P is for People Your customers are your co-workers Early design systems are usually developed as a grassroots effort by product designers, who naturally bring their customer-centric design process with them. As a result, I see design systems teams fall into the trap of building their design system for customers, instead of building it for the designers, engineers, and PMs who are actually using it to craft products for customers downstream. What ultimately gets shipped to production is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to build a design system that improves the productivity and relationships of the people using the system — your co-workers — and to help them make great decisions as quickly as possible. Q is for Quit Policing Your company’s live app or product is not your priority The design systems team shouldn’t be the gatekeeper of what ships to production. What ships to customers is your product design team’s responsibility. If you’re straddling the line and policing designs right before they ship, you’re already too late. You’re focused on the wrong part of the process. As more teams use your design system, it becomes too time-intensive to watch every release to make sure everything that gets shipped is using your system correctly and is consistent with how others are using it. Instead, focus your energy on proactive education and training. Make sure people know their resources before they start designing or building anything. If you educate people on how to effectively use the design system, they’re more likely to make better decisions when they work on future projects. R is for Relationships Your design system bridges the gap between disciplines Your design system’s ability to bridge gaps between disciplines is your greatest superpower. Your design system reaches far beyond one-on-one collaboration between a designer and an engineer. It has the potential to nurture the relationships between every designer and engineer at your company by empowering everyone to speak a shared language. S is for Scale Set up repeatable processes and guidelines that scale your team’s capabilities Relative to the rest of the company, design systems teams are small — yet they’re tasked with supporting an entire company. The math doesn’t add up, and we often see one-person design systems teams supporting 100 people using the system. If even a couple of those people ask you to pair code or design, that could take up an entire week of your team’s time. To combat this, you have to scale your team’s capabilities so that your team doesn’t have to be in the room for people to make a decision. If done correctly, you can scale a single skillset (such as visual design) from one person to unlimited. T is for Thinking Systematically Systems thinking is your team’s superpower Traditionally, product organizations are made up of three roles: product, engineering, and design. As a result, you often see design systems teams made up of these same roles. But not just any engineer or designer will succeed on a design systems team — your greatest assets are engineers and designers with a knack for improving the productivity of others around them by solving problems systematically, on a holistic level. U is for Unifying Disciplines Engineering by design, design by engineering There’s an interesting opportunity when your design system sits central to everything: Unify everything! Design, code, process — you name it and we’ll unify it. How might we, as a design systems community, unify disciplines and empower them to work better, together? We have the opportunity to blend the way code and design work together by building tools that unify those processes. We can get designers working more like engineers by introducing version control. Or build a prototyping sandbox that allows designers to prototype in code — without writing code. Your design system’s ability to bridge gaps between disciplines is a superpower V is for Vision Have a clear vision of what you want your design system to be Since your system builds bridges between disciplines (design, engineering, and product) everyone will have different expectations of the system. That means that right out of the gate, people might assume that your system is everything, for everyone. Lofty expectations like this are dangerous because they’re unrealistic. Establish a strong vision and evangelize that to the entire product organization. Explain what your system is, and more importantly what it is not. W is for Wrangler That moment of realization: “Have I become a PM?” As the creator of a design system, you end up doing whatever it takes to keep the system alive. As your system scales, you may notice you’re acting more like a program manager than before. Your day-to-day shifts from hands-on work to managing operations and coordinating. Project plans, roadmaps, timelines, synthesizing feedback — oh my, did I just become a PM? X is for “X” Get really good at x’ing things out and saying no. Everyone will come to you with the next big idea for your system. They’ll ask you to take on a collection of new components by a certain date to help them meet their own deadlines. It’s easy to say yes because it’s a quick way to prove your system’s value early on, but it’s important to set boundaries. Be careful not to commit too much time solving the needs of a single team. Focus on the holistic view and prioritize work that benefits everyone — not just a single team or a single project. Y is for You You happen to your design system Your design system starts with you showing up and being proactive about grassrootsing it. Even if you can’t do it alone, it still takes you to inspire and lead others to believe that it’s a cause worth supporting. Don’t wait for someone to hand you the keys to the design system. Your passion and hard work could be what it takes to grow your system into a dedicated design systems team that wins! Z is for Zoo It will feel like a zoo because it is a zoo Grassrootsing a system and watching it grow from a tiny seed into its own dedicated team is quite the journey. It will feel like order and calm is just around the corner, but around each corner lies new challenges. That’s okay! Embrace the chaos and see where it takes you. The best innovations often come from chaos. Trust your vision, take it one step at a time, and rally your team around creating order from the chaos as you go.

https://medium.com/curiosity-by-design/the-abcs-of-design-systems-b1dc6198bb7c

['Mike Dick']

2019-10-02 23:56:23.078000+00:00

['Craft', 'React', 'Design Systems', 'Design', 'Design Operations']

Most of Our Oxygen Doesn’t Come From Where You Think

As a child, when I learned about how plants produce the oxygen that we breathe, I imagined that I could see that oxygen in the air. In my mind’s eye, I saw vast waves of oxygen rising from a lush tropical rainforest. The image makes sense — if plants produce oxygen, it stands to reason that bigger plants produce more, and areas of dense vegetation produce more oxygen than areas with only sparse plants. A rainforest, with its multiple levels of vegetation, surely produces the majority of our oxygen, right? Not quite. Consider the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest. By one estimate, this entire area is only responsible for a piddling 6 percent of the world’s oxygen production. So if lush rainforests, filled with many different plant species all living in somewhat tenuous and competitive harmony, aren’t responsible for the creation of most of the air we need to breathe… where’s it coming from? And are we in danger of accidentally destroying our own air supply in a climate catastrophe? The Earth is a Blue Marble It’s important to remember that sunlight shines on all areas on the surface of the planet, including both land and water. In fact, since about 71 percent of the Earth is covered by water, it’s reasonable to say that the Sun is shining more on the water than on the land. And even though the surface of the ocean looks dull, lifeless, and uninteresting compared to the business of a lush tropical forest, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. The top 200 meters (or approximately 650 feet) of the ocean is known as the epipelagic zone, from epi-, meaning “above”, and pelagic, meaning “surface of the sea”. This top zone of the ocean absorbs most of the sunlight that hits it — and is filled with algae, single-celled plants that flourish from that light. Algae, clinging to rocks. Looks like green scum, but we’d all gasp if it vanished (and would keep gasping, haha, air jokes). Photo by chuttersnap. This algae produces a huge amount of oxygen, simply because there’s so much of it growing throughout much of the ocean. It also provides the primary food source to a large percentage of the life in the ocean — and has been serving in this role for hundreds of millions of years. By various estimates, the total percentage of oxygen that’s produced from these tiny, modest single-celled critters ranges from 50 to 85 percent! And there’s one breakout star, a single-celled algal organism called Prochlorococcus, which produces roughly 20% of the world’s oxygen just on its own. Why is this estimate of the percentage of oxygen from the ocean vary so widely? Part of this is due to the changing nature of the ocean — the amount of sun, the seasons, and the tides will all shift the level of oxygen that any one region of open ocean produces. Another challenge is that a significant amount of this oxygen that’s produced doesn’t go directly into our atmosphere, but stays absorbed in the oceans. This is how fish are able to breathe down there, without needing very long snorkels. But finally, that oxygen can sometimes get used up in a dramatic reversal of its production, when something called a harmful algal bloom, or HAB, occurs. The Paradox — Too Much Algae, No Oxygen It sounds crazy. Too much algae grows — and this somehow depletes the oxygen, instead of creating more? Shouldn’t more algae equal more oxygen being made? The problem isn’t the living algae, but what happens when they die. Water clouded with algae, likely in a bloom. This is often caused by human intervention (such as fertilizer runoff) or as an effect of climate change. Photo by Ivan Bandura. There are a few stages to an algal bloom: The bloom is triggered by a change in conditions. This is sometimes natural, but often is caused by human-associated effects such as unseasonal warmth from climate change, or fertilizer runoff from farms. Huge numbers of algae grow, clogging the water, in a “bloom.” The algae may produce toxins that can kill sea life, and can also kill fish and wildlife by covering them and suffocating them. As the fuel for the bloom runs out, the algae die in huge quantities. The dead algae lead to huge growths of bacteria, which consume oxygen from the water as they feed on the rotting algae. If an algal bloom is large enough, it leaves behind an area of the ocean, sometimes many square kilometers, that no longer contains enough oxygen in the water to support life. These regions are known as “dead zones.” Dead zones have a whole host of problems — they can’t support fish, they may spread if there’s still more fertilizer, sewage, or other pollutant runoff contributing to them, and they can wipe out important species that we need to maintain the ocean food chains. But in the case of this article, dead zones also reduce the amount of oxygen produced. And while it hasn’t had an impact on our atmosphere yet, scientists are warning that, unless we reduce pollution flowing into the ocean and contributing to algal blooms, we may render much of our oceans uninhabitable for fish.

https://medium.com/a-microbiome-scientist-at-large/most-of-our-oxygen-doesnt-come-from-where-you-think-a464b278ef76

['Sam Westreich']

2020-07-29 12:01:01.745000+00:00

['Environment', 'Science', 'Nature', 'Oceans', 'Plants']

Saving the Workplace by Design

Workplace design and building professionals have responded admirably to the Covid-19 pandemic, advancing a multitude of practical and science-backed ideas for safely re-opening offices where and when government officials allow. Unfortunately, by themselves these prescriptions could fall short in convincing large swaths of the workforce to feel comfortable with returning. The reason? The recommendations under discussion appeal almost entirely to our rational, conscious selves, and overlook the enormous influence that non-conscious human psychology plays in assessing how secure we feel in our environment. The good news is that we can do something about it. Researchers have been plumbing the human mind for decades to understand why we react to our physical surroundings as we do. Their findings reveal that certain aspects of built space that appear to have no logical connection to material safety nonetheless can profoundly affect how dangerous we perceive an environment to be. We are generally unaware of the effect these elements have on our mental state because they exert their influence from deep within the human psyche, where they endure as a legacy of our evolutionary past. Rather than dismiss these unseen agents as irrational or irrelevant to modern life, however, we should capitalize on our newfound insights to develop techniques for shaping space that people will intuit as well as know to be safe. And here’s more good news: according to the data, incorporating these techniques into the workplace can boost creative task performance among occupants as well. In fact, it was in researching my book on creative space in residential settings that I stumbled on the link between idea flow and our drive to feel protected in our environment. On reflection, the notion that creativity and safety are mutually reinforcing from a design psychology standpoint makes sense; after all, a person must feel secure in their surroundings to risk promoting ideas that might upend conventional wisdom. The strategies for achieving safe space through design cover the gamut from furnishings to finishes, lighting to layout. Here’s a sampling of the techniques that should be part of every workplace designer’s toolkit in the post-Covid era. Benchwall seating and partitioning system. Product designed by Stephanie Forsythe + Todd MacAllen for molo. Vancouver, Canada. 2003. Photography by molo. Favor Curved Over Straight In 2007 researchers at the Harvard Medical School ran brain scans on subjects while they looked at a series of images of everyday products and abstract shapes. Half of the items pictured were marked by straight edges and pointed corners, the rest by curvilinear contours and rounded edges. None of the recognizable products were intrinsically dangerous (i.e., no guns or knives), and yet the researchers found that the part of our brain that manages fear was consistently activated when images in the rectilinear group flashed onscreen. Why would the sight of nominally harmless things nonetheless instill fear in people? The answer would seem to lie in Nature. Relatively few elements in the natural world are dominated by sharp edges and pointed ends, but those that do exist have a tendency to inflict pain. Early humans, the thinking goes, discovered this uncomfortable truth through repeated negative experience, until the link between straightness and the ensuing self-harm became etched into their DNA — or at least, the DNA of those who survived long enough to reproduce, thanks to their having grasped this insight before it was too late. With evolution moving at a glacial pace, however, not enough time has passed for the human brain to catch up to the fact that these days a Knoll-style sofa is unlikely to do us physical harm merely by virtue of its orthogonal composition, crisp corners, and straight legs. That became clear in a 2011 study where subjects were shown pictures of two furniture groupings. Both arrangements contained a sofa, easy chairs, a floor covering, coffee table and lamp, yet one ensemble was dominated by pieces with curved profiles and details, the other by straight. Researchers found that subjects who viewed the first group registered positive feelings at the prospect of inhabiting the pictured setting, whereas those who viewed the second were inclined to avoid it, just as we would any environment that perceived as threatening, however subliminally. Let Them Lie Once upon a time, to be accused of lying down on the job was to be charged with slacking. Nowadays, one of the best ways to make people feel safe at work is to do exactly that. The change in attitude has to do with a little piece of our neuroanatomy called the locus coeruleus (Latin for “blue place”). Among its functions is to emit a chemical called norepinephrine, or noradrenaline as it’s also known, when we’re faced with a stressful situation that requires an immediate response — like jumping out of the way of a car hurtling toward us, or evading a hungry predator back in the days we lived in trees. It also boosts alertness and focus, two other cognitive tools that come in handy when we hope to escape a dire predicament. Reclining, on the other hand, has the opposite effect on the locus coeruleus, lowering the flow of norepinephrine and other neural stimulants emitted along with it. That is a natural reaction to our body signaling to our brain that we don’t foresee the need to spring into defensive action any time soon. Exploit this connection between mental and physiological states by furnishing the workplace with freestanding and built-in pieces that accommodate a laid-back pose. Or consider some of the many products engineered for horizontal work currently or planned to be on the market. Photography by Olena Sergienko Bring Nature In In 1991, a team of environmental psychologists led by the noted medical biologist Roger S. Ulrich set out to compare the impact of natural versus urban environment on emotional state. The first thing the researchers did was to ratchet up their subjects’ stress levels, a mission they accomplished by having them watch a brutally graphic documentary about — of all things — work accidents suffered by employees operating in an unsafe woodshop (!). Subjects were then randomly assigned to watch a second video set in either natural or urban environments, none of which contained anything as horrifying as the first. After the viewing, researchers measured each participant’s heart period, muscle tension, skin conductance, pulse, and blood pressure. They also had subjects self-report their emotional state both before and after the experience. The results were conclusive. Exposure to natural scenery reduced stress and negative emotions such as fear more quickly and substantially than viewing urban settings. The 1991 study is just one of many findings affirming the power of Nature-based elements to reduce anxiety. And the benefits don’t stop there. Incorporating biophilic elements into work environments can also boost staff productivity, creativity, job satisfaction, and overall wellbeing. Make the Workplace More Like Home Home has long symbolized the promise of safe harbor, a place of refuge into which one could withdraw from the world in order to find safety. Today, symbol has become fact as millions of people around the globe spend long hours cocooned inside their homes to evade contagion. Yet, noticeably absent from the proposals being floated for reviving the workplace in the post-Covid era is to continue a trend that was already underway prior to the crisis: resimercial design. A mashup of residential and commercial elements and characteristics, this awkwardly named design approach enjoyed considerable favor among tenants (especially millennials and GenZers) and landlords alike before everything changed. To cast it off as no longer relevant to current circumstances, however, would be a mistake. Home is a powerful agent of psychological safety; the closer we can link the workplace experience to the domestic sphere, the greater our chance of overcoming the reluctance of users to see it once again as a place of community and collaboration. Conclusion In 1979, Israeli researchers Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published a paper that would change our notion of what it means to be human. Among its startling insights was that people are often bafflingly irrational when it comes to processing economic risk. For example, we are so much more afraid of suffering a loss than we are motivated by potential gain that we will forfeit statistically more likely rewards just to avoid a negative outcome. Some scientists trace our propensity for risk aversion to our days as hunter-gatherers on the African savanna. Life in a state of nature was lived so close to the edge, these researchers theorize, that the slightest material loss could spell one’s demise, and therefore was to be avoided at all costs. The implication of findings like this is that we humans are hardly the rational, logic-driven creatures we sometimes imagine ourselves to be. Instead, we are fueled as much by feeling as by fact, intuition as by information. That is a truth workplace designers cannot afford to disregard in the Covid era. To be sure, we must continue to draw on science to devise ways to protect the health and safety of all who occupy the settings we create. But let’s also apply what we know about the psychology of safe space to remove the invisible hurdles that could be keeping people from wanting to be there as well.

https://medium.com/swlh/saving-the-workplace-by-design-7097f77ca7f8

['Donald M. Rattner']

2020-12-02 20:50:42.308000+00:00

['Wellness', 'Architecture', 'Work', 'Psychology', 'Interior Design']

The shift of humanity is happening in our courtrooms.

The shift of humanity is happening in our courtrooms. The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess would have been so happy. His Deep Ecology vision is really changing the world now. We are not only realizing that people are part of nature. We are one. But our law systems are now also acting upon the fact that nature has an intrinsic value. Not to be measured in money. Rivers are the veins of our planet. Undeniably valuable for spirituality and clean drinking water for all species. Water has many values. Picture: Jeevan Singla via Pixabay In India, the Ganges has received the same right of law as humans in 2017. Now we are finding ways how to uphold those rights. © Désirée Driesenaar

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-shift-of-humanity-is-happening-in-our-courtrooms-39e7b1efa644

['Desiree Driesenaar']

2020-12-10 07:46:28.064000+00:00

['Rivers', 'Environment', 'Nature', 'Sustainability', 'Law']