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10 Lessons from 10 Top Emerging Mental Health Leaders | 1. A Superpowered Life Comes from Turning Anxiety into Courage
Shefali Tsabary PhD works primarily with parents and children in an effort to build emotional resilience. She helps parents alleviate their own anxiety when it comes to parenting and the associated challenges. In her new book Superpowered she urges kids to take their insecurities, like not doing well in school, and turn them into strengths by figuring out how they can excel in different ways that will serve them best.
2. Put the Right Nutrients into Your Body to Minimize Anxiety
Drew Ramsey, MD works at the intersection of mental health and nutrition. He’s a board-certified nutritional psychologist, and his work helps us understand how to better nourish our bodies to reduce emotional imbalances. Most notably, he is known for highlighting the benefits of leafy greens, especially kale. These should be regularly implemented into your diet for reduced stress.
3. Don’t be Intimidated to Use Your Voice
Kevin Love is a fierce competitor in the National Basketball Association. It’s not often that a man with such physical prowess — he stands almost 7 feet tall and weighs near 250 pounds — would be expected to speak about mental health, but Love is the exception. He helps athletes and individuals become more confident and open as they go about their mental health journeys.
4. Marginalized People Must Break the Stigmas of Mental Health
Wilma Mae Basta is working to give away 10,000 hours of free mental health services to anybody who identifies as a woman of color in the United States. She works to fight against misconceptions related to mental health. For instance, she stated in an interview, “The Black community has survived slavery. Our story is of perseverance and resilience, and because of that, there’s an expectation to also survive depression and anxiety. But mental health should not be a symbol of weakness, and finding healing from it should not, either.”
5. “Even if you’ve been mentally healthy your whole life, the stacked stresses of the pandemic, financial strain, and isolation may have pushed you into unknown territory.”
Dr. Daniel Amen is a world-renowned therapist who has written 10 New York Times best-selling books. His work now focuses on pandemic related mental health issues. One of his most notable recommendations is rewiring your brain’s negativity bias about self-isolating, quarantining, and social distancing. Instead of dreading the times we’re facing, try asking yourself questions like:
What do you enjoy about being at home?
What’s better about your life now that you don’t have to commute to work?
What has this time at home freed you up to do more of?
6. Friendship is as Important for Your Health as Diet and Exercise
Lydia Denworth is a science journalist and author of the book Friendship, where she explains the emotional, psychological, and evolutionary foundations of why we make friendships. According to her research, “With friends our attention becomes focused, distractions lessen, awareness of time disappears: We emerge into a world in which the intimacy and joy shared with others is the fundamental reality, and for a time the world becomes a different place.”
7. Accept and Embrace an Appropriate Amount of Grief
David Kessler is one of the world’s foremost experts on grief and loss. Unfortunately, society is undergoing more loss than it’s ever seen right now, whether that be loss of family, friends, money, occupation, or hope. Ramsey in his book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, explains how recognizing grief but then using it to find some sort of meaningful activity to do is critical right now.
8. Your Inner Biases do Not Control You
Light Watkins is a meditation teacher who focuses on bringing simplicity to the meditation practice. He recently discussed the importance of meditation in reconfiguring the mind to avoid implicit biases. By activating the mind through meditation, we are better able to understand where our biases come from and how we can get rid of them.
9. Everybody Panics
Perpetua Neo blends concepts from neuroscience, psychology and ancient wisdom. She recently published an article about panic attacks based on her own personal experience. In it she describes how truthfully, none of us are in control, and based on external factors anybody can experience a panic attack. But, once you understand this, you can begin the internal work to realize that they can be easily overcome with certain tangible steps and the appropriate mindset.
10. Emotional Agility Serves as a Roadmap for Real Behavioral Change
Susan David is the mother of emotional agility. In her Wall Street Journal #1 best-selling book about the subject, she emphasizes that emotionally agile people are not immune to the daily stress we all encounter in our everyday lives. The key difference though is that they know how to gain critical insight about situations and interactions from their feelings, and they use this knowledge to adapt, align their values and actions, and make changes that move them forward in the best way possible. | https://medium.com/real-1-0/10-lessons-from-10-top-emerging-mental-health-leaders-8981757820c | ['Jordan Gross'] | 2020-11-06 18:26:51.215000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Leadership', 'Inspiration', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health'] |
Office Hours: The Oasis Gateway | Office Hours: The Oasis Gateway
Improving the usability of DApps with a simple API.
This month we hosted an office hours featuring the new Oasis Gateway. Oasis engineer Stan Augé-Pujadas and Product Marketing Manager, Andrew Miller, discussed our motivation behind building the Oasis Gateway, and how it can help developers increase adoption of their DApps by allowing them to pay transaction fees on behalf of their users. They also demoed the Secret Ballot App, and showed developers how easy it is to integrate with the Oasis Gateway.
If you missed this month’s office hours, don’t worry — you can watch the full office hours here, or check out some highlights below.
Important Resources
Q. Where can I learn more about the Oasis Gateway?
We’ve got a few different resources for you:
To review the Oasis Gateway code and provide feedback checkout our GitHub repo
If you’d like to try using the Oasis Gateway you can do so by following the Secret Ballot tutorial
If you run into issues or have questions, join our community Slack channel
Motivation behind the Oasis Gateway
Q: Why did we build the Oasis Gateway?
We were looking at the current state DApps and felt like adoption was really being hindered by the tremendous amount of friction involved with setting up and using a Wallet.
Right now to use a decentralized app you have to do the following:
Open the DApp you want to use
Be asked to install MetaMask
Go to coinbase.com and create an account.
Verify email account.
Do KYC. Take photo of passport/drivers license and send that to Coinbase.
Wait for that to be verified
Link bank account to Coinbase account.
Transfer USD to Coinbase account.
Make trade to purchase token.
Transfer token to MetaMask wallet.
At this point you can use the decentralized application.
Anytime you use the application, you have to approve the transaction.
While valuable, this flow is incredibly difficult for someone to follow if they’re not tech savvy, or familiar with blockchain. With the Oasis Gateway, we wanted to provide developers with an option to appeal to a broader audience of users — specifically those who might find this flow too cumbersome.
Q: Got it, so what is the Oasis Gateway, and how does it solve this problem?
The Oasis Gateway is an interface that we provide in front of the Oasis Network. It’s designed to provide a cloud like experience on top of the network to simplify development of DApps.
It specifically improves usability for DApps, by allowing developers to pay transaction fees on behalf of their end users. Rather than having their user’s add a wallet, a developer can pay transaction fees using their own wallet to make DApp setup and usage much more streamlined.
Q: How does the Oasis Gateway fit with our other tooling?
The Oasis Client is integrated with your front-end app, and talks directly to the Oasis Gateway. Right now the Oasis Client is implemented in Javascript and Typescript and it’s open sourced.
Your front-end app (on the left), would use the Oasis Client to talk to the Oasis Gateway, which exposes a simple interface for a service hosted on the Oasis Network. Services can be developed using the Oasis SDK. More on that in our previous post.
Overview of how DApps can interact with the Oasis Network.
Q: So there is some trade off here between ease of use and control. The user is giving up some control, but in exchange gets some properties of blockchain, correct?
Yes, the user still gets integrity provided by the system. Their transactions can’t be modified by the developer or the developer gateway. They also get some guarantees that their transactions remain confidential and lastly, because this is all built on a blockchain, users can access an immutable log of all transactions made.
So in some sense, this is an intermediate step between a traditional app backed by a cloud and DApp powered by a blockchain. They don’t get all the guarantees that a wallet would provide, but it’s better than a traditional system.
Q: So who is this technology really for?
We think this great for developers who have a user base that mostly used to web based apps, and not familiar with blockchain.
In an ideal world, folks would feel comfortable having a wallet and using it, but until then we hope that the Oasis Gateway can help ease the transition from web based apps to blockchain based apps.
Q: Okay, so how do I actually use the Oasis Gateway?
Watch this video above to find out! | https://medium.com/oasislabs/office-hours-the-oasis-gateway-c7668ecb4b76 | ['Andrew Miller'] | 2019-09-24 17:17:53.278000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Development', 'Blockchain', 'Privacy', 'Cloud Computing'] |
Waste Less Time on Smartphones with these Simple Tricks | Waste Less Time on Smartphones with these Simple Tricks
Be the one who pushes the buttons, not the one whose buttons get pushed
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
Something weird happened when I got my first smartphone. I realised that I could basically throw my expensive laptop out the window and still be able to play games, surf facebook (back when young people were on it too), watch movies etc. Except, unlike a laptop, I didn’t have to sit down indoors and carry a case around. This is like black magic for a 12 year old.
Like a lot of young adults today, I was in my formative years when I got my first smartphone which means I got hooked easily by its convenience and ability to kill boredom at any time. It was only a decade later, when I was 22 that I realised my addiction. My time and happiness were being sabotaged.
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally been able to get back my time and mind for the most part by following a few simple but effective techniques: | https://medium.com/the-innovation/simple-strategies-i-use-to-halve-time-wasted-on-smartphones-8f9c5edddbd2 | ['S Pats'] | 2020-11-18 20:46:12.386000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Time Management', 'Technology', 'Productivity', 'Self-awareness'] |
Dependency Injections in Swift | We all as developers dream about writing codes that are hassle-free, loosely coupled and easily testable.
Initially, as beginners, we just try to put a code in place to accomplish the tasks and stay satisfied with it. But as we try to advance further, we may try to approach simpler things in a smart way by compelling ourselves to certain principles.
One such principle is Dependency injection!!!
What is Dependency Injection by the way??
It is just a fancy term used to demonstrate the concept of removing dependency from the object, thereby making the object more loosely-coupled.
So the better way of looking at it is, let the object continue to have its own responsibility without having to create the internal dependencies within it.
Rather dependencies are injected💉 to the object. This concept of injecting dependencies into an object is called Dependency Injection. Dependencies can be injected to an object through any of the below.
Property Injection Initialiser Injection Method Injection
Let us consider a case where the object creates the dependency with itself.
class PersonViewModel {
var person = Person()
}
Here the object PersonViewModel carries the burden of creating a dependency on Person object.
Now let us see how we can inject dependency to person object via a property
class PersonViewModel {
var person = Person?
} let personViewModel = PersonViewModel()
let person = Person()
personViewModel.person = person
Here the class PersonViewModel is now free from creating the dependency and uses the dependency injected via property. This method of injecting dependency via a property is called Property Injection.
Now let us see how we can inject dependency to person object via an initialiser
class PersonViewModel { var person = Person? init (person: Person) {
self.person = person
}
Here the initialiser takes the responsibility of injecting the dependency and with this, the PersonViewModel is fully initialised. This method of injecting dependency via initialiser is called Initialiser or Constructor Injection.
This is the most preferred method of dependency injection as the initializer usually tries to fully configure the object and is used as a dependency that doesn’t change during the lifetime of the dependent object
Lastly, let us see how we can inject dependencies via methods — implementing protocol methods or setter functions
protocol ResourceManager {
func processDetails(for person: Person)
} class PersonViewModel { ...... func setPerson(person: Person) {
self.person = person
}
...... }
Here too just like our previous two methods the dependency is externally injected, where the protocol takes it as a method parameter. This method of injecting dependency via method is called Method or Settler Injection.
So where is Dependency injection really useful?
Apart from creating readable code the major advantage here is it we who inject the dependencies to a loosely coupled piece of code.
This will help in the following scenarios
Help to mock classes — While passing instances of different classes to a chunk of code, it is easy to test the functionality and behaviour as we are injecting the dependency.
Help in unit testing — Unit testing involves testing the output of the code, for a given input and compare it with a predefined value. The modularity achieved by using DI plays a significant role as various class instances can be tested without having to replace any block of the code as the dependency is injected.
So that is basics of Dependency Injection in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed reading
If you like this post, please click the clap 👏button below a few times to show your support!
For more articles, visit Nestedif Home page | https://medium.com/nestedif/dependency-injections-in-swift-c9244374d4f1 | ['Ashwin Kini'] | 2019-05-02 08:54:04.976000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Dependency Injection', 'Design Patterns', 'Swift', 'iOS'] |
Looking Back, Looking Forward | Looking Back, Looking Forward
… and fundraising when we’re ready to use it
There’s a rule of thumb about startup fundraising: “Raise when you can.”
But that’s not how we think about it. For our recent Series C financing, the idea wasn’t to “raise when we could” — in that case, we would have closed something much earlier. Rather, it was to “raise when we’re ready to use it,” and that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in: everywhere we look, there are high-ROI projects to bet on, and we should pursue as many as possible.
Thinking back on the past year, it’s remarkable how much has changed. Business is great, of course — we are excited about each and every customer we’ve brought on. Lately, we are working with more traditional enterprises who have embarked on their own microservices adventure and want to use LightStep [𝑥]PM to maintain confidence and control along the way. From a people standpoint, we’ve more than doubled in size, established multiple new departments while keeping our collaborative culture, formalized our values and built practices around them, and tried to lay the foundations — in particular, a company-wide sense of responsibility and autonomy — for more rapid, healthy growth in the years to come.
Our [𝑥]PM product has evolved and continues to lead the industry in terms of microservice APM and observability at scale. If I had to summarize:
(Not) Sampling : Random sampling hobbles distributed tracing, especially during incident resolution: otherwise you miss the outliers because they are, by definition, rare. This has been obvious to us since we founded LightStep, and indeed we’ve been running in production without upfront sampling since 2015, but it still bears repeating since many of our fellow vendors are now “inventing” this idea. :)
Random sampling hobbles distributed tracing, especially during incident resolution: otherwise you miss the outliers because they are, by definition, rare. This has been obvious to us since we founded LightStep, and indeed we’ve been running in production without upfront sampling since 2015, but it still bears repeating since many of our fellow vendors are now “inventing” this idea. :) Traces are the fuel, not the car : The most impactful work we’ve done in the past year involves trace aggregates: when we can look at the statistics of trace structures, we can make higher-level statements about our customers’ systems that go well beyond the mysteries of individual transactions.
The most impactful work we’ve done in the past year involves trace aggregates: when we can look at the statistics of trace structures, we can make higher-level statements about our customers’ systems that go well beyond the mysteries of individual transactions. Performance is a Shape : High-percentile latency is better than median latency, but neither holds a candle to real-time histograms with no cardinality limitations.
High-percentile latency is better than median latency, but neither holds a candle to real-time histograms with no cardinality limitations. Snapshots: In my recent KubeCon talk about a new scorecard for observability, I presented what Cindy Sridharan referred to as the “CAP Theorem for Observability”: namely that a positive-ROI observability solution can’t have high throughput, high cardinality, historical context, and unsampled data. This is where Snapshots come in — they give us the fidelity of unsampled data, but in the past; all at scale and without the cardinality limits that cause trouble for traditional time-series statistics. The “big picture” for Snapshots will come into greater focus in 2019 as we deliver insights on top of the core abstraction; suffice it to say that Snapshots will present a more detailed, actionable picture of system behavior than anything else that’s out there.
As a company, LightStep exists to give developers and operators greater confidence as their software scales. What we’ve seen is that scaled-out software begets many developers, many developers beget many small teams, and the presence of many small teams forces an organization to adopt microservices and/or serverless for managerial reasons. Vijay Gill described this in his excellent blog post about the only good reason to adopt microservices. And, sure enough, big enterprises are now running microservices; not in some zero-throughput labs environment, but in production, powering their bread-and-butter applications.
Of course this shift was evident at KubeCon — in fact, it probably originated there! This month at KubeCon North America, my colleague Ted Young organized the first-ever Observability Practitioners Summit, with speakers from academia, open-source observability projects, other great vendors, and in-house practitioners. The talks went beyond “Observability 101” material, delving deep into the details of these new monitoring technologies, visualization strategies, and novel use cases. The slides for all of the talks are available via the link above (and are recommended to any other observability nerds out there). Moreover, the O.P.S. event was packed: two years ago we were still explaining what distributed tracing was, and now the conversation is far more developed and far larger to boot. Ted also gave a great talk during the main KubeCon event about using distributed traces as a way to make “distributed assertions” about the behavior of microservice applications: Trace Driven Testing.
I remember doing internal tech talks at Google twelve years ago, trying to get highly-specialized Google software engineers (who develop scaled-out distributed systems for a living) to care at all about my Dapper project and distributed tracing in general. Frankly, it was a bit like pushing a car uphill — at the time, the concepts were simply a bit too new. Jump to 2018, where Lew Cirne, New Relic’s founding CEO, is talking about distributed tracing by name during NEWR’s quarterly earnings call. What planet are we living on here? I’m not sure, but it’s a lot of fun.
In closing, what could be better than a growing company — built around a remarkable team of wonderful people with strong shared values — creating a novel product that’s leading the industry into a dynamic and rapidly-growing market? There’s a lot to be excited about, and that’s why we raised when we did: not because we needed to, not because we can, but because we know what to build with it, and we want to build it faster. We can’t wait for 2019. | https://medium.com/lightstephq/looking-back-looking-forward-26ef9ee0555d | ['Ben Sigelman'] | 2019-01-11 02:05:53.132000+00:00 | ['Microservices', 'Fundraising', 'Startup', 'Observability', 'Distributed Tracing'] |
How to become a UX Designer at 40 with no digital or design experience | What is User Experience Design?
User Experience Design is the process of enhancing a persons experience with a product or service and involves an understanding of their behaviour to create a successful design.
Example: A business has an app, they want the sign-up process to have a great User Experience (UX). You have business requirements. You find the engineers (computer programmers) limitations. You research, collaborate with designers and others. You create ideas and prototypes to test. You develop what is the best, test more and iterate on that. That’s UX.
There is a great demand for good UX Designers. If you have no previous digital or design experience don’t panic. I had neither and managed to get into the world of UX. I chose to be a UX Designer because it was creative, in technology and in demand (and I didn’t need to wear a suit to work!). My journey was not easy, I’ve had bumps along the way but I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you are willing to work hard, be patient, and work outside your comfort zone, it’s a really exciting career.
___________________________________________________________________
Your journey into UX Design
Topics I’ll cover:
Studying UX Design, the tools to learn, your UX portfolio, getting a job, the UX process, how to design, user testing , people you’ll work with and ongoing learning.
___________________________________________________________________
1. UX Study On Campus:
Bootcamp study provides you with a good foundation of working in User Experience Design. In Sydney General Assembly and Academy Xi are great places to start your UX journey. They don’t fully prepare you for the real world of UX work, but it certainly helps you in the door.
General Assembly
General Assembly is in several cities around the world and has a solid reputation. It focuses on short immersive technology learning courses.
In Sydney, it has a 10 week, 5 days a week, full-time immersive UX course. They also do a part time course for 10 weeks 2 evenings per week. I suggest if you are serious to move into UX (and have no experience) commit to the immersive 10 week course. Susan Wolfe taught me in Sydney in 2014 and I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.
The 10 week UX Immersive (as of March 2017) : $13,500.00 (AUS)
The 10 week part time UX Course (as of March 2017): $5,000.00 (AUS)
General Assembly, UX Design (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane)
Academy Xi
Academy Xi is the new kid on the kid on the block in Sydney and they to have a good reputation. They teach full and part time technology courses. In Sydney they have a 10 week full time UX course. They also teach UX Design ina 10 week part time course 10am-4pm on Saturdays.
The 10 week UX full time UX Course (as of March 2017) : $10,000.00 (AUS)
The 10 week part time UX Course (as of March 2017: $3,500.00 (AUS)
Academy Xi, UX Design (Sydney, Melbourne)
___________________________________________________________________
2. UX Study Online:
There are quite a few companies that do UX courses online. For me online wasn’t an option. I wanted to get an immersive experience and learn quickly.
A few courses worth a look:
Springboard
This would be my choice if I did an online course tomorrow. You get a mentor and it sets you up for an entry level UX Design job. It is also the best value of the online courses here.
The self paced 2–4 month UX Course (as of March 2017): $299.00 per month (USD)
www.springboard.com
Design Lab
I did a UI course with Design Lab and they are great. You get a mentor and the content is substantial.
The full time 12 week or part time 24 week UX Course (as of March 2017): $2799.00 (USD)
www.trydesignlab.com
General Assembly
There part time course is reasonable value. You get a mentor and can do it outside your working life. I would not advise this if you have no previous experience. They say allow 8–10 hours per week.
The self paced 5 week course (as of March 2017) : $850.00 (USD)
www.generalassemb.ly
Career Foundry
These guys are bit more pricey but go more in depth.They state it will be 10 months at 15 hours a week study. Looks interesting but is a big commitment.
10 month course (as of March 2017): $6000.00 (USD)
www.careerfoundry.com
___________________________________________________________________
3. UX Design Tools:
Sketching on paper
Pick up a pencil or pen, some paper and doodle. Sketching is an important part of UX design. You DO NOT need to be a born artist to be able to sketch meaningful designs. You just need to get in the habit of sketching out ideas, app or web screens and customer journeys. I am not a sketcher or an artist, but getting into the habit of sketching has been invaluable. With sketching you can look at ideas quickly. If they don’t work you can throw them away and get onto the next idea..
I recently did a community college course in Sydney to practice cartoon drawing. I am no master but I wanted to create my own style to storyboard ideas. The Napkin Academy would be a great way to start your journey in sketching your ideas.
www.napkinacademy.com
Sketch
What is Sketch? Sketch is the modern day tool for UX Designers. In days gone by Adobe’s photoshop and illustrator where the tools to use. I never used Adobe’s software so jumped straight into Sketch. This will be slightly daunting at first but just dive in and get going. Go online and do some lessons. Be patient, practice everyday and you’ll get there.
www.sketchapp.com
Sketch lessons
Other options instead of Sketch?
New tools called Figma and Adobe XD have some great features. My advice would be to learn Sketch to get started.
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4. Prototype Tools:
There are lots of new prototyping tools coming out all the time. Here is a snapshot of what to learn to get started:
Sketching out wireframes
The most simple of prototypes. This is a quick option to get things in front of users. Sketched or printed up designs can be a great way to get some quick user validation on an idea. You can even add sketches to make clickable prototypes with Pop App by Marvel.
www.marvelapp.com/pop
Invision
This is a great tool for prototyping straight forward web and app journey’s. You design the screens in Sketch and export out and add to Invision. You can then create a clickable prototype. You will not able to do advanced interactions but it is a must learn. Don’t worry if this doesn’t fully make sense at the moment, it will.
www.invisionapp.com
Intro to Invision
Principle
Principle is a more advanced prototyping tool than Invision. It lets you create great little animations pretty quickly. Don’t learn this until you’ve learned Invision.
www.principleformac.com
Principle for beginners
Lessons in Principle
Kite
This is a new tool that could overtake Principle. Essentially it will allow you to do a bit more that Principle can do. Don’t worry about this until you have learned Invision and got a hold of Principle. Just a good one to keep in mind for the future.
www.kiteapp.co
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5. The UX Portfolio:
The UX Portfolio is the story of who you are and what you’ve done in your UX career. When I finished at General Assembly I decided to code my portfolio. I enjoyed the process but you DO NOT need to code your own UX portfolio. There are lots of great tools to help you do a great and simple portfolio to tell your story.
I will write a fuller article on the UX portfolio at some stage. Make sure you have a brief ‘about’ section with your contact details. Then have your portfolio cases. Document the problem you had to solve for each case and how you solved it. UX Managers will want to see your process. Remember to keep it simple with not to much jargon.
PDF Document
In many ways, this is a sensible option when you’re starting out. You avoid focusing too much time on the technical side of the portfolio and more on the content and UX. You can design it in Sketch (once you have got your head around Sketch!). It can be done in A4 pages which can then be sent as a PDF to the potential employer.
Squarespace
Squarespace has great website portfolio templates you can use off the shelf. Bit of thought is required but the results can be impressive.
www.squarespace.com
Dunked
Like Squarespace Dunked has portfolio website templates where you can add your content without too much trouble.
www.dunked.com
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6. Getting a UX Job:
This’ll feel scary. You’ve studied and got your head around some of the tools. You don’t feel like a UX Designer, you feel like an imposter! Everyone started here, don’t panic, feeling like an imposter is part of the journey!
Linkedin
Get your profile on Linkedin up to date. Put in a simple photo. Give yourself a straight forward intro focused on your strengths. Put in your experience with a snapshot of your roles. Same for your education, plus add any short courses you may have done related to UX.
People want to get a snapshot of you on Linkedin, they don’t want to read a book. Keep the bullshit out, write naturally and avoid jargon and buzzwords.
Pay for the premium Linkedin if it helps you. You can direct message people with Linked Premium. This can be a great way to talk to a company that you’re keen to work at.
Good Tip: Message UX designers to ask questions about work at their company. This can be a great way to get in the door.
Meet up.com
Photo from Meetup.com: Tech Talks at Pivotal Labs, Sydney
Give them your email for regular news and updates for your area. When you go to a meet up, ask questions, say hi to people, be open. I am not a big crowd person but you need to meet people, this could be the door you need.
UX Design Meet Ups in Sydney
Good Tip: set up a new email for all your UX stuff. This will mean it will not get lost in your sea of regular emails. Avoid being [email protected], just have your name or something close. I had UXGuy and it pains me to see it now!
Recruiters
Photo from helloerik.com
Recruiters are good and bad. Stay away from recruiters who don’t know what UX is. If the role includes coding forget it. If you’ll be the only UX Designer at the company, don’t bother. If like me you have no previous experience, find somewhere that’ll have good people to mentor you. It is nice to get offers from recruiters, but do your research.
The Interview
There is a great article by Springboard about the questions you’ll be asked at a UX interview. Read up and be prepared.
www.medium.com/the-7-questions-youll-be-asked-at-a-ux-design-interview
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7. UX Process:
What is the UX process?
The UX process is the structure that UX Designers follow to get a desired outcome.
Research > Insights > Design Concepts > Test Prototypes > Develop
There are many variations to the UX process. Typically there is a common sense A to Z journey to get the outcome. My advice would be to look at the options and create your own process. Not all projects will use the full journey, but it’s great to have a structure to follow.
Work for a business that follows a UX process
Many businesses don’t follow a UX process. They don’t see it as important. Working for companies with no process will make life tough. I did this for a UX contract when I started and it was no fun. It did nonetheless teach me what not to do!
Work for a business with a UX process, as you will learn so much more. A mature UX business will really give you a great start to your UX career.
Do a side project and go through your full UX process
A side project can be great for your learning. Once completed you can add it to your portfolio. A side project could be a re-design of an existing website or app, provided you are solving a genuine problem. Or you could work for a business that can’t afford a full time UX Designer but would like some help.
UX books
Here are some great books to get started in UX Design:
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
2. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk
3. Don’t Make Me Think (revisted) by Steve Krug
4. Simple and Usable: Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design by Giles Colborne
5. Smashing UX Design by Jesmond J. Allen and James J. Chudley
6. The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garret
7. A Project Guide To User Experience Design by By Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler
8. Sketching User Experiences by By Saul Greenberg, Sheelagh Carpendale, Nicolai Marquardt and Bill Buxton
9. Universal Principles of Design by By William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler
10. Designing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen
11. Measuring the User Experience by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert
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8. How to Design:
Don’t be precious with your designs
One great trait of a designer is to be flexible. Don’t get attached to your designs. You need to be able to throw them away if they don’t work. Embrace failure of your designs, it means you are one step closer to reaching the end goal.
Don’t be scared to get feedback
Get up from your desk and talk to designers, developers, managers, whoever. My experience is that if you talk to five people at least one comes up with great feedback. The quicker you do this, the quicker you can fail and go on to create a great experience.
Talk to developers
You need to confirm with the developers that what you have designed can be developed and how long it’ll take. Normally this would be done at the sketching stage but be sure to confirm when designed. When showing stakeholders you want to be able to clearly state that your designs can be developed and the time it will take. Gaining trust from stakeholders by having this information is invaluable.
Concept Designing
It’s great doing concept work for a project if you have time. This is a good way to stay inspired and some of the work may filter through to get developed. My advice would be to do designs that disrupt what is being done. This can open the innovative culture in your team. I don’t do enough of this, but I can see the value and plan to do more.
___________________________________________________________________
9. User Testing:
User testing is a crucial part of the UX process. Get into some user testing yourself to see the process. At Tabcorp we have a great UX Research team. They give us great direction in how we should test our designs, to get the best insights.
Great free e-book on testing: www.uxpin.com/guide-to-usability-testing
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10. People you’ll work with:
Be thoughtful of your fellow designers
Give positive feedback. When something seems odd maybe “looks great but might be worth looking at the option of…”. Never makes sense to trample on someones designs, doesn’t benefit anyone.
UX Researchers
UX researchers will organize and often do the user testing. If you need to get prototypes to UX Researchers be thoughtful. They may have lots of different prototypes so make their life easy. Check the prototype links on test day to make sure all is in order. If you are testing beta sites then make sure everything is in order. The research team does such an important job, so it’s worth keeping them onside.
Choose your battles and learn to fight
As a UX Designer you need to fight your corner.
“If you don’t battle you’ll end up a UI Designer” (wise words from an old colleague of mine)
There will come a time when the business wants to do something that is bad for the customer. Go to battle with stats, testing results or any info that provides proof that it’ll be a problem. Your opinion alone will not be enough, so be prepared. Andrew Doherty (a designer at Google) writes a brilliant article about being prepared to fight:
www.medium.com/good-ux-designers-must-be-prepared-to-fight-
Choose your allies wisely
Once you’re settled into your new job, find your allies. These are the ones you can ask the stupid questions to. It’s so important to have a few go to people who can help you out when needed. I have a few people at Tabcorp that can always help me out when I need.
Don’t miss out on lunches with your team
Any chance you get to do social stuff with the team do it. This is a great time to make some mates at your work. Creating relationships with your colleagues is key to making the team work well together.
No doesn’t always mean ‘No’
Ask a team lead if something can be developed, they may say ‘no’. Ask a developer the same question and they may say ‘yes’. Different people in the business have different priorities. A team lead may be saying no because of a time constraint. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, so ask a few people before you park a great idea.
Get up from your desk and talk to people
Insights can come from anywhere. You normally don’t find them looking at your computer screen. The real insights come when you talk to people in the kitchen, at their desk or at the pub. Be open to peoples ideas from a top manager to a developer intern. Everyone’s voice is important, so keep your ears pricked!
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11. Ongoing Learning & Staying Inspired:
Find UX mentors
People who have lots of experience are gold. I have a few friends who are gold but I don’t use them enough. Experienced designers are great mentors. They are also very giving. Chose the people that you want to be like and learn from them.
Have a strategy to stay inspired
“It’s easy to be creative but more difficult to stay inspired.”
I read the above quote on Medium but forget who wrote it. It could have been Julie Zhuo, from Facebook. There are lots of online resources to keep you inspired. I use Panda which a great Chrome plug in which lets you flick through lots of different tech and design news. I spend 15 mins a day flicking through news. Any articles that interest me, I save them and read later. UX Weekly and Sidebar are also good resources.
Go to Conferences
This is a great way to get out of the office and refresh. Going to conferences or workshops can be inspiring. You meet new faces and with that comes new ideas.
Carry on learning
This is a must as a designer. You are always learning and always growing. Read medium articles, on your Kindle or on your computer. Don’t stick to just UX Design. Read about programming, product management and other areas that you work with. Great to get some insights on what is happening around you. Take short courses that fit with your life. When you are at your desk instead of listening to music try a few podcasts instead. This is a great way to learn and work. Product Hunt have a great list of design podcasts that are worth listening to.
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12. Final words:
Use Android & Apple phone
Learn the patterns of these two operating systems. If you are an Apple user then switch to Android and vice versa. Get a feel for what you don’t know. Look at Google’s Material Design guidelines and Apples iOS ones.
Listen
To become a good UX Designer you need to listen. Lots of listening and noting down comments.
Avoid Jargon
The tech world has too much jargon for me. Too many buzzwords and not enough straightforward talk. Say things as they are and you should make good headway.
Have humility & fail fast
This is a great quality for any designer. Humility comes from being humble. Being humble allows you to fail fast.
Be authentic & don’t bullshit
This is a life rule. You are never the smartest one in the room in a tech company. If you attempt to know more than you know, you’ll get yourself in a pickle. People can see through it so keep yourself honest. If you don’t know something, you can get back to people once you’ve figured it out.
A must read article for new Designers
Alana Brajdic (a fellow UX designer at Tabcorp) has a great article on ‘22 things new UX Designers should know before entering the workplace’. Make sure you read it.
Alana’s article
Conclusion
Having UX Designer as your job title is easy. Getting your head around the full process takes time. Study, learn the tools, read lots, do projects, get your portfolio out there and get a job. Once you have a job this is when the learning really starts. Enjoy the journey as it is a unique time to be a UX designer. Good luck!
For further learning have a read of my article ’53 Tech Terms you need to know as a UX Designer’ | https://uxplanet.org/how-to-become-a-ux-designer-at-40-with-no-previous-digital-or-design-experience-5c96af46b73c | ['Guy Ligertwood'] | 2019-05-21 08:56:30.036000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Design', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity'] |
16 Free Online Courses for Learning Content Marketing Strategies | Here are 3 different lists of digital marketing courses that offer a ton of valuable information.
I like how these online learning platforms focus on courses related to skill-building. Whether you’re starting out in the field or already working.
Hope you find these sources useful. | https://uxplanet.org/16-free-online-sources-for-developing-and-implementing-content-marketing-strategies-13e9e1c46998 | ['Eva V.'] | 2020-12-13 07:42:47.579000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Content Marketing', 'Design', 'SEO', 'Social Media'] |
10 Ways to View the Creator Economy | 10 Ways to View the Creator Economy
How journalists see the new landscape of independents
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
By Elise Czajkowski
2020 has been a big year for journalists launching their own newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and other products. It’s not an easy path, and many are looking around for lessons and models.
This fall, to serve this growing community, the Newmark Graduate of Journalism’s Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program became one of the first academic programs to focus on helping independent producers sustainably build and grow their niche journalism products. For those interested in exploring this emerging ecosystem, here are 10 stories about the creator economy that showcase how independent journalists are forging their own paths. | https://medium.com/journalism-innovation/a-new-route-for-journalists-in-a-beleaguered-industry-4549c74c63af | ['Executive Program', 'News Innovation'] | 2020-12-11 16:41:27.161000+00:00 | ['News', 'Creators', 'Journalism', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Newsletter'] |
8 Tips for UX designer on how to coexist with developers | 8 Tips for UX designer on how to coexist with developers
The developer is your friend, try not to be his enemy
image from Spider-man 3
In this article, I’m going to speak about the relationships between engineers and UX designers. Mostly I will write from the designer’s point of view and give you 8 tips on how to find a common tongue with them, engineers.
1. Be nice
Image from movie Nice Guys
It’s maybe the most important tip. Often in companies, especially in small ones, where UX designers communicate with engineers directly, discussions can take a bad turn. Sometimes developers with little experience say that something is impossible to code. In those cases, never be rude. If you’re 100% positive that the problem has a solution, show examples. Find another platform/website/app where there are similar problems and show them the solutions. Especially if your UX is ‘good’ then most probably the solution was already made by others. Of course, there are some extraordinary cases, but most often, User Experience, as its name suggests, is already used. When you know they are wrong explain nicely, bring arguments, show examples, and speak respectfully. If there is something they should do — ask them, don’t tell. And overall, it’s a project manager’s job to tell, not UX designer’s. Try asking them nicely.
2. Understand their needs
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
Front-end developer is your friend, yet you can be his/her enemy. Front end developers are closest to you in the project. They implement what you have designed. Guide them through the process. Learn what tools they use. Is it some framework of JavaScript like React JS, or Angular? Or is it just CSS, HTML?. In some startups, engineers use Bootstrap or WordPress. I’m not saying lose all your day to learn everything about it, just enough knowledge to help them by designing components (if they suit your design) that are already in a library. It’s a win-win.
Extra tip: Learn everything you can about Google’s Material UI and Apple’s HID. Not just guidelines, also development logic. Where some components are better to use on the coding level? Personally, I don’t know anything about coding, I just communicate with developers, and they help me a lot. And thanks to that I can help them.
3. Don’t go lazy on things you’ll have to change in the future
Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash
In some cases, after finishing the project, you can notice small mistakes or issues that tomorrow can become a headache for developers. Don’t go lazy. Fix them. Be nice to the job you do. Even if it is a freelance job and you won’t have another cooperation with that project, still fix the issues. That will bring a positive vibe towards you, and people will trust you.
I believe that the best Marketing is the quality of the product and the customer’s satisfaction. If stakeholders (customer) are happy with you (product), the probability of them contacting you again and/or suggesting to other people increases.
4. Be consistent and pixel perfect
Image from Dinosaur Game Launcher
If your design is pixel perfect, especially in apps with complex UX, it makes work easier for everybody. Learn grid systems. Personally, I like the 8 point grid system (as many other designers). Speak with developers about those systems. If they don’t know already.
Staying consistent is not just good UX, it also helps with the development process. Engineers will thank you if your elements are perfectly aligned, chosen styles stay similar, the number of font families is small, etc.
5. Use the right tools
image by https://journal.missiondata.com/ui-designers-toolbox-part-i-comparing-sketch-figma-and-adobe-xd-58470412ab4b
Before going on, I want to apologize to Sketch. I love the Sketch. It’s the Mercedes-Benz of UI design tools, but the thing is about it, that you have to use 3rd party tool like Zeplin for developers to see CSS. I think it is just outdated. Some people prefer Adobe XD, which is a great tool, but the absence of inner shadow really bugs me. I think I’m too subjective here, but I just loooove Figma. For me, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Developers will thank you for having always updated CSS in one link. There are also many plugins in Figma, that also give HTML, though many developers say it’s not working perfectly. All in one link. Nothing more. Nothing to be updated, saved as file, copied, etc. Just one link. Above all — it is browser-based. Doesn’t matter what platform you use: Mac, Linux, Windows.
Unrelated info: when you leave feedback for the Figma team, they email you back after some time and no robots, real people send the emails. And email subject is “Yes, we do read these!”
I know I’ve got carried away, I just looooove Figma too much.
6. Try designing a Style Guide for each project
image by https://www.pinterest.com/pin/63894888447865893/
Sometimes, in small companies, UX designers don’t create style guides. In some places, they verbally tell developers how each component interacts. There is a too big chance of making mistakes. Design a Style Guide for even the smallest project. Include there as many things as you have time to. Typography, components with all their states: hover, pressed, disabled, and default. If in the UI some component doesn’t have the disabled state, design it anyway; maybe in the future, after some update, it might be needed. Include paddings of text fields. Put icons used in UI. Make the Style Guide as professional as you can.
It is the identity of the app/website. Like a brand book for a brand. It guides you, developers, even stakeholders. It helps you to keep consistency, to keep everything clean, and be professional.
If you work in a bigger and more advanced company, speak with developers and stakeholders about creating a Design System. I know the process is too big, but if you create a design system, it will add professionalism to your product, to a developer, and to you. Design system is a thing worth working on.
7. Speak with developers before starting the design
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
I suggest before even starting the project or during the mockup-stage speaks with developers. Tell them everything about the flow. Especially for cases when the project manager has little technical knowledge. If they learn about the flow many problems in the future will be avoided.
Front-ends will know the approximate scope of the project. It will help them with the estimation of deadlines, resources, and what to expect.
will know the approximate scope of the project. It will help them with the estimation of deadlines, resources, and what to expect. In complicated apps/websites, for example, eCommerce with complicated admin panel, back-ends should know the flow, to organize better back-end architecture.
8. Admit when you are wrong
Often developers (or any other team member) suggest a better solution than one that UX designer suggested. Many UX designers don’t like to confess that their way was worse, or they think that it can damage their reputation. That’s nonsense. If you admit that you were wrong — you earn respect. And it’s good for both you and the project.
But if the designer pushes his/her ‘wrong’ further, it can someday become a disaster, and he/she will be the responsible one. Above that, if the designer will do such a thing constantly, people will learn that, and nobody would want to work with the designer again. Admitting that you are wrong is a great soft skill that many people ignore.
Thank you very much for reading. I hope you liked the article. If you have any questions feel free to write in the comments or contact me directly. I’m always available on Facebook, Linked, or Twitter.
Wish everything the best. | https://uxplanet.org/8-tips-for-ux-designer-on-how-to-coexist-with-developers-d0ffe74b6071 | ['Daniel Danielyan'] | 2020-08-27 17:49:46.925000+00:00 | ['UX', 'UI', 'Teamwork', 'Development', 'Design'] |
If I Die Before You Wake | I was laying on the grass in my backyard looking up through the trees. Colorful, thick branches shook like puppets in the wind and patches of grass were warmed by the glow of sunlight that managed to seep through the cracks. I watched a red leaf as it danced its way down, landing within arms reach of me.
I rolled on my side and picked it up. It felt hardy beneath my fingertips, still moist and sturdy. It wasn’t quite time for it to fall — had it not been for the wind.
I laid there thinking about all the failures I’ve had in my life though somehow in the future they seemed to guide me. It’s a miraculous gift from the universe when something that once had you feeling so poorly about yourself now brings you hope.
I thought about the mistakes I’ve made and the heartbreaks I’ve survived, each charring me with pain, each a reminder not to choose that path again.
I’ve habitually done my best to do what I believed was the right thing. It doesn’t always work out in our favor though, does it?
I’ve continually been intrigued by the idea that everything changes. Even if I were to sit in the same spot and refuse to change everything around me would still change. It all changes, for better or for worse, ready or not.
I woke this morning at 3:00 AM gasping for air. I was relieved I was alive but scared I was going to die. I sat up and looked at my husband sleeping next to me. My heart sunk.
I got up, walked the has and peeked through my son’s bedroom doorway. It was dark but I could hear his sleeping sounds. My eyes welled with tears.
I sat down in the spot where I stood. Thoughts of what my world would be like without me in it down-spiraled. I was catastrophizing. This specific and intrusive thought, it’s normal for me to fear I will die. Though what feels normal for me isn’t necessarily normal at all.
That night, I couldn’t shake the fear of death. | https://erikasauter.medium.com/if-i-die-before-you-wake-d96e4fb262a4 | ['Erika Sauter'] | 2019-01-15 15:26:00.812000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Family', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Depression'] |
Innovation & Design | Understanding Innovation & Design
I’ve been mulling over the content of this article for quite some time now. There are so many interesting articles being published every day about Design principles (ones that tie with what Dieter Rams so eloquently wrote about), and how those principles have become part of the reality of so many companies, not only software companies, but in other industries as well. One of those Design Principles is of course Innovation or the capacity to be Innovative. This article in particular sheds light on how Innovation lives and breathes within the context of different organizations, and it stands as my own digest of having worked through different enterprises.
Apple has become the staple of case studies of how a true Innovator and how the understanding of Design Principles can effectively take a well known company from a middling success to a market leader and to overall heights never before expected. Under the guidance and tutelage of the late Steve Jobs, Apple has made the process of creation, development and launch of products, something that is emblematic and iconic. This astounding success has of course been the result of many factors, but two of the main ones have been without a doubt “Innovation” and “Design”. As many other companies, both well established and startups, have taken upon themselves to embed those principles into their core philosophy, it’s interesting to recognize how those processes have had various results.
“Design” is a term that is undeniably popular. For the most part, if you ask any individual what they understand by that term, they will most likely respond that “Design” is the way something looks. The term has been used to convey for instance how Fashion Designers showcase their latest creations, or how different car manufacturers showcase new models every year at specific events, etc. The term has simply become deeply associated with how something looks, or more specifically with the aesthetics of a product. “Aesthetic” is a Design Principle, and is definitely something that is crucial when designing a product, of any nature, but it is solely one that sits alongside many others. The challenge for many years, and to a certain extent to this present day, has been to educate and truly expand the notion that “Design” is not just making “something pretty”. The discipline of “Design” in actuality factors a lot of different elements that go beyond “Aesthetics”: there’s economical, functional, cultural, demographic, among other factors that weigh in, when devising a Design solution for a product. For a lot of companies that have never had design as part of their core decision making process, the need to be “Innovative” and bring a “Design” process together is in itself a considerable challenge. | https://pedrocanhenha.medium.com/innovation-design-1f18881423da | ['Pedro Canhenha'] | 2020-10-09 15:57:58.420000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Innovation', 'UX Design', 'Design Thinking', 'New York'] |
The Catalyst Programme: Final Reflections | One unfortunate consequence of this transition is our contact with The Shortcut and each other becomes less frequent. Yet, the community continues to permeate our professional journeys. I, for instance, have had three distinct experiences in the past weeks that have reinforced the value of The Shortcut’s work in The Catalyst Programme and elsewhere.
Robo.CEO
Robo.CEO is building an operating system for running organizations online. It is a web-app integrating communication, scheduling, and management tools onto one platform to eliminate friction and increase transparency. The solution is particularly aimed at distributed businesses; Robo.CEO provides a robust and flexible backbone to handle increasingly digital workflows.
The Robo.CEO open beta went live at Slush, bringing test users onto the platform.
I got involved to write content and ramp up Robo.CEO’s social media presence in preparation for Slush 2018, giving me insight into marketing and business development in the startup context. It was a great chance to meet veterans of the Helsinki startup ecosystem as Robo.CEO has participated in the Kiuas Accelerator, Slush 100 pitching competition, and is a long-time Microsoft Flux member.
Without this blog, a participant in the previous Catalyst Programme, or The Shortcut’s reputation in the ecosystem I would not have had this opportunity. My experience is a testament to the good that can happen when initiative, even if blind, can transform to value through a vibrant ecosystem.
Slush ‘18
My work earned me a ticket to Slush to help run Robo.CEO’s booth, invite people to the open beta, and post on social media. Slush is the premiere startup event in Helsinki and beyond, bringing together over 20,000 investors, startups, academics, companies, and anyone with an interest related to tech, entrepreneurship, impact, and global business development.
There is a lot to say about Slush and I’m sure many people have said it. I’ll only share one hypothesis: Slush’s value increases the more people you know.
As a conference that brings together thousands, Slush is rightly perceived the focal point of the Nordic startup scene. I don’t disagree; my LinkedIn grew more during Slush than ever before. There is a point, though, where size becomes counterproductive, where there are so many people to talk to and so much to do that the experience can become numbing. For me, it was around the 12th introduction when I felt myself dissociating to witness a short, blond man repeat vaguely familiar words on autopilot.
On the other hand, connection with individuals you have met before Slush seems to foster greater connection. Perhaps skipping the monotonous introduction lets you delve right into interesting topics quicker. Perhaps it’s the energy of being at such a vaunted event. Perhaps it’s the techno.
Regardless of the reason, I believe Slush is more valuable the more you attend and/or the more you are integrated into the startup scene. The event is so large that you will likely run into at least a handful of your network regardless of your level of integration; I’ve only been in Helsinki for three months and most of the individuals I had met, even outside the startup scene, I saw again at Slush.
I only have The Shortcut to thank for connecting me to the startup world here. Four outsiders, it is the perfect gateway into Helsinki’s robust community.
The Shortcut Christmas Party
A Hawaiian Christmas in the throes of Finnish winter.
Let me make my point explicit: The Catalyst Program specifically, and The Shortcut generally, is most valuable for the community it gives you.
Don’t dismiss this as trivial. I have also been skeptical of intangible variables like community but studies consistently shown that belonging carries with it innumerable positive effects, such as motivation. A community is valuable in the workplace too; Google’s Project Aristotle, which studied the secrets of effective teams at Google, found that people’s sense of psychological safety is the number one success factor. Even in a company boasting some of the world’s top brain power a feeling of safety and comfort trumps education, skills, or system.
I was reminded of the power of belonging in my own life at a Christmas party hosted by The Shortcut. I arrived in Finland exactly three months before with no work or network, and it crushed me. Fear of being asked, “What are you doing here?” permeated my days, making me paranoid and uncertain. I felt as if I had nothing to justify me.
community (n): a condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common
Today, that is a distant feeling. Participating in the Catalyst Programme and taking advantage of The Shortcut’s opportunities have given me a room full of friends who have restored a sense of self-worth and purpose.
If you or someone you know needs a jolt or connection, then I cannot recommend visiting The Shortcut or joining the Catalyst Programme enough — there is an information session soon. It will transform you. | https://medium.com/the-shortcut/the-catalyst-programme-final-reflections-e863d83d2537 | ['Thomas Rocca'] | 2019-01-05 11:26:00.895000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Events', 'Professional Development'] |
Depression Lies, Poetry Defies | Once upon a time, depression, anger, and poetry collided on the page.
The salad spinner in my head decided to spit out exactly how I — the newly naturalized citizen — felt about the reality of Donald Trump as CEO of America Inc. but in verse rather than prose.
I was so rattled my words, which chronic depression smothered for years, came back for another visit, this time as unidentified editorial objects or poems, depending on how indulgent you feel toward these pithy expressions of displeasure from a particularly peeved person. Prior to this, I had also had an uncanny essay moment, which had resulted in another standalone oddity.
On those rare occasions I managed to be functional, odd was my jam.
A few days ago, I found the indignant poems and they showed me a few things.
All the themes I would come to write about at length are already there. The wrath and revulsion are palpable because the ruthlessness of a culture that elevates mediocrity yet punishes poverty and sickness still shocks me on a daily basis. I never could get numb or inured to it.
It’s not my culture and thankfully it’s not every American’s either.
At some point in 2017, I was breathlessly apoplectic for a while and so my titles were in all caps, sorry about that. As a journalist who abhors sensationalism, I do not recognize myself but every single word happened. The caps provide an accurate snapshot of my mindset at the time, removing them would not. Poetry is more forgiving about such quirks than any other form of writing.
Welcome to my brain, please grab a seat, and buckle up! You’ll find a paper bag in your seat pocket. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/depression-lies-poetry-defies-8a4ba65503b1 | ['A Singular Story'] | 2020-05-22 17:07:04.885000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Poetry', 'Writing', 'Mental Health', 'Humor'] |
You Don’t Need Therapy | In comes the vacuum.
Where we used to think of people talking to themselves as the muttering weirdo in the corner, recent research not only shows that it’s not for the crazies, it’s truly beneficial. While it’s true that talking to yourself is an outward sign of some mental illnesses like schizophrenia, key researchers have defined talking to yourself as an important outlet when needed.
Senior lecturer in psychology at Bangor University, Paloma Mari-Beffa notes that talking out loud is a reflection of a person’s inner talk, a problem-solving mechanism. According to a University of Toronto study, self-talk can change our impulses, putting us on a more positive path, even helping to improve mood and self-image.
So, talking in a vacuum, or talking to your self, can be almost as useful as talking to a therapist, if all you need is to get your frustration out, to be heard, and not to get advice.
You know those times when all you want to do is whine and complain, and not have someone tell you how to fix it, or that everything will be all better?
Well — research now tells us that if you just say it, get it off your chest, then that is not such a bad thing. Talking TO yourself, with no expectation of a reply, isn’t such a bad approach after all.
The next time you are feeling that isolation, or that frustration, try this: head out for a walk or jog, iPhone in hand, earbuds in, ready to roll. (This is a mere prop so that no one will think you are a lunatic.) Take that walk, but instead of calling anyone, just talk. Any onlookers will think you are having that conversation with someone on the other end of the call, but really — vacuum. Just speak into the void, pretending you have a listener.
That self-talk might be just what you needed in the first place. Tell your “therapist” everything you wanted to, and take her advice. It’s cheaper than the real co-pay, and there are no interruptions.
Put your words out into the void, and see what comes back. Maybe just the satisfaction of having said them. And maybe that’s enough. It works for me with the typing. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/you-dont-need-therapy-6a83d08b744d | ['Susan Kelley'] | 2020-12-18 17:02:52.741000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement', 'Self-awareness'] |
Creating a Tic-Tac-Toe game with a Q-learning AI which masters the game | Let’s Create the Game
First we should create our game logic so we can use it to train our AI and play with it. The game logic is quite simple. First take a look at its code:
We use 1 for the first player and -1 for the second player. the play function accepts x and y as arguments and places the current player move at that coordinates on the 3x3 board of the game and then changes the turn to the other player. If we have a winner it will return the winner otherwise it will return None .
The logic for detecting winner is in the _get_winner function. It simply checks for wins first in rows, then in columns and last in diagonals.
The is_ended function checks if there is any empty cell remaining in the board and returns if the game is ended or not. The get_valid_actions function will return all coordinates of empty cells. It will be useful for training our AI agent.
As you may have noticed, the class has a render attribute. If we pass render=True , it will print the game board on the terminal after each move. But during the training process, the agent will play thousands of games in a few seconds. So we don’t want it to print the board after each move. That’s why we’ve made that as an option.
So the structure of the game is like this: we should call the play function in a loop until we have a winner or the game is ended by a draw.
Now we have our game class, let’s proceed to the next part.
Creating the Q Table and the Agent
In each turn, our AI agent must make a decision of which cell to choose to place its move. To do so, it should have an estimation of the rewards for each (state, action) pair so it can choose the action which results in the maximum reward. The Q table will hold these estimations such that:
Q[state][action] -> reward estimation .
But how can we calculate these estimations? We will use Q-learning algorithm to iteratively update these values until they converge to the actual ones.
Here’s the learning process:
The agent get’s the current state of the game and chooses an action. At first the Q values are not updated and we want the agent to explore the game. So we add some randomness to it. It will choose a random action with probability of p or will choose the action with maximum estimated reward with probability of 1-p . As the training continues and agent explores the game environment, we gradually decrease p from 1 to 0 so at the end the agent only chooses the best action.
or will choose the action with maximum estimated reward with probability of . As the training continues and agent explores the game environment, we gradually decrease from 1 to 0 so at the end the agent only chooses the best action. Agent applies the chosen action to the game. Then as an opponent, we play a random move. Now we have the new state. If the agent wins, we have a reward of 100. If it loses, we use -100 as the reward. otherwise the reward is 0.
Now we can update the Q value of the (state, action) pair with this formula: Q(S,A) = Q(S,A) + α ∗ (R + γ ∗ maxaQ(S′,a) − Q(S,A)) . S is the current state and R is the instant reward we got after applying the action. A is the chosen action, α is the step size which means how much weight we want to give to the new value compared to the current value. γ is the discount factor. It means how much weight we are giving to the future rewards compared to the instant reward. maxaQ(S′,a) is the maximum Q value over all actions for the new state.
. is the current state and is the instant reward we got after applying the action. is the chosen action, is the step size which means how much weight we want to give to the new value compared to the current value. is the discount factor. It means how much weight we are giving to the future rewards compared to the instant reward. is the maximum Q value over all actions for the new state. Repeat all 3 steps above until Q estimations are good enough. If the game ends, create a new one and continue the loop.
I’ve implemented a Q class which holds the estimations. It has two functions for updating its values using the above formula and getting the best action:
If you are wondering about the defaultdict part, it is a dict subclass that calls a factory function to supply missing values. So a defaultdict never raises a KeyError , instead it will return the default value specified. In this case if we use self.values[X][Y] for any missing X and Y, it will return 0.
Now that we have the Q class, we should create an agent which uses the TicTacToe and Q classes to do the training process that we have described above:
The eps attribute is the probability of choosing a random action. As we said we gradually decrease it after each game in the learn function.
Now we need a main file to glue it all together:
Here we have a play function. It first creates a game. This time the render is True so we can see the game board as we play. Then in a loop, first the agent takes an action and then it asks the user to input an action which is the coordinates of the cell which we want to place our move. It will continue until the game is ended with a loose, win or draw.
At the main part, we first create the agent and then call its learn function. Now the agent is ready to beat us and in a while loop we call the play function so we can play with the agent interactively.
I played with the agent multiple times and I think it learned the game in a perfect way and it’s impossible to win against it. | https://towardsdatascience.com/creating-a-tic-tac-toe-game-with-a-q-learning-ai-which-masters-the-game-9b0567d24de | ['Alireza Mika'] | 2020-12-28 15:00:37.275000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Programming', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Python'] |
How to Have 36 Hours in a Day: Part 5 Morning Routine | 1. Snoozing
9 out of 10 people wake up using an alarm clock on their phone. Every morning when we hear that buzzing sound, we have two options:
Hit Snooze Hit Stop and get up
This first choice of our day had proven to be extremely important. The consequences of Snoozing can deafen our productivity for the next 16 hours.
By hitting the Snooze button, we’re interfering with our body’s natural wake mechanisms, which actually sets us up for more exhaustion during the day ahead.
Simply said, we are tricking our brain into thinking that it’s going back into a sleep-mode. Whereas in reality, it will be wakened up once more in a few minutes.
When our alarm goes off again, our body and brain are confused, resulting in that foggy feeling called sleep inertia.
Although we went snoozing just for 10 minutes more, this feeling can stay with us for the rest of the day.
So no matter how tempting the thought of getting a few minutes of extra sleep can be, do not hit the Snooze.
The same way as an oversleeping does, snoozing can turn our body into a dormant mode for the whole day. And even 5 cups of coffee won’t help to regain control.
How to fix this?
Snoozing is a waste that comes from the problem of inefficient sleep. If we get enough natural sleep, we are no longer going to have a desire to snooze.
By working on organizing your sleep habits, you can remove the waste of morning snooze from your routine.
2. Early Morning Smartphone Check
The second biggest mistake we can make after waking up is to get exposed to our phone notifications.
Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels
I must say that I have a habit of checking my phone after waking up for new messages, news, and whatnot. But every time I do that, I feel nothing but regret.
There are a few reasons why it is not efficient to stick your eyes into the smartphone while in bed:
Low Processing Power. Your brain is still not fully awake and can’t process information very effectively. Pressure. Starting a day by pouring all the new emails and to-dos over yourself can cause a feeling of stress and anxiety. Moreover, it can demotivate and restrain self-confidence. Disorientation. You put your mind into the “work” state from the beginning. It can cause perplexity when there are other morning activities ahead (exercise, breakfast, shower, etc.) Low Performance. You will be far more efficient on your work PC when doing the same stuff. Deferment. In most cases, you still will not be able to handle all the issues from your bed and get some of them postponed for later.
Why is it happening?
It mostly comes from how smartphones interact with the human brain.
At the moment we turn off the phone alarm bell, our mind already subconsciously starts looking for all sorts of information “food”. And conveniently, all the news and entertainment are usually just two taps away. A few moments later, we find ourselves looking at new emails, Slack messages, and other sorts of stuff we are not supposed to be watching while still in bed.
How to fix this?
Unlike other habits, this one is pretty easy to control. Just make yourself a rule that no phones, tablets, TV’s are allowed until you at least get out of bed. And remember that by ignoring phone notifications early on, you will be saving time for more critical activities. | https://medium.com/simple-not-easy/how-to-have-36-hours-in-a-day-part-5-morning-routine-3efde110dc69 | ['Max Yampolsky'] | 2020-08-27 07:15:53.776000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Productivity', 'Mental Health', 'Morning Routines', 'Time Management'] |
Predicting Breast Cancer Using Logistic Regression | Predicting Breast Cancer Using Logistic Regression
Learn how to perform Exploratory Data Analysis, apply mean imputation, build a classification algorithm, and interpret the results.
Source: DataCamp
Background
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer and has the highest cancer death rate among women in the United States. Breast cancer occurs as a result of abnormal growth of cells in the breast tissue, commonly referred to as a tumor. A tumor does not mean cancer — can be benign (no breast cancer) or malignant (breast cancer). Tests such as an MRI, mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy are commonly used to diagnose breast cancer.
In this tutorial, we are going to create a model that will predict whether or not a patient has a positive breast cancer diagnosis based off of the tumor characteristics.
This dataset contains the following features:
id (patientid)
name
radius (the distance from the center to the circumference of the tumor)
texture (standard deviation of gray-scale values)
perimeter (circumference of the tumor, approx. 2*3.14 *radius)
area
smoothness (local variation in radius lengths)
compactness
concavity (severity of concave portions of the contour)
symmetry
fractal_dimension
age
diagnosis: 0 or 1 indicating whether patient has breast cancer or not
Click here to get the dataset and see my full code on GitHub.
Import Libraries and Data
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
%matplotlib inline
print(f'Libraries have been imported! :)')
Now that our libraries have been imported, let’s go ahead and import our data using pandas.
train = pd.read_csv('breastcancer.csv')
print(f'Preview:
{train.head()}')
As a side note, F-strings are amazing! They allow you to print strings and expressions in a more concise manner. The
part means to add a new line. I do this to create more white space.
Exploratory Data Analysis
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) answers the “What are we dealing with?” question. EDA is where we try to understand our data first. We want to gain insights before messing around with it.
Visualizations are a great way to do this.
Visualization #1: Heat Map
# simple heat map showing where we are missing data heat_map = sns.heatmap(train.isnull(), yticklabels = False, cbar = True, cmap = "PuRd", vmin = 0, vmax = 1) plt.show()
where:
train.isnull() is checking for nulls in the train df
yticklabels is not plotting train df column names to y-axis
cbar is adding a color bar
cmap is mapping data values to a color space
vmin set 0 as the minimum for the color bar
vmax set 1 as the maximum for the color bar
This heat map is interpreted as the following:
0 (white color) means we have a value
1 (dark red color) means we have a null
Looks like we only have nulls in the radius column! Not bad at all and easily fixable :)
Visualization #2: Count Plot
# a count plot shows the counts of observations in each categorical bin using bars
# think of it as a histogram across a categorical, instead of quantitative, variable sns.set_style("whitegrid")
sns.countplot(data = train, x = 'diagnosis', palette = 'husl')
where:
style is affecting the color of the axes, whether a grid is enabled by default, and other aesthetic elements
data is the df, array, or list of arrays to plot
x is the the name of the variable in the data parameter
palette is the color you want to use (palette name, list, or dict)
where:
0 indicates no breast cancer
1 indicates breast cancer
Note that 0 doesn’t always indicate an absence of something and that 1 means a presence of something. Make sure you are reading your data correctly.
Visualization #3: Histogram
# let's check out the spread of ages using a histogram train['age'].plot.hist(bins = 25, figsize = (10,6))
where:
we are looking at the age column within the train df
bins are setting the number of class intervals
figsize(width, height) sets a figure object with a width of 10 inches and height of 6 inches
Data is not skewed and doesn’t have a distinct shape — doesn’t tell us too much. Let’s move on to cleaning our data.
Data Cleaning
The missing data in the radius column needs to be filled in. We are going to do this by imputing the mean radius, not just dropping all null values. To impute a value simply means we are going to replace missing values with our newly calculated value. For our method specifically, it is referred to as mean imputation.
Let’s visualize the average radius of a tumor by diagnosis via a box plot.
plt.figure(figsize = (10,7))
sns.boxplot(x = "diagnosis", y = "radius", data = train)
Women who were diagnosed with breast cancer (diagnosis = 1) tend to have a higher tumor radius size, which is the distance from the center to the circumference of the tumor.
# calculate the average radius size by diagnosis (0 or 1) train.groupby('diagnosis')["radius"].mean()
This is interpreted as…
“Women who are not diagnosed with breast cancer have an average/mean tumor radius size of 12.34.”
“Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have an average/mean tumor radius size of 17.89.”
Now that we have found our average tumor radius by diagnosis, let’s impute them into our missing (aka our null) values.
# create a function that imputes average radius into missing values def impute_radius(cols):
radius = cols[0]
diagnosis = cols[1]
# if value in radius column is null
if pd.isnull(radius):
# if woman is diagnosed with breast cancer
if diagnosis == 1:
return 17
# if woman was not diagnosed with breast cancer
else:
return 12
# when value in radius column is not null
else:
# return that same value
return radius
After creating our function, we need to apply it like so:
train['radius'] = train[['radius', 'diagnosis']].apply(impute_radius, axis = 1)
In English, this means we are applying our function to both the radius column and diagnosis column.
We can visualize whether our function worked by checking our heat map again:
# check the heat map again after applying the above function heat_map = sns.heatmap(train.isnull(), yticklabels = False, cbar = True, cmap = "PuRd", vmin = 0, vmax = 1) plt.show()
All rows that were missing data have now been imputed (aka substituted) with the average radius size, which was determined by whether the woman was diagnosed with breast cancer. No need to drop other columns or impute more missing values.
Let’s now look at a concise summary of our data:
train.info()
See how the id and name columns are of object data type? That means they are categorical, and we need to drop those like so:
# dropping categorical variables train.drop(['id', 'name'], axis = 1, inplace = True)
Checking out what our dataframe looks like:
train.head()
Build the Model
Step 1: Split data into X and y
X = train.drop('diagnosis', axis = 1)
y = train['diagnosis']
Check out what X and y look like:
X.head()
y.head()
Step 2: Split data into train set and test set
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size = 0.3, random_state = 101)
Step 3: Train and predict
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
logreg = LogisticRegression()
logreg.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = logreg.predict(X_test)
Evaluate the Model
A classification report checks our model’s precision, recall, and F1 score. The support is the number of samples of the true response that lies in that class.
Precision and recall are not the same. Precision is the fraction of relevant results. Recall is the fraction of all relevant results that were correctly classified.
F1 score is the harmonic mean between precision and recall that ranges between 0 (terrible) to 1 (perfection).
from sklearn.metrics import classification_report classification_report(y_test, predictions)
from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix confusion_matrix(y_test, predictions)
Conclusion
We had 171 women in our test set. Out of the 105 women predicted to not have breast cancer, 7 women were classified as not having breast cancer when they actually did (Type I error). Out of the 66 women predicted to have breast cancer, 10 were classified as having breast cancer when they did not (Type II error). In a nut shell, our model was more or less 90% accurate.
Documentation Links
seaborn.heatmap
seaborn.set_style
seaborn.countplot
seaborn.color_palette
pandas.DataFrame.apply()
pandas.DataFrame.info()
sklearn.metrics.classification_report
References
Understanding the Classification Report
Impute Missing Values with Means
Author Note
Thanks for reading! Please feel free to follow me on Medium and LinkedIn. I’d love to continue the conversation and hear your thoughts/suggestions.
-Mo | https://medium.com/swlh/predicting-breast-cancer-using-logistic-regression-3cbb796ab931 | ['Mo Kaiser'] | 2020-03-17 00:17:11.284000+00:00 | ['Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Logistic Regression', 'Data Science'] |
The Best Format to Save Pandas Data | The Best Format to Save Pandas Data
A small comparison of various ways to serialize a pandas data frame to the persistent storage
When working on data analytical projects, I usually use Jupyter notebooks and a great pandas library to process and move my data around. It is a very straightforward process for moderate-sized datasets which you can store as plain-text files without too much overhead.
However, when the number of observations in your dataset is high, the process of saving and loading data back into the memory becomes slower, and now each kernel’s restart steals your time and forces you to wait until the data reloads. So eventually, the CSV files or any other plain-text formats lose their attractiveness.
We can do better. There are plenty of binary formats to store the data on disk, and many of them pandas supports. How can we know which one is better for our purposes? Well, we can try a few of them and compare! That’s what I decided to do in this post: go through several methods to save pandas.DataFrame onto disk and see which one is better in terms of I/O speed, consumed memory and disk space. In this post, I’m going to show the results of my little benchmark.
Photo by Patrick Lindenberg on Unsplash
Formats to Compare
We’re going to consider the following formats to store our data.
Plain-text CSV — a good old friend of a data scientist
Pickle — a Python’s way to serialize things
MessagePack — it’s like JSON but fast and small
HDF5 —a file format designed to store and organize large amounts of data
Feather — a fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use binary file format for storing data frames
Parquet — an Apache Hadoop’s columnar storage format
All of them are very widely used and (except MessagePack maybe) very often encountered when you’re doing some data analytical stuff.
Chosen Metrics
Pursuing the goal of finding the best buffer format to store the data between notebook sessions, I chose the following metrics for comparison.
size_mb — the size of the file (in Mb) with the serialized data frame
— the size of the file (in Mb) with the serialized data frame save_time — an amount of time required to save a data frame onto a disk
— an amount of time required to save a data frame onto a disk load_time — an amount of time needed to load the previously dumped data frame into memory
— an amount of time needed to load the previously dumped data frame into memory save_ram_delta_mb — the maximal memory consumption growth during a data frame saving process
— the maximal memory consumption growth during a data frame saving process load_ram_delta_mb — the maximal memory consumption growth during a data frame loading process
Note that the last two metrics become very important when we use the efficiently compressed binary data formats, like Parquet. They could help us to estimate the amount of RAM required to load the serialized data, in addition to the data size itself. We’ll talk about this question in more details in the next sections.
The Benchmark
I decided to use a synthetic dataset for my tests to have better control over the serialized data structure and properties. Also, I use two different approaches in my benchmark: (a) keeping generated categorical variables as strings and (b) converting them into pandas.Categorical data type before performing any I/O.
The function generate_dataset shows how I was generating the datasets in my benchmark.
The performance of CSV file saving and loading serves as a baseline. The five randomly generated datasets with million observations were dumped into CSV and read back into memory to get mean metrics. Each binary format was tested against 20 randomly generated datasets with the same number of rows. The datasets consist of 15 numerical and 15 categorical features. You can find the full source code with the benchmarking function and required in this repository.
(a) Categorical Features as Strings
The following picture shows averaged I/O times for each data format. An interesting observation here is that hdf shows even slower loading speed that the csv one while other binary formats perform noticeably better. The two most impressive are feather and parquet .
What about memory overhead while saving the data and reading it from a disk? The next picture shows us that hdf is again performing not that good. And sure enough, the csv doesn’t require too much additional memory to save/load plain text strings while feather and parquet go pretty close to each other.
Finally, let’s look at the file sizes. This time parquet shows an impressive result which is not surprising taking into account that this format was developed to store large volumes of data efficiently.
(b) Categorical Features Converted
In the previous section, we don’t make any attempt to store our categorical features efficiently instead of using the plain strings. Let’s fix this omission! This time we use a dedicated pandas.Categorical type instead of plain strings.
See how it looks now compared to the plain text csv ! Now all binary formats show their real power. The baseline is far behind so let’s remove it to see the differences between various binary formats more clearly.
The feather and pickle show the best I/O speed while hdf still shows noticeable overhead.
Now it is time to compare memory consumption during data process loading. The following bar diagram shows an important fact about parquet format we’ve mentioned before.
As soon as it takes a little space on the disk, it requires an extra amount of resources to un-compress the data back into a data frame. It is possible that you’ll not be able to load the file into the memory even if it requires a moderate volume on the persistent storage disk.
The final plot shows file sizes for the formats. All the formats show good results, except hdf that still requires much more space than others.
Conclusion
As our little test shows, it seems that feather format is an ideal candidate to store the data between Jupyter sessions. It shows high I/O speed, doesn’t take too much memory on the disk and doesn’t need any unpacking when loaded back into RAM. | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-best-format-to-save-pandas-data-414dca023e0d | ['Ilia Zaitsev'] | 2019-03-29 13:34:40.910000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Pandas', 'Jupyter Notebook'] |
Be Wary of Corporate Caremongering | Caremongering, a name originally attributed to something intrinsically positive, is becoming more of a negative phenomenon, a way to boost sales, rather than to actually help others.
I’ll refer to negative caremongering as corporate caremongering.
If you knew the lengths some companies go to in order to make targeted groups of people feel as though they need help, for a price, you’d be surprised.
I know because for a long time, I was hired to target others. I started with good intentions, I genuinely believed what I was doing was right. I was wrong.
Prior to the pandemic and for some time during it, I would go online to try to assist people spend more time offline.
By doing so, I honestly believed I could help people live a more balanced life. I worked hard. I was, ironically, always online.
In 2017, I created a Twitter resource bot (@DigitalDetoxes) to support and amplify the voices of everyone interested in the ideas surrounding digital detoxes.
It was for people to learn more about digital detoxes, dopamine detoxes, digital minimalism and mindfulness. I would regularly turn off my phone, meditate and later document my experiences.
I went as far as to put my money where my mouth was and I backed a number of related crowdfunding campaigns. I practiced what I preached and I was heavily involved in this community of like minded people.
By interviewing people to promote their businesses, I felt like I was making a difference, I wrote and edited blog posts, I shared ideas and heavily contributed to the discourse. I gave a webinar, I wrote guides and I even went live on Instagram.
I am proud to have been mentioned in the acknowledgements section of Anastasia (@ConsciDigital) Dedyukhina’s book Homo Distractus. I attended her talk and the talks of others.
I am still excited to support the work of Medito, IRL Labs, A-GAP, the Digital Wellness Collective and several others.
There are so many organisations that get it right, such as those listed above. They are genuinely open about their work, they care and they make a conscious effort to better our lives.
However, the reality is that despite starting with good intentions, a lot of organisations and individuals end up making avoidable mistakes.
Mistakes might include greenwashing or pinkwashing products or content, lying about sources and generally creating products without sufficient market research.
Some companies go as far as to hide behind words such as ‘transparency’, when in reality, the consumer only sees what the company wants them to see.
It is, sadly, nothing more than a carefully curated facade.
Amongst other things, I created subreddits, I told my personal stories, I recommended books, articles, videos and podcasts. I attended several yoga and digital detox retreats (some of which turned out to be quite expensive).
They helped me. I felt good.
I wanted other people to feel good too. I was able to switch off, to disconnect, to unplug, to [insert yet another keyword].
The positivity I felt after those experiences didn’t last. There was an underlying issue I couldn’t put my finger on.
I went from temporarily feeling incredible to absolutely struggling with my mental health. I wasn’t alone, there were others experiencing this too.
We would go from enjoying a digital detox right back to doing unpaid overtime. There was a collective feeling of being completely overwhelmed. Something didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up.
Recently, I realised what the elephant in the room was. From my remote home office, I was unintentionally and unbeknownst to me at the time, using corporate caremongering. I did so by helping a company act as though they wanted to help people, by marketing products that they really didn’t need.
What is caremongering?
In early 2020, when the world realised what was happening, COVID started to trend, lockdowns occurred and flights were grounded, large groups of people began to selflessly and effectively help those in need.
Rather than spreading viruses, they were spreading kindness. They did so by donating to shelters, food banks, hospitals and care homes.
They asked their neighbours if they needed assistance with anything and they offered to support local communities via social media. It was beautiful.
What is corporate caremongering?
Caremongering can be both positive (if it’s genuine) and negative (if it’s part of an ulterior motive).
However, when companies and more specifically marketing teams, started to notice the attention positive caremongering was getting, when they discovered yet another way into people’s lives, they decided to hop on the trend train. They saw the recognition all of these charitable organisations were getting and they wanted to be part of it.
In the negative sense, corporate caremongering differs from scaremongering because the marketing pitch starts with what appears to be a good deed, a mission statement or some form of pseudo-empowering manifesto.
Pseudo-empowerment is often a large part of corporate caremongering.
Have you ever seen a video online where someone gives a homeless person a present? A stylist gives a homeless person a haircut? When you stop to think about what seems like an act of kindness, you realise that these videos are exploitative.
They do it for the views. There are plenty of influencers who donate to charities without making a song and dance (or in this case, a video) about it.
There is a lot of hypocrisy involved. Imagine for example, a company that requires a pandemic in order to push a specific product.
Several employees of that company might continue to spend time ignoring social distancing rules, travelling excessively, throwing parties or refusing to wear masks because they want their product to succeed and in order for it to succeed, the pandemic is necessary.
It’s an unethical example but some marketers will literally create or contribute to problems in order to trigger a demand for their product.
How can I avoid corporate caremongering?
Ask yourself the following questions:
1. Who do they help?
If it’s not clear who they’re helping or how, you need to dig a little deeper.
2. How do they help?
Look for evidence. Remember: talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.
3. What are they actually doing to help?
4. Can you find any tangible ways they’ve improved someone’s life?
If the answer to question three or four is “I don’t know”, then it’s unlikely they’ve done anything to help anyone (except perhaps themselves).
5. Does the company claim that it’s fine not to be OK and then attempt to humiliate, punish or even fire employees with suspected or confirmed mental health issues?
This might sound oddly specific. That’s because it’s based on a real and fairly recent situation encountered by a friend of mine. Question five is a serious issue which should be and is often considered unacceptable in larger companies. Nevertheless, it happens.
The same gaslighting techniques used in abusive relationships are sometimes implemented by inadequate leadership within the workplace. The turnover rate at companies like this is often quite high.
Buying products from companies that don’t care about their employees is probably not a good idea. People who are considered obstacles to an agenda pushed by a corporate caremongering company might find themselves at the receiving end of this kind of behaviour. It is as unethical as it is unsettling.
According to Psychology Today, ‘When approached on the matter, the gaslighter typically denies mistreatment, and can become defensive, contentious, dismissive, and/or evasive. Instead of using verification and facts to problem-solve, the gaslighter may escalate and become more aggressive, or stonewall and become more passive-aggressive.’
When psychological manipulation is used by someone who is likely inadequate at their own job, employees on the receiving end can lose their sense of purpose or even their sense of self. This can happen over a period of time.
It’s best not to support companies who enable gaslighters to continue working for them.
6. Do employees feign an interest in caring for others or in wellness subjects (such as mindfulness and meditation) for the sole purpose of selling related products?
Don’t be fooled by imagery, aesthetics aren’t everything. Question six is likely a trap people fall into at their lowest point.
There’s no need to pay for a meditation app subscription when there are free resources (and even free apps) available.
If you’re looking for care, mindfulness or digital wellness advice, there are various search engines and forums that can provide you with all of the free information you need!
7. Does anyone who works for the company do similar work in their spare time, do they have a history of voluntary work or random acts of kindness?
If the answer to this question is a resounding no, it might be worth thinking twice about buying anything from them. Who are the experts? Where does their experience come from? Be aware of egocentric titles and awards where everyone wins or they have to pay to enter.
8. Do they advise and contribute to research or do they rely heavily on repeating pre-existing information created by others?
Analyze their content and review the timeline of information shared by the company. Who have they worked with?
Who are they working with at the moment? Do you recognise any of their partners? Has the content gone downhill?
Do they carefully review newsletter emails or social media descriptions? Are they recycling old work and sharing it rather than producing new work to the same standard? How helpful is the free content they produce and share?
Sometimes, patterns emerge in a company’s online presence that can make you question their motives. It’s important that you listen to your gut if something makes you feel uneasy.
9. What do previous employees think of the company? Are they silent?
Question nine is an important one because silence often implies there may be some fear involved. No one wants to leave a negative review for a company to later find they’ve been doxxed (or worse) due to it.
Although not impossible, it can be incredibly hard to prove who is responsible in those kinds of situations.
10. Are there other ways I could improve my life without using their product?
The answer to this question is yes.
We have become too reliant on companies.
Try to shift your focus from companies to communities if possible. Companies claim to provide us with solutions, when the reality is, we might be able to provide that solution for ourselves. My partner and I have searched for several products similar to the ones being touted by numerous corporate caremongering companies and the results were fascinating.
All of the products already existed, in one form or another. They were all reasonably priced, so we bought and tested a combination of lifestyle and electronic products. Although some could only be purchased from China by making use of AliExpress or from stores in the UK (lifestyle products), they already existed.
Caremongering companies in the US and Europe were simply rebranding existing products, some (to the best of my knowledge) were doing it without even realising. This shows an extreme lack of market research, which can usually be attributed to poor leadership.
It’s important to recognise that sometimes that heartwarming “We want to help people.” roughly translates to “We want to profit by making it look as though we’re helping people.”
Scaremongering (sometimes known as fearmongering) is based on a fear a consumer might have or a fear a company instills in a consumer.
This method is used before the company provides you with a solution to quell the fear you didn’t have before they mentioned it to you (usually through advertising). Imagine if a person constantly frightened you and then attempted to comfort you when you were scared… you wouldn’t put up with it, so why put up with companies who do the same thing?
Companies act as though fear based marketing (scaremongering techniques) are controversial but the truth is, they’re commonplace. Care based marketing (corporate caremongering), now that’s innovative… The reality is, both share an identical goal, to sell you something.
Whether it’s a sensationalist headline or a product that promises to improve your health, scaremongering is usually quite an obvious tactic.
Corporate caremongering is far more subtle.
You’re probably already familiar with the way headlines in tabloid newspapers (online) manipulate people into reading more.
It’s likely you recognise the way fake news articles and targeted advertisements manage to momentarily capture your attention. This approach, this form of intentionality is far more honest than the alternative, corporate caremongering.
Most of the time, marketers use these techniques to improve CTR (Click Through Rate) and collect data. They aren’t interested in the content or the people behind those numbers, only the end result. Viewing people not as human beings but as data. They become another row in a spreadsheet, another follower, another lead, another part of a larger problem.
Corporate caremongering is problematic because it convinces you to trust in a company that at their core doesn’t really care about their mission, other people or you, at all.
If you or someone you know has encountered a company using corporate caremongering in an attempt to sell you something you don’t really need, I’d love to know.
You can find me on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and sometimes even GitHub. If you enjoyed reading this article, please share and recommend it! | https://medium.com/dataseries/be-wary-of-corporate-caremongering-34224248d2ae | ['Tiffany Horan'] | 2020-12-22 11:51:50.173000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Caremongering', 'Community', 'Marketing', 'Corporate Culture'] |
Why Some Bosses Suck | Every morning I’d walk up the hill of the busy city streets trying not to be late. Late, to my bad boss, was anything past 8:59 am. He’d sit at his desk with his beer gut, drinking coffee and tapping his metaphorical stick against the desk while simultaneously looking at his watch.
He wanted people to fear him and attendance of his strict times was one way he played out this adult fantasy. Some days he looked like Voldemort with his death like appearance. See, he wasn’t an old guy based on his age, but the way he looked told a completely different story. His smile showed off his off-white teeth and deathly smile. His hair was long, tired and grey. His skin was dry and flaking and he’d spent one too many summers mowing the front lawn of his mansion while forgetting to contemplate the meaning of life.
Some days he wore a nicely kept suit and his favorite Williams boots. On Friday, you’d get to see who he really was. He’d wear his wife beater chequered shirt and his brand new Nike shoes. It was like he was watching himself in the movie Back To The Future and reminiscing about his teenage years to understand what went wrong in his life. He wasn’t fooling anyone. During one of these Fridays, his shirt was rolled up. I could see an arm full of tattoos which for a supposed corporate warrior from back in the day, I was surprised by. He then told me he was covered all over in tattoos. This was the first sign I’d come across that might give me a clue to his past. The mystery of why he’d become a bad boss intrigued me even though on some days I thought to myself “Who cares, just fire his ass by quitting.”
He was a bad boss and I’m convinced that deep down he knew it. That was why, strangely, I felt sorry for him in a way despite the fact he treated me like a piece of shit that he found on the bottom of his Williams boots and was stuck with. When I’d sit in meetings with him, I couldn’t focus on what he was saying. This part is important: what made him a bad boss was that it was all about him. His goal was to build his sandcastle empire and hope that no one would realize it was made out of sand and could be destroyed with a freely available commodity such as water.
Everything he did at work was about building his empire. He’d pretend that he cared about people and their career dreams but never actually go to the effort of finding out what people cared about. It was as if he’d read a book like ‘Tribal Leadership’ by David Logan and wanted to show off the cover of the book to everyone he met, and show the way it sparkled, without ever actually reading it or sharing with anyone what the book meant — or putting into practice some of the lessons.
The part that made him a bad boss was something I’d never experienced before. He’d walk out into the middle of the office and talk loudly about how he loved to fire people. He’d say “Today’s a good day for a sacking isn’t it?”
Or “I haven’t sacked anybody today. Would you like to be sacked?”
It was like I was watching an episode of Seinfeld and laughing along and then realizing that I’d just laughed at a joke about people dying in gas chambers under the reign of Hitler.
The first few times he did it, I laughed. Then I thought about what I was doing and remembered that laughing was a subtle way of telling him, my team, and the poor people he was yelling at, that I agreed with him. Agreeing with him, in my mind, was like telling the devil himself that I’d like to work for him for the rest of my life and do his evil work with a smile.
Sacking people to him was normal. Humans were disposable machines that had an expiry date. His goal was to use you up until you’d had enough of the verbal abuse that he dished out to you, and finally quit. This wasn’t just a figment of my imagination although for the first few weeks I thought it might be. One summers afternoon he took myself and the other two leaders into a room. We’d had a pre-scheduled meeting booked to talk through one of his plans that none of us believed in, but knew we had to listen to. For the record, we didn’t believe in it because he’d told me in another chat how he planned to fire several other leaders so he could control more areas of the business and eventually become a C-Level Executive at the company. He knew he’d have to walk over dead bodies to do it and that excited him in a way. He didn’t do the shooting of his fellow leaders himself; he got others to pull the trigger for him while he sat back and watched with a huge smile on his face.
Anyway, back to the story. In this meeting, there was a bit of banter back and forth. I tried to relax by eating the Barbecue Shape Biscuits that were in the middle of the desk and getting the delicious red flavoring all over my hands. This was a weird thing for me to do because I hadn’t eaten these biscuits since I was a child mostly because they were unhealthy. What can I say, working under a bad boss took its toll in weird and sometimes strange ways. As I took another bite of a Barbecue Shape Biscuit, the conversation went in a strange direction. He started talking about sacking again, but this time he went the extra step. He spoke about what would happen if one of us ever dared cross him and go him for unfair dismissal.
Image Credit: Serena Loder
It went like this: If he fired you, you’d take the four weeks of pay he so kindly gave you (cause he’s a great guy, remember?), pack your shit and get out of his f**king office. They were your instructions. If you chose to disagree with his decision and expect to be put on a performance plan beforehand, and then used that as grounds for an unfair dismissal, he’d use one of his off the shelf strategies that he learned from his previous job. He explained to us that no matter how perfect you are, everyone makes mistakes including him.
For a split second, I thought he might be about to show a tiny bit of his human side.
Then he went back to his usual self and said: “And I’ll find a couple of things you did wrong, by going through your emails, and use them against you at the unfair dismissal tribunal.”
This was his ego talking again. I left the meeting room as soon as he excused us like an angry school principal who just cracked the whip, and went back to my desk. I thought about what he said and I kept coming up with the same question: “But why is he a bad boss? What’s making him be this way?”
The only way I could describe the way he led was “Inhumane.”
It wasn’t enough, though, to draw this conclusion. I wanted to understand why he was a bad boss. | https://medium.com/swlh/why-some-bosses-suck-77e763e9e8b9 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2019-02-04 10:01:00.928000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Starting is the Hardest Part | One of the main components of my blogging income is sponsored posts. I’m given a product, a set of parameters and then it’s up to me to come up with an engaging story consisting of about 500 words and 10 photographs.
At a quick count, I’ve completed roughly 120 sponsored posts. All on time and meeting (or exceeding) expectations.
Yet.
Yet each time a brand reaches out and terms are agreed upon, the self-doubt begins. I wonder if this will be the time I don’t get it done. I wonder if I have it in me to complete the many tasks and put in the hours involved in creating the creative, authentic photos and words that are expected of me.
I fret and I procrastinate and let anxiety lead the way. I go down the rabbit hole of “am I good enough” and, as we all know, it’s a particularly difficult one to climb out of.
If I’ve learned one thing, though, from my decade of blogging it’s this: anxiety is the antithesis of productivity. Simply beginning, though, sends anxiety packing and is a productivity hack we don’t talk about nearly enough. | https://medium.com/swlh/starting-is-the-hardest-part-d65113bb7945 | ['Linda Smith'] | 2019-08-29 07:32:32.424000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Advice'] |
How To Learn About Entrepreneurship | Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
An entrepreneur training program should offer specialized education, followed by step-by-step guidance and inspiration to action. The kind of things that motivate you, the kind of guidance you vibe with best, inevitably vary compared to other people, because everyone is different. The most established entrepreneurs are extremely focused on learning (cheesy as it was, Tai Lopez was right, it’s about knowledge) and testing their comfort zones. There are a million ways to get experience and your first major accomplishments, such as your first affiliate sale or even your first $1000 month.
I’ll focus on books and courses from specific mentors that helped me since it’s what got me started.
photo by author
I can strongly recommend any of the courses and books by Jason Capital, Bedros Keuilian, and Russell Brunson, to name three critical sources of mindset and motivation improvement, plus specialty knowledge in specific areas. Jason is great for writing and copy, Bedros handles people management and bravery, and Russell is all about cold hard performance, more money, and impact per day. Such courses have helped me gain an entrepreneurial mindset: active, confident, and ready to dive into new territory, while also having a clear understanding of what my ideal business opportunity does and doesn’t look like. I would recommend checking some of the starter books and courses from whichever of those three seem to be most relevant to you right now. And that is going to change, your focus.
Also, don’t feel nervous about spending money on skills and motivation. Most people spend that kind of money on DoorDash, but you’re different. This is not a hobby, it’s a serious aspect of every person’s life. This is finances, namely the not-so-difficult goal of financial freedom, which otherwise is very difficult to achieve with a conventional nine-to-five job.
Just make sure you commit to trying everything you buy for a business venture, to the fullest extent. Spending money is a good thing if you get your money’s worth. It almost always gets you a chance to start a really good conversation with the person you bought the thing from. All you have to do is reach out and offer testimony.
As an entrepreneur, I have seen many people failing because they are reluctant to either try something new, risk a little money, challenge their limiting beliefs and fears. People who adopt a conventional, safe approach generally do not succeed. Ironically, because most people settle for a mediocre and ordinary job, the job market is saturated. You are doing something that is more likely to work than playing it safe with a job and retirement plan. Especially when we consider the present scenario. One thing is clear: even the best mentorship can be wasted on deaf ears, spoiled on someone not willing to leave their comfort zone. Exploring and trying new things is like a muscle, and you can develop it with baby steps. Try and explore as much as you can. At the most basic level, if you have any problem as an entrepreneur, the first course of action is to find something new, something to change, and then execute, evaluate, and correct course if needed.
Regarding the best source to learn entrepreneurship, I would repeat, it depends on the entrepreneur. Some people are more self-motivated and all they need is just a bit of technical knowledge. Whereas some aren’t clear at all, all they have in their mind is the word ‘entrepreneurship.’ Others know what to do but struggle with motivation or feeling alone. But, leading with an already established entrepreneur as a mentor definitely helps. Ultimately, it’s the attitude that determines your chance of success above anything else.
There are a lot of paid and free sources for small business and entrepreneur stuff. The free ones are not always a waste, and the paid ones are not always worth their markup. In general, the more specialized and specific the course, the more the seller can charge. Oh, before I wrap this up, one more book I’d recommend first if you haven’t read anything like it already is 4-Hour Work Week. It’s worth it, particularly as far as establishing healthy, optimistic mindsets. If you are interested, you can read its review on my website through the link in my profile.
To conclude, it’s gonna take some time to find what works best for you. But even a just-okay book or course that you take action on is better than the perfect course that you pick for months and then forget about. I would suggest, shortlisting a few courses, comparing them, and then selecting whichever seems the best for you to act upon right now.
An entrepreneur training program should offer specialized education, followed by step-by-step guidance and inspiration to action. The kind of things that motivate you, the kind of guidance you vibe with best, inevitably vary compared to other people, because everyone is different. The most established entrepreneurs are extremely focused on learning (cheesy as it was, Tai Lopez was right, it’s about knowledge) and testing their comfort zones. There are a million ways to get experience and your first major accomplishments, such as your first affiliate sale or even your first $1000 month.
I’ll focus on books and courses from specific mentors that helped me since it’s what got me started.
photo by author
I can strongly recommend any of the courses and books by Jason Capital, Bedros Keuilian, and Russell Brunson, to name three critical sources of mindset and motivation improvement, plus specialty knowledge in specific areas. Jason is great for writing and copy, Bedros handles people management and bravery, and Russell is all about cold hard performance, more money, and impact per day. Such courses have helped me gain an entrepreneurial mindset: active, confident, and ready to dive into new territory, while also having a clear understanding of what my ideal business opportunity does and doesn’t look like. I would recommend checking some of the starter books and courses from whichever of those three seem to be most relevant to you right now. And that is going to change, your focus.
Also, don’t feel nervous about spending money on skills and motivation. Most people spend that kind of money on DoorDash, but you’re different. This is not a hobby, it’s a serious aspect of every person’s life. This is finances, namely the not-so-difficult goal of financial freedom, which otherwise is very difficult to achieve with a conventional nine-to-five job.
Just make sure you commit to trying everything you buy for a business venture, to the fullest extent. Spending money is a good thing if you get your money’s worth. It almost always gets you a chance to start a really good conversation with the person you bought the thing from. All you have to do is reach out and offer testimony.
As an entrepreneur, I have seen many people failing because they are reluctant to either try something new, risk a little money, challenge their limiting beliefs and fears. People who adopt a conventional, safe approach generally do not succeed. Ironically, because most people settle for a mediocre and ordinary job, the job market is saturated. You are doing something that is more likely to work than playing it safe with a job and retirement plan. Especially when we consider the present scenario. One thing is clear: even the best mentorship can be wasted on deaf ears, spoiled on someone not willing to leave their comfort zone. Exploring and trying new things is like a muscle, and you can develop it with baby steps. Try and explore as much as you can. At the most basic level, if you have any problem as an entrepreneur, the first course of action is to find something new, something to change, and then execute, evaluate, and correct course if needed.
Regarding the best source to learn entrepreneurship, I would repeat, it depends on the entrepreneur. Some people are more self-motivated and all they need is just a bit of technical knowledge. Whereas some aren’t clear at all, all they have in their mind is the word ‘entrepreneurship.’ Others know what to do but struggle with motivation or feeling alone. But, leading with an already established entrepreneur as a mentor definitely helps. Ultimately, it’s the attitude that determines your chance of success above anything else.
There are a lot of paid and free sources for small business and entrepreneur stuff. The free ones are not always a waste, and the paid ones are not always worth their markup. In general, the more specialized and specific the course, the more the seller can charge. Oh, before I wrap this up, one more book I’d recommend first if you haven’t read anything like it already is 4-Hour Work Week. It’s worth it, particularly as far as establishing healthy, optimistic mindsets. If you are interested, you can read its review on my website through the link in my profile.
To conclude, it’s gonna take some time to find what works best for you. But even a just-okay book or course that you take action on is better than the perfect course that you pick for months and then forget about. I would suggest, shortlisting a few courses, comparing them, and then selecting whichever seems the best for you to act upon right now. | https://medium.com/illumination/how-to-learn-about-entrepreneurship-5772f3cdd1bd | ['Claudiu Cozma'] | 2020-12-25 14:59:19.297000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Entrepreneur', 'Marketing', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies'] |
How To Thrive As a Tortoise in a World of Hares | Tips for the Slow and Steady
Photo by Miriam Miles on Unsplash
“Slow and steady wins the race” is the modern moral of Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare. But, for those of us who work slowly and steadily it doesn’t feel like we are winning anymore.
In a world of tweeters tweeting nearly 6,000 times per second, Medium users generating 20,000 articles a day, and a pace of life in cities that is up at least 10% from the mid-90’s, those of us who identify with the tortoise may feel like we’ve been left behind.
Never fear, tortoises. With the right strategies, we can still win the race.
When I Realized I Was a Tortoise
When I joined Medium and began to share stories I spent days agonizing over my word choices and polishing my pieces. That’s just the way I work.
Then, I joined a few online communities. The support was tremendous. At that point, I realized that many of the top writers were posting at least once a day or even multiple times a day and then reading, commenting, and clapping for several of the 60+ articles shared by the community. At first, I was impressed and amazed. Then, I felt overwhelmed.
I knew I could not sustain such a pace and still produce quality work. Some people can, but I am not one of them. With practice, I would probably get faster, but not that fast. I think and deliberate too much. Besides, finding balance in life is important to me.
As I began each new story I felt like the sloth in the DMV from the movie, Zootopia. I would slowly work away on my first story of the week while writing peers were hitting publish on their third, fourth or even fifth stories.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this I thought to myself. Then, after some self-reflection, I realized that being a slow, careful worker has advantages and I just needed to capitalize on them. With careful planning, slow and steady can still win the race.
Here are some top tips for the slow and steady:
Play to Your Strengths
What are your strengths?
If you’re a writer, be okay with not producing as much as others. Some Indie writers write 7 or 8 books a year. If you’re still working on your first novel manuscript after 5+ years, never mind, you’re in good company. J.R.R. Tolkien took 12 years to complete The Lord of The Rings. Focus on quality and not quantity.
If you’re writing articles, start with your areas of expertise first. Maximise value. Stick with your original idea and don’t allow yourself to get distracted. Otherwise, you’ll never complete any of your projects. Jot down the new ideas for later, but then maintain laser-sharp focus on your current work in progress.
Find Your Route
As a tortoise, you especially need to plan your route. You don’t have time to get lost or veer off course. If you’re focused on quality, have a plan, know where you are going and most importantly, know why you are going there.
What is your why?
What is your purpose for writing on Medium or anywhere else?
It is so easy to get caught up in what your peers are doing and lose sight of your own personal goals. Identify your purpose and return to it daily.
My purpose for writing on Medium is to improve my writing skills. With the option to instantly publish and receive feedback from readers, publication editors and even other writers, Medium is a highly motivating platform. I am also reading to learn what professional writers do to market themselves and their books because I am hoping to publish a children’s novel by 2020. Finally, I hope to build an audience of parents because they might be the ones to buy my children’s book in the future.
Even though it’s tempting to write in multiple topics like some of my writing peers, this doesn’t necessarily serve my purpose. Instead, I will learn from my writing peers, cheer them on and continue to focus on my own big picture. It may not be quite as lucrative, but my children’s novel is my first priority.
“Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.” — Oprah Winfrey
Journal
Get to know yourself. Take the time to reflect on your working habits. If you do not have a big picture, journaling is the best way to find one. As you refect at the end of each day and set out your priorities each morning, you will get closer and closer to pinpointing your route. Also, think about the following questions.
How do you work best?
Where do you work best?
Under what conditions?
I know I need at least 2 to 3 days with a piece of writing because I often have flashes of insight after I let it sit.
Make a Plan and Stick To It
Figure out how much time you need to realistically meet your goal. Map it out. Stick to your plan and use a timer. As a perfectionist I can easily waste an hour editing one paragraph. Or, if I’m cleaning, I may decide to suddenly scrub the mold out of the grouting with a toothbrush when I only meant to wipe down the sink. Now I write and clean with a timer set. This prevents me from getting distracted.
Use your timer and stop when it rings. Take breaks. Your best creative thoughts will come when you are resting and recuperating. This will help you take care of yourself and return to your tasks energized.
Have a Concrete Deadline
Plan when you will hit publish. As a tortoise, you are not allowed to move on to your next project until you do. This is winning the race.
Right now I have three stories outlined in my journal. I want to move onto the next one, but I won’t let myself until I get this one polished and published. My deadline is today.
Take the Plunge
Now is the time to let go. You’ve followed your plan. Share your story so it can benefit others. Get over your fear of failure.
Jump off the cliff and learn how to make wings on the way down.” — Ray Bradbury
That’s it. You did it! You crossed the finish line. Now, take a few minutes to enjoy the feeling. Then, begin your slow, steady process all over again. Maybe you will even finish two stories this week. | https://medium.com/a-novel-idea/how-to-thrive-as-a-tortoise-in-a-world-of-hares-f05ae92c85f3 | ['Becky Grant'] | 2020-10-16 15:17:35.963000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Life Lessons', 'Freelancing', 'Writing', 'Self'] |
Six Habits of Profoundly Lonely People | 1. You're Always Surrounded by People
Have you ever been at a party, literally surrounded by your friends, but you feel like you’re completely alone?
Loneliness is one of those things where even if you don’t know the cause, you feel the effects. You might not realize you’re deeply lonely, but you still are grasping for anything to make you feel a little less alone. This tends to manifest itself in trying to be around people as much as possible.
The problem is that it’s probably already too late. You’re already struggling to make connections, so surrounding yourself with noise and distraction is like a bandaid on a bullet wound at this point. Shallow connections aren’t going to do anything to truly solve your loneliness.
If you’re noticing yourself doing this, the first step is to realize why — and see what happens when you stop. What fills your head when you try to exist for five minutes without any conversation? What do you turn to? | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/six-habits-of-profoundly-lonely-people-2100b4191a4b | ['Zulie Rane'] | 2020-09-20 13:27:21.946000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Social Media'] |
Creating a Nurturing Environment: Fostering a Workplace that Encourages Bringing Your Whole Self to Work | About a month ago, a co-worker asked me if I would be interested in writing for our company’s blog. At first, I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to write about. I thought to myself, will she ask me to write a narrative about the inner workings of blockchain technology? If that was the case, I’m honestly not the right person since I’m still learning about all that cryptocurrency entails.
I asked her what she had in mind for an article, and she responded, “I think it would be interesting if you could share your experience on what you think makes a workplace culture successful.”
Now, this topic fits more in my wheelhouse, as I’ve experienced a variety of workplace cultures, both big and small. I reflected on what I’ve seen and learned over the past 20 years working in various industries as an HR professional, and one concept stood out above the rest: creating a nurturing workplace environment.
I believe one of the most essential components to creating a thriving workplace culture is to foster an environment that is nurturing so that employees can bring their entire selves to work, and at Coinme, that’s what we strive to do every day.
Creating an environment that people can feel safely vulnerable in and bring your whole self to work sounds like simple concepts; however, they can be tough to do in practice because it means we need to embrace vulnerability, be comfortable with failing and be receptive to hearing and providing constructive feedback.
Even with a topic as ever-changing, and sometimes challenging, as cryptocurrencies, being open to learning and making mistakes while growing is critical. Below are five ideas for making your workplace culture more nurturing so that you, your co-workers, or your employees can feel more comfortable bringing your whole selves to work:
Promote communication between peers and across hierarchical lines. Have an open-door policy to encourage collaboration from all across the organization and to make sure that all contributions are valued.
Celebrate wins. Start a meeting off by sharing something positive that is going on in your group, project, work, etc. Encourage others to do the same.
Show gratitude. Thank a co-worker for something he or she did but weren’t expecting to get thanked for. Be specific about what it was and why it was helpful or essential.
Empower employees. Trusting your team is essential. Avoid micromanagement and allow your employees to have autonomy to make decisions and to plan their work.
Be open and forgiving with mistakes. View slip-ups and failures as learning opportunities, and be open about your own mistakes and encourage others to do the same.
According to motivational speaker, thought-leader, and author Mike Robbins, nurturance has to do with people feeling seen, heard, and valued — not just what they do, but for who they are. It also has to do with feeling safe to make mistakes, ask for help, speak up and disagree. Nurturing environments are filled with an authentic sense of compassion and empathy, and people genuinely feel cared about and supported.
In his book, Bringing Your Whole Self to Work: How Vulnerability Unlocks Creativity, Connection, and Performance, Robbins states that bringing your whole self to work will ultimately lead to a higher level of engagement, connection, and performance. This is because when you bring your whole self to work, you are being vulnerable, and the natural response to vulnerability is empathy and compassion. That vulnerability is key to trust and connection which are ultimately keys to business and personal success. | https://medium.com/coinme/creating-a-nurturing-environment-fostering-a-workplace-that-encourages-bringing-your-whole-self-to-5e713278d28f | [] | 2018-07-09 14:43:50.787000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Leadership', 'Workplace Culture', 'Startup', 'Culture'] |
The Difference Between Designing for Users vs. Designing for Marketing | A few decades ago it actually meant something to describe your company as an “internet business.” The web hadn’t proliferated beyond expensive, behemoth machines in research institutions, and the potential of vast, worldwide connectivity wasn’t yet understood.
Boy, have times changed.
Nowadays, businesses depend on the internet to survive in the same way automobiles depend on fuel. Calling yourself an “internet business” would sound ridiculous, since everyone from Wall Street investment firms to your artsy neighbor shows up online slinging their wares or marketing their skills.
“Standing out” has always been a priority in advertising and marketing, and a swell in competition has companies earmarking enormous budgets for marketing. But customers don’t just care how you look and sound, they expect good design. It’s the first step in pulling interested buyers into your conversion cycle. That’s what marketing design is.
But once you’ve enticed a customer to buy, how do you keep them coming back? | https://medium.com/better-product/the-difference-between-designing-for-users-vs-designing-for-marketing-8bec562c73a5 | ['Jon Moore'] | 2019-06-25 13:07:37.724000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Design', 'Product Marketing', 'Marketing', 'UX'] |
What a Papa John’s Tweet Can Teach Us About Marketing in a Pandemic | Understanding New Consumer Vulnerabilities
Before you can come up with the messaging like the above Papa John’s example and make it specific to your business, you need to get into the mind of your consumers.
As consumers, we are all more vulnerable because of this virus. Economically, socially, and health-wise.
We’re concerned about our loved ones and our jobs, we miss our friends, but most of all, we want to avoid spreading the virus so that we can get through this as quickly as possible.
Thus, we want the businesses we interact with (and want to support) to acknowledge and ensure we can purchase their products without further risking the spread of the virus.
The good thing is that businesses want this too, but there’s a gap. One way to fill that gap is to ask yourself this question:
What are my customers afraid to tell me?
More often than not, an unhappy customer will simply choose to do business elsewhere in the future rather than provide you with feedback and we’re none the wiser.
Except now, the stakes are much higher, and customers are more sensitive, so we have to improve anticipating their silent needs.
By spending time thinking about what our customers might be afraid to tell us, and to ask our loyal customers or peers for “off-the-record” feedback, we can do a better job addressing their vulnerabilities.
So, what might your customers be afraid of?
Your customers are fragile, handle with care. Photo by jesse ramirez on Unsplash
Let’s use restaurants as our example and work backward from the Papa John’s messaging, to uncover what customer fears they identified:
Fear of the pizza box accidentally opening and the contents being exposed to droplets.
Fear of their meal or the box being placed on an unsanitized surface.
Fear of their delivery driver not respecting the 6-foot rule when dropping the food off.
Fear of not being able to pay and tip without face-to-face interaction. | https://jonathan-torrey.medium.com/what-a-papa-johns-tweet-can-teach-us-about-marketing-in-a-pandemic-4bcd9ee9c1a8 | ['Jon Torrey'] | 2020-05-01 13:03:59.059000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Startup', 'Marketing', 'Advertising'] |
When Designers Give Each Other Books, They’re Not All Books About Design, Though Maybe They Are | Designers of all kinds tend to have a special relationship with books. We love the covers and the typesetting, of course, but also the conveyance of knowledge and the tactility of complex ideas you can hold in your hands.
This is true for the designers working on Adobe XD too, so in this way we’re not unique. But we do have as many different, singular kinds of passions for the written word as we have team members. Some of us are captivated by books that illuminate the work we do every day, others by books that transport us far away from the world of design, and still others by graphic novels or ancient fables.
This holiday season, we decided to celebrate these wide-ranging tastes by sharing them with one another. In the time-honored tradition of office Secret Santa gift exchanges — except, you know, virtual — we each drew a name from a hat. Instead of gifting one another tchotchkes and trinkets though, we (anonymously) shipped one of our favorite books to the person we selected.
Once all the books had arrived, we all convened in a big video call (as you do) and, one by one, revealed to whom we’d sent our book and why. Each person talked briefly about how the book they chose had impacted them personally, why it stuck with them, why they were so excited to share it with their designated recipient, and much more.
For a design team that has been lucky enough to be relatively stable — most of us have been working together for a few years now — it was a wonderful way to reveal new sides of ourselves to one another. For added fun we invited an “extended family” of our colleagues working on other teams too, which added a ton to the holiday spirit of it all. In fact it was such a good time that we thought it would be nice to memorialize the broad array of books that were exchanged and share the list publicly.
“Just My Type” by Simon Garfield
It’s something with a light note to end the year: A fun and interesting tour of the history and power of type. Great for folks who aren’t obsessed with type but want to explore a bit more on the subject. Gifted by Val.
“Notes on the Synthesis of Form” by Christopher Alexander
A great book about principles of architecture and civil engineering, but highly applicable to software. Alexander spent a lot of this time writing about patterns and about design methodology. Gifted by Susse.
This one’s a super quick read and super fun and dark also. Deals with one guy trying to make sense of an absurd role, and written entirely as dialogue. Gifted by Jeremy.
“Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster” by Svetlana Alexievich
A look at the tragedy of the Chernobyl disaster through the stories of the people affected by it. Written by the first Belarusian writer to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, this book is top of mind at a time when Belarus is undergoing turmoil. Gifted by Tanya.
An edited collection of anecdotes about a variety of topics by the Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. It’s extremely easy to read but helps you understand how complex ideas can be broken down. Gifted by Alex.
“Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
A longstanding favorite graphic novel and for good reason. There are so many layers — there’s even a comic book inside a comic book. Intricate stories, fantastic depth. Gifted by Carmen.
“The Book of Balance” by Yasuhiko Kimura
One of several translations of a book that’s been around for 2,500 years. You can finish it in an hour but it may take you a few decades to truly understand it. A great read if you’re a fan of inner peace (and outer peace). Gifted by Larz.
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer
A novel about a young autistic kid who goes on a journey through New York’s five boroughs after his father died on 9/11. Told in a nonlinear storyline and beautifully written, eccentric and quirky. Gifted by Kelly.
“Killing Commendatore” by Haruki Murakami
A novel about an unnamed Japanese portrait painter whose wife abandons him. He soon finds himself on a journey that takes him on all sorts of adventures with different metaphoric meanings and learnings. It’s a story that really stays with you. Gifted by Talin.
“The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir” by Thi Bui
A graphic novel that recounts the author and artist’s experiences growing up with parents who survived the Vietnam war. Deeply personal with striking visuals on every page. Best enjoyed with a hot bowl of phở to heal your heart and soul. Gifted by Gayatri.
“Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A investigation into how systems function by one of the great contemporary thinkers. It may not offer great emotional comfort during this time of pandemic, but it’s rife with wisdom and unique perspective. Gifted by Wenting.
“The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream” by Paulo Coelho
A famously inspiring story about an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of a treasure. It’s about life journeys and self-discovery, and finding your treasure at the end of it. Gifted by Ryan.
“The Complete Cosmiccomics” by Italo Calvino
An anthology of thirty-four stories that relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world. It’s a wonderful travel book, and since none of us have been able to travel that much, a great opportunity to enjoy the dreamscapes that this author transports us to. Gifted by Saagar.
“Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design” by Charles Montgomery
A wonderful book to read when actually commuting to work was a thing, this is an examination of the intersection of urban planning and improving one’s health, happiness and connection to community. Gifted by Simona.
“Aesop’s Fables” by Jerry Pinkney
This particular edition of these ageless stories includes gorgeous illustrations that go alongside some of the best life lessons you can get…which comes in handy when dealing with the twists, turns, and curveballs of 2020. This version of Aesop’s fables is packaged as a children’s book, but its translations and illustrations make it even more meaningful for adults. Gifted by Jess, who came up with this whole book exchange idea.
“Working” by Robert A. Caro
A great introduction to the work of Robert Caro, one of the best biographers of all time, and probably the premier chronicler of power in American society. This relatively short book finds Caro revealing the methods and ideas he uses to write his massive, highly intricate books about Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson. From the very first page, you’re sucked in by his prose. It’s a page turner. Gifted by Khoi.
“Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio
This book truly gives you a new perspective on life. In today’s world where we are constantly overwhelmed with ‘stuff’, this book helps readers center on what matters most and be objective about less important things. Gifted by Vignesh.
“The Culture Map” by Erin Meyer
This ostensibly business-oriented guide to working across cultures also applies to real life. On a team full of immigrants, foreigners, and people of different background like ours — it’s a great book to learn about your teammates too! It helps you learn about how cultures work, and how people from different countries around the world connect and react to events. Gifted by Gleren.
“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
A fascinating explanation of how the human mind works that offers practical and illuminating insights into how we make choices in both our business and our personal lives. Gifted by Shalin.
“Labyrinths” by Jorge Luis Borges
A collection of short stories that border on science fiction and the edge of reality, and easily suspends your disbelief over what is actually happening in fiction and not real life. Written in the 1940s, it anticipates a lot of the ideas we live with today — in fact, one of the short stories, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” is cited as an inspiration for hypertext. Gifted by James. | https://medium.com/thinking-design/when-designers-give-each-other-books-theyre-not-all-books-about-design-though-maybe-they-are-d449564b616e | ['Khoi Vinh'] | 2020-12-21 21:08:46.749000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Designer', 'Design', 'Creative Career', 'UX'] |
Write Better Commits With Semantic Commits | Write Better Commits With Semantic Commits
Writing clear, concise commit messages enable you to work well with any team and get your best work out there.
Good commits can make the difference between a well-maintained product, and a terrible product. Well-written commits following a standardized format will enable viewers of your codebase to easily understand the type of change, what modules it affected, and why it occurred. Below, I will outline my format for commits, based on the Semantic Commits style popularized by the AngularJS team.
Most people don’t start thinking about their commits when they first start development (I get it, there’s a lot going on and a lot to learn)
But commits become especially important when you’re a part of a team.
When you enter a new repository, you want to be able to see how the project has developed over time. If you were to see commits like this:
Fix the thing Update styles Add the thing
(Note, these are actually not the worst examples—I’m sure you’ve seen worse)
You likely won’t be able to understand what happened, without reading the code changes in a commit itself.
However, contrast those with these commits:
fix(blog): Imported posts formatted correctly with new styles feat(blog): Update styles to reflect new design feat(blog): Add blog feed to site.
Looks great, so how do we do it?
The semantic commit contains 4 parts:
The type of commit
The Scope of the commit (optional, but often nice to have)
The actual content of the commit
An optional body, for more description. Good for larger commits.
Here’s how it works:
So in our first example above, we might create:
feat(blog): Add blog feed to site Add the markdown plugin, generate pages, and create blog template.
The type
You can use your own types, but here are the defaults:
feat : a new feature, or change to existing feature.
: a new feature, or change to existing feature. fix : Fixing a bug or known issue in code.
: Fixing a bug or known issue in code. test : Adding additional tests for existing features.
: Adding additional tests for existing features. chore : Updating build tools, like webpack, gulp, ascripts, etc.
: Updating build tools, like webpack, gulp, ascripts, etc. docs: Update to documentation like README
The scope
Your scope can be as granular as you’d like and will likely change based on the complexity of the project. If you’re just starting off a project, you could omit the scope, but I highly recommend you consider it because it forces you to think very clearly about what you’re changing.
The description
You want to summarize your commit with a single line. If you can’t, then you probably want to consider breaking the commit down into smaller pieces to make the work logical and self-contained.
The (optional) body
A single line is good for the summary, but sometimes you want to add additional detail so that readers can see more about what you changed now that they know why you changed it.
Writing better commits will help you write better code. Simple practices like this force you into a mindset of craftsmanship and self-documenting projects.
Want to take it further?
Consider reading the original source The Karma Commit Message Format or this newer resource The Conventional Commits.
Once you’re going with semantic commits, you might want to enforce it as a standard on your projects! For something like this, you can use Commitizen(for validation) and Husky (for pre-commit hooks).
I will be following up with a guide on using pre-commit hooks to do linting, testing, and more in a future article.
Till then, happy coding.
May your code be functional, readable, and well-used. | https://medium.com/swlh/write-better-commits-with-semantic-commits-3316c68763f6 | ['Matthew Weeks'] | 2020-10-23 23:43:58.517000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Web Development', 'Git', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming'] |
How did Albert Einstein Spend His Leisure Time? | How did Albert Einstein Spend His Leisure Time?
Practice these habits for maximum productivity of the brain
Albert Einstein (1875–1955) is considered as the most influential and recognizable scientist of the 20th century. He presented the theory of relativity which changed our prior concepts regarding space and time. This theory now serves as one of the two pillars of modern physics, the other one being quantum theory.
Albert Einstein was a hard worker, besides the hard work he always used to take some time off. He worked for ten hours a day, six days a week. Also, he had the immense capability to focus on work for extended times. He used to say,
“Keep in mind that besides the eight hours of work, each day also has eight hours for fooling around, and then there’s also Sunday.” — Albert Einstein.
He was of the idea that busy people can never do wonders in their life, something great happens when a person is relaxing. Taking some time off provides a vital escape from the laborious life, a scientist has. Staring up at the sky, hiking above the mountain, walking across the sea are some tranquilizing practices. He once said,
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
I will highlight some of the unusual patterns in Albert Einstein’s life and his exercises to relax his mind to magnify the productivity.
He was an incredibly talented musician. He got the germs of music from his mother who was a talented piano player. He used to spend hours playing the violin while he goes bird- watching. He said, “I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music”, also “I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin.”
It was perceived by his close acquaintances that if the career of being a scientist had not worked out for him, he could have been a world-class violinist.
Playing an instrument could be a wonderful exercise for the brain. It enhances cognitive skills, time-management skills, concentration, and creativity, as it uses every part of the brain.
His wife Elsa said, “He goes to his study, comes back, strikes a few chords on the piano, jots something down, returns to his study.”
He used to sleep at least ten hours per day. That’s more than an average American now i.e. 6.8 hours.
It’s a well-known fact that sleep is good for brain activity. In the case of Einstein, this time scale was meaningful, as his special theory of relativity came to him during his dream. Einstein had a dream about an elevator falling in space and also that he was near the mountainside, going so fast that eventually, he was close to the speed of light. The stars and other objects in his dream changed their appearance at that moment.
He awoke and meditated on this dream. Soon he formulated a theory which is among the most beautiful scientific theories in the history of science. That changed humanity’s perspective on space, time, gravity as well as the mechanics of the universe.
A lot of scientists claim that they can do lucid dreams (conscious while being dreaming), which helps them in visualizing science.
The daily walk was mandatory for him, while he was working at Princeton University, he used to travel the one and a half-mile distance on his foot.
On-campus, when he would come up with an idea, he would enter the nearby classroom and traces out the equation about the recent thought on the blackboard. Then he would discard the work and continued the walk.
Apart from fitness, walking can distract a brain in a way that can boost memory and problem-solving skills. It provides a different approach to our thinking, sometimes may lead to potential you don’t have at your working place. As quoted by Einstein “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
He loved to answer the mails he received from his fans, especially from children. In one letter, a young girl told about her difficulties in understanding mathematics. He supposedly wrote back, “Do not worry about your difficulty in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
He always wrote back the mails with encouragement and humbleness.
He was in love with spaghetti . Pasta lovers are allowed to feel good on this one. It has not been verified, perhaps, he once jokingly quoted about his favorite things in Italy “spaghetti and Levi-Civita (mathematician)”
. Pasta lovers are allowed to feel good on this one. It has not been verified, perhaps, he once jokingly quoted about his favorite things in Italy “spaghetti and Levi-Civita (mathematician)” He loved to do sailing. He started sailing when he was an undergraduate student in Zurich and that continued throughout his life. Although he was not so good at it. He required rescue many times due to his unstable grip. Many times he would get lost on the way and returned a few hours later. Due to bad repute, his sailboat became famous with the name Tinef, which means worthless/Junk.
An exceptional thought that revolutionized the science that space and time were curved, came to him when he was out on the water. He wrote to a mathematician Oswald Veblen in a letter in 1930 that,
“Nature conceals her secrets because she is sublime, not because she is a trickster.”
To reveal the secrets of nature — we need to get away from our daily life routines — to behold the vastness of the universe.
He used to smoke a pipe. Everyone knew him around the campus for the cloud of smoke which followed wherever he goes. That’s not a wise habit to follow as we know the bad effects of smoking on health.
He had a horrible sense of fashion. He would often found wearing sandals without socks. He thought that it is easier to think efficiently when your feet are comfortable and not wearing socks has always been comforted him.
He was extremely proud of the fact that he didn’t have to wear them while giving lectures at Oxford in the 1930s. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/how-did-albert-einstein-spend-his-leisure-time-11e60cc1b75f | ['Areeba Merriam'] | 2020-08-30 13:07:41.562000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Genius', 'Productivity', 'Advice', 'Lessons Learned'] |
5 Books That Changed My Life In 2020 | The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing by Beverly Engel
“Begin to nurture yourself…Some grew up expecting their romantic partners to give them the nurturing they hungered for, only to be disappointed. But our partners are not our parents, no matter how much we try to make them into parents. No one can make up for the deprivation you experienced, and no one should be expected to.” ― Beverly Engel, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing
As difficult as it is to find someone to date, it’s even more difficult to keep a healthy and functional relationship. If we consider that half of all US citizens get divorced², that means that half of US marriages are so dysfunctional they must end. Combine that with a trend of falling happiness levels in marriage, and our chances for a happy long-term marriage start to sink.
And that’s for healthy, wealthy people. People with PTSD face a divorce rate of 70%. Disabled people are more likely to suffer divorce. Poor people are less likely to get married but have been divorced more often. For minorities and disadvantaged people, things look bleak.
I have always wanted to have a happy and long marriage. It’s one of the first things I can ever remember wanting. So a big theme of my 2020 reading list was reading about how to have a healthy relationship. There are a lot of good books in this category, like The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work⁰ and Marriage Rules⁰, but The Emotionally Abusive Relationship⁰ was easily my favorite.
What makes The Emotionally Abusive Relationship different is two powerful things:
It teaches us how to identify emotional and verbal abuse from our partners and ourselves. It teaches us how to repair our relationships, whether we’re the abuser or the abused.
So many books about marriage health assume both partners are essentially lovely healthy people who have a few kinks. I’ve found that by the time people pick up a relationship book, they’re already off the deep end, so much of that advice is too meek. But when they do pick these books up, they’re often written only for victims of pretty serious abuse, and they all say the same thing: “Leave your abuser, or you will suffer.”
My big problem with that second kind of book is there’s never any middle ground. It’s just “Break up. Move on.” But you know what? Many people have been emotionally abusive to a partner at one point or another in their life. Hell, most teenage girls are emotionally abusive to their high school boyfriends. (“You didn’t text me back for an hour, and that means you don’t love me!”) Obviously, physical abuse or blatant disregard for your humanity should be a sign to leave. Still, there are many steps between healthy communication and communication so toxic the only thing to do is leave.
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship acknowledges this reality. Engel explains the dynamics of emotionally abusive communication and helps the reader determine whether a relationship is salvageable with a pretty basic set of principles. She also describes the path relationships take on the road to recovery from emotional toxicity, letting the reader know what they’re in for.
Engel also gets into two areas of territory most relationship writers dare not go:
Exploring with the victimized partner how their own attitudes contributed to this pattern. Teaching the perpetrator how to stop.
Most relationship writers dare not venture into this territory for what I imagine to be image issues. The optics of telling a victim their own behavior contributed to a relationship dynamic are terrible. But terrible optics or not, the reality is that many toxic relationships thrive not only because one partner is caustic but also because the other partner tolerates it. If a victim does not acknowledge their own behavior in the cycle, they will end up with one emotional abuser after another.
Another thing with terrible optics is trying to teach abusers how to stop. No one wants to be caught helping an abuser. But for every toxic person out there who is unconcerned and unrepentant, there is one out there who really would like to be better but who can’t get access to the psychological care that would allow them to untangle whatever’s tangled up in their mind. Engel finally writes for the people in this position, giving them a guide to recovering from toxic behavior and what to expect from their partner while they sort out their own issues.
All of these things taken together produce a book that is unlike any other I’ve read about toxic or abusive relationships. If you know your relationship is a mess and can’t figure out why, if you’re single and your last relationship was a hot mess, or if you want to know more about why people get stuck in destructive patterns, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship by Beverly Engel is the book for you. | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/5-books-that-changed-my-life-in-2020-11eb5e9a6041 | ['Megan Holstein'] | 2020-12-21 15:53:12.902000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Productivity', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Self'] |
Why Utah is Growing Faster than Everywhere Else | Did you know that Utah is home to some of the fastest population growth in the country? A few more fun facts: The state is expected to be the best place to live in 2032, houses the nation’s largest number of national parks, and is ranked fourth in the nation in overall well-being. It is also one of three states that has access to Google Fiber and an increasingly strong presence in the tech industry.
Things are coming up Utah.
The fundamentals driving this growth are Utah’s booming economy, low unemployment, and a very affordable quality of life. To understand how this state’s cities are thriving and learn more about how you can repeat the effects in your community, let’s look at the economic impactors and key data associated with its growth.
Utah Soars Above National Average | https://medium.com/community-pulse/why-utah-is-growing-faster-than-everywhere-else-68922d20eec6 | [] | 2016-12-29 19:20:15.620000+00:00 | ['Economic Development', 'Utah', 'Cities', 'Smart Cities', 'Big Data'] |
Most People Run Away From Becoming Billionaires | Most People Run Away From Becoming Billionaires
And there is a perfectly logical reason
Many people miss a lot of chances in life because they don't try. It is one thing to give up too soon, but sadly most people don't even try. They come up with a great logical reason for not giving an opportunity a shot.
The reason most people are stuck in life is that they keep looking for the big opportunity. They think that their success in life is tied to some opportunity that only certain people can give.
An award-winning filmmaker gave a profound advice to young people seeking a breakthrough in the movie industry. The advice was for these young people to make their own films.
Stop waiting for the opportunity to star in a movie by someone else. You may never get that opportunity. And you can become bitter as a result. Choose the better way which is creation.
The way things are today in the world is not the way they have always been. Someone thought of what could be and made it happen. In the same way, the world of tomorrow will be shaped by the thoughts of people today who will mold their fantasy into reality.
The idea here is to dream and work towards it. You don't have to fully believe that your dream will come to pass. You just have to do all that can be done each day in the forward direction of your dream.
Some days it will seem like it is not going to happen. But the trick is not to turn that thought into words. It's okay to have doubts about your dream. But never speak your doubts. Always speak your faith, vision, and purpose.
Poor people take the easy way and that is why their life is hard. The rich are bold enough to do what no one else will do. Be bold enough to challenge the status quo. If nobody will give you the opportunity you want, create that opportunity and pave the way for other people. This is what it means to be great.
Most people wake up every morning in the hope to find an opportunity that will change their life. And such opportunities rarely shows up. When they do, it is so uncomfortable that many will prefer to stay away.
The hard work connected with creation looks very overwhelming. People stay away because they don't want to be responsible for their success or failure. They can't trust themselves that much. They will rather have someone to blame in case things go south.
But those who create value to serve thousands and millions of people naturally become billionaires. Regular people would rather run away from such a responsibility. They don’t want to have their name and face all over the news when a little problem shows up. The super-rich like is not for everybody. But it is only because people are trying to have the money without the responsibility.
Do what 90% of people won’t do. The best time to travel for business is when everybody is afraid to travel. The polar opposite of opportunity is a crisis. Where there is a crisis, there is an opportunity. But not an opportunity for the taker. It is an opportunity for the one who will create.
While many businesses are getting crushed by the harsh business weather today, the big businesses are expanding at an unprecedented pace. The super-rich entrepreneurs are in acquisition mode. It is unconventional and sometimes harsh. But they multiply their wealth in the process.
Lack of money has never killed any dream. It is the lack of awareness of what's possible that kills the dream of many. They know the 18th step they should take but they can't bring themselves to take the first step.
If you become aware of what people who earn 10 times what you are earning (in your industry) do and you follow their system, it won't be long before you start earning what they are earning (whether you like it or not).
Think about these things.
Cheers | https://medium.com/rich-culture/most-people-run-away-from-becoming-billionaires-d4642ad68855 | ['David O.'] | 2020-12-28 13:42:01.179000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Psychology', 'Inspiration', 'Wealth', 'Money'] |
Kubeflow v0.5 simplifies model development with enhanced UI and Fairing library | The Kubeflow Product Management Working Group is excited to announce the release Kubeflow v0.5, which brings significant improvements to users’ model development experience!
New features in Kubeflow 0.5 include:
A Go binary, kfctl, to simplify configuring and deploying Kubeflow
An improved UI for managing notebooks that makes it easy to:
Run multiple notebooks simultaneously
Attach volumes to notebooks
The Fairing library to build, train, and deploy models from notebooks or your favorite Python IDE
Demo Kubeflow 0.5 by building, training and deploying an XGBoost model
We thought the best way to illustrate Kubeflow 0.5’s improvements was with a walkthrough demonstrating how to leverage the new notebooks enhancements for interactive development of your XGBoost models.
Deploy Kubeflow
First off, we’ll kick off a fresh deployment of Kubeflow v0.5 on Google Kubernetes Engine using the web deployment application available at https://deploy.kubeflow.cloud/. For instructions on deploying onto other platforms, please see Getting Started with Kubeflow.
The screenshot below shows an example deployment form. Note that “Project field” is a GCP Project ID, with a deployment name of our choice. In this example, we opted to use Login with a Username/Password, and picked a username and password for the deployment to use. Also note that we left the Kubeflow version to the default v0.5.0. Then we clicked “Create Deployment,” kicking off the deployment of Kubeflow to the project. It will take roughly 10 minutes to be ready after you kick it off. Click on Show Logs to view the progress messages. In case you run into errors, please see detailed instructions for deployment.
Once the deployment is ready, the deployment web app page automatically redirects to the login page of the newly deployed Kubeflow cluster, as shown below.
Create a notebook server in Kubeflow
After logging in with the username and password we chose at deployment, we arrive at the updated Kubeflow Dashboard in v0.5:
Notice the build version displayed at the bottom left of the dashboard. This gives a quick confirmation of the version of Kubeflow deployed in your cluster.
In this demo we’ll focus on notebooks. Clicking on Notebooks in the left nav takes us to the new Notebooks management interface:
This is a new Kubernetes Native web app developed by the Kubeflow Community to improve the experience of creating and managing Notebook Servers in a Kubeflow deployment.
We’ll create a new TensorFlow 1.13 notebook server using one of the pre-configured images in Kubeflow by clicking “New Server” at the top-right.
Now we’ll provide a name for the notebook server (myserver in this example), pick the default Kubeflow namespace, and pick one of the standard TensorFlow notebook server images. We picked 1.0 for CPU and 5.0Gi for the memory. The new UI makes it really easy to create and attach new volumes, as well as existing volumes, to the Notebook Server. If you have a pre-configured NFS Server volume (your Admin team might have done that), you can easily discover it and attach the existing volume(s).
Once configured, we click “Spawn” and wait for the notebook server to get ready.
At this point, the pod is getting ready and pulling the specified container image. Once ready, the “Connect” button is highlighted on the notebook server, as shown below.
Clicking on “Connect” takes us to the Jupyter notebooks:
Note that, initially, there are no notebooks or terminals running.
Run an example notebook with Kubeflow Fairing
Fairing is a Kubeflow library that makes it easy to build, train, and deploy your ML training jobs on Kubeflow or Kubernetes, directly from Python code or a Jupyter notebook.
For this example, we’ll try running through one of the new Fairing example notebooks. In order to do that easily, here are the steps we follow:
Create a new terminal.
2. Clone the fairing repo in the terminal.
$ git clone $ bash$ git clone https://github.com/kubeflow/fairing
3. In the terminal, run the following commands:
$ cd fairing/examples/prediction
$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
4. Switch back to the notebooks view. Notice the fairing directory that shows up.
5. Browse to faring/examples/prediction directory. Click on xgboost-high-level-apis.ipynb
6. This opens the notebook in your notebook server.
7. Study the notebook and run through the notebooks cells.
Explore the notebook
The notebook is self-explanatory, and walks us through the development of an XGBoost-based model for a housing price prediction example. It illustrates how Fairing makes it extremely straightforward to develop your model.
Here are some of the core features to note: | https://medium.com/kubeflow/kubeflow-v0-5-simplifies-model-development-with-enhanced-ui-and-fairing-library-78e19cdc9f50 | ['Thea Lamkin'] | 2019-04-30 00:18:58.719000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Kubernetes', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Data Science', 'Kubeflow'] |
When Technology Fails, Who’s Responsible? | We see less extreme examples of this every day: Products and services with failure scenarios that simply haven’t been considered in their overall design, even when a breakdown can cause serious distress or worse. Typically, the failure is due to a variable that wasn’t seriously considered or even recognized early on in the planning process — or if it was, it was overridden by management as a marginal problem. And somehow, we seem to have resigned ourselves to this as an inevitability of high tech’s ubiquitous “beta phase.”
For instance, consider a popular “smart” pet feeder, designed to feed your animal through a smartphone app. In 2016, the company’s Twitter account was bombarded with panicked users, many of them on vacation, far from home, who suddenly realized their feeder was offline, leaving them unable to feed their cherished pets.
Why? The company had designed the feeder to work with a third-party server from Google and hadn’t bothered to add a failsafe mode in the event the server ever went offline. Somewhere in its planning process, the company decided not to acknowledge that Google could ever suffer server downtime. They did, however, build the possibility of failure into their terms of service, with a clause saying that the company was not accountable for service outages. Such clauses are common for tech companies, a uniquely legalistic way of evading responsibility.
The assumption that cloud services are 100% reliable still persists to this day, especially in the design of internet of things devices, which often depend on them. But they’re not foolproof: According to Network World, during a recent 17-month period, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure experienced 338, 361, and 1,934 hours of downtime, respectively. During each of those hours, it’s possible that tens of millions of consumers were using cloud-dependent services that failed, causing anything from mild inconvenience to serious danger.
As is often the case, this is a new tech problem that was anticipated by earlier tech wisdom that’s been buried beneath our current era of “move fast and break things.” In the mid-1990s, Mark Weiser, principal scientist at Xerox PARC, spelled it out in his seminal essay, “The Technologist’s Responsibilities and Social Change.”
Weiser’s Principles of Inventing Socially Dangerous Technology:
1. Build it as safe as you can, and build into it all the safeguards to personal values that you can imagine.
2. Tell the world at large that you are doing something dangerous.
“Most engineers,” as Weiser explained, “will defend as strongly as possible the value of their work and leave it to others to find fault. But that is not enough if one is doing something that one knows has possibly dangerous consequences.”
It would be wonderful if tech companies would willingly embrace Weiser’s principles, but for the corporate culture of many companies, it may be too late. We are seeing what they’ve wrought: massive companies built on technology in which little thought has been put into fundamental safeguards and little transparency into the dangers the technology poses.
The tech press should not consider themselves exempt from these principles. All too often they do. In their product reviews, for example, a potential failure point (“this service pauses if wifi connectivity is lost”) is usually shrugged away in passing as a mild inconvenience, instead of being red-flagged for what it really is: a potential deal-breaker for the product as a whole. Where are the warning labels that read, “these products could result in the death of your pet if there is a wifi outage while you’re away”?
A new institution might be needed. In 1894, when electricity was still very much an unpredictable, dangerous technology, a company called Underwriters Laboratories introduced safety and testing standards. They were quickly embraced by the burgeoning industry and are still in use today. Perhaps it’s time for Silicon Valley to create an Underwriter Laboratories of its own, placing its many products and services under serious, rigorous scrutiny. | https://modus.medium.com/when-technology-fails-whos-responsible-62647e90d1f9 | ['Amber Case'] | 2019-11-07 21:55:37.473000+00:00 | ['Ideas', 'Cloud Computing', 'Design', 'Tech', 'Accountability'] |
Secrets & Wives. A single mom begins a whirlwind romance… | In the shadow of Kaylen’s attacks and threats by Martin of mob retaliation, Sherry had to get out of Redmond. Martin had poisoned nearly every part of her life, including her lifelong friendship with Samantha. During one of his drunken tirades, he convinced Sherry he and Samantha had slept together. Through it all, Sherry couldn’t escape the fact that she still had feelings for the wild, freewheeling man who swept her off her feet, and the possible betrayal was too much to live with. She severed ties with Samantha, and it would be twenty-five years before they next spoke. Samantha never slept with Martin. It was just another of his lies, tossed around as shields to protect himself.
Near penniless, Sherry took Kris back to her hometown to move in with her parents. Her pregnancy, no doubt affected by the life-and-death stress, ended in a miscarriage. Martin later insisted Sherry had to know more about him than she claimed, including the fact that he was already married. He maintained she seduced him against his will, basically kidnapped him — “she fuck-napped me,” he said more than once — to Nevada to get married in order to try to get his money.
Sherry admits she was painfully naive, but she’s adamant — as are those who knew her — that she was in the dark about Martin’s other lives. He was a professional hustler, a con man, more than capable of getting one over on a gullible lover from small town Washington, and her story is the more credible of the two.
After the fact, Sherry was able to contextualize overheard snippets from Martin’s writing sessions with Pileggi. She realized she had heard where some of the loot from the multimillion dollar Lufthansa heist was hidden. She remains mum on details, but Janet’s dossier on the case showed that Sherry heard the gold was buried under 42nd street in Manhattan. Get your metal detectors out, because that’s the first time that’s been in print.
With the publicity around Martin’s arrest and the release of Wiseguy, Sherry couldn’t help thinking of the man she had spent the past five years trying to forget. It’s hard for her to talk about that period in her life. “It was so devastating I wanted to kill myself, to be quite honest.” She got through it by thinking about Kris and how he still needed her. Introduced by Sande to a movie crew staying at a Hilton she managed, Sherry began doing hair and makeup for film and television shows, and she thrived. She got steady work at a local morning show in Seattle, where she eventually moved.
One morning, Janet, getting great press, as always, came in to make an appearance on the morning show. Sherry came in to do the private eye’s hair and makeup and panicked. “Please don’t tell them who I was married to,” she said, unsure how it would go over with her colleagues.
The reunion brought Janet and Sherry together on different footing, and the former participants in a cat and mouse game nurtured the seeds of friendship planted years earlier. Janet partially filled the void left by the breach with Samantha. It wouldn’t surprise those who know Sherry that she’d be friends with a woman who was once hired to spy on her and bring down her then-husband. “She’s just nice to be around,” says her sister, Catalina.
With a private eye on her side, and freshly motivated to seek closure, Sherry arranged for Janet to help her track Martin down. By this point, he and Kaylen had divorced, and Martin was remarried to a woman in California named Kelly. Janet turned to chasing him once again, this time on behalf of Sherry. Sherry got, as Janet wrote about herself around that time, “the best private detective I knew — me.”
With Janet’s help, Sherry filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for the money he ciphered from her while they were married. Sherry even gave the judge a copy of Wiseguy. Sherry’s attorney, Joy Lee Barnhart, taking on the highly unusual case just a few years into her practice, warned Kris, 22 years old by then, that he’d probably be watching his mother break down in tears on the stand, which Sherry promptly did. But the judge ruled against Sherry, and even ordered her to pay Martin’s legal fees. Sherry felt that Martin’s government connections had pulled strings for him again, shielding him from any consequences for his actions. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Martin never even showed up to court.
Janet took Sherry to see Goodfellas, the Oscar-winning adaptation of Wiseguys. The movie’s unflinching violence frightened Sherry, and when Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill used a line about Kaylen (Karen), played by Lorraine Bracco, looking just like Elizabeth Taylor, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Martin had used the same line with her. Fascinated with the mobster life dramatized on screen, and still groping to better understand the world that had created her one-time husband, Sherry even accompanied Janet on a trip to New York to attend the John Gotti trial. Gotti, Sherry noticed, seemed to have the same capped-teeth smile as Martin. In the space of a few days, Gotti threw her a kiss and a known wiseguy among the onlookers flirted with her. She hurried right to the airport.
That same year, Sherry did styling for the film adaptation of This Boy’s Life, largely filmed in the town of Concrete, Washington. Robert DeNiro, who in Goodfellas played murderous Jimmy Conway (changed from Burke for legal reasons), was starring. The real Jimmy Burke had been the one who wanted Martin dead and whose lawyers sent Janet to track him down. DeNiro, Hollywood’s Jimmy, found out about Sherry’s previous marriage to Martin Lewis and called her into his trailer to hear her untold story.
Today, Janet lauds Sherry as a survivor. She believes the annulment Martin claimed to get from the Catholic Church was never valid. Sherry can’t recall whether she ever saw paperwork. In that case, according to Janet’s theory, Sherry remains married to Martin Lewis — a man given a social security number and other verifying information by the government, but never declared dead, since he never existed. In a reversal of Martin’s formulation that Henry Hill was married to one woman and Martin Lewis to another, Sherry’s marriage to Henry Hill may have been dissolved, but she remains wedded to the fictitious Martin Lewis.
Sherry saw Martin one final time — it is still hard for Sherry to adjust to calling him Henry, and she wavers between the two in our interviews with her, the only time she or any of the dozens of friends, family members, and law enforcement officials who spoke with us have told the whole story publicly. It was about ten years after their wedding in Nevada when she got a phone call.
“This is Henry Hill.”
“No you aren’t,” she replied. “Henry Hill’s dead.”
She assumed with all the drinking and drugs there was no way he could still be alive. But he started throwing around variations of the F word, which made her reconsider.
“What’s my son’s name?”
The man on the other end of the line answered without skipping a beat: “Kris Gregory Cowin.”
They decided to meet up for lunch at Anthony’s in Everett, Washington, a scenic waterside restaurant. Sherry put her small handgun in her purse and asked a friend to call the police if she didn’t hear from her by two o’clock. If it wasn’t really Martin, it could be one of his old enemies trying to snatch her in a misguided attempt to get to him. If it was Martin, maybe the years of drugs had made him so paranoid he wanted to get rid of her for whatever secrets she might know. At the restaurant, she was comforted to see a table of uniformed police officers who happened to be there on break.
Martin had become a big fan of Sopranos and could critique any episode. He explained that he had recently had a medical crisis during which he almost died. He had a vision that he was at his own funeral and saw the people he hurt financially, mentally, physically. In his vision, Sherry appeared and told him he ruined her life. Martin felt he’d come close to God. He determined he would go around and apologize to all those in his vision.
“I came back and I had a second chance.”
Sherry accepted his apology. He really was two guys: Henry Hill, the callous hustler, and Martin Lewis, a mischievous but sensitive soul whom Sherry, in spite of herself, still missed. Martin lit up a cigarette, even though there was no smoking. “Oh, I’m friends with the manager, he said it was okay for me to smoke,” he explained. The manager came over and kicked them out.
After their meal, Sherry gave Martin a ride when they stopped at a Barnes & Noble, where he signed a copy of his recently published Wiseguy Cookbook, a collection of his favorite recipes. He wrote: You are the love of my life, HH. Sherry, lost in thought, turned around for a moment and when she turned back he was gone. She searched the nearby storefronts and found him in a bar, bragging to the bartender about his wives. “And here comes my second wife,” he crowed.
She dropped him off at his friend’s house by the water. He kissed her hand, saying “I’ll love you forever.” Then he walked away into the dark.
In 2012, he passed away of natural causes, an incredible achievement, all things considered. She’s kept the wedding ring he gave her, which he bought with her money, and the gold-plated phone Kaylen beat her up with.
Kaylen’s fate is more mysterious — although perhaps not unexpected. After she and Martin split up, she chose to disappear from view. Those who knew her in Redmond believe she is surrounded by animals, which is when she was happiest.
Sherry has never fully been able to put her brief marriage behind her, despite everything. “Once somebody has a piece of your heart, I don’t think it’s like a computer where you go in and delete it.” At 68, she feels Martin watches over her, takes care of her the way she briefly took care of him. She’s still looking for “the one,” though she’s no longer meeting men at bars who are pretending to be people they’re not. Now, like the rest of us, she’s meeting people online pretending to be people they’re not.
Sherry recently changed her name, as though in her own private version of Witness Protection. She now goes by Scarlett, along with a last name she’s asked us not to print. She says she’s leaving Sherry Anders behind with Martin Lewis.
“I’m done with Sherry.”
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Dig it? Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll serve up another heaping dish of blockbuster nonfiction. | https://medium.com/truly-adventurous/secrets-wives-4553ec1b871b | ['Greg Nichols'] | 2019-05-01 21:53:08.845000+00:00 | ['Crime', 'Short Story', 'Nonfiction', 'Movies', 'Journalism'] |
Distribution is 80% of Your Problem | Since my last post — Don’t Build That “Killer” App Just Yet — I have had the opportunity to spend time with several founders who believe their apps pass the “filters” described in that post.
Several of them are are working on fantastic ideas — disrupting college / 529b planning, “stick a video to a physical object” to converge the offline and online worlds, a remarkable take on messaging, even one that allows new moms to record breastfeeding times.
But one basic problem almost all of them have:
They haven’t thought through distribution
Having a good product and finding a market fit for it is obviously step one, but table-stakes to even play the app game. The second part, less obvious and outside the comfort zone of a lot of app developers is the go-to-market that will get their app on users’ devices. It gets worse for some apps that also suffer from the “We will win the second hour of the movie” problem Chris Dixon pithily explained. It goes something like this: Founder: “When I have 10,000 users, they will all find each other and get value. I will have all this data, this will be so great”. Me: “You may never get to those 10,000 users if the first one doesn’t find value without anyone else being there”
5 Issues With Typical Line Of Thinking
“Google didn’t need a marketing or distribution plan so we don’t either”: First of, this is a big myth. Google didn’t just wait around for people to discover them. They found distribution big time — they powered Yahoo Search! Then they paid PC makers to install the toolbar. And then.. you get the idea. Second, even if it worked for Google it doesn’t mean it will work for you. Discoverability and triggers for app usage are a lot harder than on the web and the ubiquity of Google search is very hard to replicate. Your product isn’t as good or as unique as you think it is: Have you really looked at your user funnel — impressions, conversions, users, DAUs and stickiness? Are you convinced people use your app as often as they brush their teeth? If you are building things used once every 3 months, it better be curing cancer for the user to remember to use it. “We have an awesome first-time experience”: Just because the first time user experience is good users won’t tell their friends. They have to be BLOWN AWAY AND you will have solved a hard problem for them 10x better than what they do today. Your app will have made something hard easier. Or cheaper. Or more fun. Ideally all the above. Things don’t go viral when you have 100o users even if some of them “share”. Of every 100 users, you’d be lucky if 10 share. For the reaction to become radioactive takes a heck of lot more. And posting on Facebook walls might work to spread some web links virally, not doesn’t get you a heck of a lot of mobile downloads — the “media break” is too painful. When was the last time YOU downloaded an app seeing it pimped on your friend’s wall? Hope is not a good strategy. Unless you engineer distribution, you’ll never get to those 10,000 users who love your app let alone the millions you dream about.
Engineering Distribution boils down to three questions:
I. Who exactly am I going after?
It really helps to define your model user in as much detail as possible, as step zero. When I ask this question, most of the time I get answers like “consumers”, “startups”, or “enterprises”. That’s not good enough.
If you’re going after the consumer space, you need to know exactly what type of consumer, with what need. Examples: “College seniors who are frustrated spending countless hours looking for an internship”, “Working moms who don’t have the time for window shopping”, etc. Identify the exact model user that you think is underserved in some way, that you know something deeply about.
If you’re going after startups, know exactly what type of startup and who within the startup. Examples: “CEOs of a series A startups who don’t have an HR organization yet”, “VPs of Marketing at series B+ startups who are overwhelmed with data”, etc. Identify the exact person who you think is underserved, at a specific stage of startup evolution.
If you’re going after large companies (good luck!), it gets more complicated. You need to know who the user is, who the buyer is, and who the purchaser is.
Knowing who you’re going after is 50% of the puzzle
II. How can I get to them?
The next thing to think about is how do I get to them? Most people try to answer this question with “I’ll hire a sales guy, I have advisors, I’ll do PR, I’ll do content, etc.”. That’s not an answer, that’s a gamble. “If I build it, they will come” has a very low probability associated with it.
The question is “what foundation did I create to get to them?”
For example if you’re going after a specific consumer audience, do you have a landing page that you tried to draw traffic to and got 10,000 target users to sign up? Do you have a blog that your target users read regularly? Do you have access to a popular blogger that can champion your product? Have you tried and tested social media channels (Facebook, Twitter) where you can acquire users cost effectively? For example one of the apps I saw helps people in long distance relationships stay in touch — 90% of their downloads came from promoting a few blogposts through Facebook.
You can even “engineer” specific foundations — using specific APIs to get featured, building things on top of emerging marketplaces to get promoted, building interesting browser plugins, building win-win value propositions using APIs from growing products or platforms. My startup Aloqa was entirely built on 100s of publisher APIs, Google Maps, and rode the Android wave.
If your target is startups, do you have access to an accelerator or a VC that can get you to them at scale? You’ll get to 5, 10, 15 companies via your network, but what unfair advantages have you developed to get to 100, 200 companies without cold calling or relying on online marketing?
Laying a foundation for distribution is important even before you build a product
III. How can I light a fire?
This is where your product comes in. Once you know who you’re going after and lay a foundation to get to them, then ask what can you build that will light a fire.
With millions of people racing for the same attention as you are, unless you light a fire, chances are you’ll go nowhere. What does that mean? That means building a mind blowing experience that gets word of mouth.
It’s easy to build something “cool”. Put it out there and it’ll pickup a few thousand users over time. But “cool” is not cool enough. Fundamentally, it comes down to: does it make money for me? save money for me? make me feel good? kill my boredom?
And if you’re going after the enterprise, small company or large, does it solve one of their top three burning problems? If not brace yourself for a lot of lip service.
Three key questions to think about: Is it a pain-killer or a vitamin? Is it making an existing market more efficient or creating a new market? And most importantly, why now? Why wasn’t this done before?
I’ve seen this over and over again — launch, get to 10,000 users using unscalable ways, and then get stuck. Most products follow that trajectory. But some products really take off. Why? The post-mortem “why the world needed Uber after Uber became big” aside, they take off because they light a fire.
In my mind, that comes down to a simple, solid, succinct value proposition that is unbelievably good. So good that they’ll tell their friends about it. Such products shoot up to 100,000+ users in no time. In fact, many ride that wave even without an ability to fulfill — that’s a good problem to have. So to get that fire going, it’s not enough if your initial users love your product — they have to be wow’ed by it.
Without real word of mouth, there is no scale
Once you get that momentum going, then it’s relatively easy to pour more fuel on the fire and make it bigger. Once you have those users engaged, it’s practical to design hooks to upload address books, invite friends, share on social media, etc. Without that momentum, those would be seen as horrible friction and a bad user experience no one wants to deal with.
So in summary:
Figure out exactly who you’re going after, lay a foundation to get to them, and then build something that not just solves a problem, but lights a fire.
Still with me? Would love it if you hit that recommend button below so you can bookmark it AND others can benefit! See what I just did here? | https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/distribution-is-80-of-your-problem-231a2a911cfe | ['Sanjeev Agrawal'] | 2016-08-30 20:23:16.403000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup'] |
The Burden of Multitasking | Your Brain is Like an Air-Traffic Control Centre
Harking back to contemporary psychological research, psychologists have identified that the brain is typically not optimized to do two heavy-duty things simultaneously.
As time stretches onward, we will get tired and we will get fatigued.
Even if you don’t feel the effects now, you will likely feel them at another time, depending on your specific situation. The best way to conceptualize our tasks is to visualize an air-traffic control centre.
Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash
When we are multitasking, we code and switch from one item to another, often in quick succession. This is what is called “juggling” and there is usually a cost associated with this constant code-switching.
Sometimes, this cost is time.
For example, let’s say task 1 is similar to task 2, and both require doing some kind of research and mathematical calculations. Task 1 requires 1 hour of your life. Task 2 also requires 1 hour of your life.
Without multitasking, perhaps you’re spending 2 hours at a minimum with a 10-minute break thrown in the middle, making it 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Instead, multitasking may cause you to get both parts done in 2 hours or more. On top of that:
You’re much more tired
There was no self-care break
You might have even wandered into timewasting activities
Overall, the next time you’re multitasking, just be mindful of your cognitive loads. It’s okay to sometimes do two things at once, such as talking to a friend while sorting boxes, but it’s not as appropriate to write two lab reports simultaneously.
In the wise words of Idries Shah, | https://medium.com/the-shadow/the-burden-of-multitasking-a3e34a5d82a4 | ['Synthia Satkuna', 'Ma Candidate'] | 2020-12-23 04:27:21.089000+00:00 | ['Multitasking', 'Psychology', 'Organizational Culture', 'Mental Health', 'Time Management'] |
The Changemakers’ Syndrome | I am part of these individuals who naturally feel indebted for the life they have inherited from the lottery game that we call life: I was born lucky to loving parents with a comfortable lifestyle, who have always manifested their strong willingness to provide as many resources as possible for their children to reach their dreams and full potential. The thought of investing in personal and professional endeavours that would not encompass positive impact on others simply never occurred to me.
Do not get me wrong: I do have an ego, I do think and care about myself, and I am fully aware that the aforementioned elements also bring happiness and meaningfulness back to me. There is this mainstream idea that altruistic people, in the end, act for themselves in their pretence of acting for others. I will not deny such a stance, but I am also a strong believer in that human realities are so complex and diverse that they cannot possibly allow any black-and-white situational reading nor generalisation, and that such realities need to be explained through the spectrum of nuance and balance — hence my tendency to avoid a know-it-all tone, to always revise my own statements with a grain of salt, and to express myself through the prism of personal thoughts and feelings instead of generic, applicable-everywhere conclusions. Regarding motivations of altruistic deeds, I believe it is about an individual mix of personal gains and authentic, non-utilitarian empathy.
The topic of the present article is about a phenomenon that I have personally experienced and observed on a lot more individuals than just myself, while socialising within professional and personal circles related to sustainable development and impact entrepreneurship for the past years. My family and my schooling had a Catholic setting which I think reinforced the understanding that my scope of action had to go beyond my own ego towards helping others and care about the environment around me. However, I think my other-centred journey concretely started in high school 10 years ago, when I was given the opportunity to go around my hometown to distribute breakfast to the homeless. In university, at HEC Paris, I would go for any opportunity I possibly could that was related to socially or environmentally impactful student club activities, courses and careers. In 2014, I went to the Philippines for a social impact assessment study which led me to later on take on a full year off my university track to conduct a series of such studies in remote areas of Africa, Asia and South America. When I came back to France from this adventure, I did not hesitate a second to embrace my university’s master’s specialization in Sustainable Development and Social Innovation, which precisely got me to spend one entire year with 55 other young individuals from 30 different countries, who I believe had all developed what I would call the Changemakers’ Syndrome, which I diagnosed myself to have developed as well. After I moved to Kolkata, India in 2018, joined educational conglomerate Techno India Group as Sustainability Director and co-founded sustainability-focused aggregating platform Y-East, I also mechanically entered such impact-focused local networks and observed the very same set of symptoms on some of my fellows there. I would describe this syndrome as an overwhelming, irrational sense of individual responsibility towards solving the world’s most pressing social or environmental issues, even if a relatively easy, rational thought process would lead to the conclusion that they most probably cannot solve them, and that they do not have any legal nor professional hierarchical obligations to honour this responsibility.
The reason why I decided to name it the Changemakers’ Syndrome is for I believe it tends to specifically apply to individuals that feel the strong need, or rather the calling, to ‘save the world’ and be a game changer in alleviating current social or environmental challenges. This characteristic matches with the definition of ‘changemaker’ attributed to the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs Ashoka, which has defined a changemaker as ‘anyone who is taking creative action to solve a social problem’, adding that every changemaker is: ‘intentional about solving a social problem for a greater good; motivated to act; creative’. Of course, the organisation has dove deeper into the ins and outs of it, which you can read more about in their publication ‘More than Simply “Doing Good”: Defining Changemaker’ published in February 2016.
The term ‘changemaker’ has been so overused in a plethora of contexts that we never really go back to its definition nor question it, and tend to forget everything that it implies. In fact, I believe that the definition proposed by Ashoka, although adequate in its ability to provide an optimistic, hopeful framework, hides — or rather overlooks — other realities of being a ‘changemaker’. This leads me to justify the other term of the expression, ‘Syndrome’. Contrary to a disease, which has a clear, identifiable set of causes and symptoms that can usually be cured through treatment, a syndrome is described as a ‘group of symptoms that occur together, and characterise a particular abnormality or condition’. Another definition of syndrome defines it as a ‘set of concurrent things such as emotions or actions that form an identifiable pattern’. Therefore, a syndrome is a lot more difficult to scientifically and rationally explain or treat. It relates to a basket of symptoms that just happen to be observed together that can have different causes, or no explainable cause at all, and no specific test or treatment for the same. My inner motivation towards positive social and environmental impact has always been unconscious, comparable to drunken acts and subconscious truths you will never get to fully explain the day after. In the same way, I would really struggle to analyse my own inner motivations. While other people have very concrete reasons to act through the spectrum of altruism or environmentalism, like the illness of a loved one or a past personal trauma, I do not have any such my marking events in my life that would have triggered me into pursuing this personal and professional direction. This is what makes it a syndrome: we cannot fully know nor understand, scientifically and rationally, where it comes from.
In the case of the Changemakers’ Syndrome, a lot more research (and more scientists!) would be needed to identify, analyse, demonstrate common realities and set of personality and psychological (maybe also physical?) symptoms shared by these ‘changemakers’. However, I would dare to guess that they would tend to show common characteristics on:
A core inner motivation, even a certain sense of unconsciously self-imposed duty, to be part of the solution and of the movement of ‘world savers’;
An above-average sense of responsibility, duty to overachieve beyond rational possibilities, to go beyond one’s capacities for the sake of a greater purpose, which goes hand in hand with an accentuated sense of guilt when the bar that has been self-set too high is not met;
Exceptionally strong empathy and / or outstanding sense of heroism (interestingly, ‘heroism’ comes from Ancient Greek hērōs, or demigod, which could imply heroism to be tightly related to egocentricity);
No balance nor dichotomy in work-life balance: both work and personal life are utilised non-stop to get closer to self-set world-saving goals;
Mental overload or imbalance, occasional acute stress, punctual or chronic fatigue related to the aforementioned characteristics.
The reason why I take the liberty to speak up, propose a framework and vocabulary to the issue is that I personally relate to the above and would recognise myself as one of these ‘changemakers’. It has been fantastically fulfilling to follow this inner voice towards being such a ‘hero’ and I wouldn’t and couldn’t have it any other way. However, I have never been presented with the occasion to speak out about the mental heaviness coming from imposing myself such a huge amount of responsibilities on the shoulders. It is very delicate to also understand that such responsibilities and related stress are not inflicted by external forces or peers, but only by oneself, and therefore no one can really be held accountable for creating such pressure. It also makes it a lot more difficult to control, especially when they cannot really explain where this immensely powerful inner drive comes from. How to control the cause when the cause is unknown, or so intrinsic to yourself that you cannot possibly take a step back from it?
I have closely observed such ‘changemakers’ in my personal networks, as well as my own self, and would like to take an example to illustrate the above statements. Dr Goutam Roy Chowdhury, founder and chairman of Techno India Group — who also happens to be my father-in-law — one day expressed his life goal to me in these terms: ‘I want to eradicate poverty in India through education’. As noble as the endeavour sounds, and as undeniably grand as his achievements towards this unique goal have already been, it is a reality that Dr Roy Chowdhury has — probably unconsciously? — prioritised it to the detriment of his personal family life and mental wellbeing, by taking so much responsibility on his shoulders while some other individuals would rather accuse inactive governments for the same instead of taking the blame and turning it into a personal life duty. His son, Meghdut Roy Chowdhury, whom I closely relate to for reasons you now can guess, also shows some of the changemaker’s characteristics: he gets to sleep at unreasonable hours, occasionally expresses fatigue and tension, sometimes gets mentally overloaded with so many self-imposed and external obligations for the sake of the Kolkatans’ wellbeing. I have to add that Meghdut shows an outstanding strength in dealing and juggling with all these, in a way very few people could: maybe mental resilience is also a characteristic to be mentioned under the Changemakers’ Syndrome.
However, it could also crush thinner skins, which occasionally happens to me after a chain of meetings and projects trying to get closer to my inner goals combined with my intrinsic willingness to always make everyone happy. Such situations would lead me to be irrationally emotional, moody, exhausted to the point of not being able to talk to anyone or to feel grateful anymore, thereby playing with the risk of being the sole reason for the deterioration of professional or personal relationships myself. I am relatively certain that other famous or less famous ‘changemakers’ would share similar patterns if ever asked to state about their overall mental wellbeing, even though it wouldn’t stand a chance to equally weigh against their happiness, sense of meaningfulness and fulfilment. I would personally be willing to research further on the same in the years to come.
Becoming aware of such challenges and being able to finally put some words on it have recently led me to try to control this self-generated pressure. I used to be very bad at controlling my stress. I often still am, as it is part of my nature to a great extent. As a ‘changemaker’, I take on and accept a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders even when I am my own boss with no higher authority to report to. Or rather, the higher authority I report to is my own goals. The Changemakers’ Syndrome would not let me afford to waste a day, not even a second being unproductive towards my mission. However, I realised that stress can only be self-generated and self-imposed in its nature, i.e. that stressing was a choice in a lot of ways, and that it was up to each of us to learn how to control it. One can decide to go out through the very same life events with, or without stress; in the former case, we let it play with our mental health, we let it exhaust us, we let it deteriorate our relationships with others. In the latter case, choosing to go through life without giving in to stress improve our self-love, better our relationships, and in a lot of ways increase our self-control and professional productivity. This is the choice I have increasingly tried to make, day by day, and would recommend the attempt to whoever feels overwhelmed with stress. If controlled and turn into an engine for productivity, it can serve your life mission even better! | https://medium.com/sasi-thoughts/the-changemakers-syndrome-e6deb319890d | [] | 2020-05-01 17:50:40.471000+00:00 | ['Impact', 'Sustainability', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Changemaker', 'Syndrome'] |
What Makes People Happy During Coronavirus Pandemic, Study Examines | What Did They Do?
They collected two survey data representative of China. The first one, involving 11,131 people, was conducted before the coronavirus outbreak was publically reported at the end of December. The second one has 3,000 people and was administered around mid-February.
The surveys measure emotional well-being. “Specifically, they indicated whether they smiled or laughed a lot yesterday, and whether they experienced a lot of enjoyment, happiness, anger, sadness, stress, or worry yesterday,” Dr. Yang and Professor Ma wrote. Demographics like age, sex, income, region, and marital status were also included.
The second survey added measures of sense of control and perceived knowledge about the coronavirus —i.e., how it spreads and preventive measures. Actual knowledge of preventive measures was also surveyed separately.
Then the researchers ran a series of regression analyses with emotional well-being as the dependent variable and other factors (e.g., income, marriage, perceived knowledge, etc.) as the independent variable. The main research question being which factor(s) influences emotional well-being or happiness. | https://shinjieyong.medium.com/study-explores-what-makes-people-happy-during-coronavirus-pandemic-c669e8531777 | ['Shin Jie Yong'] | 2020-05-14 07:01:43.135000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Advice', 'Mental Health', 'Life', 'Psychology'] |
E-Commerce Development Trends for 2020 | As we have entered the digital age, where everything from purchases to sales can be done using mobile devices, there’s one solid conclusion we all can draw: e-commerce development is here to stay.
According to eMarketer, The US consumers were projected to spend $586.92 billion on e-commerce in 2019, showing an increase of 14 percent from 2018 and comprising 10.7 percent of the total US retail spending. Also, Statista discovered that about 80% of internet users in the US have purchased something at least once online.
But acing the e-commerce game is not just about creating a website, stocking up products, and starting to sell. It’s one of the most dynamic industries to have come up; so, you need to catch up with the ever-changing trends.
As we inch closer to 2020, let’s take a look at a few trends that are likely to shape the realm of e-commerce the coming year:
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI should undoubtedly be on the first spot because it’s completely revolutionizing the world of business altogether. 47% percent of digitally mature companies say they have a well-defined AI strategy in place. It is expected that more and more organizations will embrace this technology to bring about a change in several of their functions.
Most companies are already leveraging AI for identifying market patterns and customer segmentation based on people’s browsing history. In fact, retailers have already realized a significant boost in their sales revenue after they implemented AI-based personalization strategies. After all, personalization holds the key to better customer relations and, ultimately, a stronger brand identity.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Online shopping is certainly the in-thing nowadays as it makes shopping so much more convenient. But, a huge chunk of customers still likes to go the old-school way. They prefer to buy a product once they get to experience it. For example, if a customer wants to buy furniture online, it will be better if you can give them the experience of how the piece will actually look inside their living room.
That’s what Augmented Reality (AR) does. It whisks customers away into a lifelike simulation that gives them the complete idea of how something will look and feel in real life. You should certainly incorporate the AR feature for your customers so that they are more inclined to buy your product. Since most of the e-commerce websites don’t offer this feature, you can make a mark for yourself in the competitive landscape by adding this.
Voice Search
Elements like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri are no longer a secret for us. They are very much out there, making a difference in the way people search for their favorite song or required information. Do you know what’s driving them? It’s the power of voice command — something that lets you make the transition from “typing in” to “speaking out.”
Google reveals that 72% of people owning a voice-activated speaker say they use the device as a part of their daily life. So, it means that people are going to speak long sentences to find out something. This is where you need to be smart about using relevant, long-tail keywords in your product page so that it appears in people’s queries.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation isn’t a new concept in the world of e-commerce. In fact, some companies have already achieved 17% percent higher CTR by using custom automation workflows. It’s just that organizations now have to fold in marketing automation more than the usual in 2020. Besides scheduling social media posts and automating email marketing, marketing automation has now become more about easy-to-access shopping carts and customized landing pages.
Trending GoBeyond.ai articles:
When you get your marketing automation right, you will be able to send out personalized emails to your prospects and customers, use people’s shopping history to display new promotions and products, and re-target customers for product sales. It’s an excellent way to influence buyers’ perception and entice them to buy from you.
Enhanced Shipping Options
In the last few years, the retail industry saw shipping and logistics stagnate. A few small improvements like free shipping were made here and there. But nothing big emerged until 2013, the year when the idea of same-day delivery became a mainstream phenomenon.
Nonetheless, things began to gain momentum in this area since then. Take the example of Amazon testing drone deliveries in the USA. By integrating with Google Maps, these specialized drones can identify the shortest route to the delivery destination. In 2020, this trend is likely to grow as major improvements in technology come along. So, there’s no denying the fact that drones will soon become a viable component of many retail businesses.
Subscription-Based Models
Subscription-based companies have gained immense traction in recent years. Much of it is because of the success they deliver. Disposable incomes are higher for people in their twenties than what was twenty years ago. However, the overall wealth is lower, indicating that this age group is making far less big one-off purchases.
By 2020, the business world can expect to see a tremendous rise in the number of subscription-based businesses than ever before. This is a noteworthy e-commerce trend that’s been steadily growing over the past few years. However, one of the most challenging areas for subscription-based companies, particularly those that send product boxes each month, is sustaining the sense of value and variety with each monthly delivery. This requires the idea generation to be strong enough and should be backed by a strong understanding of the target market.
Social payments
2020 will see the shopping experience of consumers becoming more seamless with the rise of social payment options. Popularized by Paypal, social payment options let users pay for their purchases using social media.
Today, almost all major social media platforms have come up with their own version. To name a few, you have ApplePay, WhatsApp Pay, GooglePay, Facebook payments, and Twitter Buy. These payment methods work just like a digital bank account. It’s just that it takes place on social media. Users can either buy products on these platforms or from online retailers that offer social payment methods.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 ! | https://medium.com/gobeyond-ai/e-commerce-development-trends-for-2020-ee386dc14968 | ['Jan Stepnov'] | 2020-03-06 16:28:44.180000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce Development', 'Startup', 'Marketing', 'Ecommerce', 'Technology'] |
Setting up Anaconda on your computer (MacOS Catalina) | Installing Anaconda (on Mac OS)
There are two (2) ways to install Anaconda
Both of these links are installing Python 3.7 which you should be using as Python 2 is no longer receiving improvements (which includes security updates). I’ll go through the Graphical Installer.
Step 1: Go to anaconda.com/products/individual
Step 2: Click on the Download button and select 64-Bit Graphical Installer
Step 3: Once the .pkg file has been downloaded (could take a few minutes as it’s >400MB), open it to begin the installation process. Click Continue.
Step 4: The next screen provides details about what packages will be included in the installation. Click Continue.
Step 5: You are given the Software License Agreement. Click Continue. You will then have to Agree to continue the installation. Click Agree.
Step 6: You will now select the destination for the installation. You will want to specify where you want to install Anaconda in this case would be Install for me only. Click on Install for me only and then click on Macintosh HD. Click Continue.
Step 7: You will receive on final prompt about the installation on the Macintosh HD. Click on Install.
Step 8: If all goes well, you will have successfully installed Anaconda onto your machine!
Once you are done with the installation, you will find an opt folder in your home directory which contains the anaconda3 folder that was just installed.
You can also verify that the installation worked by using the Terminal and entering conda list . If Anaconda is installed and working, it will display a list of the packages and their versions installed on your machine.
(base) adrian@adrians-mbp ~ % conda list
# packages in environment at /Users/adrian/opt/anaconda3:
#
# Name Version Build Channel
_ipyw_jlab_nb_ext_conf 0.1.0 py37_0
alabaster 0.7.12 py37_0
anaconda 2020.02 py37_0
anaconda-client 1.7.2 py37_0
anaconda-navigator 1.9.12 py37_0
anaconda-project 0.8.4 py_0
applaunchservices 0.2.1 py_0
appnope 0.1.0 py37_0
appscript 1.1.0 py37h1de35cc_0
....................................................................
You can also verify the Python version, which should be version 3.7 (Apple’s computers come with version 2.x installed but Anaconda’s Python version should be reflected). Clear your terminal (type clear and hit return in the Terminal) and enter python . This command will run the Python shell. If Anaconda is properly installed, the version info it displays will include "Anaconda".
(base) adrian@adrians-mbp ~ % python
Python 3.7.6 (default, Jan 8 2020, 13:42:34)
[Clang 4.0.1 (tags/RELEASE_401/final)] :: Anaconda, Inc. on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
To exit the Python shell, type quit() and hit return.
You should also see the Anaconda Navigator under you Applications folder.
This graphical user interface (GUI) allows you to easily launch apps and manage conda packages without using command-line (i.e. Terminal).
And that’s it! You are ready to start working with data using Python or R! | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/setting-up-your-machine-with-anaconda-macos-95d561eaabbd | ['Adrian J. Segura'] | 2020-05-14 06:05:00.546000+00:00 | ['Jupyter Notebook', 'Anaconda', 'Python', 'R', 'Data Science'] |
How to Build a Multi-Tenant Application Using Spring Boot and Hibernate | How to Build a Multi-Tenant Application Using Spring Boot and Hibernate
Build an application where one instance serves multiple tenants or users
Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash
In this tutorial, we will learn how to build a multi-tenant application using Spring Boot and Hibernate. We will show how to build a multi-tenant application in which tenants are using a shared database and shared schema.
This story is a result of a successful attempt to make an ordinary application turn to a multi-tenant application with as little changes as possible to the existing application. This story is influenced by the following tutorial and aims to improve the specified implementation proposed by it. Instead of using HandlerInterceptorAdapter and limit ourselves to HTTP access, we will use annotation with the interceptor approach. That way we will not be bounded to HTTP access only.
Disadvantages of the solution proposed in the article for a shared database, shared schema approach:
The solution works only for REST APIs. If you are listening to a Kafka topic or consuming messages from the RabbitMQ, it won’t work.
The proposed solution for a shared database shared schema with a Hibernate Interceptor is too complicated. I could not get it working on an existing application.
A proposed solution:
Works for all interfaces. Exposed API can be REST API, SOAP API, Kafka listener, Queue consumer, or something else.
We will take an easier approach without having to work with Hibernate Interceptor.
The story is accompanied by a working project hosted on GitHub. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-build-a-multi-tenant-application-using-spring-boot-and-hibernate-718e16bfd456 | ['Igor Vlahek'] | 2020-08-27 23:44:57.968000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Spring Boot', 'Java', 'Startup', 'Spring'] |
Don’t Get Trampled: The Puzzle For “Unicorn” Employees | As a product-obsessed entrepreneur and investor, I rarely focus on financing mechanics in the start-up world. It tends to be a binary outcome, and people should join a venture for the team and mission more than anything else. However, a string of recent conversations with really talented employees (and prospective employees) at later stage start-ups have stayed in my mind…this post is for them.
Illustration by Oscar Orozco, Behance/99U
A company’s fate is ultimately determined by its people, so talent is everything. But this old adage bumps up against another one: cash is king (or runway is king, for a fast-growing private company). Without runway, talent takes off. 😉 So, it is no surprise that bold moves to extend runway (think late-stage financings at technically large valuations with some tricky liquidation preferences underneath) are done even if they could hurt the company (and its people) in the long run. This is especially true when these financings are ego-driven rather than strategic. The problem is, the employees at these companies don’t understand the implications. They see the valuation, they know the number of shares they own or are being offered, but they do the wrong math.
The “unicorn” phenomenon (the vast number of companies that have raised over $100M at a $1B+ valuation) gets enough media coverage these days. Much has been written about the founders of these companies, their investors, and their rapidly growing valuations. But very little has been written about the employees, the people that do all the work and whose careers rely upon the judgement of their leaders and investors. How can employees — and prospective employees — protect themselves in this environment?
One of my sad predictions for 2017 is a bunch of big headline-worthy acquisitions and IPOs that leave a lot of hard working employees at these companies in a weird spot. They’ll be congratulated by everyone they know for their extraordinary success while scratching their heads wondering why they barely benefited. Of course, the reason is that these employees never understood their compensation in the first place (and they were not privy to the terms of all the financings before and after they were hired).
I have had a few conversations about compensation at so-called “unicorn” companies the past few months. Two of these conversations were with prospective employees — an engineer and a designer — with offers to join later-stage private companies in mid-level producer-manager roles. Another conversation was with the founder of a very early stage startup contemplating an acquisition offer from one of the later-stage delivery/food-related private companies. And the most recent conversation was with a senior HR professional at one of these $1B+ valued companies. All of these conversations reinforced my concern that employees (and founders of acquihire/acquisition targets) don’t understand how the capital structure of later-stage private companies can impact the true value of their compensation and outcome.
The Quick Primer For How “Unicorn” Employees Get Trampled
When CEO’s need more runway, they naturally seek investment at a higher valuation than their last round. When the company’s performance doesn’t warrant the valuation they seek (or when investors have the upper hand), investors can insert special terms to protect their interests, essentially limiting their downside at the expense of past equity holders, many of whom are employees.
Over coffee the other day with the Head of HR at a late-stage start-up, she confirmed for me how few candidates even ask about their stock grants. “And when they do, they ask for more shares, without even knowing the denominator,” she said in amazement. “And when they know the denominator and the hypothetical value of stock at the last round, they almost never ask about liquidation preferences or other barometers for the likely long-term value.” Wow. To bring this home, it’s like negotiating your salary without specifying the currency you’re being paid in.
While the drive to join a company cannot be solely about the money, I also believe that the possibility of reward must accompany risk. If you’re joining an early start-up, these questions are premature and your focus should be on building something of value. But if you’re joining a later stage private company, it’s just being responsible.
Don’t Get Trampled By A Unicorn, Audit Your Comp
So, if you’re an employee working at a “unicorn” company (or are considering joining one), what questions should you have? Here’s a bit of a primer for employees:
Have you raised capital with liquidation preferences, and what are they? A liquidation preference specifies which investors get paid first in the event your company is acquired or goes public. It also determines how much investors get paid before everyone else gets paid. It is standard and necessary to have a “1x non-participating liquidation preference” which means that investors will get the amount they invested out first (before employees). The thing to look out for is a higher liquidation preference, where investors get a multiple of their investment out first, before you or any other shareholder gets a single dollar — regardless of how much equity you own. If your company has raised a lot of money with high liquidation preferences, you could argue that your salary and/or grant should be larger to account for the increased risk of your shares being worthless. Like any investment that is less marketable as a result of an illiquid market, stock that is less likely to be valuable and/or marketable should be discounted.
How many months of runway do you have? The amount of money your company has raised, divided by the amount it “burns” every month (expenses beyond revenue), determines the number of months your company can survive before it either makes more, spends less, or needs to raise more funding. If your company is running out of money, your CEO is more likely to raise money at unattractive terms (like a high liquidation preference). If runway is limited, you’re entitled to ask about the plan.
If you need to raise more money but are unable to do so at standard terms, will you accept less favorable terms or will you raise at a lower valuation? I wouldn’t ask this question straight out, but I’d look for the signs. A big consequence of the press’s celebration of billion-dollar valuations is the desire to be one or stay one, despite unfavorable terms. Founders are essentially compromising the long-term value of shares held by employees in exchange for a larger valuation today. In a more normal world, companies would be able to tolerate ups and downs in valuation with the realization that every company goes through cycles (recall not too long ago when Facebook traded below its IPO price, Netflix plummeted during its transition away from DVDs, etc…). The value of your shares can go up or down, but liquidation preferences stick around. The best CEOs can stomach and lead their teams through some volatility rather than optimize for short-term headlines. In his post last year about the mechanics of these late-stage financings, Bill Gurley (with whom I work as a Venture Partner at Benchmark) makes the point that employees need to understand their CEOs approach, “if your CEO/founder will take a dirty round, and is also anti-IPO, the chance that you will ever see liquidity for your shares anywhere near what you think they are worth is very, very low.”
Has the company taken on debt? Like a liquidation preference, debt must be repaid before the proceeds from being acquired are divided by shareholders. A company with a lot of debt is another red flag that could certainly jeopardize the value of your shares in the event your company is acquired.
Does the company aspire to be a public company? To be clear, a company need not aspire to go public. However, raising hundreds of millions of dollars leaves very few other ways to return value to investors or employees. Nevertheless, there are many CEOs that want to keep their companies private while continuing to raise massive amounts of capital despite unfavorable terms. You deserve to know the intentions of your leaders. Perhaps there is a good reason related to certain milestones your company must reach before going public? Alternatively, it may seem like the allure of less scrutiny is driving decisions (red alert!). The answer you get will help you quantify the likehood of your shares being valuable over time.
If the company’s plan is to stay private for the foreseeable future, have there been secondary sales for employees and/or founders? It’s a controversial question — you may want to fish around vs. appear to be so focused on liquidity, but it is fair for you to know whether employees and founders are selling their shares while the company is still private. If there is no line of sight to becoming a public company, secondary sales are your only chance at liquidity. But there are cultural and signaling implications if some employees are able to sell their shares.
Have the company’s financials been audited? Obviously, the value of your shares in the company is connected to the company’s financials. Early stage start-ups without massive expenses or balance sheets need not endure audited financials. But as companies become larger and/or valuable, checks and balances ensure that mistakes or misrepresentations are not impacting how investors value the business (which ultimately determines how many shares you receive in the company). You’d be shocked to learn how many companies raising money at a billion-dollar valuation are doing so with financials that have never been checked/audited by a third-party. Again, if you’re taking a major risk in your career for a grant of stock with a proposed value, you deserve to know how reliable it is.
Don’t Wait For The Cataclysmic Event, Start Asking Now
Like most bad behavior that brews in any industry, the bad behavior is liable to continue without much attention until a major event blasts it into consciousness.
Imagine waking up one morning to the news that one of the popular “unicorn” companies was just acquired for a billion dollars. “Wow,” you think. Headlines fly around celebrating the outcome. And then suddenly there is a flurry of tweets from employees of the company followed by an expose article revealing the fact that employees actually made very little from the acquisition. How is this possible? The company raised money at increasingly high valuations at unfavorable terms, and there was little left to distribute to common shareholders. Hundreds of employees got nothing more than a hard lesson learned.
I hope it doesn’t take such an event to encourage companies to disclose the mechanics behind their valuation and illustrate the implications for employee shares. But you can start asking now. Your CEOs willingness to answer these questions, the cleanliness and simplicity of his/her answers, and the assurances your CEO provides you are as important as any quoted value for the shares you are given for your investment of time in the company — an investment far more valuable than money.
****
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PS: Since originally posting this article, I have received a lot of feedback. Entrepreneurs and seed investors appreciate the sunlight on equity comp packages coming from late-stage companies. On the other hand, some late-stage company investors and CEOs are understandably defensive of their best efforts to communicate the possible value of complex equity grants. True, as a company grows, so do the nuances that impact the potential value of equity. However, there are always a finite number of shares and an internal model that can output the value of one common share of equity across many scenarios. Some have suggested ways for companies like eShares, that manage company capital tables, to fill the gap. Another interesting idea to reduce complexity for employees came from Brian Neider at Lead Edge Capital, who suggested a single question for employees to ask management: “Can you please let me know how much money I’d make from my options if the company were to sell or IPO for $100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, etc?” Of course, the answers will inevitably have some disclaimers and dependencies, but the answers will expose the potential impact of terms from late-stage financings. | https://medium.com/positiveslope/dont-get-trampled-the-puzzle-for-unicorn-employees-8f00f33c784f | ['Scott Belsky'] | 2018-06-27 04:23:35.707000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Finance'] |
We made $1,052,000 in 2018 selling UI Tools. Here is what we learned. | It sounds cliché, but having a great product is crucial. I said this many times, and we’ve been following this rule since the beginning of Creative Tim. For us, a Great Product = Great Design + Great Customer Support + Great User Experience.
If you want to learn more about how we started everything 5 years ago, from a Starbucks, please check this article: How my friends and I grew our side project into a $17.000/month business. That article was written exactly 2 years ago, and I would recommend you to read it before proceeding to this one so you can better understand the whole journey.
A lot of the strategies that we will present here can be applied to other online businesses, and you will see an example of how somebody created a successful startup based on the other article that we published.
Why do we share “all these secrets”?
Everything that we built was based on free information and free resources that were found on the web and I think it is in our responsibility to give back. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who want to start a business or want to scale one, but they don’t know how to acquire new users without using a paid channel. We want to help these people so they can apply some of the techniques and spend less time doing experiments.
In this case study, I will present how we grew monthly revenue ~5x, from $17.000 to $106.000 while being in a very crowded market (Themes and Templates). Here is an overview of the article:
Partnership strategies (The moment you quit is the moment you lose) If you want to be great, stay near great companies Growth Hacking: from trending on Github’s front page to continuous launches on Product Hunt How different we are from our competitors and why this worked for us Give Back: Education, Sponsorships, and Tutorials Can people apply our strategies to different businesses? What’s next?
Let’s begin! :-)
Image from giphy: https://giphy.com/gifs/chris-pratt-jimmy-kimmel-rVbAzUUSUC6dO
1. Partnership strategies
If you’ve read the other article, you know that after some trial and error in different fields, from giving design components to our users and some growth hacking, we finally found the Product Market Fit. We had around 226.000 visits made by 77.000 people, and we were grossing $22.000 from about 400 paying customers. While we continued to launch new products, we realized that there is a limited amount of money that those people can spend.
That means that if you have 10 premium products with an average value of $55 there will be 400 people who will buy. But if you push 10 more premium products those 400 people will still buy only 1 product as they need 1 product for their project, not 2 or 3. It’s the same thing as going to a supermarket with $10 to buy 1 bottle of milk, it doesn’t matter if the supermarket brings in 25 more types of milk, you will not spend $30 to buy 3 bottles of milk just because there is a lot of milk there.
It was painful for us to find this, as we were thinking like “ahh…the business it’s pretty simple, we launch more, we make more”. So the next thing that we had to do, while we were launching new products, was to find new partners that wanted to join us and help with the delivery of our free and paid products to a bigger audience.
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars.”
We started to look for websites that had 3–10–20 or even 100x the traffic that we had. Since we based all our business on the most popular framework for front end, Bootstrap, we started looking for all the websites that were related to Bootstrap. After a lot of emails and requests and rejection we though it was cool and crazy enough to try to do a partnership with the creators of Bootstrap. Most of the time people think like this: “There were a lot of people who ignored us, I will not ask them because they are too big and they will ignore us. It’s better to stay in my corner.”
So on 7 June 2017, we contacted the creators of Bootstrap and presented them with what we were doing, what we wanted to achieve with the Bootstrap Templates, and what was our mission.
We’ve got pretty shocked when we got their response. Why?
It was a positive response saying that something would happen in the future and they would come back with some ideas. We were thrilled that they considered our business. There were basically thousands of other companies/people doing Bootstrap Templates. They actually came back. Usually, 99% of people will not respond to your proposals.
Later that year, they contacted us and told us that they would launch an official Bootstrap Marketplace and they wanted to have us in the first batch of 5–7 companies.
The most important part here wasn’t the fact that we would start making more money and would deliver to more people with this partnership. It was the fact that we began to talk directly with the creators of Bootstrap and we got feedback about how we should improve and work on top of Bootstrap. That’s way more valuable than money and came as another validation for us, that we were providing high-quality products.
“The creators of a framework are the most qualified to give you the best feedback about how you should work with their product.”
Next partnership: WordPress. During the years we knew that WordPress is powering around 30% of all the websites around the world, but we never did anything on this side. We have in our target range developers and web agencies who know how to code. When you do something for WordPress you know that it is possible to have somebody who is not technical who will try to “1-Click install” your product and it will have problems. Then they’ll come to your support being angry about his experience.
Since we never did anything for WordPress but wanted to see our design on WordPress themes we were looking for a solid partner in this field. We found ThemeIsle, the company who built one of the most the popular WordPress themes, Zerif. They are from the same country as we are so we started to talk about ways of collaborating.
We realized that a great combo would be to migrate our most popular UI Kit, Material Kit, to WordPress. In this way, we created Hestia, a WordPress Theme that was using our design.
Hestia was a great success. It was downloaded hundred of thousands of times and currently it has 100,000+ active installs. More, it is in the top 10 most popular WordPress themes of all time. We also made another product, Orfeo, which was built on top of Paper Kit 2 and is in the top 50 most popular themes for WordPress. Having this partner was really important for us as we entered a new world that we couldn’t do on our own.
The next partnership we created was something that we’ve been working on for around two years. Unfortunately, it’s an exclusive partnership, so we cannot give details about who is behind this. I will show you why it took us two years to build it. If you look at the first email that I sent you will notice some mistakes that I made:
I only talked about my company and me, and I never told him what he could achieve from this partnership (exposure, money, experience, etc.) I didn’t give any details, like “we expect to have 10.000 downloads from your source” or “we think your users will download 2x more products because of the high quality” etc. I didn’t tell anything about what we could do for him to help in his business
So it took me 26 emails over 21 months to understand that I had to change my messages to give something to a possible partner before getting something from it. Sometimes you have to learn it the hard way. 🤷🏽♂️
In the end, our partner was pleased with the new collaboration, and I’m feeling good that I continued to “spam him” and never gave up.
“We learnt an important lesson here, that you have to give something before you get something!”
2. If you want to be great, stay close to great companies
We always had the philosophy of learning and getting inspired by other more prominent companies that have tens of years of experience in a field. In the past, we’ve got inspiration from Apple, Rolls Royce, Heroku, Invision, Airbnb, Stripe, Dribbble, etc. I think that if you learn from these companies, you can create a rock-solid foundation. Then when you have all the skills and knowledge, you can start playing with them and create something new and unique, as Pablo Picasso said.
We wrote more about how we build a product and how is the strategy and implementation in this article: “The Anatomy of a Bootstrap Dashboard.”
Looking for sources of inspiration and then following InVision for many years, we decided to take inspiration from one of their most popular UI Kits called Now UI, which was launched in 2015 and was available only for designers. We wanted to use it as the core foundation for a new UI Kit made for developers.
We’ve got Invision’s approval, and we were allowed to build the coded version for developers on 8 November 2016. After 4–5 months of researching, planning based on Invision’s principles, and developing, we released the HTML version based on Bootstrap.
The result and the way our developers received the new product was incredibly good. The design was great because Invision made it, and the code was very well structured and followed the Bootstrap 4 principles. That was a great combo in terms of Design + Code + Documentation. Later we found out that the success of this product was because we took one of the best UI Kits that was available and made it better by coming with the coded version and new elements/pages.
“Take the best that exists and make it better.” — Henry Royce (co-founder of Rolls Royce)
3. Growth Hacking: from continuous launches on Product Hunt to trending on Github’s front page or features in our country press
Since the initial boost for creative-tim.com came from Product Hunt, we decided to continue to launch products there. The difference between launching in 2014–2015 and launching in 2018 was pretty big as the community grew a lot and there are a lot of new products launches daily. That makes it really hard to stand out of the crowd.
The strategy of launching on Product Hunt became really complicated, and we work for around one week before doing an actual post there. Everything needs to be set and a lot of people have to be involved. Some things that you have to think of:
You need to prepare all the images, product descriptions, links, and social profiles before actually starting the post. That will save you a lot of time. Here we usually do a draft of the future post and then discuss internally with the whole team the text and images. You have to make sure your website will not break as there will be a boost in traffic. We usually send people to static generated content, so fewer server resources are needed. Try to post at the beginning of the Week (Monday) around 10:15 AM GMT+2, that is 00:15 AM San Francisco time, basically when the Product Hunt Servers start a new day. In this way, you make sure you have 24hours full exposure and get as many upvotes as you can. If you already have a base of people that are using your product, make sure you send them an email to let them know that you are on Product Hunt and if they enjoyed using the product they can upvote it. Make sure you let your social fans (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) know that you are on Product Hunt. If you are posting a paid product, make sure you create some coupons that can be used by the Product Hunt community. They love them :D
Using these steps we successfully launched some products that were well received by the community:
While we were looking for new ways of showing our products to a bigger audience, we found this article written by Diana Neculai from Froala: How to get up to 3500+ GitHub stars in one week. It was pretty exciting, and we were thinking that if they did that, maybe we can also be trending on GitHub, as we already have open source products and the developer community loves them.
We followed all the steps that were written in the article and also applied the strategies that we used on Product Hunt. We prepared a friendly Readme page for Material Dashboard and added all the technologies that were available for Material Dashboard (Bootstrap, React, Vuejs, Angular). We posted on social media and then sent a newsletter to 90.000 developers who were using Material Dashboard. After this initial boost, we were trending in All Languages for one day.
Since we boosted it to top 5 for a day, we started to announce to our audience that we are trending on Github, and that helped us get more people involved. We added a Banner on our website which was viewed by over 50,000 people, and then we posted that repo on Hacker News where the magic happened. It was featured on the first page, upvoted by around 430 people, and 9,800 people came to the GitHub where they gave us around 2,000 stars.
So we were in front of Facebook, Google, and Microsoft for that week.
Launching on Product Hunt, Hacker News, or being on local Press is not a sustainable growth channel, as Product Hunt’s founder Ryan said, but it’s an excellent strategy to employ at the beginning of your business.
4. How different we are from our competitors and why this worked for us
We are running our business in a very competitive space: themes & templates. Most of the entrepreneurs that I’ve met thought that this was a dead place and that we couldn’t create something relevant. We wanted to prove that things can be done in any space, no matter how crowded it is, if you have your secret weapon. If you read the first article, you know that our secret weapon is to deliver great products combined with great user experience and great customer support.
Let’s have a look at most of our competitors who sell their products in different marketplaces. Of course, there are some exceptions, as we are not unique in our field, but let’s have a look at 95% of the companies who create similar products with ours. | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/we-made-1-052-000-in-2018-selling-ui-tools-here-is-what-we-learned-38920d86a296 | ['Alexandru Paduraru'] | 2019-05-07 13:49:44.644000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Web Design', 'Web Development', 'Tech'] |
What programming language are you? | I’ve gotten very interested in the life cycle of programming language usage. What programming language is “the most popular”, “the most useful”, “best for teaching”, or just “best”?
And in particular, I would like to understand differences based on who or where we are talking about. For example, most popular language used in the enterprise, or for game programmers, or in academia, or in startups, etc.
There is no shortage of studies of this question, and as a start, to tickle my interest, I’ve started a list of those studies. I will continue to update this post as I find out more.
Github is the code repository I know best, but one can be positive that it is not the only one. What we don’t know is how representative it is in general, or of some segment, for example open source. From Githut we can see that JavaScript and Java are the two hottest, and they are both growing. However if you look at Github’s own report, a slightly different picture emerges.
Toibe Software is an outfit that seems to have very comprehensive information, although I’ve not yet seen exactly what their methodology. Looking at their top level report, again I see Java in the number one place. The interesting thing is that here, the older languages like C and C++ show up pretty high.
Another perspective is what language is being used to teach programming. In this paper the claim is made that Python is Now the Most Popular Introductory Teaching Language at Top U.S. Universities. But according to that article, Java is a close number two followed far behind by Matlap and C.
An interesting related question is what programming language is easier or more effective to teach programming. Here I would want to defer to people actually teaching introductory programming. I could find various article espousing different perspectives. Many teachers I have come across believe that Python is a great first language.
… more to come | https://medium.com/pito-s-blog/what-programming-language-are-you-7a693c1dc34c | ['Pito Salas'] | 2015-10-26 15:59:38.005000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Java', 'Python'] |
Building The Analytics Team At Wish | When I first joined Wish two and half years ago, things were going well. The Wish app had reached top positions on both iOS and Android app stores, and was selling over two million items a day.
Wish — reaching the Android top 10 (source)
Very few people believed that a large business could be built from selling low priced products. Using data, Wish has been able to test and challenge these assumptions. Being data driven was in the company DNA.
But from the company’s massive growth were huge growing pains on the analytics side. Every team needed urgent data support and had a lack of visibility into their ownership areas. But Wish’s analytics capabilities were still in its infancy and couldn’t keep up with the demand.
There were bottlenecks in accessing data. The only people that were able to build reports & pull data were engineers working on the product. Since the data infrastructure was so bare bones, we couldn’t hire data analysts to help. Data requests and reporting had turnaround times measured in weeks.
Over the next two years we worked hard to build up analytics at Wish. We built a data pipeline from the ground up that allows engineers, data analysts, and data scientists to ETL data reliably and safely to power their work. We built a data warehouse in Redshift and BigQuery with core tables that can be used to power secondary tables needed by analysts. And we rolled out Looker, now used company wide as the source of truth for data by over 200 people across three continents.
We now have over 30 people dedicated to working on analytics, with plans to double that number this year. We’re confident that our systems and processes can scale, and that we can meet any future demand held by the company.
In this post, I’m going to share the lessons we learned, and offer a roadmap for other companies looking to scale their analytics function.
This article is divided in four parts, each talking about a different focus in building a data team.
Part 1— Rebuilding The Foundation
Let’s start with the early days. Things were pretty clear after I joined that there were serious issues with how we were working with data.
The early data platform
For one, querying data was a nightmare. By this time we had one of the largest MongoDB clusters in the world (top 3). For reliability reasons the infrastructure team had disabled Mongo aggregation queries, meaning aggregation of data had to be done on the client side (in a Python script). What should have been simple SUM and GROUP BY statements in SQL had to be written as Python scripts that iterated through millions of documents one at a time, keeping track of results in nested dict of dicts. These queries were painful to write and took forever to run.
The data pipeline situation wasn’t much better. The system was overly simple and lacked key features that made supporting a large amount of ETL tasks manageable, like dependency management and retry logic. Failures were brittle and cascaded, which made fighting fires almost a full time job.
We needed to rebuild the infrastructure — and fast. We needed to transition the data pipeline into a more scalable and reliable system. And we needed to build a separate data store for analytics that makes querying and building reports much faster.
What made this hard was that as one of the two analytics focused hires in the company, I had to juggle between keeping the current pipeline operational, keep up with large amount of reporting and data requests, and carving out time to rebuild the system. This meant frequently switching back and forth between data engineering and data analysis tasks — two types of work that require very different skills and thinking. By juggling both, I don’t think I did either role very well.
What ended up saving the day was our eventual first data analyst hires. We were lucky that we eventually found senior analysts technical enough that could write ad-hoc queries for MongoDB and work on our Python based email reports. They were was also experienced enough that they knew how to navigate undocumented and new data sources. This meant that they could take ownership of a lot of reporting tasks that I was buried under.
Over the next year, we built out the foundation of analytics at Wish. The analysts took on the fire-hose of data requests coming from all corners of the company. I was able to focus on rebuilding the infrastructure.
Neither myself nor our analyst team would have lasted very long at this company had either of us not joined the company. The two problems we worked on, pulling data/building reports and working to improve the infrastructure, were hard in very different ways. They required such separate skills that neither side was very good at each other’s role.
The main lesson is that the requirement of starting a data team is having both a data engineer and data analyst(s). Without at least one data analyst, the data engineer will be buried under reporting tasks and data pulls. Without the data engineer, data analysts will be burnt out from querying difficult data sources while dealing with the data requests fire-hose. Both types of hires have to be experienced. And both groups have to be able to grind it out for sometime until the system is built.
In the next two sections, I’ll talk in more detail about the challenges faced in each role and tips for how to mitigate them.
Joining as an Early Data Analyst
Being one of the first data analysts at Wish meant taking ownership over a large chunk of reporting, and being one of the first people in line to take on data requests.
Reporting was a system made up of Python scripts that generated HTML emails sent out at regular intervals. There were over a hundred of these, covering the different systems and functions within the company.
Keeping these scripts running on schedule was a full time job. Processing data using Python and covering all edge cases is hard. Issues like type errors, missing or incomplete data, and display issues, were all bugs that popped up daily and would cause reports to not send. There typically wasn’t enough time in a week to fix all of the things that came up, so reporting bugs had to be triaged and prioritized.
It wasn’t enough that we just kept the system operational. The growth of the company was generating lots of demand for new reports. We had just hired a new Head of Operations, which meant all of our customer service reports needed to be rebuilt. We were also launching new merchant programs such as Wish Express, our 7 day shipping option. Each of these programs needed its own set of reports.
On top of reporting, there was continuous stream of data requests coming from all sides of the company. It always seemed like the speed at which these came in was increasing exponentially. We had to be very selective about cutting down unnecessary asks, and prioritize working only on the most impactful requests.
This was a hard job. There was always a temptation to rush things in response to the volume of incoming work. This led to mistakes, which very quickly cut down an analyst’s credibility.
To succeed in this role means two things:
To be able to deliver accurate data consistently To be able to handle an unreasonable volume of requests.
I’ll talk about these two in more detail — why they’re hard early on and how to overcome these difficulties.
On Not Sending Out Bad Data
Sending out bad data < Doing Nothing < Sending Correct Data
Inexperienced data analysts tend to query data without fully knowing how things work.
To give you an example, let’s say we had a request for getting the current global refund rate. The naive way to get this would be to look at the data model for orders, and seeing that it has a refund reason field. By filtering on the existence of this, over all orders made in a given time frame, we can get a refund rate metric — # refunds / # orders. We then send it off.
Then let’s say we hear back, and now top brass wants to see how refund rate differs for packages that are shipped with delivery confirmation, and without. Naively, we could also apply the same method and find a seperate data model for order tracking, and see that it has a field called delivery confirmed time. And that it can be joined to an order from the first data model using tracking id, which exists in both models.
We write the same pull as before, but now condition on the existence of delivery confirmation time, to get two metrics:
Refund Rate — Orders with Delivery Confirmation: X% Refund Rate — Orders without Delivery Confirmation: Y%
Simple enough. We then send it send out.
Did you see the mistake?
For Wish, order cancellations are considered refunds. Since cancellations means orders aren’t shipped yet, so they always end up in the second metric — refund rate for orders without delivery confirmation. This inflates the second refund rate substantially. Very bad decisions could be made from this.
This example actually happened in real life (thankfully caught quickly). Thinking back, anytime I took shortcuts and skipped understanding the system before pushing out data, I would eventually send out bad numbers.
Avoiding this trap takes experience. Anytime there’s work on a new metric or new data source the analyst is unfamiliar with, they need to spend extra time exploring the data and understanding the system. For the first few data analysts on a team, almost every task will involve working with new and unknown data.
It takes an experienced data analyst to know when to slow down. Even when facing large amounts of pressure and urgency.
On Handling a High Volume of Requests
Analyst workloads at start-ups
In the early days of Wish, we were a handful of analysts and engineers covering the growth of a business that was doing multiple billion dollars in sales a year. We could have been a team of 20 and still would have been working hard to meet the demand for data.
We had to be good at prioritization. We would focus on completing the most important tasks, and defer and reject everything else.
But this is much easier said than done. What makes gives one request a higher priority than another? Do feature requests get pushed out before bugs? Which teams would receive the most help?
To answer this, we judged every request based on two criteria:
The impact of completing the task The work required
Before we worked on task, we had to estimate its impact. This means we should think through how completing the task will affect that company. Relevant questions include:
What are the areas of the business that this task affects, and the size of these areas Can we estimated the upside? In rough, order of magnitude? What is the chance of success? Is this task strategic for the company? Are we on the critical path for a larger initiative?
Once we have a rough idea of this, we should compare the estimate with the amount of work involved. We had a general idea of how long tasks would take. Bug fixes took half a day to a day, reports took two days to a week. And ad hoc data requests would take half a day.
This shouldn’t be an exact science. All we need is a very rough order of magnitude vs work required estimate that helps determine which requests should be worked on.
Following this framework, here was the general prioritization for incoming requests:
Bug fixes generally had high priority. If someone asks for something to be fixed, we can assume they found that thing useful. So fixing it will generate positive value. Most of the time bug fixes were quick, so their impact vs work ratio is usually high.
Feature requests had to be more carefully thought through. Will adding a new metric to this report or building a new report actually help the stakeholder make decisions better?
Systems improvements, like consolidating reports or merging some common calculations into a seperate pipeline, generate positive value medium term, but low impact short term. These should be minimized to tasks that are necessary to keep the system from blowing up.
The lowest priority tasks are ones without a clear goal in mind. This is when stakeholders are not sure of the problem that needs to be solved, and is looking for more data to explore. These should be pushed back as they will rarely lead directory to impact and tend to take up multiple iterations of work
If the request has impact, but involved more work than necessary, we would often trim requirements from tasks. If a metric was too hard to calculate, we would remove it from the request.
By prioritizing incoming work items, and focusing on the tasks with the most impact and the least amount of work, we were able to do the most with what little time we had. | https://medium.com/wish-engineering/scaling-analytics-at-wish-619eacb97d16 | ['Samson Hu'] | 2018-01-13 05:19:39.563000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Big Data', 'Startup', 'Tech', 'Ecommerce'] |
Getting Familiar with Unique Visualizations! | In this article, we have mentioned some of the unique visualizations along with their applications and limitations. The article illustrates various visualizations along with its code. Some of the libraries we have used are Matplotlib, Plotly and Seaborn
Here are some interesting visualization along with the insights drawn from them:
1. Nightingale Rose Chart:
Nightingale rose chart was first created by Florence Nightingale in 1858 representing “Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army of the East”. It is also known as Coxcomb Chart or Plot Area Diagram. It can be seen as an upgrade over Stacked Column Chart which contains stacked column along with the radars.
Use cases:
This chart is widely used when showing distribution over time. It is often used to represent wind speed and directions.
Limitations:
Nightingale chart proves to be less useful when large number of features are to be plotted. The stacked portion might become crowded and hard to interpret when many categories are added.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly
Nightingale Rose Chart
Insights:
The above chart shows the number of goals scored by players during 2014 and 2018 FIFA World cup. Here the years 2014 and 2018 are taken as categories and are represented using stacked slices and the scales shows the number of goals scored.
2. Sankey Diagram:
Sankey Diagram shows flow from one quantity to other quantities along with their proportion. During each stage of a process, arrows can combine or split the path. The width of the arrow shows its value, hence wider the arrow larger the proportion.
Use cases:
It can be used in finance, management and energy analysis or to represent a life cycle of a product. This type of visualization can be used to describe the flow of an entity from source to end. For example, if we want to know how much a product is produced, reused, wasted over a period of time.
Limitations:
Sankey diagrams are limited to flows and life cycles. It has limited representation like nodes, connections and the values. More complex relationships cannot be derived from it.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Matplotlib
Sankey Diagram
Insights:
The above diagram shows the sources of electricity generation in 2018. It is seen that the contribution of coal was the highest followed by gas and reducing down to oil which contributed the least.
3. Sunburst:
Sunburst is an alternate of Treemap to represent hierarchical data but in a circular form. As the name suggests bursting of the sun 😊 the hierarchy moves from the inner circle to outer. Each category of the circle is sliced as a node and the center of the circle is the root node. It’s better to represent a particular hierarchy with different shades of a color to maintain uniformity.
Use cases:
Sunburst can show hierarchical flow as well as part of a whole relationship
Limitations:
If the color scheme is improper then understanding the chart becomes difficult. Further, too much slicing makes chart crowded and hard to read.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Bokeh
Sunburst Chart
Insights:
It is seen that California has the maximum population of 36M in the US and Ontario has a maximum population of 13M in Canada. Total population of the US and Canada from all these 4 provinces are 327.2M and 37.06M respectively
4. Bubble Chart:
You can say Bubble Chart is a sibling 👬 of Scatter Plot but with some difference. Bubble chart and scatter plot both use x and y-axis but the bubble chart also includes a 3rd dimension i.e. z-axis which represents the size of the bubble. You can also include a 4th dimension here by coloring the bubbles. While making a bubble chart make sure that the size of the bubble is relevant to its corresponding value.
Use cases:
A bubble chart is generally used to represent the relationship between three or four features.
Limitations:
If you have large data than bubble chart would look more like a mess as bubbles would overlap and it becomes difficult to interpret. Also, if the variable representing the bubble size is zero or negative than this chart does not prove useful.
Compatible Python Libraries :
Plotly, Seaborn, Bokeh, Matplotlib
Bubble Chart
Insights:
Here Kellogg’s health type cereal got the highest rating of 93 and Quaker’s kids type cereal has the lowest rating of 21.
5. Funnel Chart :
Funnel chart represents each stage of a process. It shows the decrease in values at each stage. Here starting phase is largest and then the size of the bar keeps on decreasing at each stage, hence taking shape of a funnel. The reduction in value can easily be compared with the above values.
Use cases:
It can be used in finance or business sector. E.g. Process of sales flow in a company or activities of a customer visiting an e-commerce website. It shows a complete summary of each stage of a process and can be used to make important decisions. Also, funnel charts are intuitive and easy to understand.
Limitations:
Funnel are simple structures and are inefficient in representing complex relationships among features.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Pygal
Funnel Chart
Insights:
Initially, Vancouver and Ottawa both received 200 and 300 applications respectively. The candidates got refined as the process continued. Only 50 and 57 candidates were selected for the final round of interviews at the respective offices and from them, 15 candidates received offer for Vancouver office and 5 candidates got in the Ottawa office.
6. Ridgeline plot/ Joy plot:
Ridgeline Plot, which was formerly known as joyplot is a useful visualization which helps us to understand the distribution of data. Distribution of various features can be examined at the same time using this plot. Here the features can also be grouped on a particular column.
Use cases:
Ridgeline plots are very intuitive and are used widely for pre-processing tasks. It works well for comparing a small number of features.
Limitations:
It might not be useful for comparing a large number of features as it may mess up the graph. Also overlapping of the curve might be difficult to view.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Joypy, Seaborn
Ridgeline Plot
Insights:
From the above plot, we can see the distribution of values for the carbohydrate and protein content for different cereal manufacturers. It is seen that the values of protein are normally distributed.
7. Tree Map:
If you want to represent hierarchical data than tree map can come handy. In the tree map, each hierarchy is represented in the form of rectangles. Each rectangle represents two values, one is quantitative value and the other is the label. The size of the rectangle is in proportion with its own quantitative value as well as it’s parent’s value. The parent value is total of all its child values. If the parent has no quantitative value than all children are equally divided within the parent.
Use Cases:
It is best to represent hierarchical data. It is used when we want to compare the proportion of different categories.
Limitations:
It is not useful if there is a high hierarchy as the tree map becomes clustered and it is difficult to understand. Also, the rectangles are aligned automatically and you don’t have control over it. It can not be used to represent negative values.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Pygal
Treemap
Insights:
California has a maximum population of 36M in the US and Ontario has a maximum population of 13M in Canada. The total population of the US and Canada from all these 4 provinces are 327.2M and 37M respectively.
8. Waffle Chart:
Waffle charts are used to show the contributions of the features. The proportion of a feature is represented using square blocks which overall forms a waffle-like structure. It is used to compare the proportion of different categories
Use Cases:
It represents proportions in a well-defined color grid format which is easy to view and understand. They are used to understand how much a category or feature contributes to the whole.
Limitations:
It cannot give any more information except the proportion of different categories
Compatible Python Libraries:
PyWaffle, Matplotlib
Waffle Chart
Insights:
The given graph shows the number of products per manufacturer. It is seen that General Mills and Kellogg has the highest number of products i.e. 24
9. Bullet Chart:
Bullet chart is used if you want to compare a value with a target value and want to know whether the obtained value is good or bad. It can be used as an alternative to gauge and meter chart.
Use Cases:
It is used in Business, Finance or Management sector. For e.x. If you want to know whether the total sales surpassed the targeted value.
Limitations:
Sometimes it takes time to understand and plot the chart with coding. Also, only one value can be compared at a time.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Bokeh
Bullet Chart
Insights:
The first bullet chart shows that a movie got a 3-star rating compared to 3.5. From the second chart, it is seen that the movie collected 50 million more money than the threshold value. Hence movie did great in terms of earning and but not with critic reviews.
10. Violin Chart:
We know that the box plot shows data properties like minimum, maximum, median, first quartile and third quartile but it fails to show actual distribution of data. This distribution of data can be shown through a density plot. What if we can represent these two chats in one? Yes, we can 😁 through violin chart. It represents the distribution of data along with box plot attributes.
Use Cases:
It can be used in any field where you want to show the distribution of data along with the statistical insights.
Limitations:
It might seem congested for a large number of features as the statistical information along with the distribution curve needs to be shown.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Seaborn, Matplotlib, Plotly, Bokeh
Violin Chart
Insights: It can be seen that health, diet and regular type has a normal distribution and kids type has an uneven distribution of data. Also, there is a negative value in health type which is an outlier as carbohydrate value can not be negative.
11. Waterfall Chart:
If you want to visualize how a value is reached by doing a number of addition and subtraction operation on an initial value then the waterfall chart fits perfectly. In Waterfall chart colors are used to show different operation e.g. green shows addition, red shows subtraction and blue shows total value received after all the operations. Here all the values between starting and final value are floating, thus the name waterfall chart.
Use Cases:
This chart is commonly used in the business and finance sector. For e.g. how revenue flowed over the months or how stock prices changed over a period of time.
Limitations:
Only the flow of process can be represented using this chart.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Matplotlib, Bokeh
Waterfall Chart
Insights:
It is seen that the highest revenue was gained in January (10K), while the maximum expenses were seen in March. The total revenue earned at the end of the year was 13.51K. | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/getting-familiar-with-unique-visualizations-a9bbbd9c9be | ['Miral Raval'] | 2020-02-04 07:30:05.916000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Interesting', 'Big Data', 'Blog Post'] |
How one social media post launched my writing career | How one social media post launched my writing career
And what I’ve learned about writing online since
I was an angsty college freshman when I first started blogging, and my blog was exactly what you might expect from an angsty college freshman: posts about cute boys, posts about dumb boys, and random musings about college life in between. I made observations about on-campus fashion, described my professors with little cartoons I made in MS Paint, and ranted about reply guys before we had a name to call them by. I blogged consistently — at least once or twice a week — and shared my posts on Facebook with my friends and family. As far as I knew, I could be writing for an audience of none. I wrote on regardless.
All of that changed three years later when I did something I hadn’t really done before: I wrote about something that really mattered. It was something that kept me up at night, something that made me frustrated, and something that concerned the well-being of other people in my community (specifically, the treatment of individuals in my faith community who do not serve missions). It was a type of niche, cultural injustice that I didn’t like, and spurred by a wave of irritation, I whipped out a post about it overnight.
I threw the link onto Facebook and snarkily wrote something like “summer isn’t here yet, but get ready for some heat.” I didn’t think a whole lot about it, but as I slept, it spread. I only realized how far it had gotten when a friend stopped me at an event the next day to congratulate me on having my blog post published in the largest religious web magazine in my community and I had no idea it had been.
Within a week, my blog had over 600 comments and had been viewed over 120,000 times. I knew I’d “made it” (in a very small way) when I started getting hate mail that made me cry. Suddenly, I wasn’t blogging about the mundane details of my life to the friends who cared enough to read it. I was writing for an audience, friends and enemies, fans and critics, and it was just the beginning.
Doors kept opening
Within a few months of my blog going viral, I was hired as an intern by the same magazine that initially shared it. During my internship, I learned the ins and outs of web publishing, like how to write a compelling headline, structure articles in forms like lists that people can consume more easily, and choose images that people want to click on.
After my internship ended, a friend who had seen the work I was doing reached out and asked if I wanted to help him start a web magazine producing similar content. I agreed. For about three years on and off, my friends and I built a brand and produced thoughtful, funny, and informative faith pieces that we primarily shared on social media. Because I was familiar with the relevant topics and less talked about “taboos” of my religious culture, I wrote about them. I used the skills I’d learned from my internship. I got passionate. I got vulnerable. I wrote things I loved and things I wish I hadn’t written. People read them regardless.
Our website had over half a million organic views in the first three years of operation. The magazine I had interned for picked up several of our stories. Then the oldest newspaper in my state, Deseret News, republished a piece of mine and things went wild. People who were covering faith events reached out to us and invited us to cover them. My church reached out and asked us to publish stories on various faith campaigns. In every job interview I’ve had since my friends and I started our website, the interviewers have brought up the site and asked about it. It was a passion project that opened up more doors than I ever expected it would.
Social media became more lucrative
Because my articles were getting attention, I got a decent-sized following on social media that was supportive of my work, and in 2017, I got back into Twitter. I got really into Twitter.
Whenever faith-related events happened in my community, I was there tweeting about them and using the hashtags. I did what I had done with my blog — I got vulnerable about things that mattered to me, things that bothered me, or things that made me happy. I tweeted (and still tweet) some dumb things, but I also tried tweeting about things that were relevant and interesting to my community. Doing that slowly helped me to build up a good network of people on Twitter who are supportive and also super helpful in connecting me to more opportunities.
I started writing full-time.
This past spring, I interned on Deseret News’ trending web content team, another opportunity I got because they’d published my work previously, but also because I was so active on Twitter and they’d noticed my content. Working there gave me a great opportunity to learn more about journalistic writing, write alongside professionals who taught me a lot, and build up my portfolio.
Now I’ve transitioned into freelance writing full-time. It’s been good and exciting and bad and hard, but I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do: I’m writing. The networking I’ve been able to do through my internships, blogging, social media, and even job interviews has gotten me great clients that I’m excited to work with.
What I’ve learned along the way
My journey from blogging for fun to writing for other people as a job has taken many twists and turns. I never expected to take two internships after college, for example. I always thought that I’d be ushered into a really cool copywriting position right after graduation and that my degree would just speak for me, but that wasn’t the case. Every opportunity I’ve gotten post-college has come from writing consistently, writing for fun, and writing vulnerably about things that matter.
I’ve learned that doors open when I’m telling stories that other people aren’t and when I’m using my own voice, not someone else’s. Doors open when I’m consistently putting my work out there for others to read, whether it be on a blog or on social media, whether it be stuff I’m writing for work or for fun. Doors open when I care less about going viral — which is frickin’ scary, by the way, even on a macro scale — and more about having fun or speaking up about something that matters, even when my efforts are messy, as they often are.
I still have lots to learn and I don’t think that ever ends for a writer. It certainly never ends for people. Had I not taken advantage of the learning opportunities offered through my internships, I would not be doing what I’m doing now. But had I not been willing to put my work out there in the first place — as scary and overwhelming as that is — I would never have gotten those opportunities. I too often forget that. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-one-social-media-post-launched-my-writing-career-7950925667e8 | ['Arianna Rees'] | 2019-09-28 02:19:11.563000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Social Media'] |
Putting Skin in the Game into the Reviewers of Skin in the Game | (Skin in the Game was embargoed (meaning no copy was sent to reviewers), as the book explains the agency problem of reviewers. Three UK journos got hold of it and hurriedly wrote revenge reviews, perhaps too hurriedly. This note exposing their errors of reading comprehension made them accountable, and led to no further journalist reviewing the book: only end users and specialists. Note that, something I wasn’t seeking, the book still made the top of the bestseller list in both countries, meaning neither nasty attacks (UK) nor silence (US) seems to affect it).
Skin in the Game is another addition to the Incerto, now volume 5; I avoided duplication by referring to where in the Incerto some points were developed such as via negativa or monoculture of forecasters or expert problems. You simply don’t repeat in chapter 23 what was said in chapter 5, but can make reference to it.
Now it so happens that I am in the BS busting category, which includes journalists (especially journalists). And the book, written in the tone of J ’accuse or La trahison des clercs is designed to be hated by BS operators who can be revenge-reviewers. I instructed publishers to send the book to only doers, not people who make a verbagiastic living.
Let me say it again. I am intolerant of BS; I suffers no fools (publicly) except when the BS is harmless. (But I do, socially).
The Judgment of Cambyses
So far three journalists have, while uninvited, attempted to do revenge reviews: John Gapper (FT), Zoe Williams (Guardian), and Phil Coggan (Economist; yes I am outing him, SITG). The problem however is that they agree with the general message of the book (who doesn’t ?) except in what concerns them, so the best way is to perform some assassination on side points: 1) find what appears to be a “flaw”, 2) use the technique of Sam Harris, i.e. make the author look like a hateful spiteful person who hates everybody simply because he doesn’t like bullshitters. The problem of course is that it is hard to claim I am against all experts, not just the .1% faux experts so they disguize the claim as a he is a “hates everybody” type of fellow.
Also note that the book isn’t about SITG but the weird consequences (modern slavery, looks of surgeons, rationality of survival, religious practices, commercial ethics, Lindy effects, and, mostly, risk taking). You will also notice that given the effort done by journos, the “flaws” happen to be all be in the beginning, never at the end.
John Gapper (Financial Times)
John Gapper is a nice fellow with whom I sparred on Twitter for the usual reasons, his (justified) frustration over my open disrespect for the general members of hi profession. In all fairness, he finds the book entertaining (though hard to summarize journalistically, which explains the longevity of the Incerto but annoys reviewers) and important. As expected, he writes: “Taleb has again put his finger on a flaw in how society operates, one that has damaging moral and financial results.” But then he continues:
GAPPER: The book’s weakness is that it never satisfactorily addresses the counter-argument to the need for “skin in the game” — that having a stake in an outcome eliminates impartiality and causes conflicts of interest. Judges are not paid according to how many people they send to jail and, more trivially, it would be a bad idea if I were being paid a cut of Taleb’s sales.
On that, Mr Gapper misses twice. The book answers the point twice explicitly. Primo
ME in SITG: “We re- moved the skin in the game of journalists in order to prevent market manipulation, thinking that it would be a net gain to society. The arguments in this book are that the former (market manipulation) and conflicts of interest are more benign than impunity for bad advice. The main reason, we will see, is that in the absence of skin in the game, journalists will imitate, to be safe, the opinion of other journalists, thus creating monoculture and collective mirages.
(Background: in The Black Swan I show a statistical illustration of such monoculture with forecasters without skin-in-the-game cluster on a wrong answers, which is nonrandom: the variance within forecasters is smaller than that between forecasts and out of sample realizations. Too technical for Gapper).
Secundo, he missed the discussion of the corrupt Persian judge Sisamnes: a judge’s skin in the game is in the exquisite symmetry of justice. Skin in the game means consequences when you are wrong as much as when you are right. Being paid simply to jail people is asymmetric and has no penalties (I wonder how he can make such a blatant mistake and fail to realize SITG is about matching disincentives to incentives).
And John Gapper’s skin in the game as a reviewer is in the preservation of symmetry (again, not just incentives): my making him accountable in his review with a review of his review. Gabish?
Philip Coggan (The Economist)
It looks like Phil Coggan liked the book. He was just irritated by it. Fair:
The reader’s experience is rather like being trapped in a cab with a cantankerous and over-opinionated driver.
The point is I had the exact same tone in The Black Swan and in Fooled by Randomness (calling economists charlatans etc.), books he liked. Except that the message did not make him feel uncomfortable then (someone insulting lucky and rich fools give journos a feeling of revenge).
But one contention:
Yet even here Mr Taleb applies different standards to his own arguments and those of others. When he criticises Western politicians for intervening in Libya, he has no skin in the game.
I have extensively discussed the point in Antifragile, in the via negativa section. At length. Should one need intervention “to save the world” or something, one must the price for the failure. And it is a risk: to prevent the excuse of pushing a wrong button. Omission is not symmetric to commission under iatrogenics. The argument of “do something” is carefully plotted against the principle “first do no harm” and SITG is the solution: you own it if you break it. Under such symmetry, I am ready to act.
Sisammes
Zoe Williams (Guardian)
Now, she has a problem. A big problem. A very big problem. Reading comprehension at a high school or perhaps elementary school level. She is the dream revenge reviewer as she pretty much gets everything wrong.
(…)chief executives and shareholders who want values maximised — people whose skin is very much in the game of driving down wages.
What??? The book explains that skin in the game is not incentives, but disincentives. She mistook the need for SITG for conflict of interest. So I wonder about her own fitness to address anything beyond food labels…
You wouldn’t want homicide law to be written by the mother of a murdered child.
Of course, she gets it, again, backwards: the mother has a conflict of interest.
She also makes many, many such mistakes not worth discussing here: doesn’t get the minority rule, knows nothing about helicopters; she practically knows nothing.
P.S. I was wondering of Zoe Williams was a lunatic to review a book in a domain outside of hers. It turned out she is indeed good at fabricating facts, as with this story retracted in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/28/apology-christopher-chandler | https://medium.com/incerto/the-controversy-around-skin-in-the-game-6d46416ee47f | ['Nassim Nicholas Taleb'] | 2018-06-03 11:03:42.188000+00:00 | ['Political Science', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Books'] |
Extracting Knowledge from Biomedical Literature | Extracting Knowledge from Biomedical Literature
Key Tools and Research Outputs from the Computable Knowledge Project
In 2017, the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Information Extraction and Synthesis Laboratory (IESL) was awarded the Computable Knowledge grant. In partnership with CZI’s Meta team, this work advanced state-of-the-art technology to extract knowledge from scientific publications to explore new ways to construct and reason over scientific knowledge bases.
Biomedical research papers are published at a staggering rate. Every day, more than 4,000 new papers are posted to services such as PubMed and bioRxiv. Amidst the current coronavirus pandemic, the world is more aware than ever of the need to accelerate scientific progress. When scientists can quickly and comprehensively understand the advancing landscape of research, they can more rapidly make life-changing or life-saving discoveries—some of which require deep technical connections between disparate fields.
Understanding the vast and ever-growing technical literature is, of course, no small task. Tools for exploring the literature are crucial. Search engine-based technologies allow researchers to find topically-related queries, but this can still produce hundreds of relevant papers every day — well beyond any single researcher’s ability to read and understand.
When scientists can quickly and comprehensively understand the advancing landscape of research, they can more rapidly make life-changing or life-saving discoveries — some of which require deep technical connections between disparate fields.
We would like to automatically build a navigable map of biomedical science — supporting efficient connection-finding, natural exploration of alternative routes, and deeper understanding of waypoints. Gathering evidence from each paper like a surveyor and map-maker, we collect sightings of entities (proteins, diseases, genes, etc.) as well as the connecting relationships between those entities. Example relationships include gene-disease associations like biomarkers, genetic variations, and protein-protein interactions.
The extraction of these facts provides the basis for building knowledge graphs of science. Knowledge graphs are structured data-storing entities (such as MERS, a disease, or azathioprine, a chemical), and relationships between entities, such as biomarkers, interactions, or up-regulation. These knowledge graphs facilitate efficient indexing and thereby support the navigation of facts embedded in the technical language of the literature. At a glance, we can observe various properties of entities such as the interactions of a drug or the co-morbidities of a disease. We can provide an indexing mechanism where users can find papers by searching for specific entities rather than text-based search, which may miss various aliases of the entity names. We can also provide the ability to retrieve papers — or even to directly answer questions — based on the relationships in the knowledge graph.
An example knowledge graph consisting of genes, proteins, and diseases using relationships from DisGeNET v7 and NCBI Gene. | Image provided by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The need for these knowledge graphs is far beyond just indexing for search. This structured knowledge combined with text is the basis for reasoning over knowledge graphs. This is the ability to derive new facts and inferences to answer questions and queries to the system. An intelligent system would be able to suggest connections, highlight relationships between entities, and provide scientists with connections that otherwise would have been difficult to discover due to the volume of the literature.
We are working on ways to automatically build and update such knowledge graphs directly from scientific text of biomedical literature. As a result, we need tools that can ingest the multitude of technical content and use machine learning to produce structured knowledge.
Given the text of a research paper, we need to identify all of the spans of text that refer to entities. Identifying these entity mentions allows us to determine whether the surrounding text describes any relationship between the entities. It also allows us to record which entities are mentioned in which document for the sake of building a semantic index. We developed several tools for discovering these biomedical entities, including ones that leverage multiple, disparate sets of labeled data.
These entity mentions are inherently ambiguous. For instance, the Chikungunya virus may also be referred to as CHIKV, and F9 can refer to the Coagulation factor IX in a number of different species. We need to resolve the ambiguity of these entity mentions by linking them to knowledge graphs/ontologies, such as UMLS. This is necessary both to correctly associate documents with their mentioned entities in a semantic index, but also to correctly attribute relationships between entities.
Entity mentions identified in the abstract of a PubMed article showing entity resolution decisions for these mentions as well as relationships between entities. | Image provided by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
However, it may be the case that these mentions refer to entities that are not present in any existing knowledge base. For instance, the mentions may refer to newly emerging entities or missing information in existing resources. We hope to discover new entities and add these to the knowledge graph. To this end, we have developed general purpose incremental clustering algorithms. We have also developed proof-of-concept systems specifically for biomedical text. Our work attempts to operate on the continuous stream of newly arriving biomedical research, adaptively determining when new entities are arriving and efficiently reconsidering past work in the context of the new data. We have investigated how humans can interact with the entity resolution decisions.
We hope to extract meaningful relationships between entities from the text of scientific documents. We train models that classify which relations are expressed in paragraph-level context surrounding pairs of entity mentions. We also develop methods that learn how to reason over these extracted relationships using case-based reasoning. Case-based reasoning makes inferences by retrieving and adapting inferences from similar situations in the past, providing not only a robust framework for reasoning, but also a framework that can provide some explanation for why the systems made such inferences. Case-based reasoning also provides interpretable predictions and can be used in open-world settings where data is continuously added and removed from knowledge graphs.
We are also exploring the use of unsupervised pre-training methods to improve question-answering tasks in the biomedical domain. We introduced a new pre-training task that consists of corrupting a given passage by randomly replacing a mention of a biomedical entity and training the model to locate the corrupted mention, given the uncorrupted one. This joint project by CZI and UMass Amherst was a highly ranked system in the BioASQ competition Task 8b Phase B.
To show how such information could be browsable, we developed a system for searching the CORD-19 dataset called KDCOVID, working with collaborators at CMU, Google, University of Toronto, and ETH Zurich. Our system provides a search and QA tool that shows evidence from full text of documents and highlights entity links and relations for the entities involved. Our system retrieves documents and provides a browseable knowledge graph per document expressing some of the key relationships between the entities of interest. KDCOVID and the resources mentioned above are all available as open source software.
We are excited that the tools, resources, and infrastructure being built through this collaboration between UMass Amherst and CZI will benefit researchers around the globe working on knowledge discovery to help accelerate science.
Learn more about CZI’s Open Science program and how we’re working to reduce barriers to knowledge discovery and access.
Andrew McCallum is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Data Science in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published over 300 papers in many areas of artificial intelligence, including natural language processing, machine learning, data mining and reinforcement learning; his work has received over 70,000 citations. In the early 2000s he was Vice President of Research and Development at WhizBang Labs, a 170-person start-up company that used machine learning for information extraction from the Web. He was named a AAAI Fellow in 2009, and an ACM Fellow in 2017. He was the Program Co-chair for the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 2008, its General Chair in 2012, and from 2013 to 2017 was the President of the International Machine Learning Society. He organized the first workshop on Automated Knowledge Base Construction in 2009, and is the instigator and General Chair of the first international conference on Automated Knowledge Base Construction in 2019. He is also the creator of OpenReview.net, an open platform aiming to revolutionize scientific peer review.
Nicholas Monath is a PhD student in computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, advised by Professor Andrew McCallum, in the Information Extraction and Synthesis Laboratory. His research focuses on machine learning and natural language processing, in particular, scalable and online methods for clustering and entity resolution.
Alex Wade is Technical Program Manager for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Open Science and Meta programs, working to build programs and technology to support open, reproducible, and accessible research. Alex manages the internal data science and research projects as well as technical and research partnerships. | https://cziscience.medium.com/extracting-knowledge-from-biomedical-literature-402b4bed680a | ['Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative'] | 2020-11-13 18:59:11.947000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Computational Science', 'Science', 'Open Science'] |
3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team | 3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team
Congratulations! You lead a team now. So what’s next?
Image via Canva
Congratulations! You have been named as a technical lead/team lead/lead developer (or whatever term your company has chosen) in charge of leading a software development team. This next chapter of your career is a milestone for software developers. The mere fact that you have reached this stage reflects how well you have been doing in your career so far.
You may feel excited, anxious, panicked, or a little bit of all these emotions. This is perfectly normal. I was in your shoes just a few months ago when I transitioned from a software developer into a technical lead of an international team of developers in a Fortune 500 company. I was mostly excited because being in a leadership position at work had always been a dream that I had worked towards for years. However, when I actually started in my role, it was harder than I had expected. Much harder.
I eventually pulled it off — after numerous restless nights and copious amounts of coffee — and even received formal recognition and awards for my leadership. Here are three things that I learned the hard way that will hopefully help you in your new role:
1. Learn like it’s your first job out of college
Remember how eager you were to learn in your first job as a fresh graduate? You need to perform at this same level for your new position.
That’s because good developers don’t automatically make good technical leaders. You may be a code ninja, but leadership requires a skill set that developers don’t regularly flex in most of their day-to-day routines. So be prepared for an influx of practical lessons and new knowledge.
That being said, you must also pace yourself while adjusting to your new position. Just. Slow. Down. Otherwise, you risk burning yourself out and dragging your team’s performance along with yours in a downward spiral.
But to truly learn in your new role, you’ll also need to master the art of active listening. Ask what you need to know from your developers, stakeholders, and other teams that you may work with. Then, listen to them so that you can deliver what they need and ultimately enable your team’s success. | https://medium.com/better-programming/3-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-leading-a-development-team-for-the-first-time-3ab55e1fc82a | ['Rovie Doculan'] | 2020-11-20 07:37:45.469000+00:00 | ['Project Management', 'Leadership', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Startup'] |
Moving towards Containers: Deployment of Jupyter Notebook using OpenShift | Technology innovation is often driven by two things: agility and mobility. The technology that exists today will steadily surpass itself into a much-advanced form in the future. We all have started from the age of GPRS and are now advancing towards 6G. Similarly, the field of Container technology emerged with Unix, then came Linux and then the momentum continued with the introduction of Kubernetes in 2017.
In this digital age, industries are moving towards a container-based platform. If you are unfamiliar with the term container, don’t worry we’ve got you covered! Containers are the basic units. It is where the application instances are running. This link explains about the container technology.
Benefits of containers :
Less overhead
Consistency in operation
Accelerate Application Development
Greater efficiency
Flexibility
To put it in simple terms, a container consists of an entire run time environment which comprises an application, plus all its dependencies, the libraries and other binaries, and configuration files needed to run it, which are all bundled into one package.
Containers solve the problem of getting the software to run reliably when moved from one computing environment to another. Like migrating from laptop to a test environment and from test environment to production. Or maybe from a physical machine to a virtual machine in the cloud. The problem of non-identical supporting software environments while migrating from one system to another is solved by containers.
OpenShift Platform!
Enterprises across the world are using micro services and containers to build applications faster and to deliver and scale intelligently across hybrid cloud environments. But before proceeding they need the right platform. Open Shift is the Kubernetes platform that provides a trusted foundation for hybrid and multi-cloud deployments that today’s industries demand. With automated operations and streamlined life-cycle management, Redhat Openshift empowers development teams to build and deploy new applications. They can access to the data in real time and get native access to a wide range of third-party cloud services all through a single platform.
OpenShift is the industry-leading Kubernetes based container platform that provides a self-service seamless experience for Data Scientists to easily deploy and use the Machine Learning tools, empowering them to create and share the modeling results in a consistent way with peers and software developers without dependency.
Why OpenShift platform?
Most of the platforms such as Amazon’s ECS or Google Kubernetes engine are all built for their specific environment. OpenShift container platform, on the other hand, is built in such a way that allows customers to deploy many platforms and provide the same features and tools for developers. OpenShift provides consistency in its usage, meaning, deployment across multiple public and private cloud environments can be used by developers and other operations personnel in exactly the same way as it is intended to be. OpenShift provides for both flexibility as well as simplicity and allows to deploy applications in different programming languages and handle different database. Moreover, OpenShift comes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as part of its support. All the elements from the host operating systems to the application services layer is supported by the Red Hat.
High efficiency of containerization at the enterprise level comes from the usage of containers throughout the environment. OpenShift provides a platform for managing the containers across various environments, which also reduces the time needed for building, deploying and scaling them. In conclusion, the level of support for the OpenShift platform is unlike any other. There is support for the infrastructure and run time for applications. You will rarely find services with such support for the container or the system hosting the containers.
Now that we know what OpenShift is and how the containers work, let us begin by running an application on it. The following content shows how to deploy Jupyter Notebook on OpenShift.
About Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that serves as a single entity that facilitates creating and sharing documents that can contain codes, data, any mathematical or statistical equations, visualizations, explanations, all embedded into one. Jupyter Notebook is well-suited for demonstrations of programming concepts and training. It may not be wrong to say that Data Scientists love the notebook interface. Jupyter notebook provides an instinctive workflow that promotes iterative and rapid development, making them a popular choice at the heart of contemporary data science and related analysis. In a single window, we enter the inputs and generate outputs. It is a fundamental way of telling stories. Stories that describe the insights into the relevant data.
How to deploy Jupyter Notebook ?
The following images guide through a step by step procedure in deploying Jupyter Notebook in OpenShift.
Launch the OpenShift(OKD) console in Developer Mode by running Local OpenShift Cluster with Minishift. To know more about how to run a local OpenShift cluster, please click here.
2. Create a Project by giving appropriate Name, Display Name and Description:
3. Copy the Docker image name from here. For your reference, the Image name will be — jupyter/minimal-notebook
Now go to Overview menu and click on Deploy Image:
4. Paste the copied name in the search bar of the Image name and click on the🔍 icon. After a successful search, the image will be loaded. Give an appropriate Image Name and click Deploy
5. The Jupyter Notebook will be successfully created as shown below:
6. You can find your Deployments in the Applications tab as shown in the image below:
7. As Health Check is a very important aspect of OpenShift, configure the health checks as shown in the image below. Update both the Initial Delay field as highlighted and keep the other fields same:
8. Click Save and OpenShift will trigger a build generation:
9. Now, Create a Route for your application using Route option under Applications:
10. After the successful creation of the route, you will get a URL so as to use the deployed application like Jupyter Notebook over the internet. Please refer to the image below:
11. The Jupyter Notebook will ask you for a password. As we did not add a password(Option is not available!), click on Logs which is under the Deployments tab.
12. Copy the URL as highlighted in Logs below and paste it in your browser.
13. Next, copy the token from the URL which is needed for authentication and paste it in Password or tokens and Log In:
14. Now your Jupyter Notebook is ready to use.
Adding a Persistent Volume !
While working with a Jupyter Notebook, one has the flexibility to create new notebooks or upload an existing notebook. But the catch here is that any changes made will be saved to the local file system within the container. As a result, if the container running the Jupyter Notebook instance is restarted, all the work will be lost. Hence, this should be taken care of.
To avoid this, we must configure the OpenShift cluster with persistent volumes. To claim and mount the persistent volume, you can use the oc set volume command. A persistent volume claim can also be made, and associated with the Jupyter Notebook application from the web console by going to the Deployment Config for the Jupyter Notebook application.
Running a Machine Learning Model in Jupyter Notebook
Now that we’ve looked at how to deploy Jupyter Notebook on OpenShift, it’s time to look at how they’re used in practice, which should give you a clearer understanding of why they are so popular among the Data Scientists and Analysts.
Analyzing the Customer Churn Behavior in the Telecom industry
So let’s say you have been tasked with finding out whether the customer will continue the services with the company or else will switch (churn) to other Telecom service provider. Following section shows how to design and implement an interactive Machine Learning project for the above mentioned task using Jupyter Notebook on OpenShift. The Notebook and code comes from an actual project that was done by the team. The Github link is mentioned here. Video snippet of the code is as follows.
Churn Prediction: GITHUB
We have trained Gradient Boosting model for classification with an AUC score of 0.85. Detailed explanation about the steps implemented for predicting whether the customer will churn or not has been mentioned in the Notebook which you can download and have a look.
Conclusion
Containers are highly efficient vehicles for developing and deploying apps. OpenShift brings professional and production-oriented experience. It’s about giving users a professional and efficient way of deploying and manage containerized applications. OpenShift offers a platform for managing your containers across a variety of operating environments, significantly reducing the time necessary to build, deploy, and scale them.
While on Openshift everything is based on conatiners and kubernetes. One downside is that your application must implement kubernetes pattern design. We may hope in the near future OpenShift comes up with much more flexibilty to address the issue.
Now that you know so much, go ahead and try it out yourself!
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References: | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/moving-towards-containers-deployment-of-jupyter-notebook-using-openshift-e37696ec977 | [] | 2020-03-31 02:44:21.460000+00:00 | ['Blog Post', 'Openshift', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Big Data', 'Containers'] |
New wiki approach: store your documents close to work | Here we have many folders for various logical sections: Marketing, Design, etc. You can nest folders and link documents together. Nothing unusual.
However, this approach has one serious downside:
Wiki tends to become a mess with time.
In almost any company wiki has thousands of irrelevant pages and lots of abandoned folders. The problem here is noise. When you have to find an important piece of information, it’s just buried behind hundreds of other documents. Search not always helps. Tags and folders not always help. You have to suffer and keep trying.
Our next wiki iteration is about tight connections between real work and documents.
Wiki per App: Work + Documents = ❤️
Now we store documents inside apps. For example, we have apps for Hiring and for Customer Feedback. Here are the docs inside them: | https://medium.com/fibery/new-wiki-approach-store-your-documents-close-to-work-cd7de0a98aab | ['Michael Dubakov'] | 2020-04-22 11:02:38.665000+00:00 | ['No Code', 'Wiki', 'Startup', 'Document Management', 'Productivity'] |
What is Boosting in Machine Learning? | Introduction to Boosting Machine Learning models
In this post, we will see a simple and intuitive explanation of Boosting algorithms: what they are, why they are so powerful, some of the different types, and how they are trained and used to make predictions.
We will avoid all the heavy maths and go for a clear, simple, but in depth explanation that can be easily understood. However, additional material and resources will be left at the end of the post, in case you want to dive further into the topic.
Before we start, here you have some additional resources to skyrocket your Machine Learning career
What is Boosting in Machine Learning?
Traditionally, building a Machine Learning application consisted on taking a single learner, like a Logistic Regressor, a Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, or an Artificial Neural Network, feeding it data, and teaching it to perform a certain task through this data.
Then ensemble methods were born, which involve using many learners to enhance the performance of any single one of them individually. These methods can be described as techniques that use a group of weak learners (those who on average achieve only slightly better results than a random model) together, in order to create a stronger, aggregated one.
Generally, ensemble methods are built by grouping variants of individual Decision Trees, as we will see later.
Boosting models fall inside this family of ensemble methods.
Boosting, initially named Hypothesis Boosting, consists on the idea of filtering or weighting the data that is used to train our team of weak learners, so that each new learner gives more weight or is only trained with observations that have been poorly classified by the previous learners.
By doing this our team of models learns to make accurate predictions on all kinds of data, not just on the most common or easy observations. Also, if one of the individual models is very bad at making predictions on some kind of observation, it does not matter, as the other N-1 models will most likely make up for it.
Boosting should not be confused with Bagging, which is the other main family of ensemble methods: while in bagging the weak learners are trained in parallel using randomness, in boosting the learners are trained sequentially, in order to be able to perform the task of data weighting/filtering described in the previous paragraph. | https://towardsdatascience.com/what-is-boosting-in-machine-learning-2244aa196682 | ['Jaime Zornoza'] | 2020-11-14 15:38:47.777000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Startup', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Machine Learning'] |
How Russian state hackers infiltrated U.S federal agencies for months | QUANTUM LEAP NEWSLETTER
Hackers reportedly linked to the Russian government managed to hack into multiple U.S government agencies in what could perhaps be the largest hack of government systems ever. Malware inserted into third-party software may have given hackers access to various government systems for months. It went undetected until last week when a cybersecurity company, FireEye, which makes hacking tools discovered reported that its own systems were breached.
Security agencies are currently assessing exactly which departments were breached and what information was accessed. So far, the Commerce Department has confirmed it was hacked, and the Treasury and State departments, Department of Homeland Security, parts of the Pentagon, and the National Institutes of Health are reported to have been affected. There will likely be more.
According to anonymous officials, the hackers are a Russian group called Cozy Bear, also known as APT29. It was also behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 U.S presidential campaign, as well as the 2014 hack of the White House and State Department’s unclassified networks. Cozy Bear is also believed to be behind recent attacks on various organizations developing Covid-19 vaccines. The group is linked to Russian intelligence, although Russia has denied any involvement — a position it maintains now.
“Malicious activities in the information space contradicts the principles of the Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations. Russia does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain.” ~ Russian Embassy in the U.S
The hacked Cybersecurity company FireEye stated that it was a supply chain attack trojanizing legitimate SolarWinds Orion business software updates to distribute malware. This hacking campaign, which may date back to as early as fall 2019, affects vulnerable Orion versions 2019.4 HF 5 through 2020.2.1.
According to FireEye, a SolarWinds digitally-signed component of the Orion software framework contains a backdoor, dubbed SUNBURST, that communicates via HTTP to attacker-owned CC servers. This takeover of SolarWinds’ Orion software, an IT performance monitoring platform that integrates into a businesses’ full IT stack, is akin to handing over the keys to SolarWinds’ customers’ networks to attackers.
Researchers have developed an airborne method for imaging underwater objects by combining light and sound to break through the seemingly impassable barrier at the interface of air and water.
Engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a system in which oxygen and hydrogen could be directly coerced out of briny water, however, that brine electrolysis process would be much less complicated — and less expensive.
First created in 2006 by Graydon Hoare as a side project while working at browser-developer Mozilla, Rust blends the performance of languages such as C++ with friendlier syntax, a focus on code safety and a well-engineered set of tools that simplify development.
Israeli startup NewRocket has unveiled what it says is a “new generation” of rocket engines that are gel-fueled, low-cost and environmentally friendly. The company’s engines are suited for space and defense purposes.
Danish researchers propose an alternative type of antivenom, named Serpentides, that is simple to make, cheaper to produce and can be used by anyone, anywhere.
Researchers programmed a Pebble watch to measure heart rate and body movements during sleep. It would send vibrations to the wearer’s wrist when those indicators increased, signaling the beginning of a nightmare.
Lancaster University researchers studying a crystalline material have discovered it has properties that allow it to capture energy from the sun. The energy can be stored for several months at room temperature, and it can be released on demand in the form of heat.
The new system enables realistic variations in glossiness across a 3D-printed surface. The advance could aid fine art reproduction and the design of prosthetics.
Amazon’s self-driving vehicle company, Zoox, is taking the wraps off of its first robotaxi — an electric, fully driverless vehicle that’s built for ride-hailing. It’s a “carriage-style” car, which means that passengers face each other and there’s no space for a driver or passenger seat since there’s no steering wheel. It has space for up to four passengers.
A team in Paris has made the most precise measurement yet of the fine-structure constant, killing hopes for a new force of nature. Numerically, the fine-structure constant, denoted by the Greek letter α (alpha), comes very close to the ratio 1/137.
About 110 million years ago along the shores of an ancient lagoon in what is now north-eastern Brazil, a two-legged, chicken-sized Cretaceous period dinosaur made living hunting insects and perhaps small vertebrates like frogs and lizards.
The height of Mt Everest has grown by 86cm to now measure 8848.86m, the foreign ministers of Nepal and China revealed at a joint virtual live event recently. The new height puts end to speculation about whether Mt Everest had risen or shrunk and by how much after the 2015 earthquake. | https://medium.com/technicity/how-russian-state-hackers-infiltrated-u-s-federal-agencies-for-months-a130bead6ec6 | ['Faisal Khan'] | 2020-12-22 03:32:55.477000+00:00 | ['Tehcnology', 'Science', 'Innovation', 'Privacy', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
How to Make Your iPhone Black and White (And Why You Should) | My Experience With a Black and White iPhone Display
I’ve tried to turn my phone black and white twice in my life. The first time didn’t stick, and it was back to color within a week.
The second time I tried was eight months later; I switched it to black and white and felt relief.
What it was like the first time
Two minutes after changing my phone screen black and white, two emotions hit me: relief and unease.
The relief was the kind you feel when you put on sunglasses on a bright summer day. I could see again.
The source of the unease wasn’t easy to identify. I spent the next ten minutes fooling around on my phone, feeling somewhat distressed. It felt like wandering around my own house in total darkness. I knew where all the steps and doors were but still couldn’t orient myself.
After that, it got weird. Spontaneously, the colors in the room around me became brighter. I felt an urge to go outside and enjoy the world — even though it was 8 PM on an Ohio winter night, pitch black and cold out.
Text messages felt constraining in a way they never did before. I texted a few people on the black and white screen. It felt like trying to talk to my loved ones through a paper towel tube. People say that texting is not meaningful in the same way in-person interaction is, but I never felt that way until now.
Suddenly, the idea of scrolling through Instagram photos seemed preposterous. Of course looking at a picture isn’t like the real thing. In my head, I’ve always known that. But the muted black and white screen made it feel real. It suddenly seemed that much more important to travel while I’m young and I can.
Half an hour later, I had an anxiety attack. Real, acute anxiety — the kind you get when you come home to find the doorknob broken and the door standing ajar. (It’s unclear whether this is because my brain thinks my phone is broken or my brain is jonesing for the LCD-triggered dopamine hit. I don’t think it matters).
My physical reaction took me by surprise. We never realize how something has wormed its way into our lives until it’s gone.
What it was like the second time
A non-event. It wasn’t until two weeks later that I’d even noticed I’d left it that way. I changed it back, and it looked way too bright, the visual equivalent of eating a chocolate bar for dinner. My eyes felt sick.
I turned it back to black and white. Relief. I went about my day.
Why were these experiences so different?
The first time I tried this, I was still not what you would consider a digital minimalist. My relationship with my phone was mindful, but not minimalist. I was careful with my social media and email notifications, but I left my phone cluttered with apps I regularly used. Duolingo, Instagram, Snapchat, and all the apps I used sucked with a black and white display. | https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-make-your-iphone-black-and-white-and-why-you-should-42e70deb92c7 | ['Megan Holstein'] | 2019-02-14 16:31:07.391000+00:00 | ['iPhone', 'Mindfulness', 'Technology', 'Apple', 'Productivity'] |
Vue Components + TypeScript | Using TypeScript to define Vue components may, at times, not feel as smooth as we’d like. This will very likely change with Vue3, which has been itself rewritten using this wonderful language, but for our projects still using Vue2, this post describes a way for you to get your components types right 100% of the times.
The Problem
Has it ever happened to you that VSCode complained about a Vuex getter not being part of your component? Or about a property you mixed-in not being there? We see this in our projects more often than not.
In the image above, we’re mixing CountMixin in our component. This is a very simple mixin defined as follows:
// Count.mixin.ts import Vue from 'vue'
import { mapGetters } from 'vuex' export default Vue.mixin({
computed: {
...mapGetters(['count'])
}
})
This mixin adds the count getter as a computed property to components, still VSCode (with Vetur plugin installed to help us) complains about it not being defined in the component. 😖🤷🏽♀️
You may have seen this same error in different forms and situations, but the problem always boils down to the way Vue infers the options in your component: data , computed , methods and props .
How do we go about fixing these annoying errors?
The Fix: Solution #1
Once we learn about the generic types used by Vue.extend to infer your component’s options, this actually becomes a breeze to fix (except in a few situations where things may get trickier, but that’s for another day).
Here’s how the Vue.extend function signature is defined (with some details elided):
extend<Data, Methods, Computed, Props>(
options?: ...
): ExtendedVue<V, Data, Methods, Computed, Props>;
In bold are the four generic types the extend function uses: Data , Methods , Computed and Props . This function is usually able to figure those out for you, and it makes a great job in most cases. But if it gets confused about them, which happens in a couple of cases like when you use a mixin, you just need to give Vue type inference a hand.
We can define our component types for the computed and method options like this:
// Count.vue interface Computed {
count: number
} interface Methods {
incrementCount: Function
decrementCount: Function
}
We don’t need to worry about data and props here, since our component uses neither. We may now use these interfaces in our component:
// Count.vue export default Vue.extend<{}, Methods, Computed, {}>({
mixins: [CountMixin],
methods: {
...mapActions(['incrementCount', 'decrementCount'])
}
})
And with this, we’re telling the Vue.extend function in charge of defining our component what are the exact types our component uses for the methods and the computed options. We could have also included types for Data and Props , but since in our case they’re empty, we used an empty interface for them: {} .
Note that if you decide to add the types yourself, you then need to add all of them, not only those that Vetur was complaining about in the first place.
Improving The Solution
What happens when we use several mixins? As well as using the Vuex store with some getters and actions? Well, nothing changes, we’d still define the types covering everything in our component’s options.
But you may find yourself repeating lots of types for different components using the same mixin, for instance. What can we do about it? Very simple: declare the mixin typings inside the mixin itself and import them in your components. Using TypeScript intersection types you can very easily compose types for your components.
Let’s see a concrete example. Imagine we have the mixin we used earlier: Count.mixin.ts, we’d declare the types for it as follows:
// Count.mixin.ts import Vue from 'vue'
import { mapGetters } from 'vuex' export interface Computed {
count: number
} export default Vue.mixin({
computed: {
...mapGetters(['count'])
}
})
Note how we also typed the mixin using the Computed interface. Now say we implement another mixin that declares a computed property coming from Vuex to know when the count is loading:
// Loading.mixin.ts export interface Computed {
loading: boolean
} export default Vue.mixin({
computed: {
...mapGetters(['loading'])
}
})
Now you want to use these mixins in your component. You could define the types for them like so:
// Count.vue import
CountMixin,
{ Computed as CountComputed }
from './Count.mixin' import
LoadingMixin, { Computed as LoadingComputed }
from './Loading.mixin' type Computed = CountComputed & LoadingComputed interface Methods {
incrementCount: Function
decrementCount: Function
} export default Vue.extend<{}, Methods, Computed, {}>({
mixins: [CountMixin, LoadingMixin], methods: {
...mapActions(['incrementCount', 'decrementCount'])
}
})
Yes, I know, I know… We don’t like to mix default and non-default exports in the same module. Indeed, but allow me to do it here for the sake of example (besides, I myself don’t have strong arguments against them and use them quite frequently).
See how simple it becomes to get our component options types right all the time in a reusable and composable manner? Using a TypeScript intersection type: CountComputed & LoadingComputed , we effectively define our component’s computed option in a very elegant way.
I hope this helps because it took me some trial and error to get it right. But since I found this solution, I can’t stop using strong types in all of my Vue components.
The Fix: Solution #2
This solution was spotted in the wild by one of our engineers some time ago and we’ve used it in our Glovo applications for a long time now. It also works like a charm.
In this solution, we don’t need to type everything inside our component, but simply the parts that Vue is missing. This solution can, therefore, be less verbose. We need to do a trick with a somewhat complicated syntax, but once you get the grasp of it, it’s also quite simple:
// Count.vue import Vue, { VueConstructor } from 'vue' interface CountBindings extends Vue {
count: number
} export default (Vue as VueConstructor<CountBindings>).extend({
mixins: [CountMixin],
methods: {
...mapActions(['incrementCount', 'decrementCount'])
}
})
And our component gets all the types right this time. In this case, we extend from Vue making a cast of it to VueConstructor (you can think of this guy as being the component’s base type) with the generic type set to our interface: VueComponent<CountBindings> .
Have you found other ways of getting the types of your Vue components right? Please share them with us in the comments :) | https://medium.com/glovo-engineering/vue-components-typescript-ff62db05829c | ['Angel Sola'] | 2020-05-11 09:52:36.084000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Vuejs', 'Vue', 'Typescript', 'Vscode'] |
Handling API Errors with Airflow | ProcessUsersDag
The first DAG will receive a list of user ids to collect money from. It will perform an API call and when the API returns an error with a list of user ids that are causing an error, it will also need to remove the user ids that are causing an error and try the API call again. As we will want to be able to view all the errors that occurred in the airflow UI, we have chosen to make use of the TriggerDagRunOperator to trigger a new DAG run once we encountered a failure.
Firstly, we will need to be able to trigger this DAG with a custom list of user ids. We will make use of the DAG Run Configuration parameter. This will allow us to provide parameters that can be retrieved throughout the whole DAG run. This provides a few advantages:
Admin will be able to do an API call to this DAG with a set of UUIDs to manually collect them We can write a separate DAG that provides UUIDs to this DAG to make a collection on. When the API encounters an error, the task that runs after the API call will be able to obtain from the DAG run configuration the list of UUIDs that was originally sent to the API call.
Our first task in the DAG will be to retrieve the list of UUIDs from the dag run configuration and then submit a call to the API. We can make use of airflow macros however, it is better to validate the UUIDs received before making a call to the API. A solution we came up with is to merge the SimpleHttpOperator and PythonOperator into a single operator called the ExtendedHttpOperator. This new operator will allow us to pass in a python function to generate the post body passed to the SimpleHttpOperator.
In order to make this plugin available to our DAG, we need to add in a __init__.py that extends AirflowPlugin.
Finally, we import it in our DAG to use it.
This extended HTTP operator allows us to write a python function to retrieve data from the context. Other than getting the DAG run configuration, we can also use it to get anything that the airflow context provides such as xcom, execution date etc. We can even manipulate the data first before attempting the API call.
Once we receive the API response, we can make use of the BranchPythonOperator to decide what tasks to move to based on the result of the API call. We will use xcom to pull out the API response from the task process_user_ids .
If it is successful, we can direct it to the task success . However, if the response tells us that some user ids causes an error, we can direct it to the handle_api_error task.
The handle_api_error task will remove the problematic user ids and then trigger a new DAG run with a list of users that are error free. We will make use of the TriggerDagRunOperator here which allows you to trigger a new DAG run in a DAG. It requires the parameters task_id , trigger_dag_id , as well as a python_callable param that needs to return a DagRunOrder object. By providing a new run_id and payload to the DagRunOrder, it gives us the ability to control the new DAG run with new name and data.
For example, our DAG run started with a set of user ids, but when we received the list of user ids with error, we can remove them and create a new DAG run with a completely new set of user IDs by passing the new list into the DagRunOrder object.
We will finish up the first DAG by chaining up the tasks using the following code
CronJobDag
The second DAG is a cron job that runs daily to pull us a list of users IDs to process. It will make an API call to retrieve a list of user ids then trigger our ProcessUsersDag with the list of user ids.
Let us assume we have an API call that returns us a list of user ids, we can obtain this list of user IDs using a SimpleHttpOperator
With this list of user ids, we will trigger the collection DAG using the TriggerDagRunOperator
Finally, we will chain up the tasks with this line of code
Running the DAG
With the codes finished, you should be able to start up the airflow and trigger the DAG to make sure everything is working. If you need a mock API endpoint or need help setting up the server, you can refer to the readme and view the full source code at my repository here: Link to Source Code
Summary
Airflow is most definitely a powerful and versatile tool. Even though it is not built for the purpose of handling API errors, the easy to read the source code and customisability allow us to use it for such. Of course, there are also other tools out there that may be more suitable for this job. But as with many teams, there are limited manpower and resources and sometimes it is better to not keep adding new tools/services which requires new expertise. Hopefully, next time when you encounter a new issue in your projects, you may also think of creative ways to use Airflow to solve them too! | https://medium.com/stashaway-engineering/handling-api-errors-with-airflow-79738868d663 | ['Nathan Lim'] | 2019-06-25 13:48:40.364000+00:00 | ['Workflow', 'Airflow', 'Startup', 'Python'] |
Social Media Keeps Reminding Me of How Good Things Used To Be | Social Media Keeps Reminding Me of How Good Things Used To Be
As well-intentioned as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram think they are being, the constant reminders of how much I did around the holiday season is starting to impact my mental health.
Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash
At the beginning of 2019, I decided to remove social media apps from my phone because I was addicted. I needed to see every post and story. My favorite activity before bed became scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. If I went to bed at 10, there was a good chance I’d finish my nighttime binge by midnight.
When I reinstalled social media apps on my phone in March 2019, I had a completely different relationship with them. I didn’t feel an urge or need to check every story or post. It wasn’t interesting to me because I stopped being in the know on people’s lives. By the time I got back on, people had different aesthetics for their profiles, friends had gotten engaged, people were pregnant, and with all of that, I didn’t need to keep up with it.
Even though I wasn’t on social media very often, I still posted and saved enough of my stories/snaps to get flooded with memories almost daily. Snapchat reminding me of what I was doing one year ago or Facebook taking me back 5 years to being in college. Usually, these kinds of reminders just made me smile, occasionally send to friends, and/or roll my eyes at how ridiculous that moment was. A reminder from social media never made me feel bad. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/social-media-keeps-reminding-me-of-how-good-things-used-to-be-103c90f84f07 | ['James Woods'] | 2020-12-21 20:30:03.467000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Wellness', 'Holidays', 'Quarantine', 'Social Media'] |
30 Things I’ve Learned From My First 30 Days on Medium | 30 Things I’ve Learned From My First 30 Days on Medium
How many times can you refresh the stats page before it’s considered a problem?
Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash
The government had just put my local area into complete lockdown, and before this life had felt almost normal; we could still hang out with friends, go to a restaurant; it was good to escape the four walls of my kitchen. However, a lot of free time was on its way, and not one to sit around and do nothing when an opportunity presents itself; I started to write.
I don’t remember exactly when I signed up for Medium, but an email with lots of great stories by great writers would land in my inbox every day at 8 am. As I read through them (usually whilst sitting on the loo) I remember thinking ‘I could do this’, mainly because I like writing and know about stuff too.
Many articles and a steep learning curve later, I began writing this article. I didn’t quite realise the challenge I set myself when I was left scratching my head by lesson 15, but if we don’t challenge ourselves from time to time then what’s the point of anything? Go big or go home, as they say.
So what 30 lessons have I learned from my first 30 days on Medium?
1. I Write More
I go through writing motivation stages; they can last for days or be an hour here or there when I get the urge. But in the last two months, I have written every day, even if I don’t quite feel like it, even if I write absolute garbage one day, I can use that as a base to make it beautiful the next day.
I’ve written stories that haven’t been picked up by the publications I wanted. The knock-backs can be a little crushing, I will admit. After walking around the house muttering some expletives under my breath, I’m ready to go again, using the hurt as a catalyst to write more and write better.
As I keep churning out articles a few things have happened…
I’ve got better at writing. I have more and more ‘wins’. My followers are slowly rising. I’m starting to realise what works and what doesn’t.
It wasn’t until my second month did I get accepted into a more extensive publication, so bide your time, good things come to those that write.
2. I Got Paid
I joined the Medium Partner Program, thinking that I wouldn’t earn a penny. You see plenty of platforms out there that offer money in exchange for creative but won’t pay you for six months, which by the time you’ll probably have forgotten what you did to earn it.
However, on the 5th of the following month, as promised, $5.08 was transferred to my Stripe account and is now on its way to the bank. OK, so it’s not loads of money, but it’s a start, and as the saying goes ‘every journey; however, long or short starts with a single step.’
There’s no difficult payment strategy or long wait time, you get paid for people reading your work, and you get paid promptly.
3. I’m Addicted To The Stats Page
Constantly hitting refresh is doing me no favours.
When you create something you love and want the world to see it; extra incentives such as a clap or comment mean checking your stats page quickly becomes the norm, but as we all know a watched pot never boils (I seem full of idioms today, apologies as there’s more to come), so maybe I need to give the refresh button a holiday as if it was a physical button the paint would’ve definitely worn off by now.
4. Some Articles Will Do Well; Some Won’t
Unfortunately, this is the nature of the beast and will affect even the best writers I’m sure.
Sometimes my articles don’t strike the right chord, but I don’t think it’s because they’re bad (although they could be), it’s most likely the wrong article at the wrong time or place. There is no silver bullet that can guarantee every article you write will hit that sweet spot. However, you can influence how well your story does. Writing about a current, relevant topic; adding an attention-grabbing headline and submitting a perfectly pitched post to a popular publication will increase your article's chances of having a successful Medium life.
5. Researching the Perfect Publication for Your Story is Paramount
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you; your beloved story on sewing patterns won’t make it in The Startup. Unless, of course, the Startup is looking for stories on sewing patterns — see how simple that sounds?
I make sure to check the ‘writing for us’ section of any publication. This usually includes what types of articles it is currently looking for. Some have general guidelines about what the publication accepts all year round, but others will also have a specific topic they are looking for at a current time.
Don’t tailor your story to fit the publication but tailor the publication to fit your story.
6. Make Sure to Follow the Guidelines
They actually try and help you write for their publication—and write better in general.
Unsurprisingly, editors of publications want your stories, as their publication would be nothing without a constant stream of them.
But the key word here is ‘quality’. If I submit a badly written, 300-word article on the most amazing topic the world has ever seen it will probably not make it; to publish such a badly written piece of work would do neither the writer (me) nor the publication any favours. I make sure to follow the guidelines, and if grammar and spelling ain’t your bag, find an online tool that can help, so it would be wise to…
7. Invest in Grammarly
It doesn’t catch everything and lacks the personal nuances you may sow into your writing, but it’s a good start if you’re completely lost in the world of stuff you’ve forgotten since you took your native language class at school.
I’ve always been very conscious of my grammar. I’m OK at spelling if I sit and think about it, but grammar is one of my biggest foe’s; where to use commas, semi-colons, whatever this ‘ is called and a plethora of other grammatical tripping wires gets me hot under the collar. Having a tool like Grammarly sifting through my notes as I make them and correcting mistakes I might’ve missed before is invaluable.
I was using the free version but decided I wanted the extra features as well. So went premium, and why not? If it helps my writing and means my writing might reach a larger audience, then the investment is worth it.
The main caveat here is that it can make you lazy, choosing to accept Grammarly's suggestions without questioning whether the sentence still flows correctly. I make sure to read and re-read every story I write, and once I’ve read it and re-read it, I read it again.
8. Use Social Media to Promote Your Post
You can’t rely on Medium to do all the work for you, and if you miss the hallowed ‘Chosen for distribution’, you might have to seek exposure elsewhere.
If it’s a post that can be related to a job, so maybe a marketing or self-improvement article, then LinkedIn is a good place to start, but if you want to post anything and everything, use your personal Twitter or Facebook.
Another good tip is trying to find Facebook groups that cover your topic. Make sure to check the rules first as they might not accept posts to ‘paywalled content’ which yours will be if you have chosen the ‘meter my story’ setting when publishing.
9. Don’t Make Money Your Primary Focus for Writing
The money aspect is great, but I found that I needed to focus on the writing. I decided that if I was solely writing for the money, I might give up rather quickly, especially if an article I’d spent 3 hours presiding over was making me less than a dollar.
I’ve found that by writing more, ensuring I follow the rules, and submitting to the correct publications, my earnings are now starting to increase. However, I am still staying true to myself and writing about what I am interested in.
It’s great if there’s a publication I can submit to, but I don’t let it guide my article choice, I write for the joy of writing, nothing else.
10. There Are To Be More Articles About Writing on Medium Than Non-Medium Related Articles
This isn’t strictly true and maybe has more to do with the articles I find myself reading. Medium’s algorithm seems to have pigeonholed me as someone who likes reading about Medium on Medium.
I could spend a lifetime reading articles that tell me “How to earn $1,000 a month on Medium”, “How to get your articles published on Medium”, “The best headlines for Medium”, and yes there may be some juicy tips in there, but I found there was a real danger of reading more articles on being successful than writing articles. When, of course, writing articles is the best way of being successful.
There’s a saying that to be in with a chance of winning the lottery you have to buy a ticket, and the same goes here; I wasn’t going to achieve any level of success by simply reading about it.
11. Everyone Seems to be a Better Writer Than Me
They just seem…better.
When I’ve read other articles on Medium, I find I’m in absolute awe of the writers. Their work flows beautifully, and their stories are enlightening and interesting. Then I read mine, and I’m thinking ‘gosh I’m rubbish’, but then they were probably where I am now, fumbling around in the dark looking for the light switch.
It’s a huge gift that there’s so much quality work out there to aspire to and learn from, and the more articles I read on various subjects by various writers the better writer I can become.
12. My Followers Creep up Agonisingly Slowly
After a month, I have 20 followers which I don’t know if it’s good or not, but when you’ve released 10 articles in 30 days, you feel like you should’ve earned a few more.
Maybe I’d have more if I’d had more exposure with my earlier articles, but if you’re on a steady burn like myself, then a slow increase in following is how things are, and I’m 100% certain as I keep writing they will grow.
13. My Claps Don’t Come Easily
I love my article, so why doesn’t anyone else?
When I put my first article out there, I was expecting a raft of claps. It was interesting, useful and well-written, or so I thought, but it took an entire week for a single clap.
It’s not that I’m crying out for claps (please love me!), but when you’ve taken the time to put yourself out there, you feel a little bit of appreciation is deserved. Truth is I think my article is good, or I wouldn’t have to put it on the internet, so why is one clap such a mission? Then I remember, this is a journey with ups and downs, so I have to believe that the claps will come.
Fun fact: Did you know you can clap more than once for an article? Yup! Just keep hitting the clap button and watch them rise — only up to 50 though.
14. Be Me
It took a while to learn, but now I write from the heart and don’t hold back.
The best characters on TV are the one’s you can connect to on some level. The same applies to writing. People want to not only to read your article but connect with you as a writer.
I’ve realised that I have to be open and honest in my writing, I have to write from my heart and say what I want to say, as that’s the juicy stuff that everybody wants. There’s a certain strength in being vulnerable, and you have absolutely no reason not to convey your vulnerability in your writing.
15. I Read Other Writer’s Work
If there is a certain publication I want to be seen on, I read as many articles as I can that have made the grade. I am mindful to look out for style, tone and subject and see how mine compares.
I’ve also stolen some styles I now use in my writing, and I’m sure I will steal some more in time to come!
But other writer’s work is a treasure trove of writing skills and way better than any writing course. This doesn’t mean I felt the need to copy someone completely; I am finding out what I like and what I don’t like, and keeping the good bits for myself.
16. I Use Good Stock Imagery
I usually head straight to Unsplash after writing an article title as it is a great place to find free stock imagery. I make sure to search for the one that really encapsulates my article and stands out.
Warning: I have learned that most writers will also use Unsplash, so be mindful that you aren’t using the same image as another article already in a publication you are looking to be accepted into.
17. I Pick Relevant Tags on My Articles Before Publishing Them
Tags help define the audience that might happen upon your article.
I try and make sure they are relevant and popular. To gauge their popularity, you can type out the tags in the box, and the count of how much they are used appears alongside it.
There are two ways of looking at this; one is that the more, the better as it clearly means it’s popular, but then it can also get lost in the sheer amount of other articles that are already featuring that keyword, or if your article is for a niche market, then keeping with a certain keyword, no matter how low its tag number is, might be a smart move.
18. I’m Not Afraid to Self-Publish
Medium has its own content curators who can put your article out there.
Writing for publications can obviously help, but the ‘Chosen for distribution’ isn’t reserved for publications only.
If your article is good enough and all the other pieces come together, you might find your article on the home page without a publication in sight.
19. I Myself if I’m Enjoying it
Sometimes I didn’t feel like it was worth it when I was writing for hours for no claps and minimal reads.
I kept thinking “am I enjoying it?”, “do I actually want to keep going?” and I realised the answer to both questions was a resounding yes, and then immediately started on my next article.
20. I Don’t Get Disheartened
Just because it got rejected from a publication doesn’t mean it was bad.
I’ve been knocked back for a few of my articles from publications I really wanted to be in, and the thrill from seeing a private note added to my article to the despair of reading that it wasn't “exactly what they’re looking for” was a real confidence killer.
The usual negative thoughts filled my head, and I thought about throwing it all in for a brief moment.
But if there’s one skill I’ve acquired during my life its the ability to talk myself around. After a brief moment of being a ‘Negative Nigel’, I got the article accepted into a different publication.
21. Take Every Opportunity
I’ve been approached three times and three times I’ve accepted the offers.
If an editor contacts you and asks you to write for their publication, do it. It’s how I got accepted into Javascript in Plain English, and these were the most read articles in my first 30 days.
Even if you can’t think of what or how to write it, give it a go, as a chance may never come up again.
22. Your Most Reads Might Not Happen on The Day You Publish
This happened to me with my most recent article. It only garnered 59 views on its first day, but by day 2 it was viewed 192 times, so nearly 4x as much. This will be down to the way Medium distributes its content throughout its member base.
So when it’s launched don’t be disheartened that it is not getting as many views as you’d hoped as by day 3, you’ll be wondering what you were worrying about in the first place.
23. Write About Your Experiences
Don’t write about how you could or would, write about how you have.
I started writing about how I had done something and how it affected me and what I had learned; this made my writing a lot more personal and enjoyable to write.
No one can write about an experience you’ve had as you can, so writing from your point of you can make it feel less essay-ish.
Weave your life into your work with interesting examples and anecdotes; it did the readability of my articles the world of good.
24. Focus on Reading Time
Reading time = money.
If it really is money you’re after, then you need to focus on article reading time. If you find a topic interesting, then there’s a good chance someone else will, but how you write about your topic is what will separate it from a read-worthy article to a skim-read skipper. Try and make it as readable as possible; ensuring grammar is top-notch, you have written in the active voice, and that your headline, subline and image support the content of your article.
25. Write With Confidence
I was maybe just using the wrong kind of tone.
This is a difficult one, and it’s only since using Grammarly have I noticed the tone of voice I lean towards. I find, for some reason, that I don’t want to sound too active.
I realised that “just” and “maybe” didn’t quite give my writing the confident tone I wanted to express. I now make sure to write with an active voice and keep sentences and headings as snappy as possible.
26. You Don’t Have to be a Writer to Write
I’m not a writer; I just like to write.
You may or may not have noticed this from my writing so far if you’ve even made it to this point, that I don’t write for a living, this is merely something I enjoy doing on the side.
But what defines a writer? Could anyone who puts words in a sentence, puts the sentence in a paragraph, and hits the save button can be classed as a writer? I’ll leave that one up to you to decide…
27. Pay it Forward
A clap and a comment can go a long way.
Enjoying an article, you’re reading? Why not give it a clap? If you’re really enjoying it, why not 50 claps and a follow?
There’s a tendency to read an article and move on to the next without giving the writer any appreciation, but it only takes a second to clap for an article, or give them a follow, so why not show them some love? You never know, you might even earn some love back.
28. ‘Chosen for Distribution’ Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Your Article Will Be Read
It was an exhilarating moment when my first article got the coveted ‘Chosen for Distribution’, but this didn’t mean it got read. In fact, in the first couple of days, it had barely any views at all.
I’m sure a few factors make up the Medium algorithm that decides whether your article will be seen by more people or not, and claps must be a big part of that.
To me “Chosen for distribution” is like a big gust of wind at the start of your boat’s journey, but claps and reads are what keep the wind blowing, and if the first gust is all you’ve got, your boat is going to slow down pretty quickly.
29. Don’t Be Precious About Your Articles, Editors Aren’t
I’ve found it’s better to treat my articles like a production line, once one is submitted it’s onto the next.
I may have spent hours pouring over an article on my favourite subject; agonising over the title, subtitle and image, only for it to get rejected after waiting for three days to find out.
This is nothing personal, and it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad writer or my article was awful, it just means that what I was submitting to the publication wasn’t right.
30. It’s Not Easy
It was never going to be easy, and sometimes I’ve felt like it wasn’t worth it at all. Still, I know that my persistence, tenacity and enjoyment will see me over any hurdle I encounter, and 10 published articles later, I’m still a hurdlin’, so I must be doing something right.
Thoughts? Opinions? What do you think? What lessons have you learned since writing for Medium? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/30-things-ive-learned-from-my-first-30-days-on-medium-68747204204a | ['Stuart Costen'] | 2020-12-23 18:46:38.316000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Ｍedium', 'Tips', 'Writing', 'Publishing'] |
Anxiety Is a Superpower | “What’d you learn at school today, Grace?”
“I learned that the antibacterial soap we use doesn’t work anymore and we’re making superbugs that will kill us all.”
This is a scene from the first season of Nurse Jackie illustrating the growing anxiety of Jackie’s 10-year-old daughter, Grace. Grace becomes fixated on the kind of “imminent doom” programming popular on cable channels and finds that she can’t look away from shows like Viral Armageddon and Could the Superflu Return?
She begins having panic attacks at school and later, the school counselor tells her parents that he believes Grace has generalized anxiety disorder.
I sympathize with that little girl, even though she’s fiction, because I was that little girl.
And if my life were on DVD, like my copies of Nurse Jackie, it would be possible to cue up one of the early chapters in Season Two of my life, right around the time my Titanic Texas family tilted nose down toward disaster while the littlest of us scrambled to hold onto the railings.
At 9 years old, I started taking half a 5 mg. Valium because I became convinced my heart would stop if I didn’t keep my hand over it.
I ate in alphabetical order, touched the front door three times to make sure it was locked, and chanted John 3:16 like a magic spell whenever I had intrusive thoughts about my family being murdered.
Move forward on this imaginary DVD to my 15th year for the season debut of yet another permutation of my anxiety.
“Mrs. Skinner said that Jesus is going to come back in a thunderstorm,” I told my grandmother after Sunday School. “So every time there’s a thunderstorm we should be excited because it could be Jesus coming back.”
Which is exactly how you create panic disorder in a teenager who’s been steeped in Southern Baptist End Times scenarios her whole life. And who lived smack in the middle of the Texas Panhandle’s “Tornado Alley,” guaranteeing at least a dozen operatic thunderstorms each spring.
“Oh, it doesn’t say that anywhere in the Bible,” my Meemaw said, a dismissive wave of her hand finalizing her thoughts. “The Rapture will happen at any minute and you won’t have any warning at all. Don’t worry about storms.”
Thunderstorms already made me uneasy and now the idea that they were possible harbingers of The Rapture rendered them terrifying. The very next storm caused me to cower in the covers, a pillow over my head, prayers streaming in a rush.
My grandmother found me and gave me one of her muscle relaxants.
But it didn’t work.
I still felt like my heart would burst through my chest like the monster in Alien. Seeing this distress, my mother, taking up the special bottle from her purse, tapped out a yellow pill. What looked like an arrowhead was carved into its middle.
A Valium.
Swallowing it was like pulling a bowstring. And the Valium’s arrowhead shot into the middle of the alien clutching my throat, quieting it.
Fast-forward to the school prom.
“I’m nervous about going,” I confide to my grandmother.
“Here,” she says, opening her personal medicine cabinet. She ceremoniously cranks the top of the child-proof cap off, delicately retrieving a pale blue pill. Through the machine-pressed V, I could see the lines on my palm.
“It’s a ten, break it in half and you’ll have two doses, if you need them.”
I was 17, a full set of braces freshly removed, a crinkly crown of permed hair weighing down my tiny self-image.
My date: a pen pal from New York. I’d found his address in a Star Trek fan magazine. (No really). We’d never actually met until I picked him up at the airport earlier that day.
Of course I needed both halves of that blue pill.
Go forward a bit more to my wedding.
The guy I’m about to marry is a mistake. I know it. My family knows it. Even the doctor I work for knows it. And somewhere down inside his hollow heart, my fiancé knows this is a mistake too.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Meemaw says, zipping up the back of the wedding dress she spent three months making.
“But all those people. I can’t do it. I have to do it,” I said, starting to feel the alien scratch the insides of my ribcage.
“Do you want one?” she says. We both know what she’s talking about.
Under my veil, I nod my head.
My dad is loaded to the gunnels with whiskey, as was his Saturday night custom. He and I lean into each other so we can make it down the aisle without looking like two ships caught in a storm at sea. I count the steps under my breath to keep my focus: one, two, one, two…
Click on the next chapter and you’ll see the montage of me clutching a paper bag over my mouth and nose to stop hyperventilating during various stressors over the next few years: the first Thanksgiving with my husband’s family, finding out I’m pregnant, deciding to divorce my husband and some other scenes that I can’t even really remember, but you get the idea.
The montage will also show that I became a borderline recluse because of the fear of public panic attacks. The montage ends with me in an E.R. being hooked up to an EKG because I’m certain I’m having a heart attack.
Fade out of montage into this bit of dialogue:
“You have a fairly severe anxiety disorder.”
Fade to black. | https://medium.com/swlh/anxiety-is-a-superpower-d2388d73b17a | ['Shanna Peeples'] | 2019-10-23 21:14:35.815000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Anxiety', 'Leadership', 'Self-awareness', 'Mental Health'] |
How to Remember Everything You Want From Non-Fiction Books | Evidence-Based Learning Strategies, Why They Work, And How You Can Apply Them
We’ve established a basic understanding of how our human memory works (acquisition, retention, retrieval). Next, we’ll look at the learning strategies that work best for our brains (elaboration, retrieval, spaced repetition, interleaving, self-testing) and see how we can apply those insights to reading non-fiction books.
The strategies that follow are rooted in research from professors of Psychological & Brain Science around Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel. Both scientists spent ten years bridging the gap between cognitive psychology and education fields. Harvard University Press published their findings in the book ‘Make It Stick.’
I applied their evidence-based learning techniques for reading. Since I use these techniques, I feel reading indeed is a true investment in knowledge. I can access what I want to remember and use it for writing, podcasting, conversation, or self-improvement.
The strategies presented follow in chronological order and apply to both physical books and e-readers. There are extra supportive capabilities for Kindles that I will explain afterward.
#1 Elaboration
Elaborating means you explain and describe an idea in your own words. Thereby you consciously associate material you want to learn with what you’ve previously learned. In the words of Roediger & McDaniel: “Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know.”
Why elaboration works: Elaborative rehearsal encodes information into your long-term memory more effectively. The more details and the stronger you connect new knowledge to what you already know, the better because you’ll be generating more cues. And the more cues they have, the easier you can retrieve your knowledge.
How I apply elaboration: Whenever I read an interesting section, I pause and ask myself about the real-life connection and potential application. The process is invisible, and my inner monologues sound like: “This idea reminds me of…, This insight conflicts with…, I don’t really understand how…, ” etc.
For example, when I learned about A/B testing in ‘The Lean Startup,’ I thought about applying this method to my startup. I added a note on the site stating we should try it in user testing next Wednesday. Thereby the book had an immediate application benefit to my life, and I will always remember how the methodology works.
How you can apply elaboration: Elaborate while you read by asking yourself meta-learning questions like “How does this relate to my life? In which situation will I make use of this knowledge? How does it relate to other insights I have on the topic?”
While pausing and asking yourself these questions, you’re generating important memory cues. If you take some notes, don’t transcribe the author’s words but try to summarize, synthesize, and analyze.
Elaboration applied: Remarks in ‘The Lean Startup’ (Source: Author)
#2 Retrieval
With retrieval, you try to recall something you’ve learned in the past from your memory. While retrieval practice can take many forms — take a test, write an essay, do a multiple-choice test, practice with flashcards — some forms are better than others, as the authors of ‘Make It Stick’ state: “While any kind of retrieval practice generally benefits learning, the implication seems to be that where more cognitive effort is required for retrieval, greater retention results.”
Why retrieval works: The more time has gone since your information consumption, the more difficult time you’ll have to retrieve it. Naturally, a few days after we learn something, forgetting sets in. And that’s why retrieval is so powerful. Retrieval strengthens your memory and interrupts forgetting and, as other researchers replicate, as a learning event, the act of retrieving information is considerably more potent than is an additional study opportunity, particularly in terms of facilitating long-term recall.
How I apply retrieval: I retrieve a book’s content from my memory by writing a book summary for every book I want to remember. I ask myself questions like: “How would you summarize the book in three sentences? Which concepts do you want to keep in mind or apply? How does the book relate to what you already know?”
I then publish my summaries on Goodreads or write an article about my favorite insights, like here with Ben Horowitz, Elizabeth Gilbert, or Brené Brown.
How you can apply retrieval: You can come up with your own questions or use mine. If you don’t want to publish your summaries in public, you can write a summary into your journal, start a book club, create a private blog, or initiate a WhatsApp group for sharing book summaries.
Whatever you settle for, be careful not to copy/paste the words from the author. If you don’t do the brain work yourself, you’ll skip the learning benefits of retrieval. You want to use your own memory, even if it feels hard. By thinking about the concepts and giving new information your meaning, you’re creating an effective learning experience.
Retrieval applied: Chapter-by-chapter Goodreads Summary (Source: Screenshot Author)
#3 Spaced Repetition
With spaced repetition, you repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals. The harder it feels to recall the information, the stronger the learning effect. “Spaced practice, which allows some forgetting to occur between sessions, strengthens both the learning and the cues and routes for fast retrieval,” Roediger & McDaniel write.
Why it works: It might sound counterintuitive, but forgetting is essential for learning. Spacing out practice might feel less productive than rereading a text because you’ll realize what you forgot. Your brain has to work harder to retrieve your knowledge, which is a good indicator of effective learning.
So, spaced repetition prevents your brain from forgetting. Research shows repeating the same information ten times over different days is a better way to remember things than repeating the same information twenty times on a single day.
How I apply spaced repetition: After some weeks, I revisit a book and look at the summary questions (see #2). I try to come up with my answer before I look up my actual summary. I can often only remember a fraction of what I wrote and have to look at the rest. I’ll also evaluate whether I’ve applied the knowledge nuggets to my life and, if not, why I didn’t.
The process is quite time-intense, but whenever I feel it’s a timewaster, I remember Ratna Kusnur’s quote on the importance of applying theoretical non-fiction concepts: “Knowledge trapped in books neatly stacked is meaningless and powerless until applied for the betterment of life.”
How you can apply spaced repetition: You can revisit your book summary medium of choice and test yourself on what you remember. What were your action points from the book? Have you applied them? If not, what hindered you?
By testing yourself in varying intervals on your book summaries, you’ll strengthen both learning and cues for fast retrieval. If you read on your Kindle, there’s software to assist you with spaced repetition—more on that after the next two techniques.
Spaced Repetition applied: Self-Testing one of my book summaries (Source: Author)
#4 Interleaving
In interleaving, you switch practices before completion. So, interleaving means mixing learning with different kinds of approaches, concepts, or viewpoints. By practicing jumping back and forth between different problems, you solidify your understanding of the concepts and promote creativity and flexibility.
Why interleaving works: Alternate working on different problems feels more difficult as it, again, facilitates forgetting. While our intuition tells us completing one topic should be more effective, researchers pointed towards interleaving benefits. Plus, the authors of ‘Make It Stick’ conclude: “If learners spread out their study of a topic, returning to it periodically over time, they remember it better.”
How I apply interleaving: I read different books at the same time. Between my reading start and finish of Harari’s content-dense world history, I read four other books. Mixing my reading with Brown’s vulnerability classic and the memoir of a Holocaust Survivor brought insightful connections between various concepts, similar to what James Clear once meant when he said: “The most useful insights are often found at the intersection of ideas.”
How you can apply interleaving: Your brain can handle reading different books simultaneously, and it’s effective to do so. You can start a new book before you finish the one you’re reading. Starting again into a topic you partly forgot feels difficult first, but as you know by now, that’s the effect you want to achieve.
Interleaving applied: The various books I’m currently reading (Source: Author)
#5 Self-Testing
While reading often falsely tricks us into perceived mastery, testing shows us whether we truly mastered the subject at hand. Self-testing helps you identify knowledge gaps and brings weak areas to the light. In their book, the scientists conclude: “It’s better to solve a problem than to memorize a solution.”
Why it works: Self-testing helps you overcome the illusion of knowledge. “One of the best habits a learner can instill in herself is regular self-quizzing to recalibrate her understanding of what she does and does not know.” Objective instruments, like testing, or self-testing, help you adjust your sense of what you know and don’t know.
How I apply self-testing: I explain the key lessons from non-fiction books I want to remember to others. Thereby, I test whether I really got the concept. Often, I didn’t. After reading a great book on personal finance, I recorded a podcast episode where I explained how Exchange Traded Funds work.
I reworked my preparation four times until I felt it included everything the listener needs. But instead of feeling frustrated, cognitive science made me realize that identifying knowledge gaps are a desirable and necessary effect for long-term remembering. I keep Mortimer Adler’s words in mind, who wrote: “The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”
How you can apply self-testing: Teaching your lessons learned from a non-fiction book is a great way to test yourself. Before you explain a topic to somebody, you have to combine several mental tasks: filter relevant information, organize this information, and articulate it using your own vocabulary.
When you explain the content from what you’ve read to another person, you’ll identify potential knowledge gaps, can reread the passages you want to double-check, and strengthen your understanding. | https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-remember-everything-you-want-from-non-fiction-books-df17096d517f | ['Eva Keiffenheim'] | 2020-12-14 15:17:27.684000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Learning', 'Reading', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity'] |
The Ayahuasca Interview, Part 2 | Continued from The Ayahuasca Interview, Part 1…
In Part 2 of this interview, we dive into some specific questions about what my friend experienced and learned during his ceremony.
Q: You mentioned earlier that drinking Ayahuasca enables people to learn about how the Universe works. Was this part of your experience and if so, what learnings can you share?
Yes, definitely. I learned about some pretty big concepts.
Past Lives
First of all, I was fascinated to find out that I have lived MANY past lives and to learn about the details of some of them. I had felt for a while that the idea of reincarnation might be true, but this experience confirmed it for me.
As I sat there, I was being shown bits and pieces all of these past lives that I’ve lived. Egypt, Africa, Brazil, Russia, Persian Empire, Iraq… It was incredible. Some of them were given to me as pure facts, and some came with actual images that felt like memories that I was remembering.
I actually felt really overwhelmed by how many lives there were and they were just firing them at me one after the other. It was a lot to take in and I literally asked for a break because I couldn’t keep up.
During this process I learned that several people in my life today have played roles in my past lives, including friends, family members, and even somewhat random acquaintances. In each case, we are connected again in this life for different reasons, such as resolving things we went through in the past. For example, my brother in this life was previously my son and my best friend in this life was previously my wife.
A really interesting thing was that two seemingly random friends of mine were separately mentioned and I was given specific guidance about the importance of maintaining my relationships with each of them.
Soul Contracts
So many important things that occur in our lives are actually explicitly agreed upon by us, on a soul level, before incarnating. We choose what kind of “theme” we are going to explore in this life, which I think means the types of overarching challenges we’ll face in this lifetime, stemming from the circumstances of how we are raised, what kind of family we are born into, where we live, and things that we just tend to have difficulty with. Experiencing and overcoming those challenges adds to our soul’s overall learning, which is its primary purpose for incarnating. Each time we resolve one of these deep challenges, it’s sort of like leveling up as a soul.
So if you ask yourself the question, “Why am I here?” or “Why is this happening to me?”, the answer is to learn some important lessons and make forward progress on a soul level.
We also enter soul contracts with other people. As far as I understand, this applies to the people who play an important role in our lives, but it could even be people who play a very minor role. I understood that every person who was in the ceremony with me at that moment had agreed beforehand to have this experience together.
Let me mention that I don’t believe this means our lives are pre-determined. I think our major themes are pre-selected (by us), and there are mutual agreements made with other souls who will participate in our lives. But the way things play out, the decisions we make- all of that stuff is left open and happens however it may. Life themes are decided on a very general level and manifest in your life in specific ways that are not predetermined. But however they may appear, they are there for you to work through an important challenge and learn a deep underlying lesson.
The Flow of The Universe
Everything that happens in our lives is exactly the way it needs to be. The Universe runs in perfect harmony. The complexity of the intelligence of the Universe is unbelievable… For example, something that happens that affects 1,000 different people will play a unique role in each person’s life, synchronously happening at exactly the right time for a specific reason.
That means there are not necessarily any “good” or “bad” events because they are all equally valid and necessary. When you interpret something that happens as “bad” or “negative”, you are giving it that definition.
When something happens that you did not want and you fight against it as hard as you can, trying to change it and not accepting it, you are denying the natural flow of the Universe.
The more you can accept and embrace this concept and apply it to your life, the more easily you’ll get what you need, the less stressed you’ll be, and the less difficult your life will feel. What you want is not necessarily what you need. We as humans are not equipped to see the bigger picture when some circumstance arises. You are only seeing one small piece.
The universe is giving you everything you need, but you just need to TRUST it and be OPEN. Things are not going to happen the way you want or expect them to. They will happen the way they NEED to.
Time is Not Linear
Everything is happening at the same time. The past, present, and future do not follow a straight path. They all exist simultaneously.
I’ve been using the term “past life” but they are really parallel lives occurring at other points in space-time. And you are energetically connected to your parallel lives, which can be in the “past” or “future”.
At some point I heard you mention words like “they” and “them”, seemingly referring to some invisible mysterious people. Who’s “they”?
(Laughing) “They” are difficult to describe but you can think of them as spiritual guides. I receive information from them and I know they’re there but they usually don’t tell me much about themselves. I know there are several of them and they specialize in different things.
The one I have visually seen most clearly, in my mind’s eye, is a beautiful female spirit who works with me on all things related to body movement. During a ceremony, she stretches me out, moves my body around, and basically leads me through a yoga session to release bodily tension.
I think these guides are people who lived human lives, and after their death they transitioned to helping people from the spirit realm. Every person has spirit guides working with them, whether they realize it or not.
What you may experience as your intuition telling you something can actually be your spirit guides telling you something. You are mentally connected with them and they are able to send you thoughts anytime, which feel like they are your own thoughts, because you are intertwined with each other.
They love you unconditionally and are dedicated to serving you on your path in this life. I’ll speak for myself but I suspect that most people would also experience this — with ayahuasca, I am way more sensitive to my guides. I can hear their messages more clearly and unmistakably, I can sometimes see them visually, I can feel their presence more strongly, and I can definitely feel their love. They can literally move my body (with my permission).
So we covered the things you learned about the Universe. Are there other valuable lessons, about any subject, that you want to share?
I learned how hollow our physical identities truly are — like gender and ethnicity. When you realize that you’ve lived many lifetimes as a man and a woman, as African, South American, Middle Eastern, European… You naturally let go of placing so much significance onto your current gender or ethnicity and see yourself more as an expansive soul that can express itself in many forms.
The notion of defining someone based on their ethnicity pretty much disappears. The whole idea of thinking you’re fundamentally different from someone based on generalizations like race, religion, gender is simply laughable.
What other ways has your perspective on your day to day life changed since the ceremony?
I’ve learned to respect each individual’s life choices more and allow them to have their journey, their way. When you see someone making choices that you don’t agree with, because maybe you believe they aren’t what’s best for that person, it’s natural to feel the urge to change their course as a means of helping them. You may want to convince them that what they’re doing is wrong and some other path is the right one. Or to save them from the pain they’re going to experience.
But the truth is that every choice we make leads to learning, whether it’s learning in an enjoyable way or an unenjoyable way. As someone who cares, it’s our job to share our perspective and be supportive, while respecting someone’s decision to learn in whichever way they choose.
Every way of life is another path to learning and they are all equally valid. Pain, joy, poverty, riches, trauma, pleasure- all are different ways to exist and thus opportunities to learn about different facets and angles of existence. There is unique learning in the experience of being a king and there is unique learning in the experience of being homeless.
Thank you for sharing your transformational experience and allowing me to share it with others. I really appreciate you being open about something so personal to you.
It’s been a pleasure sharing my story. I hope it sheds some light, but I can imagine that it would leave people with more questions than answers… And that is great! Follow your curiosity and explore.
Closing note
Okay, so overall this conversation went into some really far-out places that I had not anticipated, to say the least. Again, I’m strictly not attaching any of my personal views to this content; I’m only acting as a messenger, bringing you some wildly unusual messages. | https://medium.com/profoundaf/the-ayahuasca-interview-part-2-ffa92981accc | ['Jeremy Musighi'] | 2018-05-04 21:01:13.624000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Psychology', 'Psychedelics', 'Science', 'Personal Development'] |
Been Ghosted? 6 Smart Ways to Respond and Recover | Been Ghosted? 6 Smart Ways to Respond and Recover
Including the four different types of ghosts.
“Love did not work with that person. But it can work with another.” — Eva Longoria
You thought it was going so well.
You’d been dating a while, you’d talked about everything — you’d gone beyond the shallow stuff, you seemed to hit it off.
You liked him; he seemed to like you back. Yeah, you thought. I’m ready to take this up a notch.
Then — whoosh. Gone. Just like a, well ghost. No replies to your messages, no contact, nothing. As if he never existed. As if you made him up.
You’re upset. More than that, you’re humiliated. Your confidence is all over the floor. Those self-flagellating thoughts creep in: What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t he like me? What’s wrong with me?
What to do?
Been ghosted?
Ghosting is the practice of ending a relationship by suddenly (and without explanation) withdrawing from all communication. The ghost ignores your attempts to contact them — it’s as if you’d never had any contact at all.
Because ghosting is a form of rejection it stings — even when you barely know someone or they’re not particularly important to you. It may raise historical issues around rejection or abandonment, as well as taking a swing at your self-worth, which might already be fragile in the relationship space.
Poor form, right? But it’s also extremely common and — in the era of small screens — it’s not going away. So here’s a guide for getting to the other side.
6 Smart Ways to Respond and Recover from Ghosting
1. Don’t chase ghosts.
They’re not coming back and you know it. So don’t try to justify their behaviour or hand them an excuse. Like their mother got sick or they’ve been crazy busy at work or they’re a little bit depressed.
Sadly, it doesn’t matter what was going on for them — the simple truth is you were not high enough on their priorities to rate a call. Or even a text message. So put away your phone. Hide it from yourself if you must. Don’t contact them, even if you’re desperate to know why.
Remember, chasing a ghost is like trying to pin down a shadow. Enough said.
2. Don’t talk to ghosts, either.
Bumping into someone who has ghosted you can be embarrassing and anxiety-provoking. I’ve known clients to have panic attacks when they’ve run into someone who has hurt them.
The best plan is treat your ghost as if they were invisible. Don’t acknowledge your ghost or, if you can’t avoid that, smile and walk on past like they don’t matter at all. Don’t stop to talk or seek an explanation — if you do, that’s a win to them.
3. It’s all about them.
When we’ve been hurt in relationships, it’s tempting to critique ourselves: to wonder what we did wrong and to examine our flaws.
But that’s giving your ghost too much power. Being ghosted is not about you; it’s about your ghost’s values and operating style.
Your ghost has just given you a flash of insight into their style of relating in intimate relationships. If it gets hard, I’ll run. I’ll do only what works for me. Is that what you want in a partner?
4. Ghosts don’t all wear the same-sized sheet.
It’s worth having a think about the type of person who ghosted you.
In the simplest terms, there are four types of ghosts. The avoidant ghost (conflict avoidant; will run away from anything difficult); the lazy ghost (can’t be bothered with anything hard including being fair/decent); the mean ghost (doesn’t care at all about others’ feelings) and the half-ghost (may float back and forth in your life; likes to keep options open).
Ghosts are not necessarily bad people; there’s often no agenda to their behaviour — they’re just taking the easy way out. But all ghosts are demonstrating operating styles borne out of their personal and relationship histories — and their values. And, in the space they’re in, none of them are worth your time, energy and love.
5. Know ghosting hurts.
I know, you’re only too aware of this. Being left without warning or knowing why is painful.
It’s a lesson all of us should carry forward when we want to break up with someone. Ghosting someone can seem the easy — even the kindest way — out of a relationship you don’t want to be in, especially when you’re young and inexperienced. But it’s not: you don’t have to offer a long explanation for why you don’t want to be with someone but you should have the courage to tell them it’s over. Face to face is best, but a phone call or text message is better than nothing.
6. Your future just got brighter.
It may not feel like it right now but if someone disappears on you without explanation, they are not right for you.
They are not invested enough in you (and your feelings) to be worth giving your best to.
So let go — the relationship you had is no longer real and the ghost will never be fully there for you. Now you’re free to find someone who is. | https://karennimmo.medium.com/been-ghosted-6-smart-ways-to-respond-and-recover-b75b9b592b1c | ['Karen Nimmo'] | 2020-05-22 00:26:09.177000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Self Improvement', 'Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Love'] |
Solution to Kaggle’s Ames House Price Competition: | An Exploration of Label Encoder
I have been experimenting with the Kaggle House Price Competition for several months now and I have seen several different methods that have been approached to predict on the house prices in the dataset provided for this competition. The website address to the competition and accompanying datasets is:- https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression-techniques/overview
One solution I found to predict on the sales price was to make the the living space area the only independent variable. Another answer I found was to separate the categorical values from the numerical values and to only predict on the basis that only the numerical values were made the independent variables by which to make a prediction on.
After much reflection and study, I endeavoured to develop an alternative solution that yielded an accuracy of 94.22% when tested on the validation set. This method I explored was to use the LabelEncoder.
LabelEncoder is a preprocessing module within the Python sklearn library, which was designed to be used to encode target variables, such as the y variable. One use for LabelEncoder is to transform non-numerical values into numerical labels, which is what I have done in this exercise.
Sklearn provides an example of how to use LabelEncoder to convert objects to numerical features:-
The train file of this competition question has 81 columns, with 43 of those columns being test based. I therefore was required to use the LabelEncode function on the object columns on both the train file and test file, making a total of 86 columns:-
In addition to encoding the text based columns, I also incorporated feature selection in an attempt to improve my score, dropping a few column that had null values in them:-
After preprocessing the data and selecting a few features, I defined my X, y, and test variables:-
Once the dependant and independent variables had been defined, split the test set for training and testing:-
Once the train dataset had been split for training and testing, I used the XGBRegressor function to endeavour to achieve optimum accuracy:-
Upon testing on the validation set, I obtained an accuracy of 94.22%:-
Of course, more work needs to be done to improve on this score, but it is certainly a good start. The full code to the Jupyter notebook this program was written in has been made public and can be found on the Kaggle website:-
https://www.kaggle.com/tracyporter/ames-house-prices-xgb-regressor | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/solution-to-kaggles-ames-house-price-competition-8c94f229f426 | [] | 2020-10-08 00:25:24.825000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Kaggle', 'Predictive Modeling'] |
The Mind, Brain, and Psychedelics | So typically people think of our search for aliens in the physical space of the cosmos, the universe, or even here on Earth.
But have you ever considered, why do we only search for aliens with our eyes wide open? We have this conscious experience, why must we assume that this experience is purely a physical manifestation?
Sure, the physical might create a certain type of conscious experience, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that consciousness cannot exist separate from our physical magic meat suits.
A separate form of consciousness would be different—the key being simply different—meaning it’s still attached to our waking conscious experience.
We seem to have no problem acknowledging other animals have a conscious experience different from ours! But what if consciousness is more fundamental to this magical land we call home?
We seem to only look for answers in the eyes open-world…the world Immanuel Kant calls, the phenomena.
For those concerned with this thought process at this point…I’m aware much of this is mere speculation. But established truths we take for granted now started as an idea in a human mind. An idea that started from this point of speculation.
So let’s have some reason based speculation around this idea!
Philosophy and Psychedelics
It’s time for another quick clarifier, those psychedelic experiences I mentioned earlier, I’m highly aware of the common occurrence that comes with people having a psychedelic experience—that they’ve experienced something more real than their default reality.
Many come away convinced they talked with aliens or a God. Often, this “more real” experience is interpreted as something profound that matches that person's culture they happened to have grown up in or be part of. I’m aware of this.
But it’s still interesting to consider the possibility of it being something real in a sense, beyond our default waking life; something beyond our default consciousness; or a way to connect with our own consciousness on a deeper level.
So let’s do some philosophy around the common idea of the brain producing the mind and how that has influenced our way of thinking.
Logical Positivist
Allow me to introduce the logical positivist who essentially asserted that only logical proofs that could be verified through direct observation are meaningful or helpful.
What does that mean?
It’s essentially a version of empiricism that focuses on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s issues with language, as in the imprecise nature of it. So they would say a priori statements—which are justifications prior to experience—are wrong.
Why does this matter?
Well, what I just mentioned takes direct issue with the mystical experience or psychedelic experience mentioned earlier. Those experiences that seem to go beyond our default existence—maybe even somewhere else—to the logical positivists is useless. It has no usefulness around our understanding of truth!
However, those logical positivists—made famous in the 1920s—ran into the philosophical problem of other minds. And this is where we get into the importance of bringing up the logical positivists!
Now, the psychedelic experience is very subjective, absolutely. But the subjective experience of an individual is important to understand, and I think it’s important to contemplate.
So let’s consider the problem of other minds.
How can I know you, the person reading this right now, how can I verify your experience? How can I observe your conscious experience?
I might figure out the neuron connections of the brain, put a chip in your brain to see what you're seeing, but I can’t know your emotional experience, the essence of you! That’s where the true cognitive impact of you reading my words is placed. How do we experience someone else having a mind? We don’t.
According to the logical positivists, many personal human descriptions of their personal experience—stuff we would like to verify—would become meaningless.
If you say ‘you think the words I’m spewing are complete bullshit’ maybe you’re right, but how can I verify that with my senses? I can hear you say it, but I can’t know the inner workings of your mind. I don’t even know you have a mind under this worldview! Something is missing is my point! It’s an imprecise understanding of the world!
The Behaviorist
So you then had some logical positivist team up with a similar school of thought, the behaviorist. Who essential focus on observable behavior as a means to study the human psyche. Where it related to positivism and empiricism. These both came up around the same time, but the behaviorist really influenced the thinking in psychology.
It shifted us from focussing on those inner workings of the mind into focussing on observable behaviors. They thought the observable behaviors could explain those inner workings an individual performed.
Psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung—who were psychoanalysts—criticized this method, as they saw the subconscious, and for Jung, the subjective inner experience as vital for understanding human behavior.
They saw this subconscious experience as vital for understanding humans!
The behaviorist wanted to boil us down to robotic meat suits with an illusion of a subjective—conscious—experience. And many, not all, in the fields of science loved it.
Consciousness was and still is the enigma that perplexes many in the field of science, it’s easily one of our greatest mysteries—and I think it might be the greatest mystery. Our self-awareness, or at the very least perception of that self-awareness, is confusing to comprehend through the lens of the purely physical universe.
This had led neuroscientists to not really pay mind to understanding consciousness through the lens of an individual's subjective inner workings! They had been influenced by the positivist and behaviorist, which then ended up influencing the public's perception of what it is to be conscious. The trickle-down of our understanding of truth.
I’m not telling you to take my word for it, I’m telling you to question the words you take from others—that you once viewed as obvious and established truths.
What else is being trickled down to us as this accepted understanding? Someone else that has become so convinced within their own mind of their own truth that they persuade others to believe the same. And in doing so believe in the same flaws of their position and defending the flaws of their argument to no end.
The Influence on Consciousness
But the logical positivist and the behaviorist worked in harmony with a rising worldview, materialism. Which is a type of philosophical monism, where matter is THE essential substance in nature.
It’s the idea that every phenomenon, including consciousness, are by products of this purely material process. Maybe that is true. I don’t know.
I think materialism overly conflates correlation with causality. Relying purely on the observed and measurable, over the experienced.
But measurable in what way?
Based on an assumption that we can only rely on the observable physical.
Which might be true!
That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know.
It might not even be within human capacity to understand much more about this grand cosmos. Our minds and brains might not have the processing power.
But my point is, does that subjective, conscious, and mysterious human experience within our own minds say more about the cosmos than we might think?
Should we consider the possibility that stuff we simply perceive is all there is? What lies within the unseen?
When people come away from the psychedelic experience thinking they have been shot to some other dimension are they merely delusional? Just a purely fun shift in your brain chemistry that produces a different experience within the mind.
That’s all a big part of this consciousness equation. What if the brain is receiving some sort of signal? A signal of consciousness—that the brain then interprets and produces you!
This point is meant to provide some thoughts to consider, raising the possibility that tapping into a more profound understanding of our conscious experience is vital to transforming our understanding around the workings of the universe, our arguments in philosophy, and maybe our understanding of life itself. Probably a bit of all of those!
I’ll leave you with this today if you come to accept or embrace the possibility that our current default waking experience is a hallucination created by the mind — as in an inaccurate representation of the objective physical world — what does that mean for the psychedelic experience?
And maybe one more thought about beliefs: we allow ourselves to accept beliefs that go against established truth are built on delusion—a temptation by the devil, so to speak.
Consider this quote from the show “Attack on Titan” but consider it through the lens of this post: | https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/the-mind-brain-and-psychedelics-85a33bafc742 | ['Brenden Weber'] | 2020-12-27 20:20:44.202000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Psychology', 'Psychedelics', 'Science', 'Philosophy'] |
Depression Doesn’t Look the Same for Everyone, But It’s Really Different than Your Normal | Depression Doesn’t Look the Same for Everyone, But It’s Really Different than Your Normal
I started monitoring my depression with Fitbit and I had incredible insights!
Fitbit personal weekly stats 1st Sept 2019
Highly functioning depression
After a depression, last year that was finally diagnosed and I could really understand „how it feels like” for me, I started to notice how different I feel when my mood changes and what is my normal compared to this episode that I had now as a reference.
It was no surprise to see that there are major changes in the physical body during depressive episodes.
As my Fitbit stats indicated, I had lost weight, did a lot of intense workouts, slept bad and my average resting heart rate dropped significantly in only one week. All these are also signs of depression but a highly functioning one. These are even more difficult to spot as the signs are subtle for the rest of the people around the person suffering from it.
Let’s see some of the major ones that got me in an alert system:
I am easily irritable and I get anxious in almost any situation where there’s a bit of uncertainty. This is mainly due to the lack of serotonin which makes my cognitive abilities slow down while my emotions take over much faster. I cry a lot. Well, that’s obvious when you’re going through a grief period, but the last time I had that it went like that for 4 months daily for 5–6 hours in the beginning and then changing to 1–2 hours mostly before going to bed and early in the morning or middle of the night 4 AM crying. I am hyper-vigilant. Meaning that I have a permanent state of alert to any subtle sign from the environment and feel that someone constantly looking to trick me, harm me, shame me, etc. This fight or flight state is causing problems in any interaction and making my defense mechanism go on autopilot.
4. The capacity to stop and reflect before reacting is greatly affected. I am aware of the error only after I get to make it. I feel less in my physical body the messages and signals of the anxiety, therefore, I don’t spend time thinking and filtering with my ration the reasons why I feel an impulse and I just react on it with my primal instinct. Some interactions are worse, others and less, but it very much depends on the trigger and intensity so the inner compass is not allowing enough balance and control from the inside. I depend more on the external control of the environment.
5. Productivity decrease. Despite being able to “function”, I was actually a lot below my average productivity. I was able to work less than 4 hours per day and even those hours were not continuous and the breaks made me feel I lost a lot of productivity time so the overall feeling was bad.
6. Ability to engage and empathize with others also decreased. Since I was burdened with my own grief, I wasn’t able to take in more stories from others. Despite being able to go out of the house, being able to be social, I was not able to fully listen, I was rushing to conclusions and preconceptions and assumptions about stories I heard from others. It made it difficult to be able to open up about my own struggles because I wasn’t willing to reciprocate the help they would give me.
7. I canceled appointments. The beginning of September 2019 was so hard for me especially because I had a full agenda planned from the beginning of the summer when things looked very different for me on the mental health aspect. It was disappointing to have to give up on the plans I made and go back to a very slow pace and rhythm as my heart rate also indicated.
8. I had to consume the energy I had in a different way than by doing the things I had in my original plan. I had to shift everything and consume energy in a different way. It had to be more physical activity so I went for runs, walks, cycling, yoga, swimming. I did it all! Got myself physically exhausted and then went back to my agenda and re-planned everything to later dates. That’s also the reason for writing the piece in October instead of September. I have over 40 drafts from that week that need to be completed on the blog. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/depression-doesnt-look-the-same-for-everyone-but-it-s-really-different-than-your-normal-8f8eddc1fba6 | ['Irina Damascan'] | 2019-11-01 15:30:18.598000+00:00 | ['Awareness', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health', 'Depression', 'Awakening'] |
My OCD Made Me Pray to a God I Didn’t Believe In | Even at the time, I knew that it didn’t make sense. And I didn’t understand myself why I needed to touch every item made of wood three times and roll over twice before I could settle. But this is what having OCD can be like. It often doesn’t make any logical sense.
There is no such thing as ‘being OCD’
I regularly hear people exclaim “Oh I’m so OCD” whilst they make something look a bit neater than it was, or talk about how tidy they are or how they enjoy cleaning.
“I’m so OCD, I always have to make sure my house is tidy”
“I just need to put that pen the right way up in the pen pot, I’m so OCD”
“She’s so OCD sometimes, she always washes her hands …”
OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and it is a serious, life-altering mental health condition. A person may have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but they can’t be OCD. It’s not an adjective. If someone uses the term to describe a themselves or another persons ‘quirks’, they are trivialising what can often be a very severe illness.
Another very common misconception about OCD is that it’s only ever to do with cleanliness and arranging objects in a certain way.
Don’t get me wrong: that can be exactly how OCD presents for some people, and it can be incredibly debilitating. But for others, OCD manifests itself in a completely different way —with the above account of me at aged 13 being just one example. There are so many more ways that OCD can affect someone’s life than making them obsessive about cleanliness and orderliness.
The disorder is also much more debilitating than many people realise: OCD was once ranked by the World Health Organization as being within the top 10 most disabling conditions in the world, when judged by lost income and a decrease in the person’s quality of life. It has since moved out of the top 10, likely because of better treatment options being available, but the fact it was ever so high up shows how the disorder can incapacitate those who suffer from it.
OCD causes me to behave in strange ways
When I was younger, I often blamed myself for things that realistically could not be my fault. I struggled to be rational about my worries. For example, if someone I knew became unwell, I convinced myself it was because I didn’t ‘pray’ for them properly the night before, despite not even believing in God. If a disastrous event happened in the world where people got hurt — such as an earthquake or a hurricane — I would get incredibly worried that it was all because of me.
I was convinced that I had to be loyal to a God that I didn’t actually believe in. If I was ever asked if I had a religion, I thought I had to say yes — because my OCD made me believe that if I ever told someone I was an atheist, then terrible things would happen to me and the people I loved.
The behaviours associated with my own OCD have changed a lot over time. They have evolved as I’ve grown up and gained adult responsibilities. They can be just as debilitating now as they were when I was a teenager, but in a completely different way.
Nowadays, my OCD-related behaviours revolve around the household. Leaving home to go to work or to see a friend can be a nightmare for me, and I often get into work much later than planned to because of my OCD. I spend a long time checking and re-checking that the locks are secure, making sure all the windows are closed and all the electricity switches are off. Me and my partner have just bought our first house, so it’s the first time we’ve had a mortgage. The reality of this responsibility has hit my OCD quite hard: I am constantly — and I do mean constantly — fearful that the house might burst into flames because I didn’t switch the cooker off, or get broken-into because I left the back door unlocked, or get flooded – and that it would all be my fault because I didn’t carry out my OCD-rituals properly.
Whilst some of my obsessions have remained the same for the last 12 years, others change regularly, which makes them even more challenging to work on or ignore, as well as making it difficult to explain the nature of my OCD to anyone else.
Hardly anyone knows that I have OCD
I can count on one hand the amount of people in my life who know that I struggle with the demon that is OCD. To be honest, I doubt very much that many people would guess that I have this condition either. I am one of the messiest people I’ve ever known, and so those who assume OCD is all about tidiness wouldn’t have a clue that it affects me daily. Additionally, my OCD is quite mild compared to that of other people I know who have the disorder, so it’s comparatively easy for me to hide it. I am very open and honest about the fact that I suffer with anxiety, so I can — and often do — mask my OCD-related symptoms as ‘just my anxiety’.
I think for me, the absolute worst thing about having a bad patch of OCD-related behaviours is that I know that my obsessive beliefs are irrational – I know that they can’t be true. As a kid, I knew that whether or not I ‘correctly’ prayed to a deity that I didn’t believe in couldn’t possibly have an effect on the world’s happenings. And now, as an adult, when I go to check whether I locked the door for the seventeenth time in a minute, I know it will be locked.
And yet, somehow… knowing these things doesn’t make those feelings of fear any less real, nor does it loosen the grasp that my OCD has on me. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/my-ocd-made-me-pray-to-a-god-i-did-not-believe-in-f9fc4d069e17 | ['Rachael Woodman'] | 2019-10-30 00:44:03.551000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Ocd', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health', 'This Happened To Me'] |
To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From | To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From
A crash course in eliminating negative thoughts.
Photo by Charnee May on Unsplash
I used to feel insecure all the time. I was frequently worried that everyone would judge me for the insecurities I saw in myself. Honestly, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror because I always felt embarrassed.
Looking back, I realize that I allowed negative thoughts to get to my head. I let my insecurities control my mindset and prevent me from living a genuinely happy life.
I felt hopeless. But one day, I learned that the best way to overcome your insecurities is to understand where they come from. Because once you can identify why they exist, it’s much easier to prevent them from affecting you in the future. Quoting an article published by VeryWellMind:
“When you start confronting your negative views, you can begin to notice how many of them are not true in your life. Instead of assuming the worst, you may realize that you feel disappointed you did not reach a certain goal, but also accept that you are learning and growing from your mistakes and setbacks.”
From this, I learned that your mindset will never improve until you take action. Why? Because the only person who can control your thoughts is you. Which means you have the power to prevent them from negatively impacting your life in the future.
Here’s how: | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/to-overcome-your-insecurities-understand-where-they-come-from-10e73345fd56 | ['Matt Lillywhite'] | 2020-11-30 15:02:48.351000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Anxiety', 'Psychology'] |
Start with values, not your idea | Start with values, not your idea
“Values are timeless. They are the bedrock of a company and don’t change even when everything else does.”
I wish more startups realised this.
Too many are:
hiring the wrong people
building the wrong products
and looking for customers in the wrong places
“A company needn’t model its behaviour on what other companies do, because it doesn’t have to attract the same customers or value the same things. It isn’t as simple as declaring an enemy and beating them…… We don’t particularly care what others choose to do, because we know the game we are playing — and we quite enjoy it.” From the Delighted blog
A revolution is happening
Umair Haque, the renowned writer and economist recently stated that “we’re on the cusp of a values-driven revolution.”
He highlighted that consumers now are much more careful about who they buy from and whether they represent the values they hold dear.
Therefore it’s important to pin down your values and what you stand for.
Think of your core values as those that, when the chips are down, you believe in so much, that if you took them away your company would cease to exist.
However, don’t just brainstorm some values only to then forget about them — you need to live and abide by them everyday. You values are how you behave, not how you would like to.
“In the absence of values all decisions go to profits”
How to identify your values
An excerpt from the Moutains & Valleys exercise from CultureSync.
Think of some key events in your life or career that were significant or life changing, and the type of thing someone would write in a biography about your life (whether positive or negative).
For a positive event, consider what values were present that made it so satisfying for you.
For negative events consider what values were absent or threatened that made it so unsatisfying.
For each of these milestone events, look at the list of values you have identified and consider if there is anything even deeper than these. What values are essential to your perfect world?
After you go through this initially on your own, talking with someone about each event may help clarify and stimulate other important values overlooked at first.
Looking across all the events, pick your top 5 to 8 values that matter the most to you. Base this on how strongly you feel about them.
These are your core values.
Your compass
If you’re going into business, control the things that you can control. Namely:
your purpose
your values
the people you work with
you work with the product or services you build
or services you build the customers you attract
you attract the culture you create.
The rest will take care of itself.
At The Happy Startup School, we believe that the future belongs to companies that are values-driven. We’re building a growing community of people that believe there’s more to business, and life, than making money. | https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/start-with-values-not-your-idea-2089880e9db7 | ['Laurence Mccahill'] | 2017-03-31 06:23:39.093000+00:00 | ['Popular', 'Community', 'Values', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Remote storytelling in UX | 2. Host a multi-person storyboarding session
Everyone has ideas for how a product should work, and should be built. Each stakeholder has their own set of priorities to consider, goals to achieve, and OKR’s to hit. For a collaboration to be truly fruitful, objectivity should be present.
Part of practicing empathy is accepting that each person you encounter is speaking from a very unique perspective. Therefore, differences of opinion are inevitable. It’s not a bad thing, if you can leverage that. In fact, diversity of voices can be an incredible superpower in a team. As a designer, you need to make sure you know when and how to harvest that and storyboarding is a great way to do so.
How? Arrange for a 30–45 minute meeting for the product stakeholders. You ideally would want a representative from the major departments involved: engineering, design, PM’s, marketing, etc. Have a clear objective in mind and define them.
During the session, have a strong advocate for the user and customer by starting with the most critical parts of the product such as Onboarding, Checkout, Product Discovery, Account Creation etc. If you have a journey map, you can use that as a guide. In the Smashing Magazine article, The role of storyboarding in UX Design, author Nick Babich suggested a simple framework for this starting with plain text and arrows for the story outline. If you have user stories, you can also use those.
“Say for instance, I’m the user. As a user, I would like to __[user goal]___ by ___[product feature]___ so that I can ___[intrinsic value of the product to the user’s life]___”
Questions to ask:
What would that look like?
What are the possible blindspots?
What types of constraints are we dealing with here? (engineering, product, market etc)
Consider the user’s emotional journey throughout all of this. How can we make sure they end up happy, satisfied, productive and all the other positive things we want them to feel for our product (or features specifically)?
Tools to use: Miro, InVision Freehand, Figma, Zoom… really.. any digital whiteboard + video conference tools
“People ignore designs that ignore people.” — Frank Chimera
Individual duties of a storyteller
UX Design is a multidisciplinary field that knits different types of skills, interests and industries. It’s an incredibly rewarding job to have especially if you can navigate your way around this fast-pacing landscape of digital and tech. Naturally, our storytelling skills should improve as well.
Here’s what I think we should do:
You have to be sensitive to all types of mediums and platforms that mastered the art of storytelling — the web, mobile, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, games, films (classic Hitchcock to Denis Villeneuve masterpieces), audio and sound, even experiences that transcend digital such as the Disney Parks, Broadway theaters etc. Stories are everywhere. Find the ones worth learning from. You have to learn from a principles-first perspective — and APPLY THEM TO YOUR WHERE IT MATTERS. You have to accept that stories come in all forms, and so do our capacities to contribute — from writing user scripts, dialogues to actually tinkering on some code, we should, at least, familiarize ourselves with anything that captures our curiosity. You have to know who the real hero is— and how to make everyone who matters feel like one. From internal stakeholders all the way to your customers, strive for a spectacular experience. You have to give yourself more credit — for you too, are capable of producing something that is timeless, inspirational, useful, and original. You just need to allow yourself to.
Thankfully, we are living with the greatest storytellers of our time. With access to information, and knowledge, there’s nothing stopping us from learning, and ultimately, applying them directly to our work.
If you need a hint for where to start, find the people who bravely challenge the status quo. Historically, they’ve always been the creators of the best stories the world has ever experienced.
Thank you for reading,
Nikki Espartinez | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/remote-storytelling-in-ux-de8c98ffd78b | ['Nikki Espartinez'] | 2020-10-23 01:28:51.271000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Marketing', 'Storytelling', 'User Experience', 'Ux Strategy'] |
Upcoming Events: Spring 2019 | Where we will be this Q1 — events in February and March, hosted by our own DVN Member funds: Blume Ventures, Manutara Ventures, Draper Cygnus, ACE, and Draper Venture Network.
February 28th: Blume Ventures’ Blume Day in Mumbai, India
Blume Ventures, DVN’s early-stage, India member fund, hosts its 8th annual Blume Day. Once again, Blume brings the Indian startup and venture ecosystem together with its portfolio for a day of learning, ideation, networking. You can read more about 2018’s Blume Day here. 2019 will not disappoint.
March 17th–26th: DVN’s General Partner Spring Forum in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil
Draper Venture Network is going on a South America startup and venture ecosystem tour next month! Draper Cygnus, Manutara Ventures, and ACE are hosting.
35+ of our Member Fund General Partners from around the globe will travel to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Our Network will learn about the region’s entrepreneurial communities with local visits to top-performing billion-dollar companies, government officials at the highest level, and cultural activities such as Argentine tango and polo.
Each year the DVN GP Spring Forum is an opportunity for Network partners to share investing best practices, share the latest deals, and grow in camaraderie while enjoying the local culture. You can revisit 2018 highlights here. | https://medium.com/draper-network/upcoming-events-spring-2019-427d131ec86a | ['Anna Diaz'] | 2019-02-26 22:45:26.528000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Innovation', 'Venture Capital', 'Entrepreneurship', 'International'] |
Female Bullies | Evil is unspectacular and always human and shares our bed and eats at our own table. ~ W.H. Auden, Herman Melville
Randy made my life a living hell. She was a few years older than me and possessed the beauty of a pre-teen Snow White, with her alabaster skin and lustrous black hair. I, on the other hand, was a nerd, a frumpy outcast with an extensive history of childhood trauma. Trapped against the concrete wall where kids played handball during school recess, she’d poke her sharp nail into my chest and mutter threats. With her angelic face contorted into a demonic visage she mirrored all the loathing and contempt I felt towards myself. That my family was the designated crazies in the building where we both resided, made me an easy mark. Randy affirmed for me that as much as there was no safety to be found at home, I would not find it in the outside world either.
Although violence is not a domain monopolized by men and the aptitude for violence and abusive behavior in women is a stark reality, it receives little recognition from the social sciences. When it does, it is viewed as exceptional behavior.
Despite this point of view, in my professional life as a trauma therapist, I’ve encountered countless stories of folks, who like myself were victimized by female bullies. Often these tormentors are peers. Sometimes they are sisters, mentors, colleagues, healers, frenemies and employers. Many are backstabbing snakes who diminish with veiled barbs ‘meant to help,’ spreading vicious rumors while feigning friendship. Others are more overtly and blatantly cruel.
Whatever form they take female bullies are the antithesis of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice.’ Yet they will strategically exploit that one-dimensional saccharine characterization of the stereotypical female to their advantage. Many female bullies will conceal their stealth maneuvering and mind games behind a benign feminine facade.
Undoubtedly, aggression takes on a different form for the female bully compared to her male counterpart. Rather than emoting defiance and lawlessness, she presents as popular and admired for her achievements, her trendy style and even her ostensible generosity. Unlike her male counterpart, she rarely resorts to overt forms of physical assault. Instead, she uses her crowd pleasing advantages to psychologically and emotionally harass those she deems ‘beneath’ her. Likewise, she may target a peer who she views as competition.
An example of this type of envy-driven bullying occurred throughout my client Julia’s early childhood and adolescence. An accomplished contemporary dancer, Julia was on the receiving end of competitive rancor by her ‘best friend’ Camille. She was besieged by backstabbing, ridicule and ruthless efforts to sabotage her in dance classes and on stage. By spreading rumors and vicious lies Camille set out with her posse of mean girls, to ostracize Julia and deflate her self esteem. Camille went so far as to enact blatant gaslighting techniques, such as pilfering Julia’s possessions and instilling that Julia was incessantly losing things.
Although there was no physical violence the emotional and psychological weapons Camille and her arsenal of enablers used, deeply wounded Julia and impacted her ability to trust and embrace her gifts. Tactics such as gossiping, spreading rumors, backstabbing, and seemingly harmless pranks are exemplary of female aggression. The term for this sort of calculated cruelty is ambient abuse.
By fostering a dependency that creates a power differential, this sort of female bully implies she possesses great gifts and insight, which will assist the targeted victim in her growth and well-being. She ostensibly only wants the best for the target and behaves altruistically, concealing the underlying motive to get the upper hand. Her appearance of benevolence, honesty and generosity is seductive and disorients the target. This assists in ensuring the necessary leverage needed to ‘manage’ the target and diminish her self worth.
Photo by Andrey Zvyagintsev on Unsplash
Indeed, once the target guilelessly latches on, the bullying commences and intensifies. When conflict emerges, it’s an opportunity for the female bully to deny wrongdoing and assign responsibility for the alleged infraction to the target. Seemingly well-intentioned, she may ‘selflessly’ point out how the flaws and shortcomings in the target are responsible for instigating the dispute. This circuitous dance of covertly and systematically tearing down the victim feeds the bully’s sadistic need for power and control. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/female-bullies-89750ad048f1 | ['Rev. Sheri Heller'] | 2020-12-18 15:45:14.256000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Bullying', 'Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health'] |
Why I Chose to Rapid Release my New Series | Decisions to Rapid Release a Serial
Why I’ve chosen to launch my new 10-book series over six months
Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash
I think most people in the writing community are somewhat familiar with the idea of serialized fiction — the release of a story in sequential installments. As you can see from this MasterClass article about writing serialized stories, it’s not about just releasing a book in chapter installments (a common theme on Wattpad). Each serial is a contained story with some type of connected narrative. That means there is a beginning, middle, and end that lives separately but also is part of a larger collection of stories.
This also happens to be the format that I have chosen to apply to my new book series. I discovered that my story had three narrators with extremely important impacts on my story. While I could have elongated my book and switched perspectives throughout, I came across the idea of serialized fiction and realized my story fit perfectly into the category.
Each of my ten stories will follow one of three narrators, each of them telling a critical piece of the overall story. The individual books contain a beginning, middle, and end with an adventure that is specific to the book but also contributes to the overall story.
Over the next several weeks, I have dedicated my time to running a case study against my own work and sharing my discoveries with you, especially because I have decided to rapid release this series. Between September 22 and March of next year, I have planned out my ten book serialized fiction.
Today, I’ll discuss the decisions I made to help me land on a rapid released serial.
The serial model fit my story
As mentioned above, the serial format fit the plot of my story. There were multiple characters who had a stake in the narration and each of them deserved their own focus. They all have individual stories that impact the overall plot of the tale. What could have turned into a +200K word book now became 10 different books.
It also allowed me to give each character their own platform. Instead of switching perspectives in the middle of a book, I stick with a single character and focus on their impact. Some stories overlap because each character is in a different location at one point in time or because there is a small crossover before they continue on to their own story. It helps orient the reader between each book, get a feel for where this character is and where it fits on the timeline of stories, and then plunges the reader into a new adventure. When they reach the end, they are given a nudge to the next book with plot hints from the characters as to what might happen next.
Taking advantage of momentum
I came prepared with the entire serial plotted out, but many people writing serialized fiction don’t do this. Because I write in the fantasy genre (technically, this is categorized as high fantasy because I created a new world, but that makes me feel snooty), I know that I like to have everything planned out before I start writing. It just helps me not mess up any magic systems or break my world.
For me, there’s nothing more exciting or rewarding than reaching the end of a novel… and then starting another. Serialized fiction allows me to get both of those highs in one breath. I know that the end of book one opens up my freedom to start writing book two. I can keep my world straight, get excited about how I’ll explain the events of the previous book, and launch into a new adventure with a different character.
Planning this as a serial also forces me to sit in front of my keyboard and write. While I have good self-motivation, it’s always nice to have a reason to return to my manuscript. I have preorder dates to hit and a story that I enjoy. It’s always fun to get back to writing.
My life and writing style fits
While I’ve had this book idea in my head for a long time, the serialized fiction and rapid release schedule was never really in the cards until now. I started building the idea when I was still in grad school and then following when I was working full time. Now that I write full time (and self publish), I have the freedom to pursue the ideas and book styles I want. Here’s a preview of my schedule as a writer.
I can churn out about 3K words of fiction on a “bad” writing day, which still allows me to package and write each story in about two weeks. That doesn’t include edits or formatting, but I also write to where I minimize edits because I can take my time making things “look pretty” the first time around. I have the ideas and momentum, plus I’ve made friends with my inner critic. Now, she sits next to me and helps me write instead of making my fingers freeze.
I had an epic plot that could have been a less impactful standalone
I love standalone stories, and I have one already, but something about writing this story as a single piece (from one perspective or a confusing three perspectives mixed into one) really bummed me out. I felt like there was so much more I could do within the world I created. Plus, it took me forever to create the magic, gods, and world system. Why the hell would I “waste” it on a standalone book that felt flat?
Instead, I discovered that there were a ton of different subplots that I could turn into epic and contained stories. It would not only highlight different characters, it would allow them to grow more drastically during the period of ten books.
As an indie, I’m still trying to make a name
When I release the first book tomorrow (September 22), that will be my tenth title total (say that five times fast). It’s the sixth fiction title under my name (I have a nonfiction and three stories under a pen name). I tested the strategy with 0 audience under my pen name and now I have a bigger audience under my real name. Here are a few benefits I found while practicing without consequence.
But I’m also not a famous author. I don’t have book deals with big publishers. I just write my books and do the work myself. I proudly call myself an authorpreneur.
Still, I need to make a name for myself. With one series under my belt, my goal is to grow my audience and deliver awesome fantasy stories for people to escape with. To help my case, having multiple series and a good backlog of work not only signals readers that I’m a consistent publisher, I’m also telling Amazon algorithms that I’m relevant. I update my backlog and I continue to write. I’m thankful for their resources and I’m going to take advantage of their cheap self-publishing platform like it might disappear tomorrow. | https://medium.com/the-winter-writer/decisions-to-rapid-release-a-serial-bc2c78dd3ba0 | ['Laura Winter'] | 2020-09-21 10:07:30.694000+00:00 | ['Series', 'Fiction Writing', 'Books', 'Fiction', 'Writing'] |
10+ Free & Premium React Website Templates for Stunning App-Based Projects | Building a usable UI for the admin area of your site can be challenging. There are plenty of parts and elements that you want to make good-looking and way more usable. At times, you need to enhance the elements and functional solutions of your designs, thus making your projects pixel-perfect everywhere. This is when React website templates come into play.
The web offers a wide choice of premium and free React JS one-page website templates. You can also make use of a range of HTML5 and CSS3 website templates based on fully responsive designs.
All of such solutions are fully customizable and ready to be modified using built-in elements and color choices. In the list of Rect website templates featured in this article, you can find a selection of themes apt for many topic-specific projects.
The fully responsive designs of the templates look good on all devices and screen resolutions. All of them come loaded with the essential components needed to build your own app-based web project or application seamlessly.
Letslaunch — Responsive Multipurpose HTML5 Website Template
Details
By means of the Letslaunch website template, you can create a functional remarkable website for any personal or business project. There are 125+ design pages available alongside with 250+ reusable UI blocks and 30+ demos. The theme can be a perfect fit for photographers and designers. It also supports eCommerce functionality, making it easy to launch a web store with 9+ shop styles.
Material Kit React — Free Material-UI Kit
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Material Kit is one of the most impressive react website templates featuring material UI design. It makes use of light, color, and movement. The fully responsive design of the theme makes your web project look stunning on all devices. Material Kit React template will also work well for the launch of app-based web projects. Adjust it to your liking, using material UI effects, animations, ripples, and transitions.
Reliance HTML template
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Reliance theme is the ultimate choice to get started with charity and donations web projects. There are 25+ ready-made HTML5 pages available in the theme’s download pack. You can bring a more impressive showcase to your site’s pages by means of the remarkable CSS3 animation effects. The parallax scrolling animation can add a sense of depth to your site’s pages.
Paper Kit React — Free Bootstrap 4 And Reactstrap UI Kit
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Paper Kit React JS one-page website template is available for free download. The template is created in soft pastel colors. A fully editable layout structure lets you choose from dark and light color versions. This is a free Bootstrap 4 template that is intended to look good on any device. The template includes a set of premade pages that you can adjust for a landing page, profile page, and register element.
Moreno | Multipurpose HMTL Website Template
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Moreno website template is apt for photography and design-related projects. It is completely Bootstrap-based. Using this multi-purpose HTML 5 theme, you get a functional and flexible web solution that is easy to use and modify. The download package has clean, elegant, and modern pages. The responsive design of the theme includes 20 web-ready stunning colors and cool animation effects.
Material Kit PRO React Premium Material-UI Kit
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Material Kit pro is an example of premium react website templates featuring 1000+ components to give you the complete freedom of it customization. The theme contains multiple color choices, which you can modify using SASS and JSX files. Every item of this React website template comes in 2 forms — PSD element and HTML/ReactJS/CSS/JSS implementation. Similar to other react JS one page website templates, all components of this item come in separate layers organized in handy folders.
Eventes — Event Conference HTML5 Website Template
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Eventes HTML template is a perfect choice for websites promoting conferences and public events. The theme features material UI components that make it look trendy and visually stunning. Fully responsive design of the theme is ready to be adjusted to match a range of topic-specific online projects, including Business meetings, Seminars, Conferences, Meetups, etc. The theme’s download package includes 3 ready-to-go homepage layouts. It features remarkable animation effects and a set of 360+ icons.
NextJS Material Kit Free NEXTJS Material-UI Kit
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NextJS React JS website template free theme comes next on this list. The material UI kit of the template features bright and fresh colors that are well-suited for the launch of usable and visually stunning online resources. The theme provides you with the complete freedom of its layout modification. There are 100 individual frontend elements that have multiple states for colors, styles, hover, focus, etc.
Goldenframe — Wedding Website Template
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Making use of the Goldenframe website template, you can create an elegant and remarkable website for your wedding project. There are 4 premade homepage demos included in the theme’s download pack. It comes loaded with a set of smart UI components that can match any type of wedding event project. The fully responsive design of this Bootstrap 4 template is created with valid HTML5 and CSS3 practices.
Now UI Kit PRO React Premium Bootstrap 4 And Reactstrap UI Kit
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Now UI Kit PRO is one of premium react website templates featuring fully responsive designs. It contains 1000 components, 34 sections, and 11 example pages. This is one of the most popular react JS one-page website templates available in PSD and Sketch formats. It makes use of bold colors, stunning typography, clear photography, and spacious arrangements.
Bitrix — Startup Agency and SasS Business Website Template
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Bitrix is a completely Bootstrap HTML and CSS template. It’s ready to be used for the launch of a startup or a fully-fledged landing page website. It includes a set of 3 ready-to-go live demo versions, which you can import to your site with a click. The theme looks clean and modern. It has an eye-catching design that is enhanced with a bunch of color schemes that are easy to handle by expert and beginner web designers.
Paper Kit Pro React — Premium Bootstrap 4 And Reactstrap UI Kit
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Here is one of those premium-quality react website templates are adjusted to run smoothly on all devices. It comes loaded with 100 handcrafted elements that let you create a truly amazing website. The UI Kit is created in pastel colors. It’s fully coded and based on the premium Bootstrap 4.
Kroma | Creative Multipurpose Website Template
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Kroma is a creative HTML5 template that is intended to let you build remarkable user interfaces. This is one of those stunning premade website templates that are apt for creative online projects, consultancies, and agencies. The theme has a set of well-organized high-quality HTML5 files that are ready to be adjusted in a way that matches your web project to the fullest.
Now UI Kit React — Free Bootstrap 4 And Reactstrap UI Kit
Details
Now UI Kit React JS website template free version features a fully responsive design. The download package of the template includes over 50 handy elements and 3 templates that you can use on your site. Now UI Kit is one of the most popular react website templates available in PSD and Sketch formats. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/10-free-premium-react-website-templates-for-stunning-app-based-projects-b57b69c2084 | ['Lana Miro'] | 2020-07-19 06:42:32.991000+00:00 | ['Reactjs', 'Website Templates', 'Website Design', 'React', 'Design'] |
Scientists want to use dirty nappies as a source of raw materials | Scientists want to use dirty nappies as a source of raw materials
Reusable menstrual pants are also helping reduce sanitary waste.
by Aisling Irwin
Thousands of soiled nappies that were destined to clog Italian landfill sites or incinerators are being redirected to a recycling plant that is turning them into streams of high quality raw materials, in a new process that it is hoped will be replicated around Europe.
Every day, new parents find themselves sucked into the environmentally controversial disposable nappy cycle. Tens of billions of these clusters of plastic, plant matter and human waste are thrown away globally each year, most of them incinerated or sent to landfill where they take centuries to decay.
Yet buried in each used nappy are hidden treasures, according to Marcello Somma, who is head of research and development at Fater, an Italian joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Angelini Group.
Fater has developed what it claims is the first industrial-scale process that can extract these valuable materials, and it is already up and running in Treviso, Italy. Now, as part of a project called EMBRACED, it is building a biorefinery next door to make best use of these recycled substances.
‘When you change a nappy you wrap it onto itself and so basically you have a kind of bomb of four waste types intimately linked with each other.’ - Marcello Somma, Head of Research and Development, Fater
Technical minds have been trying to recycle nappies since 1992, says Somma, but it has proved to be a ball of trouble.
‘When you change a nappy you wrap it onto itself and so basically you have a kind of bomb of four waste types intimately linked with each other,’ says Somma. ‘There is plastic waste — polyethylene and polypropylene, paper waste — because there is cellulose, a super-absorbent polymer and the organic fraction — the human contribution.’
Fater, which has been trying to recycle disposable nappies for a decade, has found the trickiest stage is at the start: opening it.
Conventional approaches such as high temperatures and pressures only make it collapse on itself, Somma says.
But, ten years and 108 patents later, Fater has found a way to relax the nappy so it opens up and can be sterilised and dried, ultimately yielding its constituent parts. The plant also processes incontinence and sanitary pads and tampons.
Higher quality
The plastic stream that emerges is of a higher quality than much recycled plastic on the market, created as it was ‘to be extremely thin, be elastic and be compatible with the most delicate skin,’ said Somma.
Another reason for the quality is that collected nappies are generally uncontaminated with other waste — a problem that plagues the plastics recycling industry.
This is because in parts of Italy nappies are collected separately and ‘the nappy bin is much purer and more homogeneous in composition than the average waste bin’.
As a result, while the recycled nappy plastic is currently used to make bottle tops and coat hangers, the group is hoping to develop markets for more demanding applications such as blow moulding, and injection moulding to make objects such as display materials, pallets and, in a further nod to the circular economy, used nappy bins.
If just half of the 14 million babies under two in the EU use an average of 5 nappies a day, the line of folded and used nappies would measure over 3,200 km. Image credit — Horizon
It is with an eye to making better use of the other waste streams that EMBRACED has begun. The partners on the project — drawn from all stages of the process — want the biorefinery to extract nutrients from the faeces and urine in the waste water, for example, which could be used for fertiliser.
But the prize will be harnessing the cellulose. Originally designed to snuggle near a baby’s bottom, it is high quality, soft and free from the lignin that is a challenge for other biorefineries trying to make use of cellulose waste streams from sources such as wood pulp.
As a bonus, the cellulose emerging from the recycling plant turns out to be more yielding even than virgin cellulose to the fate that awaits it. For example, the recycling process renders it more vulnerable to enzymes that break it down into glucose ready for fermentation into ethanol.
The project is investigating two schemes: turning the cellulose into a feedstock for the manufacture of biodegradable polymers that could ultimately be used to package some of Fater’s products, and making biostimulants, part of the new generation of more environmentally friendly fertilisers.
It will produce the latter through a two-stage process. First the cellulose will be heated to a high temperature without oxygen so that it breaks down into simple gases such as hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Then, this so-called syngas is fed to bacteria for metabolising into bioplastics for medical devices, with the deactivated bugs destined for biofertiliser.
If things go well, an industrial scale biorefinery will be built in Amsterdam by 2020.
But could Fater ever achieve the crowning goal of the circular economy — turning the materials into new nappies?
‘That’s my dream, we are not yet there yet, though,’ said Somma.
Given these efforts, wouldn’t it be greener to switch to reusables instead? This is the vision of a cooperative called Femmefleur, at least when it comes to menstrual products. The small team, made up of two architects, a graphic designer and a linguist, were frustrated at the environmental toll caused by the 1 million tonnes of pads and tampons discarded in Europe each year.
Frustrated at the 1 million tonnes of pads and tampons that get discarded every year, cooperative Femmefleur created a line of reusable menstrual wear. Image credit — Cocoro
The team felt the answer lay in making ordinary underwear more absorbent. The result? Menstrual pants. Thanks to a project called COCORO, they were able to hone their product into fashionable-looking lingerie that ticks all the boxes: absorbent, breathable and washable.
Attract
The absorbent part consists of layered cotton and polyester materials, treated with an ‘innovative technology’ that causes the bottom layer to repel moisture and the top layer to attract it.
‘The layer that’s in touch with the body is cotton, which is the tissue that gynaecologists recommend,’ said co-director Clara Guasch.
The team also used their funding, which finished in 2017, to conduct a feasibility study and make a business plan. FemmeFleur crowdfunded its marketing stage, raising €170,000 (eight times its original goal) from women prepared to pay for the product upfront.
‘We were really taken aback … we could see that there was a big interest and that was the beginning of the marketing,’ said Guasch.
Femmefleur has faced many challenges, including the burden of introducing the public to what for many is a new product, not just a new brand.
‘I believe that when the product category is better-known it will be easier,’ said Guasch. ‘We thought we would have to deal with more reluctance but women are interested. First they imagine some horrible thing but then when they see it, it generally has great acceptance.’
The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.
See also
More info
EMBRACED
COCORO | https://medium.com/horizon-magazine/scientists-want-to-use-dirty-nappies-as-a-source-of-raw-materials-8fca6435337c | [] | 2018-10-08 10:01:27+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Research', 'Sustainability', 'Oct18', 'Circulareconomy'] |
How My Small Start on Medium Turned into a Large Success… | Photo by Kalea Jerielle on Unsplash
How My Small Start on Medium Turned into a Large Success…
And got turned back into a very small start again.
Three years ago this coming March, I started writing for Medium.
I wrote my butt off. I’m a prize-winning author and journalist. I learned the system, figured shit out, and produced.
AND I worked diligently to tag, include, highlight, engage fellow Medium writers. I was a HUGE fan of the platform. Threw my heart and soul into it. Got published in the bigger pubs, curated often (remember that? hahahahaha) and expanded my reach.
By January of this year I was up to 82, 971 views per month. Earning $2595.27 for that month. And growing.
Not too shabby.
I continued to produce my ass off, thinking, foolishly, that…
a) this would continue and even more stupidly,
b) I could count on this.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Well SILLY ME.
I am up to — on my profile at least — 7.4K followers.
Except that with all the meddling and fiddling that Medium did this year, two things happened:
a) they disappeared nearly all my followers, but didn’t bother to inform me or anyone else who had the same thing happen as to why, no matter how many times you and I write and ask- with perfectly good justification- WTF?
b) I am now getting these happy dappy emails informing me that I am UP to 7435 followers. What happened to the other 95%? And yes, this is system wide. Ask around. I did. I am not alone.
Do I need to tell you what happened to my earnings? Please.
And this during a year where all my other work died, as I am a travel blogger, and so did my classroom training. Zero income from that, therefore Medium was far more important. Again, I am hardly alone.
But wait, there’s more. This is the VERY BEST PART.
Several times this year my earnings plummeted. I worked my ass off to bring them back up. By August I was back up to 48k views. And I earned $1647.95.
Christ that was a long slog back up the mountain. But WAIT!
Apparently Medium cannot bear to allow their hardest working writers to earn real money. Because all of a sudden, over the course of just a few weeks, my earnings plummeted again and so did my views.
Nothing I did differently. Other than keep right on writing. Oh. I did send a few rather curtly worded emails to Arthur, one of Your Friends at Medium, who doesn’t respond any more.
Nobody does if you ask the hard questions.
My readers (those who are determined enough to track me down again, which is no longer very easy, based on what they tell me) complain:
Your stuff doesn’t show up any more The follow button refuses to work And by the way, apparently mine doesn’t either because the folks I follow and like best, hell, what happened? Did they head off to Disney World and get lost in the Haunted House? Because even if I tag them, I don’t hear from them. And finally, they are sick and tired of the mediocrity of the writing, the insulting quality of the material that is being pushed at them that they didn’t sign up for. Hey, I didn’t say it, they did. And, here’s a surprise: THEY ARE LEAVING MEDIUM.
Here’s one comment:
I’m leaving Medium, enjoyed your writing, thank you. I might check back in six months and see if the site has improved. Right now it’s just a crowded field of mediocrity and too hard to find you and a few other good writers I wanted to read. You are special but right now Medium isn’t.
Have I communicated all this to Your Friends at Medium (YFM)? Of course I did. I sent articles and comments and other people’s stuff all pointing to the same thing. All. Year. Long.
Crickets.
Look. I’m military. When the whole unit is doing well, we all do well. But what do I know? I’m just a Fortune 100 consultant not working full time in the big leagues any more. By choice. Because I thought I could make this work (yes, of course I am working on an email list.) And, I switched careers years ago.
To one one of the things I do really well: write. Prolifically.
So. All you happy-dappy enthusiasts and newbies who tell us how to write for Medium (and I am addressing YOU, who had a grammatical typo in your title, and whose writing was so execrable I was in tears by the third paragraph, but your story got promoted) I would offer that you might want to practice a little caveat emptor.
For those thousands of readers who joined at least in part to read my shit, Medium gets to keep their money.
How curious then, those same readers don’t seem to be able to read my stuff regularly, which they paid to read. Yah. Funny thing about that.
Hey. Just saying. Far be it for me to posit an obvious question.
So there you have it. I am back in the minor leagues, forced to play small again, after working my aging ass off to develop a following, only to have it gutted by the gods that be at Medium, Multiple times. Our Friends at Medium, as it were.
And folks wonder why so many of us are so actively seeking out other options. I am tired to death of this kind of ripoff of talent for profit.
A great writer, Dr. S, whose work occasionally shows up here and whom I am proud to call my pen pal, said this when I told him what happened with Medium this year, a year when all of us so desperately needed the funds that we had the right to be paid:
I’m stunned that you were making that much from Medium. And less stunned that they found a way to screw the writers.
Yep. Write in, they will tell you OH it’s a bug.
Yes, folks. And I’m a dung beetle.
While it is obvious that I am on occasion full of shit, in this case I am exhausted trying to push my shit uphill in a Sysyphean attempt to actually earn real money on this platform.
I genuinely care about my readers, and I genuinely care(d) about the success of this platform. Until, well, until this year.
Because what used to be that Shining City on a Hill, called Medium, has devolved into Mediocre, with thousands of folks writing articles about how to make thousands on Medium, while Medium apparently spends its days ignoring its writers’ questions and finding new ways to monetize us for the shareholders.
But hey. What do I know? I’m a dung beetle. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/how-my-small-start-on-medium-turned-into-a-large-success-b993acaf7df2 | ['Julia E Hubbel'] | 2020-12-24 06:06:27.188000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Success', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Medium', 'Writing Tips'] |
Embracing My Ego | As if waking from a night’s slumber, my youth passes like the hours gone by. I reach for memories, but they slip away like hazy dreams that cannot be rewound. With each day that I grow older, that which is inevitable looms uncomfortably closer.
The body which seemed emaciated in high school now struggles to keep weight off. Friendships which seemed would last forever fade without much struggle. And each year, my parents will ask that dreaded question: “When will you get married?”
It is, as they say, a rite of passage. Each season in life contains milestones for normal people to achieve, like owning a house or raising children. I understand their concern — it sometimes does pain me to see those younger than me getting married, as if I had missed the boarding of a train. But in my heart, I yearn for more because I know there is.
Memento Mori
‘W hy do we wait?’” Ivan Ivanich glanced angrily at Bourkin. “Why do we wait, I ask you? What considerations keep us fast? I am told that we cannot have everything at once, and that every idea is realised in time. But who says so? Where is the proof that it is so? You refer me to the natural order of things, to the law of cause and effect, but is there order or natural law in that I, a living, thinking creature, should stand by a ditch until it fills up, or is narrowed, when I could jump it or throw a bridge over it? Tell me, I say, why should we wait? Wait, when we have no strength to live, and yet must live and are full of the desire to live! — Anton Chekhov, “Gooseberries”
All men must die, and we often don’t get to choose how. Yet Chekhov’s story reminds us that there is as much regret that comes from a long life unfulfilled as a life cut unfairly short.
While marriage, children, and home ownership are nice things to many people, at this point in life I see them as an anchor pulling me underwater. Marriage and children are often not the ends, but a means to a purposeful life. The question of the purpose of our existence is often a daunting one when looking only at ourselves, and so we being social animals tend look to other people for meaning and driving force in life. “Be fruitful and multiply”, as scripture prescribes.
But are people really happy in their fruitfulness? At times I see family life as an insatiable beast — the more it grows, the more it must consume. Each of these milestones seem to require us to spin our wheels harder and faster in order to keep up with the increasing obligations of mortgages, tuition, etc. I see my parents and their friends working hard and denying themselves their whole lives just to sustain their families, waiting for their rest at retirement. As Ivan Ivanich lamented, we often wait to live life until we’ve lost the ability to really savor it.
Is it so wrong for me to conclude, then, that these milestones are not the key to a life well-lived?
The Value of Ego
Others may argue that I take my selfishness too far — that I’m wrapped up in my own ego and ignoring our nature as societal animals. That word ‘ego’ seems to always be used with negative connotation, though the concept is essentially neutral. Sigmund Freud described the ‘ego’ as the sense of self which rules over the ‘id’, our primal impulses. The ‘superego’ is the internalization of cultural ideals which then shapes decisions made by our ego.
Without my ‘ego’, I would not be a ‘person’. Like a robot with only programmed objectives or an animal driven by the reptilian brain, a human with no ego would be ruled only by the compulsions of the id and the regulations of the superego. I sense that much of the spiritual crisis befalling our generation is due to a lack of ego rather than an overabundance. We are so ruled by external forces of superego that we rebel via indulging the id, as if the physical pleasures of eating, traveling, or sex could give birth to our ego.
Although others worry that I risk not living a complete life by not dating and marrying, I would argue the contrary — I cannot become wholly myself if I do not first find my sense of self. Without ego, we are no more than pack animals living out our biological imperatives.
Note that self-branding is not the same as self-actualization. Self branding is the materialization of our ego problem, in which we believe that our relationships and what people think of us create our identity. In the Instagram era, the online masses define virtue by the season.
We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us! We are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts that are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at the alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience; they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power — God, history, fate, nation, or humanity. — Bruce Lee
Family, career, and religion give us the excuse of responsibility to others to avoid responsibility to oneself.
Our Legacy
“We are not so much afraid of dying but that we won’t be remembered when we’re gone. The struggle was not to survive, but to let the world know we were here.” — Shiori Kitano, Battle Royale
Traditionally, men viewed their offspring as extensions of themselves and children derived their status from their fathers. The passing of genes is our way of leaving our mark on the world; as long as our bloodline continues, we live on though dead. But just as our selves do not only consist of our id, we have much more to pass on than the genes of our physical body. Our ego transmitted through word, art, and actions are our spiritual offspring which crystallize over time into the collective superego.
“The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.” — T.H. Huxley
Long before we amused ourselves with funny cat pictures, Richard Dawkins created the notion of a ‘meme’ as a unit cultural transmission much like a gene. Just as members of an ecology exert their will for survival, our thoughts have the desire to see the light of day, to be accepted and be spread. Not much of Socrates or Shakespeare exists in today’s gene pool, yet their mark on culture lives on robustly. If our subconscious desire is to reproduce ourselves, then it is our memes rather than our genes that allow us to live on after the grave.
In the face of death, what I fear most is not having found someone to love but to have never found myself. A path of solitude is not necessarily a dark one. | https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/embracing-my-ego-c569f1e8a9a1 | ['Kevin Huang'] | 2019-10-17 01:10:26.011000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Marriage', 'Self-awareness', 'Self Development', 'Philosophy'] |
Neural Network Machine Learning Algorithm From Scratch in Python | Neural Network Machine Learning Algorithm From Scratch in Python
Demystifying the so-called Black Box of Neural Network
Neural Network From Scratch in Python
Introduction:
Do you really think that a neural network is a block box? I believe, a neuron inside the human brain may be very complex, but a neuron in a neural network is certainly not that complex.
It does not matter, what software you are developing right now, if you are not getting up to speed on machine learning…you lose. We are going to an era where one software will create another software and perhaps automate itself.
In this article, we are going to discuss how to implement a neural network Machine Learning Algorithm from scratch in Python. This means we are not going to use deep learning libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, etc.
Note that this is one of the posts in the series Machine Learning from Scratch. You may like to read other similar posts like Gradient Descent From Scratch, Linear Regression from Scratch, Logistic Regression from Scratch, Decision Tree from Scratch.
You may like to watch a video version of this article for a more detailed explanation…
General Terms:
Let us first discuss a few statistical concepts used in this post.
Dot Product of Matrix: Dot product of two matrices is one of the most important operations in deep learning. In mathematics, the dot product is a mathematical operation that takes as input, two equal-length sequences of numbers, and outputs a single number.
Not all matrices are eligible for multiplication. To carry out the dot product of two matrices, The number of columns of the 1st matrix must equal the number of rows of the 2nd. Therefore, If we multiply an m×n matrix by an n×p matrix, then the result is an m×p matrix. Here the first dimension represents rows and the second dimension represents columns in a matrix. Note that the number of columns in the first matrix should be the same as the number of rows in the second matrix. This is represented by the letter n here.
Dot Product of Matrix
Sigmoid: A sigmoid function is an activation function. For any given input number n, the sigmoid function maps that number to output between 0 and 1.
When the value of n gets larger, the value of the output gets closer to 1 and when n gets smaller, the value of the output gets closer to 0.
Sigmoid Function
Sigmoid Function used in Machine Learning Classification
Sigmoid Derivative: the derivative of the sigmoid function, is the sigmoid multiplied by one minus the sigmoid.
The derivative of the Sigmoid Function
Implementation:
Import Libraries:
We are going to import NumPy and the pandas library.
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
Load Data:
We will be using pandas to load the CSV data to a pandas data frame.
df = pd.read_csv('Data.csv')
df.head()
Classification Data for Neural Network from Scratch
To proceed further we need to separate the features and labels.
x = df[['Glucose','BloodPressure']]
y = df['Diabetes']
After that let us define the sigmoid function.
def sigmoid(input):
output = 1 / (1 + np.exp(-input))
return output
There is one more function that we are going to use. It is related to sigmoid and called the sigmoid derivative function.
# Define the sigmoid derivative function
def sigmoid_derivative(input):
return sigmoid(input) * (1.0 - sigmoid(input))
Then we need to define the network training function as below.
def train_network(features,label,weights,bias,learning_rate,epochs): for epoch in range(epochs):
dot_prod = np.dot(features, weights) + bias
# using sigmoid
preds = sigmoid(dot_prod)
# Error
errors = preds - label
deriva_cost_funct = errors
deriva_preds = sigmoid_derivative(pred)
deriva_product = deriva_cost_funct * deriva_pred
#update the weights
weights = weights - np.dot(featurest, deriva_product) * learning_rate
loss = errors.sum()
print(loss)
for i in deriva_product:
bias = bias - i * learning_rate
After that let us initialize the required parameters
np.random.seed(10)
features = x
label = y.values.reshape(1000,1)
weights = np.random.rand(1,2)
bias = np.random.rand(1)
learning_rate = 0.0004
epochs = 100
We are ready to train the network now:
Training Neural Network from Scratch in Python
End Notes:
In this article, we discussed, how to implement a Neural Network model from scratch without using a deep learning library. However, if you will compare it with the implementations using the libraries, it will give nearly the same result.
The code is uploaded to Github here.
Happy Coding !! | https://medium.com/swlh/neural-network-from-scratch-in-python-fcd6faef9f35 | ['Dhiraj K'] | 2020-12-01 09:11:05.389000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Sigmoid'] |
VCU Imagineers Use Spore Stickers to Recycle Cardboard | Earth Hacks Recap
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university located in Richmond, Virginia and on Jan. 26–27, VCU Earth Hacks happened.
Experimental Civics was immediately on-board with being a sponsor, hosting a design thinking workshop during the event, and providing additional support and intros! Kudos to the whole team for running an amazing event!
Start of VCU Earth Hacks
I caught up with Sanjana Paul, one of the co-founders, to ask her why she has supported this event:
Sanjana Paul
“I started Earth Hacks when I noticed that the rate at which environmental problems are increasing is exponential and the rate at which solutions to these problems are progressing is linear. Having attended hackathons in the past, I know that during these events, rapid innovation takes place and projects that would normally take months to implement have working prototypes ready in 24 hours. Attending hackathons, I saw that the types of problems presented for participants to solve are often very limited in scope and don’t seem to address pressing needs. This led my team and I to realize that nobody has really applied the hackathon model of innovation to environmental problems, and we did so, creating Earth Hacks.”
Hackathon 2019 Themes
The 3 broad themes this year were:
Corporate Sustainability
2. Public Health, Biotechnology, and Medical Waste
3. Energy Efficiency
Here is a link to the DevPost for access to the 22 submitted projects!
Who Attended?
147 registered participants were at this year’s Earth Hacks.
12 different universities were represented, with the highest attendance numbers coming from VCU, George Mason University, and the University of Virginia.
Of the 125 participants who chose to respond to the question asking for their gender, 45 were female and 80 were male.
The breakdown of majors who attended Earth Hacks as shown in the image below:
The breakdown of year in college of those who attended Earth Hacks as shown in the image below: | https://medium.com/hackernoon/vcu-imagineers-use-spore-stickers-to-recycle-cardboard-earth-hacks-recap-623d1fa56b74 | ['Experimental Civics'] | 2019-02-11 21:28:50.573000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Sustainability', 'Technology', 'Hacking', 'Hackathons'] |
EVEROAD: Develop kindness & creativity in your company | Creating an atmosphere of kindness in the workplace is a smart and modern business approach that has been becoming more and more popular in France over the last few years. Statistics show overall company performance is better when kindness is spread around.
The old excuse of telling colleagues who ask for help that it is not your responsibility or your job is now seen as insensitive and selfish especially in the startup world. Opening your door to a coworker in need is now seen as the norm in present business models and overall company mentalities. No matter the level of the request, a kind response or even a smile often boosts creativity and enhances team spirit.
Company leaders often wonder how they can create a kinder more cohesive atmosphere in all their departments. Here is a fresh, fun idea of a game that we have recently played at Everoad which has been really successful so don’t hesitate to try it in your company.
“Gorilla & Peanuts”
Few weeks ago, during a tough work period linked to our high objectives at a really key period of our development, we were in need of a fresh and peps moment. As Office & Happiness Manager of Everoad, I suggested to all our teams that we play a fun mystery game called “Gorilla & Peanuts”. I wanted to empower one of your main values, which is “People first”. People will be the reason for our success, and it’s also the reason why Everoad started and lives every day.
The rules were simple: each one of us is a ‘Gorilla’ and has to randomly draw the name of a colleague who then becomes his ‘Peanut’ for the week. During the week the Gorilla had to take care of their Peanut with the aim of ensuring they had a nice week and work environment without being unmasked. At the end of the week, the Peanuts had to guess who had taken care of them all week and find out who was their Gorilla.
In the beginning, the game was received with mixed feelings. Some enjoyed the concept right away whereas others were shy or even sceptical about the purpose of the game or its effectiveness so they showed little interest in the idea.
It gave incredible motivation
However, when the first little mysteries started to surface, including pictures shared on our Slack of what the Peanuts received, it gave incredible motivation and energy to other Gorillas to be better than others and always more innovative. We then witnessed an amazing level of attention and intrigue between participants and the excitement and spirit of the game was on the rise.
Since images speak louder than words, let’s discover more about the game in pictures. Below we have an impressive selection amongst more than 60 pictures published on the display board in our office space
Kindness is Key
From chocolates and candy to breakfast treats with flowers and candles through to poems and short notes, people were getting more fond of their Gorillas with every new surprise and the curiosity was mounting.
You can make an impact at any level, anytime
Another of our values is “All owners” that we define as “You can make an impact at any level, anytime.” We demonstrated it during this week because on the contrary for the “forgotten Peanuts” (it even became a new channel on Slack), received presents and little notes from other volunteers of the company. It proves how human fit and compassion were strong!
Watching the smiles and hearing the laughs all week long, I have to say that I was really proud of the team! Almost everyone played the game and demonstrated a great level of creativity, generosity, and kindness.
It was a good life lesson that showed how thoughtfulness and compassion, when mixed with creativity, can produce so much joy and fun in taking care of each other. It was interesting to see that it become a phenomenon at Everoad because of the way it was presented and communicated. The impact was great!
Never underestimate teamwork!
Finally to conclude, this little game taught us different key things: first, we underestimated how kindness and taking care of each other has a positive impact on the wellness of people, we should all think about it carefully and keep it in mind every single day. We have also realized how it is nice to give free rein to one’s imagination and creativity. And finally, it has raised awareness of how energy spreads and is contagious when highlighted. This was the most impressive impact and we learned how much we should communicate on what we do to motivate people to do their maximum and give everything.
As our CEO said at the end of the week: | https://medium.com/everoad/everoad-develop-kindness-creativity-in-your-company-4fdfa5971214 | ['Laura Corcos'] | 2019-07-03 15:59:18.370000+00:00 | ['Company Culture', 'Happiness', 'Kindness', 'Creativity', 'Startup'] |
PARANOID TRANSFORMER | Today starts NaNoGenMo, the annual challenge for automatic text generation. To participate you have to write and publish a code that generates a literary text at least 50K words long. I have not yet decided whether I will participate this year, but last year I took part, and now I will tell you what came of it, just to close the gestalt.
A year ago I made and submitted a combination of two neural networks: the first is a conditional GPT generator, pre-trained on a bunch of cyberpunk and cypherpunk texts, aphorisms, and complex authors like Kafka and Rumi. The second is a BERT filter, which rejects boring and clumsy phrases and keeps valid and shiny ones. I trained this filter on a manual markup, the main part of which was done by Ivan Yamshchikov. In the end, it turned out as a pretty good generator of cyber-paranoid delusions in English. I named it Paranoid Transformer if you understand.
NaNoGenMo ended quietly, but in mid-December, Augusto Corvalan, editor-in-chief of the strange DEAD ALIVE magazine, wrote and invited me to participate with the same project in their competition THE NEW SIGHT. I decided it’s boring to use the same thing twice, and added the following twist: I took an existing recurrent neural network trained for generating handwritten text, made the “nervousness” of the handwriting to depend on the emotionality of a particular sentence (determined by sentiment analysis) and “hand-wrote” the whole text of Paranoid Transformer. It turned out quite atmospheric so that at the end of January I even took first place according to the results of that competition.
In February, as the winner of the competition, I was offered to publish this text. Again I decided that it was not very interesting to re-use the same project without changes, so I added a few more things: I made the generation of dates for the sections, as in a real diary, added round coffee mug marks here and there; Dmitry Kuznetsov suggested an idea for drawings in the margins, and I used something like a Sketch-RNN, pre-trained on the Google’s Quick, Draw! dataset, so that every time a word from the dataset categories appeared in the text, scribbles appeared in the margins, corresponding to this word. The publishers read the entire generated text (sic!) and sent me a list of potentially offensive statements (a lot!). I decided it’s too lame to just delete them, and instead made a heuristic that aggressively crosses out such areas right in the text, which added some emotion.
In the meantime, Ivan Yamshchikov and Yana Agafonova helped me write the text of the gonzo paper “Paranoid Transformer: Reading Narrative of Madness as Computational Approach to Creativity”, which in September got to the International Conference on Computational Creativity 2020, and just a week ago its expanded version published in the Future Internet magazine.
At the stage of searching for authors for the preface and foreword to the book, I had a hard time. Borislav Kozlovsky gave me a spontaneous master class on writing “cold” requests to unfamiliar celebrities so that they at least answer the letter, so I asked a review from a couple of the most relevant to this project and indeed important for me people: Luba Elliott, a producer of creative AI projects, co-organizer of NeurIPS Creativity Workshop, and Nick Montfort, a poet and professor of digital media at MIT and the known narrative and interactive fiction enthusiast. Their reviews completed the book. The cover with the generative pattern was made by Augusto Corvalan.
The Paranoid Transformer book itself is now available for pre-order on the publisher’s website, the shipping is promised in December, however, I personally do not bear any responsibility for the sale of the book, also, please note, delivery can take quite a lot of time especially during the quarantine period. Judging by the signal copy that I have in my hands, the book turned out to be quite solid, see several photos and pictures from it below: | https://medium.com/altsoph/paranoid-transformer-80a960ddc90a | ['Aleksey Tikhonov'] | 2020-11-01 12:19:21.771000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'AI', 'Neural Networks', 'Creativity', 'Art'] |
What’s the Difference between a Computer Scientist & a Coder? | Legend has it that computer science started off as a mathematics subject. Mechanical inventions and mathematical theories paved the way for computer concepts and systems.
The early history of computer science boasts of names such as Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and of course, Alan Turing. It might surprise you to learn then, that the term computer science did not actually appear on the scene till the 1950s.
But, since when has anything related to the world of computer science ever been easy? Even though universities across the world created departments solely for the pursuit of computer science — people were still arguing among themselves about what the term ‘computer science’ actually meant.
Then came the debate over software engineering and computer science, which further complicated the issue. And, unfortunately for us, the debate continues to this day.
But, that’s exactly why, asking what being a computer scientist entails, is kind of like trying to figure out what Elon Musk truly does for a living. Everyone thinks they know exactly what it is, but no two people will ever give you the same answer.
Nevertheless, I’m going to boldly venture where a bunch of people have gone before, and give you my take on what it means to be a computer scientist. So, let’s make like the Starship Enterprise and get on with it.
Problem Solving vs Language Proficiency
Being a computer scientist is more than just dealing with computers and programs. Computer scientists tackle real-world problems and figure out if these can be solved computationally.
They’re involved in developing techniques to make computing data more economical, they create and work with languages to find solutions, and they’re involved in building and designing computer systems that offer multiple services across a wide range of applications.
Think of computer scientists as wizards that can blend mathematical concepts with technology and build systems that can produce viable data. I suppose we could describe them as individuals who can create sense out of chaos.
That’s why when others say being a computer scientist is all about being proficient in programming languages — I disagree. Picasso said, ‘Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.’
Likewise, you can describe a computer scientist as an artist who can come with different styles of paintings based on the type of tool they use. Whoever heard an artist limiting himself to a single paintbrush?
Being a computer scientist is unlike being a coder. You don’t have to be bound to a particular language — rather at its core, being a computer scientist, is about being a problem solver.
Why Perspective Always Matters
As I said earlier, there’s a vast difference between how coders and computer scientists operate. I’m not down-playing the role of coders because they have their own distinct place in the world of computer science. In fact, both computer scientists and coders help drive the wheel of technology forward.
The difference between the two is a matter of outlook. Any artist worth his salt will tell you that what you create depends on your perspective. That’s why two people looking at the same still life can create compositions that look nothing alike — because one of them is standing too close to the object, while the other is standing at a distance.
The computer scientists of this world tend to look at the bigger picture. They face challenges that are bigger in scale and complexity, and they’re not picky about the tools they can use to reach viable solutions.
On the other hand, coders with their knowledge of a singular language or category of technology are more like specialists. They’re extremely skilled but will perform better on whatever expertise they’ve amassed. Some coders excel as Java developers, while others are MySQL developers.
Taking the art analogy further, a coder can be described as an artist who’s an expert who’s used to a very specific medium of art, or is devoted to a particular art movement. A computer scientist, on the contrary, would be the kind of artist who dabbles in all types of mediums and styles, and is more devoted to getting his vision across to the audience, rather than following the rigors of any one type of movement.
Sure, there’s a bit of overlap in what coders and scientists do, but it’s their perspective of things that sets them apart.
Scale and Complexity Make A Difference
Now that we’ve discussed why perspective matters in all walks of life, let’s move on to the concepts of complexity and scale.
Picture an electrician working on wiring a lamp, as opposed to one working on a grid that’ll eventually supply power to an entire city. If you ask them what they do for a living, their answers will be similar, they’re an electrician. However, the truth is there’s a world of a difference in how their jobs differ in terms of scale and complexity.
Likewise, compare an online website that promotes the goods and services of a small family-owned business to a company like Amazon. Both online businesses are involved in catering to online consumers and retail goods, but Amazon deals with 4000 transactions per minute.
The point of telling you all this is that certain things may share similarities in the real world, be it a job title or company purpose, but in the digital world, they’re eons apart based on operations and size.
But, what the heck does that have to do with being a computer scientist? Based on the scale and complexity of their work, a computer scientist is kind of like the Amazon of the digital world. They’re the people who’re more likely to be working on the proverbial power grid, rather than the lamp.
Being a computer scientist means you have to assess an issue or challenge from all sides and have all your bases covered. It’s invention, understanding, empirical experimentation, and many other things all rolled into one. The point is — a computer scientist is more involved in dealing with complex challenges or tackling issues that need resolutions.
So, do you need a Coder or a Computer Scientist?
Working in a recruiting firm has its set of advantages — one of which is being able to ask what industry leaders and firms are looking for in their ideal computer scientist candidate.
Most are on the lookout for people who’re more interested in solving problems rather than being focused on coding. As a scientist, you’re mostly judged by your ability to understand the problem of the business requirement, and whether or not you’re asking the right questions.
It’ll be surprising to know how much the questions you ask let on about your personality and depth of knowledge. If you’re hung up on a particular type of language or technology, then you’re not open to other avenues of advancement.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it’ll seem like you’re a coder that’s very fixated on a specific set of skills, tools, and technologies that you’re comfortable using. But, if someone’s looking to hire personnel that can fit under the heading of ‘fungible’ then you’re probably not gonna make their top candidate.
Think about it — if as a coder you’re somewhat taken with Scala as your language of choice, but the company’s looking for a recruit that’s more focused on solving problems for business requirements, then you’re gonna be the round peg trying out for the square hole.
Not to mention, challenging the limits of any problem is something else people tend to take into consideration when hiring a scientist.This is where understanding edge cases becomes crucial.
In programming, an edge case (or a corner test) is a situation where the values require scrutinization, or more simply, it involves testing the boundary conditions of an algorithm or function, etc. You need to know the boundary of any algorithm, method, or function of any software you present before you can be sure that it works on both ends of the magnitude spectrum.
A computer scientist needs to have the basics of working within the problem space down pat. The problem space is where all the elements of problem-solving converge to create a solution. So the question you should ask yourself is — do you understand the key aspects of algorithms, design, architecture, etc. in the digital world?
In a nutshell, people are looking for scientists that are interested in challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries of invention and transformation. As Steve Jobs said — Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/whats-the-difference-between-a-computer-scientist-a-coder-e59f5c458d6 | ['Shane Shown'] | 2020-06-12 01:01:01.016000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Software Development', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Interview', 'Software Engineering'] |
People for People, City for City | People for People, City for City
A “dugnad” for local businesses in Norwegian cities.
dugnad subst. m
voluntary (community) work, bee (am.), collective voluntary effort
Health professionals across the globe are saving humanity these days. Let’s save society as well.
These are strange times.
Norway, as we know it, has basically been shut down. Our nation has new heroes; nurses and grocery store workers (and many more!) are finally getting the appreciation they deserve, doing their share to help the nation’s wheels turn.
People are told to physically stay away from other people. Not just large crowds, but individuals. What happens when people are not allowed to socialise, hang out and interact like they usually do? Culture offerings bleed. Restaurants suffer. Small shops and niche establishments dry out. People working in what are now considered non-critical occupations such as physiotherapists, waiters, hotel employees and airline stewarts have basically lost their basis for existence — overnight. In just eight days, NAV, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, received more than 170,000 unemployment benefit applications due to lay-offs, resulting in the highest unemployment rate in Norway since the Great Depression in the 30’s.
How might we help reduce the massive economic impact this crisis has brought upon our nation, and most importantly, its people?
We are Idean
We are a design agency. We believe in using design as a tool to improve society. So we use our superpowers to put humans at the center. At this point in time, user centricity — human centricity — is desperately needed. Governmental decisions that are made on an hourly basis have a tremendous effect on people’s lives and humanity in general.
With this in mind, we wanted to find a way to contribute. We wanted to help the local businesses and communities that are adapting to this new situation.
Buy local!
The “dugnad”
In Norway, we have a word called “dugnad” that celebrates the idea of communal service, of people coming together, helping each other out and embracing the spirit of togetherness. That’s why a team of designers in Idean Bergen decided to take matters into their own hands. Idean Bergen swiftly created BergenforBergen, and in a few days Idean Oslo and Idean Stavanger followed suit.
The People for People platform initiative had started, creating a digitally accessible place for our local “dugnad” in Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger.
Here, you find local vendors that can showcase their service and product offerings, adapted for our new reality. Bergen currently has about 73 local vendors in their list, Oslo is at 25, Stavanger has 17, and they’re all growing.
So, what are you waiting for? Help out your local coffee corner shop, sport store, or burger joint by buying their products. Better yet, help us to help others: spread the word about this initiative.
These times are truly strange. And strange times bring out some good stuff in people. Embrace it. | https://medium.com/ideas-by-idean/people-for-people-city-for-city-b9ec1f0d8616 | ['Axel Holene'] | 2020-03-27 07:05:07.953000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Business', 'Design Thinking', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Design'] |
A No-Nonsense Guide to Going to Sleep on Time | 1. Set a Bedtime. Be Lenient But Be Persistent.
The first thing you have to do is decide when your bedtime is. It doesn’t have to be very early, as long as you keep the following points in mind:
You need at least seven hours of sleep (or more, depending on your genetics).
There’s no point going to bed at 9 PM on the weekdays and then staying up till dawn on the weekends. Pick a time that works for you every day, all year round.
It’s OK to experiment with different bedtimes until you find one that works. If you decide to do this, make sure to maintain a sleep journal and track your findings. You could use the Sleep Foundation’s template or come up with your own.
Your bedtime shouldn’t be too eccentric. You could damage your health if you routinely sleep during the day and stay awake at night. If you have to do so (because of shift work, frequent jetlag, etc.), take these extra precautions.
Now comes the tricky part: you must develop a healthy relationship with your bedtime. Treat it as a guideline to help you live well, not as a cast-iron rule.
Your bedtime needs to be useful to you. It isn’t a punishment or a test of character.
In my experience, being too rigid about going to bed at a specific time is counterproductive, and it can lead to those unhappy thought spirals that keep you awake.
Let’s say that something unexpected happened, or you got lost in a good conversation or a good book. You’re already an hour past your bedtime. The best thing to do is shrug and try to go to bed as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to feel guilty. Guilt will keep you awake.
A Note to Parents: As a dad, this is a conflict I’ve had to deal with often.
Kids need plenty of sleep to grow. If they don’t go to bed in time, they’ll wake up grumpy and it will become everyone’s problem. But also, kids hate going to bed on time because there’s so much to do!
All of the above advice applies to them too (except they need to sleep a few hours more). Being too rigid about enforcing a bedtime turns the whole thing into an ordeal. Have patience, be persistent, and try to show them through your own behavior how healthy sleeping habits work.
“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.” ― Homer, The Odyssey
2. Find Your Ritual.
Everyone has a wind-down ritual before bed, even if they don’t realize it. Brushing your teeth, changing into comfortable clothes, taking out your contacts — all of that is a part of the ritual.
But I recommend building a more elaborate and deliberate ritual. Plan it out, write it down, add and remove items when necessary. This is helpful because it tells your brain it’s time to switch to sleep mode. We’re all creatures of habit, and repeating the same steps every night is comforting.
The steps I use, if you’re curious:
At the end of my working day, I define two primary goals for the next day and write them down. If I miss out on this, I’m guaranteed to stay up thinking about work.
I dim the light and change into comfortable clothes. It’s fine to do this early. If you leave it to the last minute, you might feel too tired and then you’ll keep putting it off (and miss out on sleep).
I write in my journal.
After dinner, I put my phone aside. I usually watch TV for a while with my family, and then I go to bed and read a good book.
Once my eyelids are heavy, I put on my sleeping mask and drift off within minutes.
I recommend doing things you like before bed. Enjoy some fiction, take a nice bath, let go of the daily grind. Life isn’t just about self-discipline, it’s about pleasure too.
3. Set the Scene.
Sometimes, there is no great mystery behind why you can’t fall asleep. The fault may lie in your bedroom.
You can’t fall asleep easily in a noisy environment.
Falling asleep became a thousand times easier for me after I invested in insulated double-pane windows. I wasn’t even aware of how much the city noises got on my nerves. Now that there’s true, blissful silence in the bedroom, sleep comes much more easily.
If sound-proofing isn’t possible for you right now, try earplugs. You could also get a white noise machine. I’m not a fan personally, but I know that this is highly individual, so it could be worth a shot.
Light pollution could be a problem too. Even tiny light sources could cause you to stay up for no good reason. A silk sleeping mask can do wonders — total darkness tells your brain it’s time to calm down.
Your bedroom might be too warm. Scientists have found that “heat exposure increases wakefulness and decreases slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep.” In other words, being too warm will keep you up and disrupt your REM cycle.
The best room temperature to fall asleep is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit (or 15.5 to 19.5 Celsius) according to Sleep.org. I checked my sleep journal and it turns out I sleep best when the temperature is between 18 and 21 degrees Celsius.
You have too many distractions at hand. Keeping the phone away from the bedroom really does work. I also recommend sleeping in a room with no television.
4. Ask Yourself Whether There’s a Bigger Problem Behind It.
I recently learned an amazing term: 報復性熬夜報復性熬夜, or revenge bedtime procrastination.
The phrase spread among Chinese social media users first, and then it was popularized in the English-speaking world by journalist Daphne K. Lee.
She explains that “the literal translation for revenge bedtime procrastination is “suffering through the night vengefully.” It describes a trend in which modern-day workers resist sleeping early to seize the freedom of the night hours — even if it brings no apparent benefits.”
This phrase refers to a self-destructive behavior people engage in because they feel helpless. If you can’t get to sleep on time, you might be rebelling against something without realizing it.
Maybe you work too much or hate your job, your marriage isn’t working well, you are unhappy with the state of your health — in short, something might be making you feel trapped.
Of course, you don’t want to live a life filled with nothing but sleep and fretting. You want privacy, some time for yourself, and a little bit of mindless relaxation.
But revenge bedtime procrastination doesn’t make you feel happier. It just causes you to scroll through your feed or watch whatever’s on Netflix. You’ll do anything to avoid facing unpleasant thoughts or feeling like a caged tiger.
Sadly, this situation doesn’t have an easy answer. But you do need to understand yourself and what you’re going through.
Don’t get stuck in a cycle of insufficient sleep and unhappiness.
It could help to fix your sleeping habits before you tackle the big problems — but remember, you don’t have to be perfect. Sleep half an hour more than usual, and things will already seem less grim and unsolvable.
5. Don’t Try to Fix Anything Once You’re in Bed.
Another issue that keeps people up is endless, unproductive planning. If you aren’t happy with the way your day went, you might spend hours in bed thinking about how you’ll do better the next day.
This is a harmful, self-defeating habit. 3 AM resolutions are worse than New Year resolutions, there’s no chance you’ll actually keep them. To stop turning it around in your mind, I recommend journaling just to let go of your worries for the day.
Similarly, you may be tempted to get into an argument with your partner just before bed. Something went wrong between you, and now you want to repair it.
According to psychologist Bobby Wegner, couples get in arguments late at night because everyone is “tired and burnt out from the day and feels safest expressing emotion to their partner. It is the same philosophy as a kid holding it together all day in school and having a meltdown at home.”
But, remember, you’re not thinking and acting rationally when you’re exhausted. Instead of making things better, you might say something you’ll regret. | https://medium.com/publishous/a-no-nonsense-guide-to-going-to-sleep-on-time-89e4dc5fe5a | ['Eric Sangerma'] | 2020-09-07 21:51:25.334000+00:00 | ['Sleep', 'Self', 'Lifestyle', 'Mental Health', 'Health'] |
Cross-Platform Development: Native vs. Native Cross-Platform vs. Hybrid Cross-Platform | Developing a cross-platform application can be done a few different ways and each way comes with advantages and disadvantages.
The first way is to develop separate native applications: one for iOS, one for Android, one for Web, several for desktop, and others depending on which platforms will be supported. The second approach is using a native cross-platform framework in which code is shared but components are built separately for each platform and rely on native controls. The third approach is using a hybrid cross-platform framework in which code, UI components, and controls are shared completely.
Native App Development
Native apps are built for the specific platform and the devices supported. Since native apps are built to support a particular operating system, there is full access to the latest device specific hardware and software technologies. Native apps typically offer the best performance and latency. The downside is that the app will also require native implementations for other platforms with separate code bases which takes a lot of time or requires a team of developers.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages
- Benefit from all available features of the platform, including the latest technologies.
- Platform specific UI design (users get the platform look and feel that they expect)
- Fully customizable
- Generally better performance and latency
Disadvantages
- Developer must know and be capable of implementing the application for all platforms or must have a team of developers who specialize in each platform
- Multiple code bases (must update each code base for each update/feature)
- Developer must consider the device specific hardware and software components throughout each step in the development process
- Long development time
Frameworks, Tools, & SDKs
A lot of these tools can be used for multiple platforms, but here are some tools that you can use to start developing with each.
iOS
- Swift/Xcode: The standard for native applications for Apple devices
- Jazzy: Command line utility to generate docs for Swift or Objective C
- Hyperion: Design debugging tool
Android
- Android Studio: The standard for native applications for Android devices
- IntelliJ IDEA: Another popular IDE for building applications
Web
- Visual Studio: Powerful IDE with a huge suite of tools (also iOS and Android)
- Sublime Text: Text editor
Native Cross-Platform Development
There are a lot of popular native cross-platform SDKs like Flutter and React Native that are being used by tech giants like Google and Facebook to develop apps. Native cross-platform is a middle ground between purely native, and hybrid cross-platform. You get a solid framework to bridge the gap between platforms to reduce the amount of code needed to be written which makes the development process quicker than native. You also get high performance and a native UI so users get the experience that they expect when using their specific device.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages
- Faster development time than purely native development
- Can share a large portion of the code base across platforms
- Platform specific UI design (users still get the platform look and feel that they expect)
Disadvantages
- Separate code for building the UI for each platform (code is shared but not UI components)
- Updates to the framework UI components have to be considered throughout the development process and also once the app is shipped and needs to be maintained
Frameworks, Tools, & SDKs
Flutter
- Developed and maintained by Google
- Mobile, Web, and Desktop applications from a single code base
- Language(s): Dart
- Popular App(s): Google Ads, AppTree, Hamilton Musical
Unity
- Developed and maintained by Unity Technologies
- Mobile, Desktop, Web, Game Consoles, VR, TV applications (very popular for game development)
- Language(s): C#, UnityScript
- Popular App(s): Pharos AR, Osiris: New Dawn, Monument Valley 2, Cuphead, Hearthstone, Cities Skylines
NativeScript
- Developed and maintained by Progress
- iOS and Android applications
- Language(s): TypeScript, JavaScript
- Popular App(s): Sennheiser Smart Control, California Court Access, Smart Evaluation, UH Now
Hybrid Cross-Platform Development
Hybrid cross-platform development is popular among developers who are looking to quickly build an app. Hybrid SDKs like Ionic use a front-end framework like Angular (now supports Vue, and React) to build the UI. This means that the UI is built once for all platforms which makes the design consistent across platforms.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages
- Shortest development time
- One code base (all code and UI components are shared across all platforms
- Web UI (developers experienced with HTML, CSS, JavaScript can quickly and easily implement UI)
- Consistent UI across all platforms
- Developer can concentrate on the behavior of the application rather than designing the UI components
Disadvantages
- Not platform specific UI (users who want their app to look and feel native may not like this)
- Performance and latency generally not as good as the native methods (this doesn’t mean you can’t produce a quality hybrid cross-platform app)
- Access to device specific technologies is limited to the support available through whichever software development kit is used (maybe not the best method for advanced applications)
Frameworks, Tools, & SDKs
PhoneGap
- Developed and maintained from the team behind Apache Cordova
- Mobile applications
- Language(s): HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Popular App(s): Untappd, FanReact, Sworkit, Localeur, Browser Quest, TripCase, snowbuddy
Ionic
- Developed and maintain by the Ionic team
- Mobile, web, desktop applications
- Language(s): HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript
- Popular App(s): MarketWatch, McLaren Automotive, Vertfolio, Honeyfi
Final Thoughts
Building purely native apps gives you full access to the latest hardware and software technologies on the platform, and they also typically have better performance than using cross-platform frameworks. Development time will be longer especially if you need to implement the app on many different platforms and getting a consistent design is more difficult.
Native cross-platform is a great option if you want the benefits of consolidating your code for all platforms while maintaining high performance.
If you want to build an app quickly with a consistent design, or you’re already familiar with front-end frameworks, hybrid cross-platform maybe be for you. You sacrifice a bit of performance and the native look and feel of the UI, but you can save time and money with this method. | https://medium.com/swlh/cross-platform-development-native-vs-native-cross-platform-vs-hybrid-cross-platform-db2751cded29 | ['Austin Howard Tech'] | 2020-01-18 15:50:18.128000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Cross Platform', 'Web Development', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering'] |
How to Create and Publish an npm Package | Easily create and publish an npm module to npm repository
Introduction
In this tutorial, you will create your own npm package and publish it to the npm repository.
By doing this, you will understand:
How to create an npm package How to install it locally before publishing to test its functionality How to install and use the published package using ES6 import syntax or using Node.js require statement How to manage semantic versioning of the package How to update the package with the new version and publish it again
To be precise, you will build a package that will return a list of GitHub repositories of the specified username sorted by the number of stars for each repository.
Prerequisites
You will need the following to complete this tutorial:
A valid installation of Git version control
Node.js installed locally, which you can do by following the instructions given on this page
This tutorial was verified with Node v13.14.0, npm v6.14.4, and axios v0.20.0
Step 1 — Initial Setup
Create a new folder with the name github-repos-search and initialize a package.json file
mkdir github-repos-search
cd github-repos-search
npm init -y
Initialize the current project as a git repository by running the following command from github-repos-search folder:
git init .
Create a .gitignore file to exclude the node_modules folder. Add the following contents inside .gitignore file
node_modules
Install the axios package that you will use to make a call to the GitHub API.
npm install [email protected]
Your package.json will look like this now:
{
"name": "github-repos-search",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"dependencies": {
"axios": "^0.20.0"
},
"devDependencies": {},
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
Inside the package.json file, the value for name is github-repos-search . So our package name after publishing to npm repository will become github-repos-search . Also, the name has to be unique on the npm repository so first check if such npm repository already exists or not by navigating to https://www.npmjs.com/package/<your_repository_name_from_package_json> . Otherwise you will get an error while publishing the package to the npm repository if the name already exists.
Step 2 — Writing the code
Create a new file with the name index.js and add the following contents inside it:
const axios = require('axios');
const getRepos = async ({
username = 'myogeshchavan97',
page = 1,
per_page = 30
} = {}) => {
try {
const repos = await axios.get(
`https://api.github.com/users/${username}/repos?page=${page}&per_page=${per_page}&sort=updated`
);
return repos.data
.map((repo) => {
return {
name: repo.name,
url: repo.html_url,
description: repo.description,
stars: repo.stargazers_count
};
})
.sort((first, second) => second.stars - first.stars);
} catch (error) {
return [];
}
}; getRepos().then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
Let’s understand the code first.
You have created a getRepos function that accepts an optional object with username , page and per_page properties.
function that accepts an optional object with , and properties. Then you used object destructuring syntax for getting those properties out of the object.
Passing an object to the function is optional so we have initialized it to default values if the object is not passed to the function like this:
{
username = 'myogeshchavan97',
page = 1,
per_page = 30
} = {}
The reason for assigning an empty object {} is to not get an error while destructuring username from the object if the object is not passed. Check out my previous article to learn about destructuring in detail.
is to not get an error while destructuring from the object if the object is not passed. Check out my previous article to learn about destructuring in detail. Then inside the function, you are making a call to the GitHub API by passing the required parameters to get the repositories of the specified user sorted by the updated date.
const repos = await axios.get(
`https://api.github.com/users/${username}/repos?page=${page}&per_page=${per_page}&sort=updated`
);
Here, you are using async/await syntax so the getRepos function is declared as async.
function is declared as async. Then you are selecting only the required fields from the response using the Array map method
repos.data
.map((repo) => {
return {
name: repo.name,
url: repo.html_url,
description: repo.description,
stars: repo.stargazers_count
};
})
Then that result is sorted by descending order of stars so the first element in the list will be with the highest stars
.sort((first, second) => second.stars - first.stars);
If there is any error, you are returning an empty array in the catch block.
As the getRepos function is declared as async , you will get back a promise so you are using .then handler to get the result of the getRepos function call and printing to the console.
getRepos().then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
Step 3 — Executing the code
Now, run the index.js file by executing the following command from the command line:
node index.js
You will see the following output with the first 30 repositories:
In the file, you have not provided the username so by default my repositories are displayed.
Let’s change that to the following code:
getRepos({
username: 'gaearon'
}).then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
Run the file again by executing node index.js command and you will see the following output:
You can choose to pass the page and per_page properties to change the response to get the first 50 repositories.
getRepos({
username: 'gaearon',
page: 1,
per_page: 50
}).then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
Now, you know that the functionality is working. Let’s export this module so you can call this getRepos method from any other file.
So remove the below code from the file
getRepos({
username: 'gaearon',
page: 1,
per_page: 50
}).then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
and add the below line instead
module.exports = { getRepos };
Here, you are exporting the getRepos function as a property of the object so later if you want to export any other function you can easily add it to the object.
So the above line is the same as
module.exports = { getRepos: getRepos };
Step 4 — Testing the created npm package using require statement
Now, you are done with creating the npm package but before publishing it to the npm repository, you need to make sure it works when you use it using require or import statement.
There is an easy way to check that. Execute the following command from the command line from inside the github-repos-search folder:
npm link
Executing npm link command creates a symbolic link for your current package inside the global npm node_modules folder (The same folder where our global npm dependencies get installed)
So now you can use your created npm package inside any project.
Now, create a new folder on your desktop with any name for example test-repos-library-node and initialize a package.json file so you can confirm that the package is installed correctly:
cd ~/Desktop
mkdir test-repos-library-node
cd test-repos-library-node
npm init -y
If you remember, the name property in our package’s package.json file was github-repos-search so you need to require the package using the same name.
Now, execute the following command from inside the test-repos-library-node folder to use the package you created:
npm link github-repos-search
Create a new file with the name index.js and add the following code inside it:
const { getRepos } = require('github-repos-search'); getRepos().then((repositories) => console.log(repositories));
Here, you have imported the package directly from the node_modules folder( This was only possible because you linked it using npm link)
Now, run the file by executing it from the command line:
node index.js
You will see the correct output displayed:
This proves that when you publish the npm package on the npm repository, anyone can use it by installing it and using the require statement.
Step 5 — Testing the created npm package using the import statement
You have verified that the package works by using the require statement. Let’s verify it by using the ES6 import statement.
Create a new React project by executing the following command from your desktop folder:
cd ~/Desktop
npx create-react-app test-repos-library-react
Now, execute the following command from inside the test-repos-library-react folder to use the package you created:
npm link github-repos-search
Now, open src/App.s file and replace it with the following content:
import { getRepos } from 'github-repos-search';
import React from 'react';
import './App.css'; function App() {
getRepos().then((repositories) => console.log(repositories)); return (
<div className="App">
<h2>Open browser console to see the output.</h2>
</div>
);
}
export default App;
Start the React app by executing the following command from the terminal:
yarn start
If you check the browser console, you will see the output as expected:
This proves that when you publish the npm package on npm repository, anyone can use it by installing it and using import statement.
Step 6 — Publish to the npm repository
Now, you have verified that the package is working fine.
It’s time to publish it to the npm repository.
Switch back to the github-repos-search project folder where you have created the npm package.
Let’s add some metadata in the package.json file to display some more information about the package
Here is the final package.json file:
{
"name": "github-repos-search",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"homepage": "https://github.com/myogeshchavan97/github-repos-search",
"repository": {
"type": "git",
"url": "git+https://github.com/myogeshchavan97/github-repos-search.git"
},
"dependencies": {
"axios": "^0.20.0"
},
"devDependencies": {},
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [
"github",
"repos",
"repositories",
"sort",
"stars"
],
"author": "Yogesh Chavan <[email protected]>",
"license": "ISC"
}
You have added homepage , repository , keywords and author for more information(These are optional). Make changes as per your GitHub repository.
Create a new GitHub repository HERE and push github-repos-search repository to GitHub. Navigate to https://www.npmjs.com/ and create a new account If you don’t already have an account.
Open the terminal and from inside the github-repos-search folder, execute the following command:
npm login
and enter your npm credentials to log in.
Now, to publish it to the npm repository run the following command:
npm publish
If you navigate to https://www.npmjs.com/package/github-repos-search in the browser, you will see your published package:
Now, let’s add a readme.md file for displaying some information regarding the package.
Create a new file with the name readme.md inside the github-repos-search folder with the contents from here
Let’s try to publish it again using the npm publish command.
You will get an above error. This is because you are publishing the module with the same version again.
If you check our package.json file, you will see that the version mentioned in the file is 1.0.0 You need to increment it every time publishing a new change. So what should you increment to? For that, you need to understand the semantic versioning concept.
Step 7 — Semantic versioning in npm
The version value is a combination of 3 digits separated by dot operator. Let’s say the version is a.b.c
First value ( a in a.b.c ) specifies the major version of the package — It means this version has Major code changes and it might contain breaking API changes. Second value ( b in a.b.c ) specifies the minor version which contains minor changes but will not contain breaking API changes. Third value ( c in a.b.c ) specifies the patch version which usually contains bug fixes.
In our case, you just added a readme.md file which is not an API change so you can increment the patch version which is the last digit by 1.
So change the version inside package.json file from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1 and run the npm publish command again.
If you check the npm package now, you will see the updated npm package live here
To learn in detail about semantic versioning check out my previous article
Conclusion
In this tutorial, you created an npm package and published it to the npm repository.
For the complete source code of this tutorial, check out the github-repos-search repository on GitHub. You can also see the published npm module here
Don’t forget to subscribe to get my weekly newsletter with amazing tips, tricks and articles directly in your inbox here. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-create-and-publish-an-npm-package-17b5e1744f26 | ['Yogesh Chavan'] | 2020-09-29 13:02:31.581000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Development', 'Programming', 'React'] |
AWS — Deploying React App With Java On ECS | AWS — Deploying React App With Java On ECS
A step by step guide with an example project
Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash
AWS provides more than 100 services and it’s very important to know which service you should select for your needs. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a highly scalable, fast, container management service that makes it easy to run, stop, and manage Docker containers on a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon ECS lets you launch and stop container-based applications with simple API calls, allows you to get the state of your cluster from a centralized service, and gives you access to many familiar Amazon EC2 features.
In this post, we are going to deploy React application with the Java environment. First, we dockerize our app and push that image to Amazon ECR and run that app on Amazon ECS.
Example Project
Prerequisites
Dockerize the Project
Pushing Docker Image To ECR
Deploying On AWS ECS
Accessing Webapp in the Browser
Cleaning Up
Summary
Conclusion
Example Project
This is a simple project which demonstrates developing and running React application with Java. We have a simple app in which we can add users, count, and display them at the side, and retrieve them whenever you want.
Example Project
If you want to practice your own here is a Github link to this project. You can clone it and run it on your machine as well. | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/aws-deploying-react-app-with-java-on-ecs-e42fddec6d89 | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-07-07 05:06:00.962000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Java', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
Defining the future of Machine Learning with Google and TensorFlow Lite | There are more than 20 million developers around the world[1]. Developer experience and adoption plays a pivotal role in the success or failure of any software. Apple when it opened their platform for developers in 2008, it changed the entire mobile industry, now there are more than 2 million apps in the appstore[2].
Machine learning is a difficult and complex discipline. Implementing a machine learning project involves significant effort and deep understanding of underlying principles. Thanks to Google’s TensorFlow this is far less daunting for a developer. TensorFlow makes it easy for acquiring, training, serving and building machine learning solution. Currently TensorFlow is the most popular framework for developing machine learning solutions[3].
StackOverflow trends
What is TensorFlow Lite?
TensorFlow is an open source numerical computation library created by Google brain team to distribute machine learning for large scale deployment. This framework can be used to run machine learning code on a large cluster of machines easily. Thus freeing developers and researchers to focus on solving machine learning problems than distributed systems.
Tensorflow Lite is the light weight solution of TensorFlow built specifically for mobile devices, it abstracts away the optimisation and performance enhancements essential for running a machine learning model on a mobile device where resources are constrained and vary significantly from user to user. With more than 2.1 billion mobile devices worldwide[4], there is a very strong need to create an engaging experience.
Innovation @ YML
At YML we have an open innovation culture & we constantly keep exploring machine learning in various aspects like Age & Gender classification, Exploring Text Region & Face Detection, Hand Gesture Recognition and more. When Google approached YML to partner and work with their TensorFlow Lite developer experience we were a natural fit.
Initially we brainstormed and came up with a collection of ideas. Working with the Google team narrowed down and decided on 4 examples. Our goal was to simplify the problem broadly for 3 kind of developers. Android developers, iOS developers and ML engineers. The breadth of knowledge required to conceptualize and implement such a solution included machine learning, frontend, iOS, Android. Not only was the proficiency in machine learning essential, but team needed to have strong cross functional expertise in all the technologies to execute well.
Our work specifically involves Gesture recognition, Image classification, Object detection and Speech recognition.
Once we started to work together, we quickly adapted to collaborate and create multiple iterations of the solution. Agility and iteration was key to creating a long lasting experience and deliver on the promise of developer experience.
www.tensorflow.org/lite
Be sure to checkout the TensorFlow Lite and learn the technology which would shape the next generation of Machine Learning products.
The story is far from over, there is still lot more to be achieved and lot more work to be done. Follow our publication to get more udpates.
References & Links | https://medium.com/ymedialabs-innovation/ymedialabs-partnered-google-tensorflow-lite-machine-learning-228502c8d11a | ['Darshan Sonde'] | 2019-06-07 11:34:05.297000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Google', 'TensorFlow', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
What is Driving Racial/Ethnic Disparities in COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality? | Monica L. Wang, ScD, MS
Image collage created by Monica Wang, ScD
To my parents, who worked tirelessly and selflessly so I could have the best education they could provide, and to my Community Health Sciences family of faculty, staff, and students at the BU School of Public Health, who are social justice and health equity champions alongside me.
As an alumna of Boston’s Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity program (METCO) program (the longest continuously running voluntary school integration program in the nation), I am intimately familiar with neighborhood disparities and health. From elementary through high school, I lived in Roslindale (an ethnically diverse neighborhood of Boston) and commuted 3 hours each school day (school bus in elementary; public transit starting in 8th grade) to attend public school in Belmont, a picturesque suburb that boasts one of the top public schools in the state. One would have to be blind and deaf not to notice the stark differences in demographics, built environment, and economic and educational opportunities (or lack thereof) between the two neighborhoods, spaced less than 10 miles apart.
My Boston neighborhood friends and METCO peers knew not to frequent parks past a certain hour — ever. We witnessed theft and assault and more than occasionally experienced harassment on our long commutes to school. Our walk to and from the public transit stops were inundated with fast food outlets, liquor stores, and corner stores. Sidewalks were in need of repair but available at best; completely lacking at worst.
Most of my classmates in Belmont seemed to live in another world. Many brought colorful lunches packed with fruits and vegetables to school, participated in expensive arts and athletics programs, walked or rode bikes to school, and some even left their back doors unlocked (inconceivable for my neighborhood). It did not escape me, even in elementary school, that key differences in neighborhood characteristics, such as crime, access to healthy food, walkability, and pollution, differentially influenced children and families’ ability to engage in healthy behaviors and prioritize health, depending on one’s zip code. This experience profoundly shaped my dedication to promoting community health and working to address health inequities from a population level.
Fast forward 20 some-odd years. I have a master’s and doctoral degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and am an Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Harvard. I have been conducting research and teaching graduate courses on the social determinants of health, including the underlying drivers of racial/ethnic health disparities, for the past decade.
The other day, one of my former students from Harvard’s Master in Health Care Management Program asked me via Twitter why U.S. cities were experiencing substantial racial disparities in COVID-19 (he knew the answer, or else I would ask him to re-take my race/ethnicity and health module). If I had to condense that lecture into a Twitter feed, this would be it. But it got me thinking beyond Population Health in the Midst of a Pandemic and ultimately writing this piece.
Health disparities or inequities refer to preventable and unjust health differences between groups of people that are closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage. In the U.S., racial/ethnic disparities are observed in nearly every single health outcome, with Blacks, Latinx, and Native American/Alaskan Indians suffering disproportionately higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, cancer, infectious diseases, preterm births, and higher mortality rates, to name a few. These racial/ethnic disparities are rooted in colonialism, slavery, and systemic or institutionalized racism, the latter of which continues to be perpetuated and practiced between individuals across sectors (e.g., housing, health care, policy, judicial system, education) today. To understand why we see racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and death rates, we have several mechanisms to unpack.
The first mechanism is the contribution of race and socioeconomic status (SES) on health and why both matter, particularly in the U.S. SES refers to a person’s position in a social hierarchy based on prestige and access to resources and is often measured by indicators such as income, education level, occupation, and wealth. In the U.S., race is strongly associated with SES because of institutionalized racism (e.g., Jim Crow laws, redlining), which systemically undermined social and economic opportunities for advancement among people of color.
Because of institutional, interpersonal, and internalized racism, people of color have lower income and wealth (despite equivalent levels of education), are over-represented in lower-paying, nonstandard occupations like essential workers, have less job security, and higher rates of being uninsured or under-insured, as insurance is directly tied to occupation in the U.S. This means that people of color, particularly Blacks, Latinx, and Native Americans have poorer access to socioeconomic resources and health care, as well as experience more stressors, constraints, and barriers to achieving health (e.g., lower-income individuals are less able to afford to engage in healthy behaviors, such as join a gym, buy fresh produce, take time off work to see their primary care physicians, and fill prescriptions). During a pandemic, staying at home and practicing social distancing is a privilege that is neither randomly nor equitably distributed across racial and economic lines.
The second mechanism of racial/ethnic health disparities is discrimination (the unjust, prejudicial treatment of people based on characteristics such as the color of their skin). It is well-established that discrimination occurs across multiple domains and sectors in the U.S., including the labor market, judicial system, education, health care, and housing. Studies show that Blacks who experience discrimination based on their race have higher cortisol and blood pressure levels and shorter telomeres (a marker of accelerated aging). This is to say nothing of intersectionality (the “complex, cumulative manner in which effects of different forms of discrimination” such as race, gender, and class combine, overlap, or intersect). Thus, effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and physiological impacts of experiencing discrimination accumulated over the lifecourse and across generations puts communities of color at substantial disadvantage when it comes to health.
The third mechanism is the impact of neighborhoods on health. Practices such as redlining (a racialized system of economic and social investment that denied various services by government (federal and local) and the private sector to minority (most notably Black) communities in the U.S., either directly or through selective pricing) resulted in disinvested communities of color that experience poorer access to healthy food, health care, and green space, excessive access to fast food outlets, liquor stores, targeted marketing of tobacco and alcohol, and higher exposure to pollutants, to name a few. You can check out which neighborhoods were redlined at Mapping Inequality, an interactive site that takes scores of Home Owners Loan Corporation maps and embeds them on a single map of the U.S. The poorer built environment that communities of color were forced into unsurprisingly translates into poorer overall health and higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and respiratory conditions among these populations — the very underlying conditions known to be associated with greater risk of COVID-19 complications, including death.
The fourth mechanism is discrimination in health care. A blinded randomized trial demonstrated that implicit bias exists among some physicians, coloring their diagnosis and treatment plans for patient profiles who presented with the same set of symptoms and demographics, save for the color of their skin. This study and others demonstrate that unconscious or conscious biases in the health care setting contribute in part to racial/ethnic disparities in medical procedures (including COVID-19 testing) and ultimately health outcomes. Discrimination in this setting is not lost on communities of color, where the mistrust of health care providers and health officials runs deep due in part to the egregious and infamous Tuskegee Study.
Let me be clear — health care is not the only setting and providers are not the only players that have the power to exacerbate or mitigate health disparities. The reason why racial/ethnic health disparities are so pervasive and persistent in the U.S. is because racism is systemic — each cog in our system (e.g., housing) operates in conjunction with the other cogs (education, judicial system, health care). By the time patients show up in the hospital or the clinic to be seen, they have already embodied the physiological, psychological, behavioral, and environmental effects of being exposed to discrimination — a chronic stressor amassed over generations and accumulated across the lifecourse. Having worked in a medical setting, working in a career that involves daily interactions with physicians and clinicians (including teaching them), and being married to a physician, I can also say that many are working tirelessly towards reducing and eliminating health disparities in their sector. To make a bigger impact, we need to coordinate such efforts across all sectors.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the underlying drivers of racial/ethnic disparities in health, but these are some of the most critical mechanisms in my view to understand. When you combine hundreds of years of history with multiple levels of discrimination that occur across nearly every sector of influence, it comes as no surprise that we see racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 infection, morbidity, and mortality rates, as evidenced from early data in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Michigan, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. Boston’s map of COVID-19 cases by neighborhood overlaps onto its historically redlined neighborhoods.
What is disgraceful is that it took a pandemic to shine a hard light onto what public health experts and communities of color have known for generations. MA Govenor Baker announced in April of 2020 that race/ethnicity data would be required for COVID-19 reporting moving forward. This is a small but crucial step to documenting health inequities, which will catalyze efforts to eliminate them, as we should always be striving towards. We will have learned nothing if we continue to let history repeat itself. We can and must do better. Now it’s time to get to work. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/what-is-driving-racial-ethnic-disparities-in-covid-19-morbidity-and-mortality-49f31cbcdd3a | ['Monica L. Wang', 'Scd'] | 2020-09-08 02:40:03.411000+00:00 | ['Race', 'Covid 19', 'Society', 'Health'] |
Why Utopias Are Not Desirable | The Utopic Contradiction
Even if this issue could be resolved, there is a fundamental contradiction in the concept itself. Since a utopia promises perfection and flawlessness, it also promises stability. The cost of a utopia addressed above assumed that stability was desirable, which would be a natural inclination.
It must be made clear that when talking about the stability of a society, the equation would be made that our lives in that society would be eternally stable as well. We will not meet with obstacles that cause us pain, we will not endure the suffering that comes with imperfection. However, as much as pain, suffering, and instability are viewed negatively, its eradication can prove fatal as well to our fundamental human nature.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist in the 20th century who was brought to the Nazi concentration camps in World War 2. He became prominent after documenting his experience and attaching it with his philosophy in his book Man’s Search For Meaning. Viktor Frankl remarked:
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”
The thing is, we do not actually want lifelong stability. The beauty of life is in the struggle, and that is what makes our goals worthwhile. The pain and sadness and suffering have a place. The vicissitudes of life add spice to an otherwise bland and boring existence. Even in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the Controller stated:
“But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed high art.”
When stating this, he was making a reference largely to Shakespeare’s plays, which were often experimentations and explorations of the human condition. By removing pain and ensuring only happiness, the human condition itself seems to have been removed, leaving no opportunity for what we call high art. A utopia, although often idealized as the perfect state, prized for its stability and guaranteed happiness, is surprisingly foreign and far detached from raw human nature.
That is not to say that pain, suffering, and sadness are desirable. An abundance of the negative aspect of life can result in disastrous consequences. Where is the beauty in only struggle and suffering?
But as petty as it may sound, stability is boring. With a utopia, we will have lost the ups and downs of life that make us human. If we only have ups, what value do they still hold?
With a utopia, we will have lost the success and failures in life that make us human. If we only succeed, what value does it still hold?
With a utopia, we will have lost the beauty of the struggle and the joy of overcoming it. How can we celebrate the overcoming of an obstacle when there is no obstacle to overcome?
Not only is the absence of negativity in existence contrary to our primordial nature, but it also dilutes an otherwise beautiful and illustrious life. It removes the meaning of all our achievements because we do not have failures to compare them to. We cannot value our pleasure, no matter how intense, because we do not know pain.
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” — Carl Jung
In a perfect state, we remove ourselves from an even more wondrous world simply because that world includes aspects that are undesirable. To achieve a utopia, we will have to lose the bad and the good. We will have to lose what makes life worth hating, but also what makes life worth living. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/why-utopias-are-not-desirable-5482f7eb19b1 | ['Ethan Chua'] | 2020-12-17 15:03:42.869000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Philosophy', 'Existentialism', 'Books', 'Life Lessons'] |
A Software Product Manager in the Operating Room | A transplant surgery is phenomenal and fascinating in the same way child-like wonder and curiosity can make things. It is, even for the doctor, an exploration. The organ removal, in our case, occurs laparoscopically — with a camera inside the body — and the doctor uses a tiny tool that both cuts and cauterizes — watching on high-definition displays as he goes. The entirety of the surgery is nearly bloodless. He’s snipping and moving, searching for arteries and connections, finding his way around abdominal fat and the insides of a person that, while scanned, still can hold mystery. Sometimes an extra artery is just there, needing addressed like any other unplanned requirement.
I can’t help but ask questions because I’m floored each time I learn something new. Kidney removal leaves the donor down a kidney, but the recipient ends up with three. If the old kidneys aren’t causing harm, they’re simply left where they are. A patient can have five. Someone says they think there was a patient with seven. How do they fit, I ponder. I’m trying to remember if I was this intrigued the last time I learned a new prototyping tool, but I think the wonder I’m sensing only occurs when you’re so lost — so far removed from what you’re seeing that you couldn’t possibly be let down by it.
And yet, the transplant is… undeniably boring. It seems a slow-moving set of rules, steps and procedures. Everything is counted. The time is tracked and allotted for. The requirements for those involved branch and tree back through days and weeks — checking out and returning scrubs, what tools are set aside for this surgery in advance and even the time in the operating room itself estimated and measured. Boring, in this case, means safe. No problems. No undue risk. No adaptations that haven’t been prepared for.
It’s the precision that we think we bring when we make exceptionally bug-free products, but it’s depth and care shows sometimes how naive software creators can be.
This boring meticulousness feels like home to me. It feels like technical specifications and quality assurance testing across multiple browser sizes and operating systems. It’s the precision that we think we bring when we make exceptionally bug-free products, but it’s depth and care shows sometimes how naive software creators can be. Ask yourself if you’d tested your product enough and you might say yes — now ask again knowing that if you’re wrong someone may die. I’m not sure I’ve ever tested my products enough to make that guarantee.
I’m a little jealous of the doctor’s world where the feedback is so tangible. A kidney turns from a pale gray to a bright pink once it’s been swiftly reconnected and the blood is flowing. The doctor gives the organ a little squeeze to make sure liquid is passing through. A closing stitch and the job of the transplant is done. There are still medications and measurements for the coming weeks and months the way we’d slave over metrics and analytics long after a business launch, but through a precision-perfect process an organ transplant is product execution at master level. We should be so lucky to build our digital products with those so able and committed to a successful launch as the transplant surgeon.
A web application is crafted across months. It may live for years or it may swiftly evaporate and yet there’s never an object you can hold with your hands and say I built this…
One of the greater challenges in a life spent building software and web products is often how decoupled it can feel from the physical reward of accomplishment. A web application is crafted across months. It may live for years or it may swiftly evaporate and yet there’s never an object you can hold with your hands and say I built this — it exists because of me and it is a good thing. Across six hours on an early Thursday morning I saw a doctor build something that I suppose he too, can’t ultimately see with his own eyes when the product is complete.
But when later, the patient wakes, smiles and leaves the hospital for home — what a phenomenal reward that must be. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/a-software-product-manager-in-the-operating-room-c25e5ba4fa42 | ['Cody Musser'] | 2016-09-07 19:58:35.577000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Work', 'Medicine', 'Health', 'Startup'] |
Running productive distributed teams | At Distributed we manage distributed teams that deliver work in hard-to-hire-for and expensive areas of digital marketing and tech on behalf of our clients. From content creation, through API design and analytics integrations and all the way up to the development of Artificial Intelligence.
We deliver this work at a higher quality, in less time, and at a lower cost than centralised agencies.
It’s not been easy building Distributed, but it’s working incredibly well, and we’re now in a position to scale and add a few more clients to our roster.
I’m not going to bore you with the story of how we built Distributed over the past 5 years, if you want to read more about us please check out this post that I wrote a little while back, I am however going to detail a few of the lessons we’ve learned about building and running distributed teams and hopefully offer some valuable insights that may help you reap the benefits of building your own distributed team. | https://medium.com/distributed/running-productive-distributed-teams-6c68fbd15d41 | ['Callum Adamson'] | 2017-06-30 07:29:19.095000+00:00 | ['Remote Working', 'Health', 'Distributed Teams', 'Future Of Work', 'Future'] |
The Fallacy of Productivity in Software Development | Startups and the Myth of 10X Developers
Especially in their early stages, startups work in a different way than mature organizations. Most startups not only build products by borrowing money, but they also take on technical debt. For them, delivering MVP quickly is essential, as early validation is absolutely required.
This is the culture that gave rise to 10X developers. Like protagonists in action movies, these mythical developers can single-handedly beat up ten normal teammates in terms of productivity — or so the legend goes.
In real life, the so-called 10X developers are most likely cowboy coders — sitting alone in hoodies with their headphones on, working on a codebase only they understand.
Limited interactions and cooperation within teams only work as long as the codebase and the team itself remain very small. While sometimes these teams can deliver more than those at a more mature organization within the same time frame, it is often done at the cost of quality. After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Unfortunately, the situation is not much better even in mature organizations. Collaboration is often limited to code reviews, and if you are lucky, you may also run into occasional pair programming sessions or bigger meetings.
Don’t get me wrong, code reviews are great! However, it’s hard to apply major changes once work has already been completed — not to mention that big changes are often ruled out due to tight deadlines. Chances are that the review will mostly focus on syntax, naming, and other simple changes.
Nowadays, when working with distributed architectures (micro-services, Lambda, cloud-managed services, etc.), there are thousands of possible solutions to every problem. DevOps and the cloud took away some of the burden of managing physical servers, but they also increased the complexity of software interactions (queues, APIs) and the amount of planning required.
Cooperation is imperative in order to create long-lasting and high-quality code. Having quick brainstorming sessions on the whiteboard before starting tasks could potentially help teams save a lot of time. Yet many developers still prefer to work in isolation, causing them to receive the first round of feedback during the code review, which is already problematic.
I often saw junior developers being afraid to distract senior colleagues and even waiting a day or more to ask a single question. While this often comes as an individual preference, there are also environmental reasons that make rapid cooperation harder.
Here are some of the ones I have personally encountered:
Open-space office
At some point, open floor plans became the go-to choice for software companies. These new and shiny spaces promised increased communication between teams, but in reality, they forced people to start using headphones to cancel the noise around them. Consequently, it also discouraged teams from doing rapid brainstorming sessions for fear of disturbing others. Some could argue that the often available (yet limited) enclosed meeting spaces could be used. However, pulling entire teams away to discuss small changes would certainly be considered overkill.
Agile, sprints, lack of idle time
Nowadays, most organizations have adopted some sort of Agile/Scrum methodology. Sprints are usually packed with tickets to the brim, leaving literarily zero space for the team to be in idle mode or even have time for discussions. The end of sprints resembles crunch time, with people pushing their work as fast as possible to make the burnout charts look as required. In an environment where there is a constant two-week deadline, it is hard to make the work stop even for 15 minutes and drag the team into any sort of discussion.
Management
Having a group of people smiling, discussing, and doodling on a whiteboard might seem like fun — even too fun for some. In an environment where people are often passionate about their work, it is easy to get caught in an engaging architectural discussion. Unfortunately, this is something that often gets mistaken for goofing around by non-technical management. | https://medium.com/better-programming/the-fallacy-of-productivity-in-software-development-68cdb3fb04fe | ['Albert Kozłowski'] | 2020-02-14 19:13:27.093000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Productivity', 'Startup'] |
Recycle, Reuse, and Don’t Forget to Keep on Buying More of Our Products— H&M’s Biggest Greenwash Yet | Recycle, Reuse, and Don’t Forget to Keep on Buying More of Our Products— H&M’s Biggest Greenwash Yet Tabitha Whiting Follow Oct 16 · 5 min read
H&M, what are you playing at?
I’ve written previously on the truth behind H&M’s Conscious collection — a range of clothing from this fast fashion giant which claims to be ‘sustainable style’. Recently they’ve been making an even bigger noise about their so-called ‘sustainability’ credentials, splashing out on advertising campaigns and social media posts that give the impression to the unsuspecting customer that H&M are a company that truly cares about our planet. So let’s explore that.
First up is their recent advert, titled ‘Let’s change. For tomorrow’ which focuses on the materials they use in production — reycling, reusing, and using organic and sustainably sources materials.
Here’s a transcript of the advert’s voiceover:
The world has changed. What we do today will define our tomorrow. We will keep changing how we design, how we choose the materials, and how we make our products. We’re turning using into reusing and recycling. Already more than half of our materials are recycled, organic, or sustainably sourced. By 2030 it will be 100%. Let’s change, for tomorrow.
And then I spotted a series of stories on their H&M home Instagram highlighting their organic cotton towels in the context of sustainability. The ordering here is laughable.
How to be a sustainable queen 101. Number 1: recycle instead of sending to landfill. Number 2: reuse items as long as you can to reduce waste. Number 3: make sure you buy as many products from H&M as you possibly can.
Oh, wait… that doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
As you can see, the focus in H&M’s current communications is on recycling and reusing, as well as organic and sustainably sourced materials. Now, they’re right that we should be recycling and reusing. But place that fact in the context of the fast fashion world, and there’s suddenly a glaring problem.
Fast fashion is inherently unsustainable.
It’s in the name. The fast fashion business model relies on churning out new styles of clothing constantly, pushing trends to urge customers to buy more and more clothing to meet these trends.
The industry churns out over 1 billion items of clothing every year, producing 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent at the same time, accounting for 5% of global greenhouse gases.
A model like this relies on waste. Brands like H&M pile their clothes and styles high, and those which don’t make the cut of consumer approval are discarded. There’s even discarding before this point, with defective clothing never even making it to store before it is burned as waste — as much as 12 tonnes a year.
So whilst they may be incorporating more recycled material, its a drop in the ocean compared to their environmental impact and use of resources. If H&M is burning 12 tonnes of clothing that never got further than the factor per year, you can imagine the vast amount of clothing they’re producing every year — and the material, resources, and energy required to do so. Even if 50% of that is recycled material, it still represents a hugely wasteful industry.
Statistics suggest that it would take fast fashion brands like H&M 12 years to recycle what they produce in just 24 hours.
On top of this, H&M’s track record with recycling makes me doubly dubious. They’ve had an in-store clothes recycling service for a while, and you can see that they reference this in their Instagram stories above. You drop off a bag of clothes or other materials to recycle and they give you £5 off your next purchase with them. It’s a blatant marketing technique, drawing you in with their eco-friendly recycling process, only to entice you to buy more things from them with a voucher. It’s also very unclear what happens to these bags of clothes.
H&M’s other claim in these adverts is around organic materials. This tends to be a fallback for fast fashion brands, as it’s fairly easy to switch from cotton to organic cotton without impacting your bottom line — whilst being able to brand it as an environmentally conscious decision. I wouldn’t be surprised if their 50% of material being recycled/reused/organic was mostly organic.
Organic cotton is often portrayed as an eco-friendly option compared to synthetic alternatives, but cotton is actually an incredibly thirsty plant, using a hell of a lot of water to grow. Organic cotton is the same, just minus the pesticides. It takes 20,000 litres to grow 1kg of cotton, which is the amount needed to make one t-shirt and one pair of jeans.
So, then, what’s really going on here?
What’s going on is that H&M — and other fast fashion brands, they’re certainly not along — have clocked on to the fact that their customers are becoming more and more aware of the climate crisis and its impacts, and its changing the way that they shop. They know that customers are more likely to purchase items that are marketed as sustainable.
There’s research behind this. A review of consumer sales between 2013 and 2018 by researchers at the Stern Center for Sustainable Business, of New York University, found that products that were highlighted as ‘sustainable’ would sell much faster than products which were not.
It’s clever marketing, responding to consumer trends and shaping their products in a way that will keep sales coming in.
But it is not environmentally-conscious clothing. It’s marketing which gives the impression of environmentally conscious clothing, to keep you buying their products, and keep their sales coming in. Profit is what truly lies at the heart of H&M’s ‘sustainable style’ marketing strategy.
Fast fashion will never be sustainable.
Let me say that again so it really sinks in. Fast fashion will never be sustainable. And H&M, you need to stop the greenwashing and accept that you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. | https://medium.com/swlh/recycle-reuse-and-dont-forget-to-keep-on-buying-more-of-our-products-h-m-s-biggest-greenwash-3604e823f1f | ['Tabitha Whiting'] | 2020-10-19 13:44:21.258000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Environment', 'Marketing', 'Fashion', 'Sustainable Fashion'] |
We Write To Be Read | The movie touches in on the other aspects of writing: the misery, the rejection, the joy of writing of creating characters and losing yourself in them. The passion of taking this story, writing this thing that you urgently want to say, and putting it out there in the world.
You enjoy writing it. You love the process, even as hard and difficult and painful as it is. But, for most writers, the putting it out there for others to consume is the main purpose. Writing for yourself is definitely a thing — as is talking to yourself — but writing (and speaking) is something you do for other people to hear you.
And it’s okay to want to be heard.
I picture it the same way as I do putting on a theatrical production. You work on developing the show, pour time and energy and passion into creating this show. And then you put it on a stage, in front of an audience. That’s the point of doing all of the work, the purpose of the passion and the pain: to share that with an audience, to get a group of people who are invested and who want to hear what this playwright (and the actors who are delivering their words!).
Getting the audience’s reaction, the audience’s energy, is a part of the process. And it’s a crucial one. As an actor, I’ve fed off the energy of the audience. It makes the work better. The audience’s engagement lets the actors be more engaged. It lets them know that what they’re doing matters.
There’s a reason that the silver-haired Sunday matinees are usually the hardest for actors (at least at the school/community level. I’m not going to speak for Broadway). There’s a smaller audience — or, occasionally, no audience — and the audience tends to be older and less engaged.
(Also, a Sunday matinee is the only time I’ve ever been interrupted during a show. Halfway during Act III of You Can’t Take It With You a woman answered her phone and had a loud conversation. She wasn’t engaged; she didn’t care.)
Just as I act for an audience, I write for an audience. | https://zachjpayne.medium.com/we-write-to-be-read-17acbd7c36bf | ['Zach J. Payne'] | 2019-01-31 03:50:14.665000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Writing', 'Art', 'Creativity', 'Life'] |
Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ Experiment Is a Lesson in Marketing | The Purpose of This Experiment
This experiment is not analogous to opening a shop and putting a sign “pay what you like.” This is because music is very different than other regular things you buy.
First, you pay for the products you use because you need to. Music is always available for free from third parties. You can always get music despite all the attempts to protect it from piracy. For other physically available things, you’d have to physically steal them.
Second, let’s say we’re in a perfect world where piracy doesn’t exist, and there exists a sophisticated system of protecting it that ensures it isn’t leaked or stolen. Would this experiment be stupid now? No, because Radiohead would earn more or less the same anyway.
Music is not a necessity like food. Many people don’t buy music because they simply can’t. Even if they can, they’d have to cut some corners which makes it harder. So people pirating music is not just because they lack morality.
Not to mention the people outside of developed countries who have no official way of buying most of the things available digitally because their countries have not developed a way to make those transactions. I live in one of them, and no matter how much I like any band, it’s pretty hard for me to pay what they deserve. While still possible, I’d have to look for other ways to pay for these things.
In this case, the 38% of people who paid for the album are the people who would have also paid for a regular album release. And most of the people in the 62% would have found other ways to download it.
In that 38%, there might be a small percentage of people who would pay much more than average and much more than you’d expect, and that’s what balances everything.
With a fixed and compulsory price, even if 12% more people paid for the album, the resulting amount of money may still be less than the money raised by the 5%–6% of people who paid a lot of money for the album.
In Rainbows made more than its preceding album just with the digital sales, so it is possible that In Rainbows could have earned even less with a regular release. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/radioheads-in-rainbows-experiment-is-a-lesson-in-marketing-decea1372a31 | ['Binit Acharya'] | 2020-12-11 18:34:07.640000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Art', 'Business', 'Money', 'Music'] |
IPL data analysis with Pandas and Matplotlib | Hey everyone, hope you might have enjoyed watching IPL(Indian Premier League). Are you interested in analyzing the same IPL data?! Then this article is for you!!
Prerequisites for this exercise:
Python
Pandas
Matplotlib
Downloaded data set
Downloading the data set:
Let us download the data set to begin the data analysis. Below link has the IPL entire data set starting from 2008 to 2020,
You may need to login to get the data set.
Let’s Code:
Once you have downloaded the data set, unzip it and make it ready to use it. Here am going to analyze the file “IPL Matches 2008–2020.csv”. It has the details of all the match details like which team played the match, who won the man, man of the match, etc.. In this exercise, I want to know the total matches played by each team. Now let us import the necessary library,
import pandas as pd import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
Now we need to get the csv file which we unzipped and store it in a variable as dataframe,
df = pd.read_csv('/home/siddharth/Downloads/IPL Matches 2008-2020.csv',index_col='id')
To check whether data has been loaded into the variable using print function,
print(df)
Dataframe is a two dimentional data structure similar to a table which has rows and columns. Since we need to find the total matches played by all the teams, we just need to refer only two columns (i.e) “team1” and “team2”. So let us get the unique values of the two columns,
team1 = df['team1'].value_counts(dropna=False)
team2 = df['team2'].value_counts(dropna=False)
print(team1)
In the above snip of code, we are getting the unique values of the column team1 and team2. Try to print team1 series(Series is denoted as a column in dataframe).
Misspelled team name
You may notice that the team name “Rising Pune Supergaints” has “s” missing which is causing it to count the team as separate value.
Let’s clean the data:
To clean data, we just need to replace the string with the team name having “s” in the end,
df["team1"]=df["team1"].replace("Rising Pune Supergiant","Rising Pune Supergiants")
df["team2"]=df["team2"].replace("Rising Pune Supergiant","Rising Pune Supergiants")
So above code will replace the occurrence of “Rising Pune Supergiant” with “Rising Pune Supergiants” in the series team1 and team2. Now, you will the the correct count of teams in team1 and team2 series,
Corrected team count
Calculating the total matches played by the team:
In order to calculate the total matches played by the teams, you need to count the occurrence of team names in two columns — “team1” and “team2”. Below logic will help to get the total matches played by all the teams,
teams={}
for i in team1.index:
t1=team1[i]
t2=team2[i]
teams[i]=t1+t2
print(teams)
In the above piece of code, we have teams defined as a dictionary with team name as key and number of matches played by the team as values. team1.index variable will hold the entire index value of team1 column. We are trying to add the count of occurrence of team name in both the columns(“team1” & “team2”).
Now let us plot the values and key in a graph using matplotlib.
plt.bar(range(len(teams)), teams.values(), align='edge')
plt.xticks(range(len(teams)), list(teams.keys()),rotation=20)
plt.show()
We are trying to display output in a bar graph using bar function for y-axis and xticks function for x-axis. Then displaying it using show() function.
Your graph which you got should look like below,
Complete graph
Complete code:
Happy analyzing!! :-) | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/ipl-data-analysis-with-pandas-and-matplotlib-cade024625de | ['Siddharth Murugan'] | 2020-12-13 16:33:29.075000+00:00 | ['Ipl', 'Matplotlib', 'Python', 'Pandas', 'Data Visualization'] |
Bar Chart Basics with Python’s Matplotlib | Now we can use Matplotlib to create our Figure and axes.
I declared two variables, one to hold the Figure and the other to hold the Axes. Then I used .subplots to create one subplot with a figure size of 12x6.
Cool… Cool, cool, cool… But where’s the data?
Once we defined how we want our Figure to be, we can start plotting our data. Matplotlib makes this easy to do. We only need to choose which type of chart we want to use (.plot, .scatter, .bar, .pie, and others), pass the required parameters which usually is x and y, and let the default setting do the rest.
And voila! Now we have an ugly chart!
But seriously, it’s not so bad. It’s showing our data as we intended to. The X-axis displays the names as it is in df_filter.Name and the bars have the length as specified in df_filter.Global_Sales.
Visually our chart doesn’t look right. The names are all overlapping each other. There’s no way a viewer will know what these numbers represent or what the purpose of our graph is. So let’s fix it!
Let’s see what we can do about those names. Maybe if we increase our figure size, they’ll have more space.
Ok… We fixed the names, but now the labels are so small that it looks like a bar chart made for ants.
There are many other things we could try like, increase the font-size of the ticks, and find a balance between font-size and figure-size, we can try to edit the names of the games and maybe add some “
” to break them in more than one line, and we can try to rotate the names.
The first two options, adjusting sizes and renaming labels, maybe very practical since we don’t have much data to display, but if we were displaying 20, or maybe 100 columns, this would require too much time and effort.
So let’s try to rotate them.
We can use plt.xticks() to define the rotation parameter, which is the number of degrees we want to rotate. The problem now is that the text is centred by default, and we don’t want that. We want it to end on the tick marking.
That’s better, I’ve used “ha” which is the horizontal alignment parameter to align the texts to the right side of the tick marks.
But why are we rotating the text, since we can turn the bars? Even though we got to fix the spacing between the labels, the chart is still not aesthetically pleasant. It’s inconvenient to read the texts in an angle, so let’s see how it looks like with horizontal bars.
We’re getting closer, and this looks way better than the previous chart. We can read the texts and compare the sizes of the bars.
The only difference between this chart and the first one is their type, in the first example, I used .bar(labels, length), and now I’m using .barh(labels, width). We can also sort the values in our data frame to descending to have higher sales at the top of the chart.
All right, our chart is almost ready. Now we can start to make it look more visually apeling. To do so, we can try to follow some principles of data visualization. In my opinion, the most important here is removing distractions and not letting our viewers take guesses on the values.
In our x-axis, for example, we can estimate the size of a bar by the scale on the bottom, but that is as far as we can go.
The difference between “Tetris” and “New Super Mario Bros.” is 250 million copies, it’s a relatively small difference since we’re talking about billions, but still quite relevant.
We can remove the spines with their set_visible() function, and remove the x-ticks by passing an empty array to it.
Now we can use a “for” loop to go through the Global_Sales values and print them in our chart.
The function we’re using to plot the texts is “Text”. It requires values for x, y, and a string to be displayed.
Now it’s looking almost perfect, but I still need to add a meaningful title, increase the fonts, and vertically align the numbers to the bars.
Great! Now we have a bar chart that suits our data, we can visually observe de differences in sales by the sizes of our bars, and we have the exact number in billions of copies right by them, so we don’t need to make assumptions. The names of the games are readable, and the title allows us to understand the data.
What else can we do with bar charts?
There’s one more very common encoding used in bar charts that we haven’t used yet, color. | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/bar-chart-basics-with-pythons-matplotlib-51a8bb6ce720 | ['Thiago Carvalho'] | 2020-06-09 20:32:57.506000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Bar Chart', 'Simple', 'Matplotlib', 'Data Visualization'] |
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