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Scrum Is Dead. All Hail Kanban, the New King | We Adapted It to Our Team
Pure Kanban does not require you to do several activities that are necessary for Scrum. However, it gives you the flexibility to do them if you foresee value in adding them to your workflow.
Retrospective meetings are one of the most important meetings for a team. It’s where you can look to what you’ve accomplished, what didn’t go so well, and how you can improve. It’s a safe place where you can expose your problems and congratulate those who have done an excellent job.
Despite not being something required in Kanban (in Scrum, it is done at the end of each sprint), we saw value in it and kept it. In fact, we started to do them weekly instead of every two weeks, allowing us to have a quicker response when some problem arises. We also use these meetings to have a look over the team’s metrics and check for problems and bottlenecks.
Another optional activity that we chose to keep was the story estimation during the refinements. In Scrum, estimates are used to have a better understanding of what fits in a sprint. Since Kanban has no sprints, you would guess that this had no use.
Wrong!
Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash.
Estimating a story helps to make sure that everyone has the same idea of what is to be done in a story. If someone votes 8 and other people vote 3, it’s clear that the story needs further discussion. Someone could be accounting for a problem that others are not aware of or the other way around, where someone includes extra work that is not to be considered in that story.
To estimate stimulates discussion.
When this happens, it’s clear that not everyone has a clear understanding of what needs to be done.
Another frequent scenario is when the whole team votes for high value (typically, everything above 8). A high value means uncertainty. There is either too much to do or the task has a high level of complexity that makes people uncomfortable. The best practice, in this case, is to split the story into smaller stories with more explicit objectives. | https://medium.com/better-programming/scrum-is-dead-all-hail-kanban-the-new-king-2cd6249feef8 | ['Emanuel Marques'] | 2020-08-18 21:27:15.543000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Agile', 'Technology', 'Startup', 'Kanban'] |
Having Fun With Impractical CSS | Enough Theory, Let’s Get Coding
Background and main container
According to the structure chart, we want the background in html:before .
Then we want the html element to contain everything. This allows us to use relatively positioned elements that stack normally, instead of manually positioning every element ourselves.
Adding some content: the title area
Now that we have our container, we can start building our content out. We’ll start with the title area which shows the name of the Pokémon, their Pokédex number, and their types. We’re adding some SVGs in the next code block, so make sure you grab them from GitHub.
The title background used is a dynamic gradient that’s based on the types the Pokémon has. We’ll ignore the dynamic stuff and cover that in another article, using placeholders for now.
If you were to load the page right now, everything would be blank even though we just added the title area above.
This is because head:before is technically a child element of head , which hasn’t been styled yet. I ran into this issue a few times and would get confused, which is why I suggest planning the structure out. If something looks wrong, you should check that the parent isn’t making things wonky.
We’re going to add styling to the head tag so we can see the main content, and then finish off the title area by adding an image of Ludicolo using the head:after selector. Having the image change dynamically will be covered in another article.
There we go! Something is visible finally, and we’re already halfway there!
Tricks with text: multi-line content
Now that we’ve created the title area of the content by styling the head tag, we need to work on getting actual text content in. Though we did use the content property before for the Pokémon’s name, we’re going to need some line breaks to separate content. Generally, the content property text will act as a single line of text and wrap normally within the width of the parent, but we can force content to wrap with \a by setting white-space:pre-wrap; .
Using white-space:pre-wrap; allows us to create line breaks with \a
Add the description
Next, we’ll add the description to the page. This will be using the trick above so we can split the basic stats from the description. We’re also setting the width to 50% and adding a margin to the top to make room for the genus text and stats chart.
Finish up with genus and stat image | https://medium.com/better-programming/having-fun-with-impractical-css-3401bc18d567 | ['Spencer Hensel'] | 2020-12-14 18:59:08.222000+00:00 | ['CSS', 'Web', 'Design', 'Programming', 'Css3'] |
Introducing LabRdr: An Experimental Offline News App That Knows You | With this app, we’re experimenting with making offline news reading easier and more relevant, through automatic personalizations of your reading package based on signals like your interests or, possibly in the future, your location and what’s being read nearby.
We also hope LabRdr will save a reader time, since it doesn’t require you to pre-select a lot of broad news categories when you start using it, or spend time saving links to articles you want to read later.
Since it’s experimental (like all of the lab’s projects) the app will only be available temporarily. We’ll remove it from the app store after we finish our experimentation, near the end of the year.
What inspired this idea?
The idea for this app came from a common problem described by a lab engineer, Connor Jennings. Every morning, before he entered his usual subway station in Brooklyn, he would quickly open a handful of browser tabs with articles from The Ringer, a sports news site. Once he was underground he’d look through the tabs and hope that he liked the stories he opened at random.
This messy experience got Connor and the lab team thinking a lot about content recommendations, and how we might be able to use information and signals that are already stored on someone’s mobile phone to improve and customize the offline news reading experience.
Connor researched recommendation algorithms exhaustively and we had a lot of conversations about products or features that exist today to support offline reading or content recommendations. For various reasons it seems like the industry hasn’t quite hit on a successful model. Madeline Welsh, then the lab’s associate editor, even explored the problems and possible solutions deeply in her post, How Do We Build a Better Recommendation Experience for Mobile News Readers?
Ultimately we thought that, by building an app that could allow us to try lots of different algorithms and methods to drive content recommendations, we’d start to gain some deep insights about what makes personalization work for news products.
Our goals
We want to be incredibly transparent about how we are using the data we gather about your commute patterns and the things you choose to read. To that end, for each permission we request, and for each piece of data it allows us to track through the app, we also explain how we’ll use it to aim to improve your commute reading. We’ve also created a section — the Log — where you see what data we’ve collected on your use of the app.
The transparency goes two ways: We’ll also be asking users for feedback about what they like about the app, or what they’d like to see done differently. The reactions we gather from our app users will be analyzed and shared with other news organizations and technologists, in the hopes of helping advance the development of smarter, better-personalized mobile news experiences.
What we’re looking to learn
What makes a good content recommendation system for news? A lot of the existing work about content recommendations are around e-commerce and we’re interested in what signals are particularly good for news organizations and news reading.
We’re also looking to gauge readers’ reactions to the utility of having a short package of news defined for them for a set period of time. Without the option to read a full spectrum of articles on many topics, will they feel better informed with those they do read, or have a sense of achievement at completing a few articles in a set?
As with all our experiments, we’ll report on what we learn in follow-up posts after the app has been running for a while and we’ve collected and analyzed data and reactions.
We hope you’ll download and use the app for the coming week or two. We look forward to your reactions, and please comment here if you have any questions or initial feedback. | https://medium.com/the-guardian-mobile-innovation-lab/introducing-labrdr-an-experimental-offline-news-app-that-knows-you-23f3c960ce37 | ['Sasha Koren'] | 2017-10-25 16:19:55.308000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Personalization', 'Mobile', 'Journalism', 'iOS App Development'] |
UX Writing Is More Than Words | It seems contrary to what you’d expect, but the bulk of a UX writer’s time isn’t spent writing. Rather, we research, experiment, and meet with our engineering, design, marketing, support, and localization partners to ask questions — lots of questions. We ask, who is our customer? What task are they trying to accomplish? Where will they use this product? How has our competition addressed this need?
We ask these questions through all phases of the project, because the answers not only inform the product design but enable us to ensure that the text we craft is clear, concise, and perfectly placed within the product. We want the user experience to be so intuitive that customers will be delighted and complete their tasks without the need for after-market assistance. When done well, our work builds customer loyalty, prevents support costs, and helps the entire product team achieve key business metrics.
Ready to work with a UX writer? Read on for top tips to get started.
HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR UX WRITERS
1. Involve us early
Consider the UX writer your first customer. We look at products and features the way a customer would, with a clear task or goal in mind and the intent to complete it successfully. We’ll identify places where the customer might stumble and propose solutions that will reduce complexity and avoid confusion or frustration for customers downstream.
Because UX writers work across products and features, we can identify disparities in language, function, or imagery, and alert you to them when there’s still time to do something about it.
We know that customers would rather use our products than read about them, so when assistance is necessary, we look for innovative ways to provide that assistance without getting in the way — with callouts, videos, tutorials, and more.
2. Talk to us about the voice of your product
The voice is the tone and style that gives your product its unique personality. UX writers have the strategic use of product voice down pat. Sometimes it’s formal, sometimes it’s fun, but one thing is always true: we use the right words at the right time to ensure a common understanding without a trace of ambiguity.
None of this is done in a vacuum. Getting to the right words is an iterative affair, and we’ll go back and forth with you and other partners as often as is necessary to ensure that all text is the best that it can be. Below is an example of how a UX writer and her product team experimented with introducing GIFs in Outlook.
Too chatty: Do you often use emojis to get your sentiment across? Or maybe an animated GIF? When text or static images just won’t do, choose from dozens of emojis or add an animated GIF to make your point.
Do you often use emojis to get your sentiment across? Or maybe an animated GIF? When text or static images just won’t do, choose from dozens of emojis or add an animated GIF to make your point. Too direct: Outlook now supports animated GIFs.
Outlook now supports animated GIFs. Just right: When text or static images just won’t do, use an animated GIF to make your point.
They ultimately landed on the perfect combination of friendly, informative, and concise.
3. Ask to see our data
There’s plenty of art in the UX writer’s job, but we rely on science, too — data science. We use data to determine how customers find our information and what they do with it once they have it. We use it to identify what content should be created and how to make existing content better. We mine search queries and user comments to understand the language our customers use when talking about our products, and for nuggets of information that bring clarity to complex problems. Then we dive deeper into data to pinpoint problem areas so that engineering and design partners can design and implement product improvements.
And let’s not forget about SEO. UX writers constantly evaluate and experiment with search terms so that when support content is necessary, it’s tuned to ensure a top ranking in search results. Not because it’s cool to be at the top of the search rankings (although that is very cool), but because we want our customers to find the information they’re looking for using language that comes naturally to them.
4. Think about content as a feature, not an add-on
Content is part of the product, whether it’s field and dialog box names, banner messaging, helping UI, error messages, training videos, or the help system. Consider content a feature and include it as a line item in all planning, review, and release management processes to ensure you’re looking at the product holistically. Your customers will thank you for it.
5. Stay in touch once the feature or product ships
We continue to monitor customer feedback after the product ships, and we want to meet regularly with you to review metrics and verbatims. This not only gives insight into how the product is being used but helps you prioritize bug fixes and new features.
If you don’t know who your UX writer is, reach out to your organization’s editorial department and set up a meeting. You might also ask your design or support organization to point you in the right direction, as design, support, and UX writers typically work closely together. If your organization doesn’t have UX writers, these five UX writing tips for non-writers might help.
UX writers are customer advocates who bring a variety of skills to the product development table. Have you worked with a UX writer on one or more of your projects? Tell us about your experience. | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/ux-writing-is-more-than-words-fedd2d7876c3 | ['Tricia Gill'] | 2019-08-22 16:57:20.215000+00:00 | ['Microsoft', 'Design', 'Ux Writing', 'User Experience', 'UX'] |
A Christian Response to Reopening America’s Economy | I woke up this morning with an excerpt on my mind from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol:
“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?” (p. 56, http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Dickens/Carol/Dickens_Carol.pdf)
I find myself in a quandary about how quickly we should allow free commerce to thrive again in the United States.
Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash
On the one hand, we have the right to make and spend money as before the pandemic. This right places Americans in contact with others after more than 6 weeks of isolation/quarantine/lockdown, practicing social distancing. People in nonessential jobs during the coronavirus epidemic are running out of money, out of food, out of patience, out of medical insurance, and out of other necessities for life. They say, sometimes in protests, Americans have the freedom to work.
“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:31–33, ESV)
On the other hand, officials say that if we are not careful in the manner the economy is opened, the death toll from COVID-19 could be 0.1% of the population. So that’s not that much, right? That 0.1% is equal to around 302,000 Americans. Add the nurses and doctors to that cost as well, who have given their lives to save others.
Is that an acceptable cost to reopen America?
This quandary pits money against human life. In a world where buying groceries is an iffy proposition, even if you have the cash, will a closed economy keep people from eating? Cause people to lose their homes? Dig families into a pit of debt so deep that they will never recover?
Even if we can survive the economic loss, can our governments (state and federal) sustain the losses due to helping people with stimulus checks, unemployment, and the loss of small businesses?
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:5–7, ESV)
How much is human life worth?
When Dr. Oz stated that opening schools would cost 2–3% of the children’s lives, he was censored for thinking that might be acceptable. How could he think such a thing? He retracted his statement. Is the loss of 302,000 worth the cost? What if it was your child? Your mother? The cost feels too much to bear then.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Christianity is all about life, both here and in eternity. That’s why Christian churches help with hospitals, food banks, rescue centers, childcare, trauma teams, reconstruction. The church is defined by Jesus’ words as well as his brother James’s statement about nonpartisan acceptance and service for all.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27, ESV)
If we can serve and save our neighbors by staying home, shouldn’t we? If we have the ability to feed our neighbors, shouldn’t we? We have the moral responsibility as humans to help others. We have a godly responsibility as Christians to love all our neighbors in all the ways they need us to do.
“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” (Matthew 22:35–40, ESV)
What do we do? Do we go back to work and risk the lives of others and ourselves? Or do we stay at home and do what we can to provide for their needs? Is there another possible solution? | https://medium.com/koinonia/a-christian-response-to-reopening-americas-economy-9b0922718cdd | ['Diane Tatum'] | 2020-04-30 21:20:22.472000+00:00 | ['Christian Living', 'Christianity', 'Life', 'Coronavirus', 'Economy'] |
Philosophy As We Know It Is Dead | The Inability To Show What Constitutes Today’s Philosophy
An overview of contemporary philosophy has the particular problem of grasping its subject matter — how late Arthur Schopenhauer or Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, were received; Bernard Bolzano, for instance, would have fallen into oblivion without Edmund Husserl.
A further problem lies in the selection and interpretation — philosophy of the present means dealing with philosophers who are still alive or have recently died. Often a substantial part of the work has not yet been published. There are prominent philosophers such as Hilary Putnam, who changed their positions significantly during their literary work. However, the question of where the actuality for the present time lies by the wayside in this old-fashioned way of philosophizing.
In other words: Why cling to the old if it no longer reflects the reality of today?
I agree with Camille Paglia when she says that:
“The last truly important movement in the world of philosophy was existentialism, in the post-war Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. There have been theories of language since then, but without the profound insight of the best philosophy. Post-structuralism and post-modernism, by their slippery relativism, have destroyed the concept of philosophy. No one cares about philosophers — cultural criticism has come to the fore. Media and glitzy pop culture dominate now, and people need help to negotiate and survive it.”
Has philosophy lost its claim to deal with the practical implications of our daily lives, or has it, at least in the western world, never been able to detach itself from this idea of the small circle of white men?
It must nevertheless be the goal of philosophy to concern itself with fundamental problems. As a guideline, philosophy must give a thought construct in which people can find themselves. Today, it appears that political goals and propaganda are surpassing philosophy. This is probably also the point of contact to existentialism. If there was a desire to redefine oneself after the Second World War, then there would have to be a renewed desire for identity constructs in the present day, wouldn’t there? | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/philosophy-as-we-know-it-is-dead-fff572b0544c | ['The Unlikely Techie'] | 2020-11-27 18:11:17.620000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'History', 'Science', 'Culture', 'Social Media'] |
Unsupervised Machine Learning Approaches for Outlier Detection in Time Series, Using Python | In this post, I cover some of my favorite methods for detecting outliers in time series data. There are many different approaches for detecting anomalous data points; for the sake of brevity, I only focus on unsupervised machine learning methods in this post.
The anomaly/outlier detection algorithms covered in this article include:
Low-pass filters: taking the centered rolling average of a time series, and removing anomalies based on Z-score Isolation forests Seasonal-extreme studentized deviate (S-ESD) algorithm One class support vector machines (SVM’s)
So what is an ‘anomaly’ in a time series, and why do we care about about detecting anomalies in time series sequences?
I deal with time series data a lot, and it’s not uncommon for data sets to experience unexpected drops or spikes, flat lines, or phase shifts. Each of these situations qualifies as an ‘anomaly’ — something out of the ordinary when compared to the behavior of the sequence as a whole.
Detecting anomalies in a time series is important for a variety of reasons. Sometimes anomalies are indicative of certain patterns, such as spikes or drops in a trend during a specific day or time. Other times, anomalies are ‘false’ readings, which happen because of an instrumentation or meter error. Often, we want to isolate anomalies from time series data because they skew ‘average’ behaviors — average rate of change, average value, average distribution, etc.
All of the algorithms presented in this article have a binary output: a data point in a time series is either anomalous or it isn’t.
Time Series Example
In this article, we compare the results of several different anomaly detection methods on a single time series. The time series that we will be using is the daily time series for gasoline prices on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which is retrieved using the Energy Information Administration (EIA) API.
For more background on using the EIA’s free API to retrieve energy-related data in Python, check out this tutorial.
We pull and visualize the time series using the following Python code:
Just to spice things up, we pepper the time series with a few outliers. Hopefully, these points will be picked up by the anomaly detection algorithms.
Gasoline Price Time Series, with artificially generated anomalies in yellow
Now that we’ve selected our time series and added a few outliers, let’s test our anomaly detection algorithms on it.
Simple Low-Pass Filter: Taking a Rolling Average, and Removing Anomalies based on Z-Score
One of the simplest (but still highly effective) methods that I use for detecting anomalies goes as follows:
Implementing a centered rolling average of the time series data Calculating the individual Z-score of each data point in the time series, compared to the rolling average Removing data points that are more than a certain number of standard deviations away from the rolling average (normally 2 to 3 standard deviations away, but depends on the data behavior)
Let’s try this method with an example.
Code Example
As mentioned above, we use the time series for gasoline prices on the US Gulf Coast as our example time series set.
It is important to note that the rolling average that we implement for our low-pass filter is centered. This means that a rolling average with x-length is the mean of x/2 data points before, and x/2 data points after. For example, if we implement a 60-point rolling average at value t, then we find the mean of the data points ranging between (t-30) and (t+30). Using a centered rolling average helps to account for large shifts in the time series from both ends.
We generate the low-pass filter and visualize anomalies using the following code:
Gasoline time series, color-coded by detected low-pass filter anomalies. Anomalous data points are in yellow, and normal data points are in purple.
In examining the above results, the low pass filter performs fairly well. Of the nine outliers added to the time series, the low pass filter successfully detects six, plus a few other data points that look anomalous.
Isolation Forests
Isolation forests are an unsupervised extension of the popular random forest algorithm. The building blocks of isolation forests are isolation trees with a binary outcome (is/is not an outlier).
When an isolation forest is built, the algorithm splits each individual data point off from all other data points. The easier it is to isolate a single point in space from all other points, the more likely it is an outlier (because it’s far away from all other data points). If a data point is an in-lier, it will be closely surrounded by other data points, and will take more splits to isolate (1). See the graphic below as an illustration.
Each line represents a split performed by the algorithm to isolate individual data points. In the first figure, X0 is an outlier, and is isolated in ~3 splits. In the second figure, Xi is an in-lier, and requires many more splits to isolate from all other data points.
Image courtesy of https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Anomaly-Detection-through-on-line-Isolation-Forest%3A-Susto-Beghi/c321685dd03fa1a54e99b4c046950b96c3b0f040/figure/1.
For further information on isolation forests, check out this tutorial by T. Fuertes.
Code Example
Again we use the gasoline time series, but this time we apply the isolation forest algorithm to detect anomalies. We use the IsolationForest() model available in the scikit-learn package to build a model and test it on our data set:
Gasoline time series, color-coded by detected Isolation Forest anomalies. Anomalous data points are in yellow, and normal data points are in purple.
Like the low-pass filter, the isolation forest detects most of the artificially generated anomalies; however, it classifies more false positives (data points labelled as anomalies when they are actually not). The algorithm has a particularly difficult time recognizing large time series shifts (see late 2014 time period as an example).
Seasonal-Extreme Studentized Deviate (S-ESD) Algorithm
A group of data scientists as Twitter initially developed the S-ESD algorithm. One of the original (and most popular) implementations of the algorithm is in the R ‘AnomalyDetection’ package. Luckily, the R package has been adapted several times over for use in Python.
The algorithm is simple to understand, and, depending on the time series used, quite robust. It works as follows:
A time series is decomposed using STL (season-trend-loess) decomposition. The ESD algorithm is run on the resulting loess time series to detect anomalies. The loess time series represents noise in the system, after trend and seasonal behavior have been filtered out.
Let’s try an example to demonstrate.
Code Example
Before we implement the S-ESD algorithm, let’s decompose the gasoline price time series to get an idea of the time series’ trend, seasonality, and noise:
STL Decomposition of Gulf Coast Gasoline Price Time Series, 2014-Present
In the above code snippet, we decompose the time series on a yearly frequency. When detecting anomalies, the decomposed time series that we really care about is the Residual Time Series (or loess time series). This time series represents noise in the sequence, after seasonality and trend have been accounted for.
Following decomposition, we apply the Extreme Studentized Deviate (ESD) test on the residual time series to detect outliers. One of the main advantages of the ESD Test is that it only requires an upper bound for the total number of outliers to detect; this is in contrast to the Grubbs Test, where the number of outliers must be declared exactly (2).
For more information on the Extreme Studentized Deviate (ESD) algorithm, check out this link.
In the code snippet below, we perform S-ESD anomaly detection on the time series, which includes STL decomposition and outlier detection using ESD:
Gasoline Time Series, color coded on S-ESD anomalies, with outliers in yellow and all other data points in purple
The results for S-ESD algorithm are not too promising, based on the results above. The algorithm only successfully manages to identify one of the nine generated anomalies. I’ve previously had success with this algorithm using other time series sets, but it appears to struggle with this particular example.
One-Class Support Vector Machines (SVM’s)
One-class SVM’s are the unsupervised version of support vector machines, as they are trained on only one class (the “normal” class). Because the data is unlabeled, one-class support vector machines “infer the properties of the normal cases, and from these properties predict which examples are unlike the normal examples” (3). One-class SVM’s use a binary function that maps the probability density of data across a plane, with high probability regions set to +1 and low probability regions set to -1 (4).
Check out this article by Hsu et al for more in-depth information on one-class support vector machines.
Code Example
Once again we turn to scikit-learn to build our model; this time, for one-class SVM’s. We generate a couple variables to plug into the algorithm to improve performance--mainly, a centered 6-point rolling average of the gasoline price time series. We then run the original time series and its rolling average through the one_class_SVM_anomaly_detection() function. In the function, we scale each variable, and train the unsupervised model. Finally, we classify each data point, and visualize using a scatter plot:
Gasoline time series, color-coded by detected one-class SVM anomalies. Anomalous data points are in yellow, and normal data points are in purple.
The one-class SVM performs relatively well, detecting six out of the nine artificially generated outliers. However, like the isolation forest, it detects several false positives in the sequence.
Conclusions
In this article, we compared the results of a variety of anomaly detection techniques — isolation forests, low-pass filters, one class SVM’s, and the S-ESD algorithm. Surprisingly, when comparing the results side-by-side, the algorithm with the best performance (at least for this example) is a simple low-pass filter. The algorithm with the worst performance is the S-ESD algorithm.
It is important to note that these algorithms perform differently for each individual time series. Just because the low-pass filter works best with this example, doesn’t mean it works best for all time series. To achieve optimal results, try all the above options before making a final decision on which algorithm to use.
This concludes my tutorial on unsupervised machine learning methods for time series anomaly detection. Thanks for reading!
For the full Python code used in this tutorial, check out the following Github repo: https://github.com/kperry2215/unsupervised_anomaly_detection_time_series
Sources
T. Fuertes. April 4, 2018. Isolation forest: the art of cutting off from the world. https://quantdare.com/isolation-forest-algorithm/ Engineering Statistics Handbook. Generalized ESD Test for Outliers. https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda35h3.htm Azure Machine Learning Studio. May 5, 2019. One-Class Support Vector Machine. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/studio-module-reference/one-class-support-vector-machine Roemer Vlasveld. July 12, 2013. Introduction to One-class Support Vector Machines. http://rvlasveld.github.io/blog/2013/07/12/introduction-to-one-class-support-vector-machines/
Check out some of my other time series tutorials and articles: | https://towardsdatascience.com/unsupervised-machine-learning-approaches-for-outlier-detection-in-time-series-using-python-5759c6394e19 | ['Kirsten Perry'] | 2019-08-25 15:16:09.278000+00:00 | ['Anomaly Detection', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Book Coach Success Spotlight: Dani Abernathy | Celebrating a book coach’s success
Author Accelerator is on a mission to help writers write books worth reading. We do that by training book coaches to support writers throughout the entire creative process. Meet Dani Abernathy became a certified book coach in May 2020. Today we are celebrating Dani getting her first two paying clients.
Q: So tell us, Dani, how will you be helping these clients (what service did they sign up for)?
Dani: I’ll be helping one client determine the building blocks of their book and another client get started on their revision. | https://medium.com/no-blank-pages/book-coach-success-spotlight-dani-abernathy-d4cedbc23475 | ['Terri M. Leblanc'] | 2020-12-02 00:19:03.040000+00:00 | ['Coaching', 'Freelancing', 'Coaching Skills', 'Writing', 'Success Story'] |
Why developers love TypeScript every bit as much as Python | Why developers love TypeScript every bit as much as Python
And why you might consider switching if you’re dealing with front-end web, or back-end Node development
Python and TypeScript are among the most-loved programming languages. Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
Python is my bread-and-butter, and I love it. Even though I’ve got some points of criticism against the language, I strongly recommend it for anybody starting out in data science. More experienced people in the field tend to be Python-evangelists anyway.
However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t challenge the limits in your field from time to time, for example by exploring a different programming paradigm or a new language.
The list of Python’s competitors is long: Rust, Go, Scala, Haskell, Julia, Swift, C++, Java, and R all find an entry on it. In such a crowded field, it’s quite understandable that JavaScript and TypeScript don’t tend to get that much recognition.
That doesn’t mean that TypeScript isn’t a staple in the general programming world. Among data scientists, however, it’s never been particularly popular.
You could conclude that TypeScript may not be a good match for data science. But don’t rush. Although it might not be suitable for every part of data science, there are areas where it has distinct advantages over Python.
If you happen to work in one of these areas, it’s worth giving TypeScript a shot. And if you don’t, who knows where you’ll land next? The field is moving fast. You have a competitive advantage if you can look beyond your nose.
TypeScript: JavaScript, but type-safe
About a decade ago, software engineers at Microsoft noticed that JavaScript wasn’t meeting all their needs any more. On the one hand, the language was evolving rapidly and adding extremely interesting new features. On the other hand, none of the features in the pipeline could solve one fundamental problem: JavaScript was great for small programs, but writing whole applications with it was a mess.
There were a few possibilities for solving the problem: one could, for example, use a different language, or redesign JavaScript with a better syntax. The development team at Microsoft took a different approach: they created TypeScript by expanding JavaScript. This way, they were able to use all new features of JavaScript while getting rid of the stuff that wasn’t good for big projects.
Similarly to Python, JavaScript is compiled at runtime, meaning that you need to run the code to debug it. TypeScript, on the other hand, is compiled. This provides an extra layer of safety because programmers get information about possible bugs before execution time. With non-compiled languages like Python or JavaScript, it can be quite time-consuming to locate bugs once you’ve realized that your code isn’t behaving as expected.
The key difference between JavaScript and TypeScript, however, is the type checker. Upon compilation, every TypeScript-program gets checked on whether the data types are consistent with one another.
This might sound trivial to do manually. But when you’re working on projects with thousands of lines of code, you’ll thank the Lord for having it.
There are a few other differences, like the fact that TypeScript has anonymous functions and asynchronous functions. Anonymous functions are a key feature of functional programming, which can make a program more efficient with big data loads.
Asynchronous programming is extremely useful when you need to perform multiple operations in parallel, or when you’re dealing with I/O operations that shouldn’t interrupt background processes. Asynchronous programming is possible in Python and Javascript, but in TypeScript it’s built in from the core.
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. Image by author, with references to Guru99 and Wikipedia.
How TypeScript became popular
If you hate the illogical but hilarious WTF-moments that keep happening in JavaScript, then I have bad news for you: you’ll see all that stuff in TypeScript, too.
But these syntactical hiccups aren’t the reason why programmers love TypeScript so much. Rather, it boils down to the idea that you take a great product — JavaScript — and add something even greater — static typing.
Of course I’m not saying that JavaScript is always great, or that static typing is always the best way of doing things. But for building large Microsoft-style applications, this seems to work extremely well.
That being said, TypeScript still only has a fraction of the popularity that JavaScript has. This could be attributed to the age: TypeScript is eight years old. JavaScript is three times as old! And Python is also an oldie in the field with its thirty years.
Despite its young age, there are fields where TypeScript is inevitable. This adds to its popularity. For example, when Google announced that Angular.js would run with TypeScript in 2016, the number of tags on StackOverflow exploded.
TypeScript only shares a fraction of the traction that Python and JavaScript have. Still, it’s inevitable in some areas. Image from StackOverflow Trends
Where TypeScript might have an edge over Python
What made JavaScript popular back in the days is that it runs everywhere. You can run it on a server or in your browser or wherever you like. You compile it once, and it works everywhere. When that first came out, it almost seemed like magic.
As it’s built on JavaScript, TypeScript shares that magic. Python does, too! Granted, it has a slightly different implementation since it uses an interpreter instead of a virtual machine. But that doesn’t change the fact that in terms of run-me-anywhere, TypeScript and Python are on par.
Features like generics and static typing make it easier to do functional programming in TypeScript than in Python. This could be an advantage because demand for functional code is growing due to developments in data science, parallel programming, asynchronous programming, and more.
On the other hand, Python has been adding more and more features of functional programming, too. And when it comes to data science, machine learning, and more, Python is at the forefront of frontiers.
That leaves parallel programming and asynchronous programming on the table. Even though you can pull both of these things off in both languages, there is a big difference: in Python, you need to use particular libraries for the task. In TypeScript, all libraries are asynchronous from the core. And since the latter is a bit more functional by default, it’s often a tiny bit easier to do parallel programming.
In other words, if you’re a Python developer that is involved in asynchronous processes and parallel computing, you might want to give TypeScript a try.
Is TypeScript better than Python? Sometimes. Photo by THE 9TH Coworking on Unsplash
What makes TypeScript great for data science — or not
Many data scientists deal with asynchronous and parallel programming. You might already be considering writing your next project in TypeScript rather than Python. Whether that’s a good idea depends on many other factors, though.
First of all, TypeScript doesn’t have a straightforward way of doing list comprehensions. This can be frustrating when dealing with large arrays, for example.
Second, there are no native matrix operations in TypeScript. Python has NumPy, as well as a host of other tools, that make them easy. So if your project is heavy in linear algebra, you might want to stay away from TypeScript.
Third, if you’re not too familiar with JavaScript, you’re almost guaranteed to get some moments of confusion. Since TypeScript is built upon JavaScript, it inherited all of its features — the good, the bad, and the WTF. Although, if I’m honest, encountering these phenomena can be quite amusing, too…
Finally, you’ll want to take into account that programming isn’t a solitary occupation. There is an enormous community for Python in data science which offers support and advice. But at this point in time, TypeScript isn’t that popular among data scientists. So you might not be able to find that many helpful answers to your questions on StackOverflow and elsewhere.
That being said, if you’re starting a small project without too many big arrays and matrix operations, you might want to give TypeScript a go anyway. Especially if it involves some parallel or asynchronous programming.
The bottom line: know where to use your tools
There is no one language for every task. Sure, some languages are more fun or more intuitive than others. Of course it’s important that you love your tools because that will keep you going when times are tough. Starting with a well-loved language like TypeScript or Python is therefore not a bad idea.
But at the end of the day you shouldn’t stick to one language like to a religion. Programming languages are tools. Which tool is best for you depends on what you’re trying to do with it.
At the moment, Python is huge for data science. But in a rapidly evolving field, you need to be able to look past your nose. As your tasks are changing, so might your tools.
TypeScript, on the other hand, has a buzzing community around front-end web, back-end Node, and mobile development. What’s interesting is that these areas intersect with data science more often than one thinks. Node, in particular, is gaining more and more traction among data scientists.
Of course this doesn’t mean that you should dabble with a dozen languages at a time. There is enormous value in knowing one language really well. But being curious about other languages and technologies will help you stay ahead of the curve in the long term.
So don’t hesitate to try something new when you feel like it. Why not with TypeScript? | https://towardsdatascience.com/why-developers-love-typescript-every-bit-as-much-as-python-687d075cfb5e | ['Rhea Moutafis'] | 2020-10-18 14:14:58.810000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Typescript', 'Towards Data Science', 'Programming', 'Programming Languages'] |
React Cancel all axios request in componentWillUnmount. | The code for this article is in this codesandbox, If you don’t need explanations as to why things are happening, head over there, otherwise keep reading, I promise you will learn a thing or two.
Why Cancel Requests?
It is one thing to write an asynchronous call to an API to fetch data, and it is another thing to cancel that call when it is not beneficial to our users. The single action of cancelling API request when it is no longer needed leads to a better performant app devoid of bugs. A common scenario where an API request needs to be cancelled is when a user navigates away from a page.
Let’s say you have a React app that makes several calls once the component mounts inside the componentDidMount lifecycle of a component, if a user navigates to that page, the API requests starts, however, if the user navigates away from that page before the request is completed, by default the API requests still runs in the background and if possible updates different parts of your application that need that data even though at that point the user no longer needs (because they are on another page) the data that is returned from the request.
At the point the user navigates away from the page, all API requests made in it to update the state and render a view with the data is unnecessary and if not cancelled leads to memory leaks in an application. React alerts us to this problem by outputting these popular lines in the console
Warning: Can’t perform a React state update on an unmounted component. This is a no-op, but it indicates a memory leak in your application. To fix, cancel all subscriptions and asynchronous tasks in the componentWillUnmount method.
in Landing (created by Context.Consumer)
How cancelling requests works in axios
To start the process of cancelling an axios request, the following steps are involved:
Create a variable that will hold the cancel token source
let source = axios.CancelToken.source(); Inside the axios request config, pass the token of the created source variable as the value of the cancelToken key/property.
let config = { cancelToken: source.token}
axios.get(endpointUrl, config).then((res) => {})
or
axios.get(endpointUrl, { cancelToken: source.token}).then((res) => {}) Trigger the cancel request by calling source.cancel() where and when (in a react component this can be on the componentWillUnmount lifecycle method or on the click of a button) you need to cancel the request. Catch the error being thrown (an error is thrown in every cancel request) inside the catch block of the axios request.
The entire axios cancel request API is built on top of the DOM AbortController API that is used to abort/terminate all asynchronous actions in a program. To use it:
Instantiate a new controller object
const controller = new AbortController();
Then create a signal that alerts the async action on when to terminate/abort its process. In case of a network request, this will signal the request to cancel.
const signal = controller.signal;
Pass the signal to the action. For e.g, a fetch request has a signal property on its config object that accepts an AbortSignal.
fetch(url, { signal: signal}).then(res => {})
Call the abort property on the AbortController object to abort the request.
controller.abort();
For practical code examples of how to use the AbortController API refer to this article.
How to Cancel Requests where the Axios request is inside the component.
Both the axios request and cancel request happens is handled inside this component
Steps involved: | https://julietonyekaoha.medium.com/react-cancel-all-axios-request-in-componentwillunmount-e5b2c978c071 | ['Juliet Onyekaoha'] | 2020-10-30 07:38:48.375000+00:00 | ['React', 'Componentwillunmount', 'Abortcontroller', 'Cancel Request', 'Axios'] |
Give with Microsoft Bing | Giving is a universal behavior that spans cultures around the world. Altruistic acts — from supporting disaster relief to voting rights efforts to housing development and cultural preservation — not only benefit the recipients, but also make a positive impact psychologically on those who give. The effect of giving tends to be contagious. When we see others engage in giving behaviors, we want to give ourselves.
As a design and research team working on web experiences that connect the globe, we are passionate on this point: giving is for everyone.
Available now, Give with Bing is an experience that converts your everyday web searches into charitable donations. Your Microsoft Rewards points become actual dollars donated to the nonprofit of your choice. Every query makes a difference. As we continue to invest in Bing, our approach is evolving. We’re not only including new features; we’re rethinking and redesigning the function of search, asking ourselves how the web can be used for good.
Broadening the responsibility of design
The act of searching the web hasn’t changed much in 30 years. What has changed is the number of people connected to the web today. With more than half the world’s population, or 3.8 billion people, using the internet every day, we seek to push boundaries and start thinking about how we can use this scale of impact responsibly.
Our design methodology partially stems from our modern understanding of corporate social responsibility. According to Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, “The corporation’s purpose is to find profitable solutions to the problems of the people and the planet.” This expands the notion of shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism, asking us to consider anyone and anything that technology’s reach impacts. This holds corporations accountable to a much larger constituency, solving problems that help contribute to the common good.
A sampling of hero images designed for the Microsoft Bing homepage.
We’ve seen a year filled with loss and anxiety that has amplified the need for good. We’ve experienced the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a resounding call for racial justice, and a rise in wildfires and other natural disasters. These events are enough to overwhelm people, making them wonder how they can even begin to help. But it’s empowering to think that you don’t need to be a wealthy philanthropist to give back — that something you do every day could help make a difference, no matter your cause. Through Give with Bing, we’re hoping to remove the historical barriers to philanthropy and democratize the act of giving.
You, and the causes you care about, are crucial to this goal. Give with Bing supports more than a million charitable organizations, and you can change your chosen cause at any time. We also believe that there is power in small acts, and we see an opportunity for equity in opening the idea of philanthropy to include personally meaningful contributions. Giving is giving is giving.
Elevating an everyday tool
Empowering personal web searches with greater impact and purpose translates as a form of data dignity, the idea that a person’s online activity is a personal, autonomous asset. Give with Bing is a way to respect data dignity by using your personal interest — the charitable cause you care about — as a valued and valuable data currency within your control. Conversations about data dignity are gaining traction in the realm of technology ethics, with experts like Jaron Lanier arguing that people should be paid for their data. Give with Bing essentially models data as currency, whereby your searches (data) become cash donations (currency). This is really only possible on the web, where everyone has inherent value. The internet was built with an egalitarian vision. Give with Bing is an evolution of this vision, helping democratize search into a data-equitable experience.
Feeding children, protecting wildlife, or giving clean water are among myriad causes you can contribute to.
We want to see more of this thinking go into designing web experiences. Beyond improved privacy interactions, what are the opportunities to translate web searches into the common good? Take Ecosia, the search engine that uses ad revenue to plant trees. In many cases, the web already functions in a way that we can elevate toward the greater good, repurposing some aspects of technology for a more human experience. As designers and creators, we need to tap into the better angels of our nature.
Designing responsibly now and tomorrow
We know that people have the propensity to do good, and the benefits of altruistic behavior are well documented. There is even something called the “helper’s high” to describe the effects of giving, with the giver experiencing lower stress, improved mood, and increased happiness. Knowing this, and considering our reach as designers working on Bing, drawing the connection became that act of responsible design — to leverage the power of technology to effect change.
Everyone searches the web. Bing is repurposing this platform to acknowledge that anyone who wants to make an impact should be able to. The promise of technology falls short without this egalitarian mindset. For this reason, we see Give with Bing as a promise, with bigger plans for the future. This isn’t just about the dollars being donated right now, but about the approach we take to design better, challenging the way things work, and imagining that things could work differently.
A lot of people across different teams in Microsoft came together to make this possible. Thanks to Alexander Kim, Altaf Gilani, Bobby Bernethy, Camille Basilio, Cyrus Kanga, Igor Rondel, Jane Park, Jess Boos, Kim Brown, Nandhini Kohareswaran, Richard Jacques, Rob Frye, Urmi Bhayani, YoungSun Park, everyone in the research, engineering, and branding teams, and all the amazing folks who contributed to the success of this project! | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/give-with-microsoft-bing-db5598a07153 | ['Microsoft Design'] | 2020-12-15 15:32:45.289000+00:00 | ['Microsoft', 'Design'] |
Install Spinnaker with Halyard on Kubernetes | “Amante” 10 A 1983 Peterson designed Choate 48 sailboat photo D Ramey Logan
This article will walk you through the steps that can be used to install and setup a Spinnaker instance on Kubernetes that’s behind a corporate proxy. We will use Halyard on docker to manage our Spinnaker deployment.
For a super quick installation, you can use Spinnaker’s Helm chart
Prerequisites
Make sure to take care of these prerequisites before installing Spinnaker:
Docker 17.x with proxies configured (click here for OL setup)
A Kubernetes cluster (click here for OL setup)
Helm with RBAC enabled (click here for generic setup)
Install Halyard on Docker
Halyard is used to install and manage a Spinnaker deployment. In fact, all production grade Spinnaker deployments require Halyard in order to properly configure and maintain Spinnaker. Let’s use Docker to install Halyard.
Create a docker volume or create a host directory to hold the persistent data used by Halyard. For the purposes of this article, let’s create a host directory and grant users full access:
mkdir halyard && chmod 747 halyard
Halyard needs to interact with your Kubernetes cluster. So we pass the $KUBECONFIG file to it. One way would be to mount a host directory into the container that has your Kubernetes cluster details. Let’s create the directory “k8s” and copy the $KUBECONFIG file and make it visible to the user inside the Halyard container.
mkdir k8s && cp $KUBECONFIG k8s/config && chmod 755 k8s/config
Time to download and run Halyard docker image:
docker run -p 8084:8084 -p 9000:9000 \
--name halyard -d \
-v /sandbox/halyard:/home/spinnaker/.hal \
-v /sandbox/k8s:/home/spinnaker/k8s \
-e http_proxy=http://<proxy_host>:<proxy_port> \
-e https_proxy=https://<proxy_host>:<proxy_port> \
-e JAVA_OPTS="-Dhttps.proxyHost=<proxy_host> -Dhttps.proxyPort=<proxy_port>" \
-e KUBECONFIG=/home/spinnaker/k8s/config \
gcr.io/spinnaker-marketplace/halyard:stable
Make sure to replace the “<proxy_host>” and “<proxy_port>” with your corporate proxy values.
Login to the “halyard” container to test the connection to your Kubernetes cluster:
docker exec -it halyard bash
kubectl get pods -n spinnaker
Optionally, if you want command completion run the following inside the halyard container:
source <(hal --print-bash-completion)
Set provider to “Kubernetes”
In Spinnaker terms, to deploy applications we use integrations to specific cloud platforms. We have to configure Halyard and set the cloud provider to Kubernetes v2 (manifest based) since we want to deploy Spinnaker onto a Kubernetes cluster:
hal config provider kubernetes enable
Next we create an account. In Spinnaker, an account is a named credential Spinnaker uses to authenticate against an integration provider — Kubernetes in our case:
hal config provider kubernetes account add <my_account> \
--provider-version v2 \
--context $(kubectl config current-context)
Make sure to replace “<my_account>” with an account name of your choice. Save the account name in an environment variable $ACCOUNT. Next, we need to enable Halyard to use artifacts:
hal config features edit --artifacts true
Set deployment type to “distributed”
Halyard supports multiple types of Spinnaker deployments. Let’s tell Halyard that we need a distributed deployment of Spinnaker:
hal config deploy edit --type distributed --account-name $ACCOUNT
Set persistent store to “Minio”
Spinnaker needs a persistent store to save the continuous delivery pipelines and other configurations. Halyard let’s you choose from multiple storage providers. For the purposes of this article, we will use “Minio”.
Let’s use Helm to install a simple instance of Minio. Run the command from outside the Halyard docker container on a node that has access to your Kubernetes cluster and Helm:
helm install --namespace spinnaker --name minio --set accessKey=<access_key> --set secretKey=<secret_key> stable/minio
Make sure to replace “<access_key>” and “<secret_key>” with values of your choosing.
If you are using a local k8s cluster with no real persistent volume support, you can pass “persistence.enabled=false” as a set to the previous Helm command. As the flag suggests, if Minio goes down, you will lose your changes.
According to the Spinnaker docs, Minio does not support versioning objects. So let’s disable versioning under Halyard configuration. Back in the Halyard docker container run these commands:
mkdir ~/.hal/default/profiles && \
touch ~/.hal/default/profiles/front50-local.yml
Add the following to the front50-local.yml file:
spinnaker.s3.versioning: false
Now run the following command to configure the storage provider:
echo $MINIO_SECRET_KEY | \
hal config storage s3 edit --endpoint http://minio:9000 \
--access-key-id $MINIO_ACCESS_KEY \
--secret-access-key
Make sure to set the $MINIO_ACCESS_KEY and $MINIO_SECRET_KEY environment variables to the <access_key> and <secret_key> values that you used when you installed Minio.
Finally, let’s enable the s3 storage provider:
hal config storage edit --type s3
Set version to “latest”
You have to select a specific version of Spinnaker and configure Halyard so it knows which version to deploy. You can view the available versions by running this command:
hal version list
Pick the latest version number from the list (or any other version that you want to deploy) and update Halyard:
hal config version edit --version <version>
Deploy Spinnaker
At this point, Halyard should have all the information that it needs to deploy a Spinnaker instance. Let’s go ahead and deploy Spinnaker by running this command:
hal deploy apply
Note that first time deployments might take a while.
Make Spinnaker reachable
We need to expose the Spinnaker UI and Gateway services in order to interact with the Spinnaker dashboard and start creating pipelines. When we deployed Spinnaker using Halyard, a number of Kubernetes services get created in the “spinnaker” namespace. These services are by default exposed within the cluster (type is “ClusterIP”). Let’s change the service type of the services fronting the UI and API servers of Spinnaker to “NodePort” to make them available to end users outside the Kubernetes cluster.
Edit the “spin-deck” service by running the following command:
kubectl edit svc spin-deck -n spinnaker
Change the type to “NodePort” and optionally specify the port on which you want the service exposed. Here’s a snapshot of the service definition:
...
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- port: 9000
protocol: TCP
targetPort: 9000
nodePort: 30900
selector:
app: spin
cluster: spin-deck
sessionAffinity: None
status:
...
Next, edit the “spin-gate” service by running the following command:
kubectl edit svc spin-gate -n spinnaker
Change the type to “NodePort” and optionally specify the port on which you want the API gateway service exposed.
Note that Kubernetes services can be exposed in multiple ways. If you want to expose Spinnaker onto the public internet, you can use a LoadBalancer or an Ingress with https turned on. You should configure authentication to lock down access to unauthorized users.
Save the node’s hostname or its IP address that will be used to access Spinnaker in an environment variable $SPIN_HOST. Using Halyard, configure the UI and API servers to receive incoming requests:
hal config security ui edit \
--override-base-url "http://$SPIN_HOST:30900"
hal config security api edit \
--override-base-url "http://$SPIN_HOST:30808"
Redeploy Spinnaker so it picks up the configuration changes:
hal deploy apply
You can access the Spinnaker UI at “http://$SPIN_HOST:30900”
Create a “hello-world” application
Let’s take Spinnaker for a spin (pun intended). Using Spinnaker’s UI, let’s create a “hello-world” application. Use the “Actions” drop-down and click “Create Application”:
Once the application is created, navigate to “Pipelines” tab and click “Configure a new pipeline”:
Now add a new stage to the pipeline to create a manifest based deployment:
Under the “Manifest Configuration”, add the following as the manifest source text:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
labels:
app: hello-world
name: hello-world
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: hello-world
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: hello-world
spec:
containers:
- image: '<docker_repository>:5000/helloworld:v1'
name: hello-world
ports:
- containerPort: 80
Replace the “<docker_repository>” with the name of your internal docker registry that is made available to your Kubernetes cluster.
Let’s take a quick side tour to create a “helloworld” docker image. We will create a “nginx” based image that hosts an “index.html” file containing:
<h1>Hello World</h1>
We will then create the corresponding “Dockerfile” in the same directory that holds the “index.html” file from the previous step:
FROM nginx:alpine
COPY . /usr/share/nginx/html
Next, we build the docker image by running the following command:
docker build -t <docker_repository>:5000/helloworld:v1 .
Make sure to replace the “<docker_repository>” with the name of your internal docker registry that is made available to your Kubernetes cluster. Push the docker image to the “<docker_repository>” to make it available to the Kubernetes cluster.
docker push <docker_repository>:5000/helloworld:v1
Back in the Spinnaker UI, let’s manually run the “hello-world” pipeline. After a successful execution you can drill down into the pipeline instance details:
To quickly test our hello-world app, we can create a manifest based “LoadBalancer” in the Spinnaker UI. Click the “+” icon:
Add the following service definition to create the load balancer:
kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: hello-world
spec:
type: NodePort
selector:
app: hello-world
ports:
- protocol: TCP
port: 80
targetPort: 80
nodePort: 31080
Once Spinnaker provisions the load balancer, hit the hello-world app’s URL at “http://$SPIN_HOST:31080” in your browser. Voila! There you have it, “Hello World” is rendered.
Conclusion
Spinnaker is a multi-cloud continuous delivery platform for releasing software with high velocity. We used Halyard to install Spinnaker on a Kubernetes cluster and deployed a simple hello-world pipeline. Of course, we barely scratched the surface in terms of what Spinnaker offers. Head over to the guides to learn more about Spinnaker. | https://medium.com/oracledevs/install-spinnaker-with-halyard-on-kubernetes-88277bd61d59 | ['Uday Tatiraju'] | 2018-11-26 16:45:51.690000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Spinnaker', 'K8s', 'Docker', 'Continuous Delivery'] |
How to Write a Headline | Your headline is the first impression of your story. Writing a great headline can be the difference between a handful of reads or orders of magnitude more. It can mean the difference between reliably growing an audience or losing integrity. Your job is to convince the reader to dive into your story, and then you must deliver. “When someone is trying to decide if they want to read a story, you don’t want them asking themselves: What does this headline mean? What is this story about? Why is this relevant? What will I learn?” shares Nadia Rawls, editorial director of growth at Medium. “You want the headline itself to be so clear that the only thing they need to ask themselves is: Am I interested in this story?”
In this guide, we’ll cover common mistakes and the best practices to strive for. We end with a few examples to help make this all more clear.
What a great headline looks like
The job of a headline is to merchandise your story and clearly convey what the story is about. Give the reader context about the story, and help them decide if it is worth reading. To make this decision, the reader needs to know what the story is about, and why it matters now. Make sure your headline addresses these questions. Strive for clarity here.
You want the headline itself to be so clear that the only thing they need to ask themselves is: Am I interested in this story?
Remember that the reader has not yet read the story. “When you’re writing headlines, step outside yourself to imagine seeing the headline with none of that context,” Rawls highlights. “Make sure that what’s clear to you about the story you wanted to tell and why it matters comes through clearly in the headline.” It can be helpful to share the headline with a few writing peers and see what they think the story is about.
Principles to consider in writing your headline
Be direct. Your story is among many a reader is browsing. Be straightforward in what it is about.
Your story is among many a reader is browsing. Be straightforward in what it is about. Use conventional language. Avoid jargon, and think of what makes sense in casual conversation. Know the language that your audience is familiar with.
Avoid jargon, and think of what makes sense in casual conversation. Know the language that your audience is familiar with. Focus on what’s interesting. Be straightforward about why a reader should read the article. Don’t bury or hide this.
Be straightforward about why a reader should read the article. Don’t bury or hide this. Deliver on your promises. You’re building a relationship with your readers. The headline sets the expectations, and the story must deliver on that.
Guiding questions to consider in writing your headline
Could the headline be clearer?
Is the headline specific enough?
Does the tone reflect the voice or point of view of the article?
How might the headline convey what is unique about the story?
Is the headline clear and honest about what the story offers the reader?
You should use both a headline and a subheadline. Use title case in your headlines and sentence case in your subheadlines. Make sure to format your header as well.
What to avoid in writing a headline
A few simple qualities to check at the start: don’t use all caps, avoid typos, don’t make the headlines links, and avoid profanity. These are part of the curation guidelines.
It can be tempting to appeal to base instincts to get clicks. You may want to use exaggeration or mystery for a click. This is clickbait. You’ve seen this technique used for stories, and it might seem appealing. The issue with these methods is they may leave the reader wondering if what they read was actually worth reading. In the short term this may help drive traffic, but in the long term it undermines your integrity as a writer. It degrades the experience for the reader. Exercise caution with particularly bold, hyperbolic, absolutist, or deliberately provocative claims in your headlines. If the headline exploits the readers’ emotions and insecurities, it is likely clickbait.
You may want to be poetic, clever, or artistic in the title. The challenge with crafting a title this way is that it becomes opaque. It’s also much easier to write a bad title when striving for something poetic or clever than if you’re going for clarity. In most cases, the reader won’t click to find out more because they didn’t understand what the story was about in the first place. If you want to be poetic or clever in your headline, follow it up with a strong subheadline.
Avoid obvious questions as a headline. Instead, see if there is a way to highlight the tension that the story conveys. Note that if a reader doesn’t share this question, they’ll skip over the piece. Also note that even if they do, they might skim the piece to find the answer, and leave.
Avoid biases in the title. “Be aware of who is in the room writing the headline and what the limits of their perspective might be,” shares Rawls. Often biases will show up in the adjectives you use, so double-check the ones you use, and consider what they may unintentionally express.
If you find it challenging to come up with a clear headline, this might say something about the piece itself. Take a look at it again. It may lack focus. Is it clear what your story is about? Might it be helpful to restructure it, or add a stronger throughline? For this reason, it is useful to articulate a working headline early on.
Examples
Needs improvement
“The Secret to Finding Your Meaning in Life (Hint: It’s Not What You Think)”
There is an intentional curiosity gap here. The title could more directly reflect the skills encouraged in the article.
Needs improvement
“10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Love Life”
This exploits possible insecurities of the reader. It also overpromises a quick fix while giving a vague sense of solutions. What is the core of the advice given? The headline should be more direct and specific.
Needs improvement
“Soft Drinks and Health and Wellness Can Coexist in the U.S. Alcohol Space.”
This headline can be clearer and streamlined. The phrase “alcohol space” is confusing.
Good
“How to Talk to an Employee Obsessed With Promotion.”
This headline is focused, direct, and specific. You know what you’ll get from reading this story.
Good
“This Terrifying Chart Helps Me Get Things Done”
Does the story deliver on the promise? This might seem a bit over the top, but the chart it describes is a lifespan chart that highlights how finite life is. Mortality can be terrifying. | https://medium.com/creators-hub/how-to-write-a-headline-a72ab3449150 | ['Medium Creators'] | 2020-11-25 23:21:37.744000+00:00 | ['Medium', 'Headlines', 'Writing', 'Writers', 'Writing Tips'] |
Weekly Python Digest for Data Science (1st Week July) | Let’s create a new one to test the code:
[{
"objects": ["sky", "grass", "dog", "cat", "tree", "ocean", "boat"],
"relationships": [
[0, "above", 1],
[2, "standing on", 1],
[3, "by", 2],
[4, "behind", 2],
[5, "by", 4],
[6, "on", 1]
]
}]
Running:
python scripts/run_model.py \
--checkpoint sg2im-models/vg128.pt \
--scene_graphs scene_graphs/figure_blog.json \
--output_dir outputs
I got:
Kinda weird but fun :).
2. TheAlgorithms/Python — All Algorithms implemented in Python. Well “All”
Programming is a must skill in Data Science, in this great repository, we will see the implementation of several important algorithms in full Python code.
These are for demonstration purposes only. There are many implementations of sorts in the Python standard library that are much better for performance reasons.
For example you’ll find Machine Learning codes, Neural Networks, Dynamic Programming, Sorts, Hashes and much more. For example this is K-means from scratch in Python with Numpy:
3. mlens — ML-Ensemble — high performance ensemble learning
ML-Ensemble combines a Scikit-learn high-level API with a low-level computational graph framework to build memory efficient, maximally parallelized ensemble networks in as few lines of codes as possible.
ML-Ensemble is thread safe as long as base learners are and can fall back on memory mapped multiprocessing for memory-neutral process-based concurrency. For tutorials and full documentation, visit the project website.
Install through PyPI
ML-Ensemble is available on PyPI. Install with
pip install mlens
Simple example (the iris obligated examples):
import numpy as np
from pandas import DataFrame
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score
from sklearn.datasets import load_iris
seed = 2017
np.random.seed(seed)
data = load_iris()
idx = np.random.permutation(150)
X = data.data[idx]
y = data.target[idx] from mlens.ensemble import SuperLearner
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.svm import SVC
# --- Build ---
# Passing a scoring function will create cv scores during fitting
# the scorer should be a simple function accepting to vectors and returning a scalar
ensemble = SuperLearner(scorer=accuracy_score, random_state=seed, verbose=2)
# Build the first layer
ensemble.add([RandomForestClassifier(random_state=seed), SVC()])
# Attach the final meta estimator
ensemble.add_meta(LogisticRegression())
# --- Use ---
# Fit ensemble
ensemble.fit(X[:75], y[:75])
# Predict
preds = ensemble.predict(X[75:])
You’ll get:
Fitting 2 layers
Processing layer-1 done | 00:00:00
Processing layer-2 done | 00:00:00
Fit complete | 00:00:00
Predicting 2 layers
Processing layer-1 done | 00:00:00
Processing layer-2 done | 00:00:00
Predict complete | 00:00:00
To check the performance of estimator in the layers, call the data attribute. The attribute can be wrapped in a pandas.DataFrame , but prints in a tabular format as is.
print("Fit data:
%r" % ensemble.data)
And we see:
Fit data:
score-m score-s ft-m ft-s pt-m pt-s
layer-1 randomforestclassifier 0.84 0.06 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.00
layer-1 svc 0.89 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00
Not so bad. eLt’s see how the ensemble as a whole fared:
Prediction score: 0.960
They have great tutorials here:
And that’s it for today :). Soon you’ll get more information, and posts with R too. If you want to stay updated please subscribe bellow: | https://towardsdatascience.com/weekly-python-digest-for-data-science-1st-week-july-83bbf0355c36 | ['Favio Vázquez'] | 2018-07-04 16:47:56.444000+00:00 | ['Collection', 'Digest', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Linear Regression With Ordinary Least Squared Method and Gradient Descent From Scratch In Python. | Linear Regression With Ordinary Least Squared Method and Gradient Descent From Scratch In Python.
Linear regression is modeling the linear relationships between real-valued predictors and target variables. We find the function that best representative of the data.
Introduction
Linear regression is the first model we learn about regression analysis since high school. We are looking for regression line that fit the samples drawn from population with the most commonly used statistical method, ordinary least square regression (OLS). Weestimate model parameters. However, estimates functions get complex as we have more independent variables to be included in the model. Gradient descent (GD)is another option that is widely applied to a range of models training. It is simpler to implement for linear regression model.
Here, for simplicity, we are trying to build a linear regression from scratch for simple linear regression.
OLS
Ordinary least square method is non-iterative method to fit a model by seeking to minimize sum of squared errors. There is a list of assumptions to satisfy when we are applying OLS.
Assumption:
Function must be linear in parameters and error term.
Error terms are independent with each other and all independent variables.
Error terms are normally distributed with mean of zero and constant variance.
No independent variables are perfectly correlated.
Fig 1: OLS regression function and error term distribution.
Fig 2: Simple linear regression function.
Estimates of coefficients for simple linear regression are derived as below:
Compute sum of square error, SSE.
Fig 3: Sum of Squared Error.
2. Differentiate with respect to parameters.
Fig 4: Differential equations.
3. Let differential equation equal to zero. Solve the simultaneous equation to get estimates of parameters.
Fig 5:Derivation of estimates for parameters.
The process above gets lengthy and complicated as we have more independent variables included, and hence more estimate functions to be derived. | https://medium.com/swlh/linear-regression-with-gradient-descent-from-scratch-92bfb44ab9c9 | [] | 2020-10-23 13:35:58.822000+00:00 | ['Ordinary Least Square', 'Gradient Descent', 'Linear Regression', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Eat me, I’m Tasty | I love how you always bring a friend.
But your friend is never ready so they watch as we indulge.
Afterward, they stay for a few days and take care of me.
Slowly, they become you, fleshy and firm then soft and squishy.
Desire unfolds fragrantly, your sweetness swells. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/eat-me-im-tasty-d353dd61eb40 | ['A Singular Story'] | 2020-12-14 12:22:30.177000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Food', 'Sexuality', 'Marketing', 'Poetry'] |
When people like you, they want to talk to you. | When people like you, they want to talk to you.
All the time.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
We have to ask ourselves the following question.
How much time do we have and how much time are we willing to spare?
Chatting is fun but they don’t pay the bills. The ability to focus is key. Distraction can be expensive. | https://medium.com/technology-hits/when-people-like-you-they-want-to-talk-to-you-918d9c46c1f3 | ['Aldric Chen'] | 2020-12-15 06:41:40.388000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Attention', 'Technology', 'Social Media', 'Productivity'] |
I Love You for Us and Me | Illustration by Lisima
I say that I am in no rush to be with him in person even though I think about being with him on a continual basis. I encourage him not to worry about me because I am more experienced with relationships than he is and will be strong for us as he navigates the anxiety of his first romantic relationship. We have been dating long distance for a year and tomorrow he is coming to visit his family down the street for three months. We have never met in person before but our souls are intimately woven together in beautiful tapestries. I wrap myself in his energy to cease from trembling in the coldness of my ancestry. I am enchanted by his benevolent mysteries and sometimes catch glimpses of infinity in his eyes.
I practice learning Spanish on Duolingo whenever I eat alone, substituting sustenance for the feeling of his presence and our connection. He learns English with me and we no longer need a translator to communicate. Working to build a relationship with him is my favorite occupation — it consumes me and I devour it.
A panic attack has me shortly after he indicates that he is not nervous to meet me. I realize I had projected a reaction formation onto him by assuming he feels what I feel and cannot process. He is not worried about meeting me; I am worried about meeting him for reasons that reach into the wreckage of my last relationship. Six years ago my ex-lover broke up with me the night before moving across the country and into the apartment I helped him choose. He had become enraged when I asked him what he meant when he said he wanted to lose me. His skin erupted into hives the first morning of our visits. He also became enraged whenever I asked him why he decided to suddenly stop taking his eczema medication. The hooks of this troubled relationship reel me upstream. I must enjoy drowning.
My hole holder. My lover. Mi amor. I love you for us and me. | https://medium.com/cry-mag/i-love-you-for-us-and-me-8a621c9e7d67 | ['D. L. Shultz'] | 2020-12-10 19:00:37.831000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Mental Health', 'Family', 'Long Distance'] |
Your Attachment Style Is Making You Burned Out | Your Attachment Style Is Making You Burned Out
The way you relate to other people may be the key to staying engaged at work
Photo: Caiaimage/Paul Bradbury/Getty Images
When psychologist Michael Leiter gets called in to consult for a company that wants to reduce burnout in its employees, his options for advice are typically limited. Reducing staff workload, the most obvious answer, is rarely a possibility.
So instead, he focuses on another way to ward off the exhaustion, cynicism, and loss of productivity that define burnout: teaching employees to get along better.
Plenty of research has shown that the quality of our relationships at work makes a huge difference in how happy and productive we are. One Gallup survey, for example, found that employees who have a best friend in the office are 50% more satisfied with their jobs and seven times(!) more engaged with them.
But it isn’t always easy to keep things so positive. For many people, the social demands of office life — the small talk, the performative Slack chatting, the theoretically optional but secretly mandatory happy hours — are more exhausting than enjoyable. And, as Leiter notes, there’s a “small but persistent” group that has such a difficult time getting along well with co-workers that they cross over the line to rudeness or even abuse, especially in settings that involve a lot of super-stressful interactions with people.
Leiter’s research looks at why some people are more prone to these toxic social interactions in the workplace. He studies the problem through the lens of attachment theory — a psychological taxonomy of the ways we connect (or don’t) with the people around us. Our relationships with our co-workers, Leiter argues, hold the key to predicting and preventing burnout.
What is attachment theory?
You may have heard the term attachment theory used to describe how little kids relate to their parents, and that’s where it originated. Attachment theory was originally developed in the 1960s by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who believed that the human drive for attachment is a survival mechanism, helping defenseless primate babies keep their caregivers close.
Since Bowlby, however, the concept has taken on a new life. Researchers have applied attachment theory to adult relationships, hypothesizing that each of us has a distinct attachment style that we carry from childhood. Today, psychologists talk about those styles as falling into two broad categories: secure and insecure.
People with secure attachment, the theory goes, are comfortable forming close relationships because their early life experiences taught them that people are reliable. People with insecure attachment, on the other hand, struggle to form those bonds because they learned early on that other people can’t meet their needs and may even hurt them.
Within insecure attachment is a continuum of styles that range from anxious to avoidant. On the anxiety end are people who doubt their own worth in relationships and look for constant reassurance. Ironically, this often ends up pushing people away, says Peter Harms, an organizational psychologist and a professor of management at the University of Alabama: “They desperately want that affection, but the way that they seek it is kind of annoying.”
On the avoidant side are people who don’t believe others will come through for them, and so they keep everyone else at a distance. For people with this style, the pressure to form warm, fuzzy relationships at work and collaborate on close-knit teams can induce real misery, Harms says. “If you’re avoidantly attached, this is your kryptonite.”
How does that relate to burnout?
Like all theories about human behavior, attachment theory can’t explain everything about your love, social, or work life. “It’s not an absolute, immovable part of a person,” Leiter says. Our styles can be overwritten by new experiences as we get older, like when we find good friends or a supportive romantic partner.
But research does suggest that people with insecure attachment tend to have the biggest struggles with burnout at work. In a 2015 study published in the journal Burnout Research, Leiter gave more than 1,600 health care workers a quiz to determine where they fell on the attachment continuum, then measured their levels of burnout and asked them to describe their interactions with their colleagues.
True to form, people with more insecure attachment styles tended to perceive those interactions as more negative, the researchers found. “They knew that they were somewhat socially inept and not quite on their game,” Leiter says. The anxiously attached group also had the highest burnout rates, possibly because they were more emotionally drained by the stress of what they saw as uncomfortable social experiences.
Workers with more avoidant attachment didn’t typically report the same levels of burnout as their anxious colleagues, probably because they were better at maintaining emotional distance as they navigated high-pressure days at work.
Leiter notes that people in management and supervisory positions often score higher on the avoidant end of the attachment continuum, likely because they tend to be self-starters who don’t need much encouragement or external praise.
But the downside of avoidant attachment is that you’re not forming the kinds of meaningful, rewarding relationships that can also make work worthwhile and enjoyable, he says. While they weren’t really burnt out, Leiter says, the avoidant employees “weren’t really engaged, either, and it kept them in a sort of flat relationship with their work.”
Okay, what do I do with that?
Just because a person has an anxious attachment style doesn’t mean they can’t thrive in the workplace, Harms notes. In a 2016 study, for example, he found that when anxiously attached people work for a boss who is good at providing reassurance and support, they do just fine. The problems start when you combine a distant, unsupportive, avoidantly attached boss with an anxious employee.
For managers, it’s important to know that attachment styles are likely shaping how people act at work, Leiter says. “You need to have some insight into why people are behaving the way they are.”
As a rule, it’s probably not a good idea to play armchair psychologist and start diagnosing people’s attachment styles as if you were trying to guess their zodiac sign. But we can reflect on our own behaviors — or consult a therapist — to figure out if there are any patterns that consistently hinder us at work. Maybe our constant complaining or exhaustion is totally justified, because our supervisors and co-workers are legitimately crappy. But it’s also possible that because of our attachment style, we’re interpreting even minor slights more negatively than we need to or not letting others in enough to truly collaborate as a team.
In general, Harms says, employers need to do a better job of valuing the often-unsung office heroes who provide the social glue at work, organizing after-work drinks and office softball leagues or lending a supportive ear when someone is having a rough time. These “citizenship behaviors” at work are vital to a company’s productivity but typically aren’t rewarded, he says. If, as a boss or supervisor, you don’t feel comfortable letting your employees know that you care about them, then it especially behooves you to value — or even designate — staff members who can, he says.
Harms also notes that to the extent they can, managers should also do their best to cultivate a culture of trust among employees. This can be tough in competitive fields, like sales, where workers often feel pitted against one another. But it’s a vital part of acknowledging our human need for connection, which doesn’t just disappear when we swipe our key cards to get into the office. | https://forge.medium.com/your-attachment-style-is-making-you-burned-out-126552de4fcf | ['Emily Underwood'] | 2019-12-20 12:01:02.393000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Work', 'Burnout', 'Succeed'] |
Building High Performing Data Science Teams | What has changed, is that as a discipline, data science has matured. Many companies have gone from proof-of-concept mode to running multiple productionised machine learning models in a short span of time, with varying degrees of success.
A lot of the reason behind this success or failure is not having the most highly qualified data science talent, or having the most expensive, state-of-the-art tools and technology, but by organisational structure and team culture.
In this article, I outline some changes I’ve seen in this industry and how data science teams or even departments can best be structured for success.
Data Science is a Team Sport
Many companies have realised that hiring one, or a bunch, of data scientists and expecting instant results hasn’t worked. In order for data science teams to be most effective, a multidisciplinary team is essential. Data science is a team sport.
A team of data scientists alone is not a data science team. If a team only consists of data scientists, often these data scientists will cover the gaps of missing roles in the team, such as Project Manager, Data Engineer, Business Analyst, Tester or DevOps Engineer, all of which are roles in their own right.
The most effective teams have the right balance of skills and personalities to work together and develop great data products or deliver impactful insights to the business.
Hub & Spoke Model
Once an organisation has grown beyond having one data science team to many, the question arises around how the teams should be structured and interact.
There are many different operating models for data science and analytics departments, each with their own pros and cons.
These include:
Centralised — A large central data science team that serves all parts of the business, usually within an IT, technology or data department.
A large central data science team that serves all parts of the business, usually within an IT, technology or data department. Federated — Smaller data science teams embedded within business units.
The advantages of a centralised department, are shared data and technology within the department, more specialised roles and improved knowledge sharing and internal capability development. However, this comes at the cost of lacking a deep understanding of the businesses needs and domain knowledge.
Federated teams are closer to the business units, and hence have a better understanding of their needs and more domain-specific knowledge.
However, the operating model which strikes the best balance between capability and proximity to the business is the “Hub & Spoke Model”.
The Hub
The hub is a central team that cover areas including:
Industrialised Services & Capabilities
Training & Onboarding
The hub can also be known as the:
Lab
Capability Centre
Centre of Excellence
The Spokes
The spokes are teams embedded in the business that cover areas including:
Analytical Briefs
Domain-Specific Services
The spokes can also be known as the:
Squads
Pods
Business Engagement Teams
Image by Author
Team Structure
As the work Hub and Spoke teams carry out differs, so do the roles within these teams.
Hub Team
Since Hub teams are developing robust, industrialised services (e.g. deploying machine learning pipelines). The possible roles in this team reflect this:
Product Owners define the vision for data products, manage the product roadmap, prioritise and anticipate customer needs. 🧑🏻💼
define the vision for data products, manage the product roadmap, prioritise and anticipate customer needs. 🧑🏻💼 Scrum Masters run agile ceremonies, ensuring that goals and scope are understood by everyone on the team, aid in the estimation of tasks and removing impediments to the team’s progress. ⏱
run agile ceremonies, ensuring that goals and scope are understood by everyone on the team, aid in the estimation of tasks and removing impediments to the team’s progress. ⏱ Machine Learning Engineers train and deploy, scalable, productionised machine learning models to serve the business via APIs or applications. 💻
train and deploy, scalable, productionised machine learning models to serve the business via APIs or applications. 💻 DevOps/MLOps Engineers support the deployment and monitoring of machine learning models into the company infrastructure and set-up CI/CD pipelines.⚙️
support the deployment and monitoring of machine learning models into the company infrastructure and set-up CI/CD pipelines.⚙️ Business Analysts gather requirements from the customer, support in understanding business processes, rules and complex data mapping. 📋
gather requirements from the customer, support in understanding business processes, rules and complex data mapping. 📋 Testers develop integration and system tests to ensure the robustness and quality of the data products. ✅
Spoke Team
Since Spoke teams are rapidly responding to strategic briefs from their business units, different role profiles are needed:
Team Managers engage with the business to understand their needs, help write and define analytical briefs and act as the interface between the business and the team.👩🏽💼
engage with the business to understand their needs, help write and define analytical briefs and act as the interface between the business and the team.👩🏽💼 Data Scientists frame the business questions as machine learning problems and develop machine learning models make predictions and help drive decisions. They also carry out statistical analysis of available data to derive insights valuable to the business.🔬
frame the business questions as machine learning problems and develop machine learning models make predictions and help drive decisions. They also carry out statistical analysis of available data to derive insights valuable to the business.🔬 Data Storytellers/Visualisation Experts create analytical reports, presentations and dashboards and present insights back to the business in a way they can understand to drive impact.📊
What is a High Performing Team?
Once data science teams and departments are set up, how can they be made to perform?
The concept of a “High Performing Team” (HPT) is not unique to data science, a lot has been written about them in management literature, however many of the learnings can be applied to data science specific problems.
High performing data science teams do the following:
Forge a powerful sense of purpose and identity. They create a common performance challenge.
In practice — this can be achieved by creating a clear Product Roadmap & Team Charter.
2. Build an atmosphere of Trust and Cohesion — Develop relationships and ensure they can rely on each other.
In practice — this can be supported by organising one-to-one meetings, keeping the team size small and holding regular team building sessions.
3. Create a team where everyone is a leader — Everyone should be able to make decisions (and trust them)!
In practice — this can be supported by organising design forums, where team members can brainstorm ideas and decide on product designs.
4. Development — the desire to constantly get better — Challenge and provide constructive feedback to each other.
In practice — this can be achieved by having regular knowledge sharing sessions, pair programming or mentoring/buddy schemes.
5. Standards and Processes — Focus on the processes that will lead to the outcome rather than the outcome itself.
In practice — this can be achieved by agreeing and documenting standards and processes within the team, such as peer review processes, code quality standards and testing strategies.
6. People are made to feel welcome — In order for people to perform; they have to be made to feel part of the team and welcomed.
In practice — this can be achieved by having onboarding sessions for new joiners; setting up a buddying system between senior and junior data scientists and ensuring a positive and inclusive working culture.
Companies are investing an ever-growing amount of time and money into data science and artificial intelligence. In order to make the most of this investment, it is worth structuring the organisation and establishing the ways of working to make sure data science teams are acting as High Performing Teams. | https://medium.com/swlh/building-high-performing-data-science-teams-6e9f160c5c94 | ['Jon Howells'] | 2020-12-24 15:03:15.397000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Teamwork', 'Team Building'] |
The pandemic that might have turned Gen X tech-savvy | Photo by Ankur on Pexels
Humans are social by nature, and depriving us of human connection is harmful. During this pandemic, social distancing has become the new normal, urging primarily Generation X (born between 1965-1979) and Baby Boomers (born between 1944-1964) to be driven to the social confines of their homes. Ironically though, staying indoors gives them a chance to combat this virus, but it also leads to social isolation and anxiety.
When one thinks of digital platforms or applications, young adults scrolling on their smartphones comes to mind. But during this pandemic, there has been an increase in screen time amongst our parents and their peers. One reason older adults never adopted digital platforms as much before, might be that they never saw any relevance of it in their daily life, not because they felt too old for it. Unlike us millennials, our parents haven’t grown up interacting with technology on a daily basis. They prefer to socialize through human contact — be it a walk in the park with friends or attending a book club. Lack of exposure and technical knowledge to navigate through these unfamiliar waters were hindrances too. This unfamiliarity is because Gen X is said to be the last generation before the internet really took off.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
Embracing online platforms during this pandemic
It seems that COVID-19 safety will continue to haunt us for some time, and we can expect greater reliance on technology to stay connected. These past few months have seen a shift in the mindset of older adults towards digital platforms and technology. They’ve come to understand that being tech-savvy means, you can stay remote but continue with the activities you would do on a normal day. What gives Gen Xers the confidence now, is the added incentive of having their children and grandchildren around them to help them explore the digital world. These platforms now have a purpose for Gen X — to stay connected, making them more accepting and willing to explore. If we look on the bright side of this lockdown, more than a trap it seems to have turned teachers for many.
Personally I feel there has been a role reversal with the younger generation experimenting in the kitchen and the older generation taking time to familiarise themselves with technical knowledge.
From a recent survey I conducted with consumers ranging between their late 40s — early 50s and some between their late 60s — early 70s, the common consensus was that online platforms have won them over, giving them the confidence to continue using them even after this pandemic passes. The personas ranged from homemakers to academicians as well as working professionals. They all seemed to feel that the convenience in attending meetings from the comfort of their home or chatting with friends via various online platforms has eased their life in many ways. They seem to realize also, that as they age, mobility poses as an obstacle for them to perform activities independently. This is where technology-enabled services like grocery delivery, e-commerce, and in-home subscription entertainment can become relevant in their daily lives.
I also came to understand their hesitation towards online applications. Privacy and unfamiliarity were two key reasons for this hesitation. Another hindrance they faced was the lack of audibility and visibility on smaller screens i.e. mobile phones. They preferred larger screens like desktops instead, but either didn’t own one or were unfamiliar with operating them.
The other question I asked was how they feel being tech-savvy has benefitted them. The responses were positive, with many of them expressing how they have learned new skills or connected with friends and family around the world through these platforms. Many of the respondents of the survey, who were small business owners or work in corporate jobs said that working from home might reduce the hassle of commuting and traffic congestion, especially in the metro cities. Although working from home seemed convenient for most of them, the transformation from working on a desktop screen at their workplace to a laptop screen at home had its challenges but were overcome gradually.
Illustration by Anjali D’Souza
1.Staying connected and keeping active
As adults get caught up keeping the work-life balance and kids turn to online platforms to get them through this lockdown, for senior citizens — most of whom are technologically challenged — it is quite a milestone. But times are changing, the older generation seems to be keeping an open mind towards online media and platforms. Some seniors in quarantine are leading more socially active lives than ever before.
Zoom, a video and web conferencing platform has risen to the top and is being preferred by most of Gen X to stay connected. It seems to have become the go-to platform for official meetings, social gatherings, and connecting larger groups.
Since walks in the park are no more feasible, older generations are turning to these online platforms to stay active. Practicing Yoga online has substituted for that walk in the park, at least during this time.
Among the social media platforms, Facebook is the most popular among Gen Xers. Older adults might use Facebook to connect with a long lost friend or follow the lives of their younger family members. What drives them to choose Facebook over Instagram or Snapchat is the familiarity of the application. Google Duo and Whatsapp are keeping parents and children connected through video chats. Curiosity seems to be a driving factor for the older generation to adopt these online applications.
Everyone needs entertainment, be it watching a TV series or an occasional movie. The older generations have come to realize that online platforms are a brilliant tool to stay entertained. During our daily video chat, one of the mandatory questions from my mother is “What movie should I watch on Netflix today?”
2.Learning new skills for mental stimulation
Gen Xers have shown us that they can do amazing things with technology, and even though they might express love as well as resentment to the digital world in the same breath, they live fine with these contradictions. Many of the older adults have chosen to learn new skills through online courses. They use platforms like Zoom, Google Duo, and Skype for music and singing lessons and then to practice with classmates.
Online gaming also seems to be drawing some of the older generation aging between 40–45 years, towards it. Games that include action and puzzles are the most favored genres. Amongst this age group, men are seen to be the more likely target audience for gaming online, as opposed to females.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
Assisting Gen X through this transformation into tech-savvy individuals
Having lost touch from the outside world and relying completely on our smartphones has created an urgency to educate the older generations on online platforms.
Explaining the ease at which activities can be performed on these applications, just might give Gen X the push they need.
There are a few methods we could adopt to make the shift towards online platforms easy for older adults. Helping them understand how to navigate through these platforms is of key importance. Something as simple as scrolling upward or downward on a mobile screen is not something that is intuitive to older adults. My grandmother, when using her tablet for the first time asked me “How do I read the things at the bottom of the screen which is partially hidden?”. Teaching her how to scroll changed her experience completely. Explaining the use of a search bar as well can help them find things in times when we are not around to assist them. Another way to help older adults understand would be to see their peers using these platforms. This gives them the confidence that it isn’t as difficult or complicated as it looks.
For a long time what posed as an obstacle for accepting technology was the lack of relevance of it in their lives. Making them understand that it can ease their life in many ways puts things into perspective.
Initially, the need for one to assist them in times of confusion might be reassuring, but also reinforcing that they need to try and navigate through these platforms on their own is important.
Creating applications or customizing online platforms for this target audience might just have a promising future since Gen Xers are at a high risk of isolation and immobility during this pandemic and otherwise.
Illustration by Ankita D’Souza
Our world has never seemed to be more connected than it is during this time. With an increase of users plugged in to stay connected, online platforms are seeing a growth in the number of Gen X users.
During this pandemic as well as post, it is very important for us as a digitally advanced generation, to help the older generations familiarise themselves with the digital world.
Post lockdown, we can anticipate that the world will see many changes, and Generation X will seem to emerge more tech-savvy, increasing the scope of innovation for building products to cater to them.
As a visual designer, I feel we need to ensure that the online platforms place more emphasis on involving and engaging the older audience while designing services they might want to use. Here are some points to keep in mind:
Use of text in larger sizes for easier visibility
Displaying minimum content that is relevant to the screen
Limiting gesture control for older adults to navigate through online platforms
Avoiding too many fast-moving animations
Sticking to minimal design, this will prevent cognitive issues for older adults while plugged in
Privacy and security are also issues to educate older adults about while using online platforms. Making them understand that creating strong passwords and using discretion on what news to believe and what can be fake, is very important. We should also make them aware not to click on vague advertisements and pop-ups that might lead to unwanted sites. The internet can be a great world to explore, but it has its dangers, and Gen X and Boomers can fall prey to them if not well informed.
Until then, encourage your parents to stay active with online yoga and video call them once in a while to check in on them!
Stay Home, Stay Safe, Stay Tech-Savvy!
Note: The survey was done out of individual curiosity, and hence the observations are drawn from persons known to me and trends observed from a lot of peer stories they shared. The demographic was working professionals, small business owners, homemakers, and academicians in their late 40s — early 50s and some between their late 60s — early 70s. All participants were from urban areas, more specifically metro cities. | https://medium.com/moonraft-musings/the-pandemic-that-might-have-turned-gen-x-tech-savvy-452ad1dbb8 | ['Anjali Dsouza'] | 2020-06-02 04:59:45.460000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Design', 'Digital Experience', 'Gen X', 'Customer Experience'] |
My First Week on News Break | My First Week on News Break
Week One is in the books. These are my results …
News Break logo
Last month, I read of a stir in the ointment for content writers. News Break, the well-publicized news site that began operations in 2019, was now accepting freelancers.
As I write full-time for a living, and during the early stages of the pandemic I began a blogging business on the side, I figured I would apply.
Oft-compared to Medium in terms of freelance opportunities, I had heard of the page in passing but noticed several Medium members I know were now writing for it.
I applied, and was accepted. Today represents the end of my first full week writing on the platform.
News Break, however, differs from Medium in several regards:
While Medium accepts any writer, to become a writer for News Break requires an application process. They will review blogs you send them, and if they believe you are a fit, you will be sent an agreement.
As there seems to be some inconsistencies in prior Medium articles about specific contracts, I will state only state here that writers earn $1000 monthly if they hit certain thresholds, another $1000 monthly is possible as well with other thresholds, and they pay $250 per approved writer (“creator”) — via an affiliate link. Mine is here:
Once you become an approved writer, you will receive an affiliate link of your own.
For my results, I have to substantially market my Medium articles online to hopefully attract paying members of the site to read them. This is how we all make money. For News Break, I only posted one share of a single article today, and on a News Break dedicated Facebook page. These below numbers have happened based on the site’s readership; I did veritably nothing save for writing the articles to attain them:
Everyone receives a home page such as what is linked below. Click and follow if you are so inclined.
Readership numbers per article tends to be updated every hour. Here is a random selection:
I have been sharing Medium articles to the News Break site. In fact, the above three stories were originally published on Medium. At this time, as I had taken my first week on the platform to experiment, 70% of my articles there appeared on Medium first. I will from here forward be writing more original content for them.
What has historically worked for me on Medium, in terms of article reads, does not work for me on News Break. On Medium, my stories on writing, pop-culture, and politics have earned me a readership. These topics have not done well for me on News Break, however, my articles on mental health — that have tended to perform poorly on Medium — are off to a very strong start there.
I do notice that the percentage of views to clicks are considerably lower on News Break than they are on Medium. I’m curious if anyone else has experienced the same. They do, though, certainly add up, as do shares of the articles.
I will wait for my first check to make a firm judgement, but if I’m particularly impressed with anything at all to this point regarding News Break, it’s that the numbers my stories are receiving are happening organically, with little to no effort on my part.
I’m looking forward to some serious marketing to increase them further.
We’ll see how long the initial climb lasts. In the meantime, apply to become a creator on the platform by clicking directly on my above referral link, or by downloading the app and going through the process.
Let me know how it goes, regardless.
You have nothing to lose.
Thank you for reading. | https://medium.com/writing-for-your-life/my-first-week-on-news-break-e3a57d1533ba | ['Joel Eisenberg'] | 2020-12-26 06:02:34.548000+00:00 | ['Newsbreak', 'Writing', 'Content Writing', 'Content Marketing', 'Freelancing'] |
Designing icons for user interfaces | Have you ever stared at your keyboard and wondered how your brain could recognize and associate actions with the vast array of glyphs? Or how all of the icons on Apple products, even though they represent the same thing, look different from icons on Google products? Are you a designer that was just tasked with creating a new icon for an existing icon family and doesn’t know where to start? Well then, you’re in luck. We’ll be covering all of those things and more!
In this article, we’ll be dissecting,
How icons work
Why create icons? How are they useful in user interface design?
A few myths surrounding icons and usability
How to effectively create and validate an icon design
How Icons Work
User interface (UI) icons are visual symbols used to represent ideas, objects, or actions. They communicate messages at a glance, afford interactivity, and draw attention to important information.
Alarm clock icon and real alarm clock
UI icons employ visual metaphors to speed comprehension by transferring properties from something we already understand. UI icons are typically created on a square (1:1) canvas and follow a strict set of rules to ensure consistency. Illustrations, on the other hand, also use visual metaphors to accomplish a similar goal. However, they often tend to be more free-form in visual representation and don’t always follow strict rules that icons adhere to.
In some cases, the metaphor is literal. The alarm icon in the Carbon Design System, created by IBM, for example, represents a classic mechanical alarm clock with bells, carrying over functionality we’d expect — it rings to wake us up on time.
Save icon and floppy disk.
Sometimes, the metaphor is a little outdated but understandable through repeated use. In the early days of personal computing, we used floppy disks to save and backup our files. Though we don’t use this technology anymore, many applications still use a floppy disk icon to indicate a save action.
Shuffle icon and undo icon
Other times, the metaphor is a little more abstract. The shuffle icon and undo icon communicate their meaning through the implied movement of the arrows.
Using Icons in User Interfaces
Here are some examples of how icons can enhance the ability of your users to complete tasks successfully:
Icons can:
Create a common visual language that effectively bridges language gaps.
Be used to improve a design’s visual interest and help direct a user’s attention.
Provide functionality and feedback. Imagine a video player with the words play and pause compared to the icons currently used.
Enable us to communicate an idea quickly.
Support the notion of a product family by providing another medium for the brand identity to be expressed.
UX Myth: Icons Can Enhance Usability
According to the Nielsen Norman Group,
“A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. Due to the absence of a standard usage for most icons, text labels are necessary to communicate the meaning and reduce ambiguity.”
Research has shown icons are hard to memorize and are often highly inefficient. In most projects, icons are formidable to get right and need a lot of testing. When it comes to representing complex or abstract concepts, icons rarely work well.
UX Myths, a blog that collects the most frequent user experience misconceptions and explains why they don’t hold true, curated a list of studies and articles on the myth mentioned above that “icons can enhance usability.” Here are the highlights:
UIE conducted two experiments to test how users use icons. They first changed the pictures of icons in a toolbar but kept them in the same location. Users quickly adapted to this change. Afterward, they kept the images but shuffled their location in the toolbar. This change confused the users, and it slowed them down, and, in several cases, they could not complete common tasks. Michael Zuschlag says that “icons, contrary to intuition, do not necessarily help the user find a menu item better than a text label alone. It’s not worth it.” He also discusses his views on UX Exchange. The former icon-only toolbar in Microsoft Outlook had poor usability, and changing the icons or their positioning didn’t help much. The introduction of text labels next to the icons immediately fixed the usability issues, and users started to use the toolbar. Another test revealed people remember a button’s position instead of the graphic interpretation of the function. — The Importance Of Labels A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. Due to the absence of a standard usage for most icons, text labels are necessary to communicate the meaning and reduce ambiguity. — Icon Usability In the battle of clarity between icons and labels, labels always win. — Labels always win. “When in doubt, always remember this: the best icon is a text label.” Don Norman says that “Inscrutable icons litter the face of the [Apple] devices even though the research community has long demonstrated that people cannot remember the meaning of more than a small number of icons. Icon plus label is superior to icon alone or label alone. Who can remember what each icon means? Not me.” In another study, the team at UIE observed that people remember a button’s position instead of the graphic interpretation of the function.
There are a few more items UX Myths present in their findings, but they repeat the same sentiments like the ones listed above. If you like, you can read the entire list here.
Although icon usage is not likely to substantially impact your product’s usability, it can help provide a better user experience.
Icon Grids
There are always clear, established rules for consistent but flexible positioning of graphic elements within an icon family. These rules usually take the form of an icon grid. They delineate the icon’s dimensions, the underlying pixel grid, and key gridlines — or keylines — to follow.
Icon grid structure: grid, keyshapes/lines, orthogonal, mask, and safe/trim area.
Icon grids are composed of 5 elements,
Pixel grid
Keylines/shapes
Orthogonal
Mask
Safe/trim area
Pixel Grid
Pixel grids help you draw in specific increments if you are snapping to a grid. A 1px increment has been the digital standard for some time now. However, because of improvements to screen resolutions, subpixel hinting, and anti-aliasing, a half-pixel increment has recently become more frequently adopted.
Paperclip icon on a 1px grid
Pixel-snapping helps render icons sharp on lower resolution screens but has become less critical as hardware rendering has improved.
Keylines and Keyshapes
Keylines are used to vertically or horizontally align lines and shapes in the icon grid. Drawing along an icon grid’s keylines helps ensure visual consistency in an icon set.
Icon grid keyshapes, landscape rectangle, circle, portrait rectangle, and square.
Keyshapes provide template shapes to start from. Four basics are standard: a landscape rectangle, circle, portrait rectangle, and a square.
IBM email, next, hourglass, and calendar icons with grid keyshapes.
In their Carbon Design System, IBM uses these four keyshapes to draw icons for Email, Next, Hourglass, and Calendar.
You can think of keyshapes as a starter kit, providing just enough to set the standard while leaving room for flexibility and creativity. The intention is not for every icon to map perfectly to a basic shape, but rather to build a place to start and drive consistency.
Orthogonal
Orthogonal is a term derived from mathematics, meaning “at right angles.” It’s related to orthogonal projection, another method of drawing three-dimensional objects. In the context of icon grids, orthogonal refers to the keylines that intersect the icon’s center point and create additional vertices to use. These lines commonly slice the canvas at 90° and 45°. When different angles are needed, increments of 15° and 5° are usually the next steps.
API icon with orthogonal lines.
Mask
A mask customizes the container of an icon from the default square canvas. Masks may be embedded in the asset itself or applied afterward using CSS styling. Here you can see how Apple’s App Store uses a rounded rectangle mask across all its icons, the app icon for Spotify.
Spotify icon with Apple’s App Store masking
Safe/Trim Area
The safe area or live area shows where the icon’s important content should live, while the inverse — the trim area — shows the area to avoid. In some cases, the safe area is more of a suggestion, but the safe area is strict when the content will be cropped.
Google app icon with safe area overlay.
Optics > Grids
A quick word of advice for icon grids, as with any grid, is meant to be used as guides, not hard rules. Drop them when they stop working for you. Always check for the optical balance. The example below shows how the curve for the forward-5 icon doesn’t quite match up with the circle keyshape.
Forward-5 icon with circle keyshape.
It’s often necessary to deviate from the grid for visual balance. Follow what looks optically right, not strict metric values.
For more information on optical effects, this article by Slava Shestopalov: Optical Effects in User Interfaces: An Illustrated Guide is an excellent introduction to the subject.
Implementing Icons in a User Interface
Context is everything when it comes to icon design. Start with the user and where the user will encounter the icon. Reference user personas, demographic information, etc., as your contextual starting point. What language do they speak? What countries do they come from? What accessibility considerations are involved? Will they view the icon on their phone or a highway sign?
Like most tasks associated with user experience design, creating a high-quality icon requires a thoughtful approach, a trained eye, a bit of iteration, and a lot of practice.
A good process for designing icons starts with quick thumbnail sketches. It’s essential to generate as many as possible within a short period. It’s helpful to timebox these things, so to start, try generating 20 thumbnails and spend no longer than a minute on each.
Then, choose three of those sketches that best communicate the idea and product brand. Next, try to sketch at least five adaptations of each thumbnail idea selected, spending no more than 5 minutes on each sketch.
With these 15 or so, new sketches pick — or often consult with another designer to get a second opinion — the top 3 ideas from this group. Then redraw these ideas to work within the product’s icon grid. At this stage, utilizing keylines and keyshapes helps ensure your sketches work visually within the icon set.
Brand Alignment
Finally, it’s optimal if icons fit nicely into the design and enhance the aesthetics rather than working against it. Evaluate your icon designs against your company’s brand guidelines. Does this aesthetic align with your brand’s personality and tone?
The aesthetic appeal can also be tested via a preference test, which heavily depends on your audience’s opinions and tastes.
Validating Icons
Now with these refined compositions, it’s time to evaluate if users understand the new icon. Here’s a list of the key attributes that you can test for, with some questions that a user might ask of an interface, like a file manager:
Findability
First of all, your user has to be able to find the icon in your design.
“How do I delete this file? Where’s the delete button?”
Both the navigation test and first click test are great for testing findability, critical to measuring in-context. The rest of the interface is an integral part of how a user finds an icon, so testing without it makes it hard to get accurate findability data.
Recognizability
Second, your user has to identify the form of the icon — be it a real-world object like a floppy disk or a metaphorical device like an arrow or network node.
“Is this icon a trash can or a cup of tea?”
Comprehensibility
Next, a user must be able to interpret the functionality that the icon is shorthand for. Can the user quickly determine what the icon does, rather than what it is?
“Does a trash can mean that I’m deleting this forever? Or can I go back and recover it in the future?”
Recognizability and comprehensibility can be tested in a variety of ways:
Design surveys give you unstructured, free-text feedback from participants.
Five-second tests measure how memorable the icon is.
Preference tests help you discover the icon that is the most understandable to participants.
First click or navigation tests give you a view of the icon’s overall performance.
Further Learning
This guide provides a general outline of the topic, so I encourage you to explore it. Here is a list of resources for further learning:
Material Design Principles
Optical Effects in User Interfaces
Material System Icons
Apple Human Interface Guidelines
IBM Carbon Design System Icon Guidelines
References:
Nielsen Norman Group, Icon Usability
Material Android Icon Guidelines
Material System Icon Guidelines
Carbon Design System Icon Guidelines
UX Myths, Icons Enhance Usability | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/designing-icons-for-user-interfaces-71dbe2e7b1c1 | ['John Hurley'] | 2020-11-17 00:02:31.647000+00:00 | ['User Interface', 'Icons', 'Design', 'Design Systems', 'Resources'] |
Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland | photo screen captured from my epub version.
Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland
It’s been a long time since I wrote a review so here you go.
I have finished this book last month. Normally, once I finished a book I go ahead and create a review about it but this time right after I finished ‘Our Chemical Hearts’ I was not able to do so. This is due to untold task that I had to finish throughout those days. Well, yes, I had a couple of days off but usually I spend them in sleeping to gain my vitality. I just don’t force myself to write especially when I know that I am drained completely.
So this book is about a seventeen year old boy named Henry Page who has never found himself being in love, a boy who’s happy by the thought of getting good academic grades to finally become their school’s newspaper editor in order to achieve a semi-decent college life. Things began to change when he met the odd girl, Grace Town.
Grace isn’t Henry’s idea of what a typical girl should be like, walking into his first period class wearing an oversized shirt (a boy’s shirt!) with that look as if she hasn’t been taking a shower for how many days plus the fact that she walks with a cane… she is indeed that type of girl who is odd and mysterious. The story began when they were both chosen to edit the school paper which Grace immediately turned down for the reason that she no longer writes. That situation made Henry pissed off because he thinks about the opportunity that is simply going to be wasted. He then had a little talk with Grace, an awkward one, actually, which made her finally accept the position.
They became friends, yes but Henry knows there is something broken about Grace Town that he needed to know and he did. I do not wish to spoil anything now. Here’s a quote from Henry to give you an idea of what’s with this book.
‘So this is certainly not a story of love at first sight. But it is a love story. Well. Kind of.’
NOTABLE PASSAGES: “I was a decent enough writer, but talking? With sounds? From my mouth? That was a bitch.” “The things you own end up owning you” “Space is the best cure for sadness that I know.” “When I look up into the night sky, I remember that I’m nothing but the ashes of long-dead stars. A human being is a collection of atoms that comes together into an ordered pattern for a brief period of time and then falls apart again. I find comfort in my smallness.” “The best thing the universe ever gave us is that we’ll all be forgotten.” “I kinda like the idea,” she said. “That when we die, despite any pain or fear or embarrassment we experienced during our lives, despite any heartbreak or grief, we get to be dispersed back into nothingness. It makes me feel brave, knowing I’ll get a blank slate at the end. You get a brief glimmer of consciousness to do with what you will and then it’s given back to the universe again. I’m not religious, but even I can appreciate that that’s redemption, on the grandest scale. Oblivion isn’t scary; it’s the closest thing to genuine absolution of sin that I can imagine.” “People are perfect when all that’s left of them is memory.” “You know how you sometimes have the most exhausting day and you can’t wait to get home and fall into bed and sleep for hours? I feel that way about life. There are people out there who read books about vampires and they crave immortality, but sometimes I’m so thankful that at the end of it all, we get to sleep forever. No more pain. No more exhaustion. Death is the reward for having lived.” “Stories with happy endings are just stories that haven’t finished yet.” “Why is it, I thought, that we’re so willing to hurt the ones we care about the most?”
WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THE BOOK…
Life lessons being interpret through character’s point of view. You know that a book will left an impact to its reader when or if he/she learned something from the book itself. I loved Krystal Sutherland’s idea in life and death,
I find it quite broad to depict but there were things that will surely left you in a realization thinking ‘Ah yes, point taken.’
I also loved the idea that Krystal filled it with references to music, films, also book etc. Once you finished a book, I suggest that you do not skip the author’s note or the acknowledgements because that’s when you’ll discover the author’s journey throughout the entire completion of the book and it never fails to amaze me. It is such an inspiration for young writers like me.
Overall, Our Chemical Hearts is a tear-jerker novel. (Yes, I mean it. Read on and see for yourself, guys.) The moment I read the most painful and heart-breaking part of it, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. The apparent feeling is there and for me, that’s what makes a good story, that feeling when you feel like putting yourself in the shoe of the characters, when you felt their pain… Goodness! You probably think it’s crazy but it’s absolutely satisfying.
WILL I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL AGES?
Yes, but with supervision. It’s a good-read but there are certain parts that may need a little discussion (if got curious about it) with matured readers.
RATINGS:5 stars for the entirety of the book: cover, concept, structure/flow of the story. | https://medium.com/ceeart/our-chemical-hearts-by-krystal-sutherland-7e595dac893f | [] | 2017-06-13 10:08:36.606000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Book Review', 'Writing'] |
Ready, Steady, Connect. Help Your Organization to Appreciate Kafka | The Chicken and Egg Problem
The value of Kafka for other teams rises with the growing number of data streams offered. To get more people to use Kafka we must simplify the data consumption and production. It’s a chicken and egg problem. We do not get more people using Kafka if there is no data. The main objective is to convince data producers in enterprises to publish their data as real-time events in Kafka. One reason these events do not exist can be that they do not have the Kafka knowledge or the system they run does not provide the Kafka connectivity out of the box.
To get to the tipping point where Kafka is fully used in the enterprise we need to convince the critical mass to use and learn Kafka. So you need to make it as simple as possible to add and consume event streams from or to external systems like databases, document stores, S3 or whatever data source you might be using in your enterprise. We need some kind of training-wheels for Kafka, where teams that are not yet fully Kafka-savvy can learn and get some experience with Kafka and real-time events from these external systems.
Apache Connect to the Rescue
Apache Kafka Connect is a framework for connecting Kafka with external systems. With Kafka Connect we have connectors allowing us to bring data into or out of Kafka in a standardized and reliable way from different data sources. A connector itself is just a JAR file that defines how to integrate with that external system. The connector itself can then be configured over a REST API which is provided by Kafka Connect. With these connectors, we have standardization of how data is produced and consumed from these external systems. Connect can be run in a standalone or distributed mode. In distributed mode, Kafka Connect will store the metadata (connector configuration, offsets, etc) in Kafka. The standalone mode is great for trying things out, but not meant to run in production. So when you consider running Kafka Connect the way to go is to run it in the distributed mode which provides scalability and automatic fault tolerance out of the box.
The connector itself can be a sink or source connector. Sink connectors write data from Kafka to a specific system and source connectors bring data from these systems to Kafka. Kafka Connect also supports different Converters which handles the serialization and deserialization of different formats like JSON Schema, Avro and Protobuf.
There is also support for some transformations before the data is written to Kafka or the external systems. These transformations are called Single Message Transformation (SMT) and as the name suggests the transformation can only be applied on a message. They are very useful when the sink or source format can not be modified and you want to add, remove or rename some fields in the message. When you want to do complex transformations, like combining or splitting messages, Kafka Connect is not the right tool and you would have a look at Kafka Streams.
There are already a lot of connectors available as commercial or open-source licenses for different systems. If you don’t find a connector that suits your needs you always have the possibility to write a connector yourself in Java. The nice thing about this is it is not really that complicated for people who are used to developing software applications in Java.
Self-Service Data Consumption and Production
In the current IT-landscape we have moved the past years from a monolith architecture to a distributed Microservice architecture where teams have full responsibility for their applications. This means “you build it and you run it”, better known as DevOps. With Kafka Connect we have a centralized component that you can see as infrastructure which is shared by multiple teams.
In our case, to enable teams we went to the conclusion to look at Kafka Connect as a Microservice which is run by the teams themselves for a specific purpose. For example, a data warehouse team would run their own Kafka Connect instance to load Kafka events into their staging area. One reason we think teams should run their own Kafka Connect is you have clear boundaries who is responsible when you receive alerts, have failed deployments or errors.
But with this approach, you need an infrastructure Team which provides the tooling for monitoring and the lifecycle management so that the DevOps teams can easily set up and run their own Kafka Connect instance. The goal must be that the DevOps teams run a productive Kafka Connect within hours and they have a high level of automation for deploying connectors and upgrading to new Kafka Connect versions.
Conclusion
Kafka Connect is a great enabler for teams to integrate external systems with Kafka. Kafka Connect allowed us to solve repeating integration problems in a standardized way which is reliable and fault-tolerant. Once our team had some experience with a specific connector the integration with the same type of connector was done very quickly.
As a Java Team, we also had good experience writing connectors ourselves. The main reason was the system we had to integrate was very specific and there was no existing solution to our problem. The Connect Java API, which is part of Kafka, is straightforward and was quite easy to write our own connector and transformations. The tutorials you find online gave us a good start, but I would recommend you have a look at the source code of some of these connectors in GitHub to get some inspiration on how other connectors or transformations were implemented.
It would be nice to hear what you think about the centralized vs. decentralized approach in running Apache Kafka Connect or in general what is your experience with Kafka Connect.
Reach out to us here in the comments, through www.agoora.com, or through Twitter. | https://medium.com/swlh/ready-steady-connect-help-your-organization-to-appreciate-kafka-8ed6cfcfd6d8 | [] | 2020-10-21 14:33:41.871000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Kafka Connect', 'Event Driven Architecture', 'DevOps', 'Apache Kafka'] |
#EWasteDay: Increasing Recycling Rate of Electronics in Nigeria | ICCDI Africa like several organizations all over the world joined stakeholders, environmentalists, NGOs, Government agencies etc to mark the second international E-Waste Day which took place on the 14th of October 2019 at Adeyemi Bero Hall, Alausa Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria. A sensitization program on E-Waste management and the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria. It was a remarkable event as crucial matters concerning environmental hazards in Nigeria and ways to obtain a sustainable and healthy environment was discussed.
There were various presentations from stakeholders present the likes of: the country director, United Nations Information Centre; Mr. Ronald Kayanja, the DG, NESREA (National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency) Prof. Aliyu Jauro on EPR as a regulatory tool for effective management of E-Waste, the GM, LASEPA (Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency) Dr (Mrs.) Adedolapo Ayokunle Fasawe on Hazard and Environmental Impact of Improper Management of E-Waste, Mr. Oluyomi Banjo of UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) on E-Waste Global solutions; Best Practices and Experience Sharing, Mrs Chinyere Emeka Anuna of ILO (International Labour Organization) on Decent Work and E-Waste; Opportunities and Challenges in Nigeria and poem and drama presentations from schools on E-Waste awareness and proper management. | https://medium.com/climatewed/ewasteday-increasing-recycling-rate-of-electronics-in-nigeria-330f311978a0 | ['Iccdi Africa'] | 2019-10-18 05:35:05.102000+00:00 | ['Recycling', 'Women', 'Waste', 'E Waste', 'Environment'] |
Getting my poetic on. | Getting my poetic on.
Or words to that effect…
I don’t know whether it is a good thing or not, but I have been posting some of my ramblings to a new Instagram account I recently set up (@jmjacksonwrites) and, in doing so, it has opened up a new writing style/method/mode/sais pas for me.
Let’s call it.. something like.. poetry? Poetic prose? Words across multiple lines with poetic.. qualités, n’est-ce pas?
Call it what you will, it condenses thought into short, sharp razor blades. I love it.
The visual aspect of Instagram has nudged me to think a little more about layout and form. I can only view this as a positive.
Despite the trash floating around Instagram, I have found that there are many accounts laying down insightful words, both prosaic and poetic. These serve as both inspiration and motivation.
Medium has been great for me in developing a tiny little network of mutual appreciators. It looks like Instagram may help me expand that tiny little network into an ever so slightly less tiny network.
Come and join me if you dare.
Onwards! | https://medium.com/100-naked-words/getting-my-poetic-on-abe246bdb22a | ['J M Jackson'] | 2017-07-27 18:01:03.466000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Poem', 'Writing', '100 Naked Words', 'Poetry'] |
You Are NOT Broken; I am NOT Broken | The last Deepak Chopra/Oprah Meditation Experience that I participated in inspired the original version of following blog post (edited to reflect the passage of time). It came to mind recently as I was being bombarded with offers to fix myself because it still holds true. I am not broken and neither are you. We might have much to learn, but that isn’t the same as being broken.
I used to participate in the Deepak Chopra/Oprah Meditation Experiences. I’ve enjoyed these experiences in the past because they have the meditation and then probing questions that push me to challenge my preconceptions about myself; however the last one I participated in annoyed the hell out of me. Every time I got to the questions, I wanted to shout “I am NOT broken, damn it.”
My answers became shorter and shorter and felt more and more forced as the experience progressed. I felt like it was trying to force me to be broken when I in no way felt broken.
There is so much out there that pushes us to examine what’s “broken” about us to fix ourselves, to be better, to fit someone else’s definition of how we should live. Frankly, I’m tired of it. It’s an old trope and is often, but not always, targeted toward women.
Interesting, isn’t it?
The more equality we seek, the more we’re told we need to fix ourselves. I’m tired of it. I’m not perfect. I never will be.I will continue to learn and grow and change throughout my life. That doesn’t make me broken. Guess what? You will do the same. And you’re not broken either. Male or female.
We all experience tragedies and make mistakes and hurt others and get hurt. None of that makes us broken. Not in the way these tropes try to make us feel we are. Even if you feel broken at some time in your life due to life events, you possess the power within to address these issues and to find help if you need it.
Please understand I’m not referring to mental health issues, but to the message that all of us are broken in some way or the other because we don’t live the way this guru or that expert or that person we’ve never heard of says we should. No, we’re human and being human is perfectly acceptable. Making mistakes is part of being human. Getting hurt is part of being human. Healing is part of being human. Feeling lost and broken is part of being human. Feeling confident and whole is part of being human. Being human is complex and beautiful and ugly and strong and vulnerable. Being human is experiencing life as it is, celebrating the good times and commiserating the bad times. Being human is sharing what we learn with others. There is nothing wrong with any of that.
This concept that to be acceptable, we have to constantly live in a state of fixing ourselves based on someone else’s definition of what it means to be a good person drives the self-help industry. I’ve bought and read more than my fair share of self-help items. I bought into the message for so long. So many gurus telling me I was broken. So many experts telling me I needed repaired. So many people telling me if I just bought their secret, my life would be perfect. I did learn some things from those books, even if it was what didn’t work for me, but they usually left me feeling like I could never live my life “right” because “right” constantly shifted.
Now, to be fair, I started reading these books to heal myself after a trauma that left me feeling quite broken. The problem was they never repaired me. They offered me someone else’s way to live. And while I could garner tips from them, that was it. And it was temporary until I got my next self-help fix.
There came a day though I started thinking for myself again. I started looking at my own life and seeing what lessons were there. I saw so much more than I found in those books and articles. I saw me. I saw that all my efforts to be someone else’s definition of perfect were killing me. I delved into myself and started to write and write and write…. Poem after poem after poem found its way out from my heart and brain to my fingertips.
I started focusing on embracing both my vulnerability and my strength.
I started practicing gratitude, my way rather than the way someone else said I should, including a morning gratitude meditation.
All my broken bits reunited in the puzzle of me, but it took work and effort and focus and time.
I realized I was never really broken no matter how broken I felt and particularly not in the way all those self-help people wanted me to believe.
Books, videos, or experiences that expand our understanding of the world, of differing points of view, of the experiences of others inhabiting this world, and those that examine the psychology of the human experience are important. They can help us live richer, fuller, better lives by introducing us to concepts we’d never imagined before.
I’m simply suggesting that there comes a time when we have to examine whether we are truly broken or being manipulated into believing we are broken. It’s not always easy to see.
At first, the Oprah/Deepak Meditation Experiences didn’t feel like they were trying to convince me I was broken. The questions even felt liberating at times. As I ventured away from the meditation experiences to other forms of meditation, meditating started to feel more in tune with my core and began to resonate with me on a deeper level, on a level that wasn’t about the growth someone else thought I should have but about where I was in my life.
I still have much to learn and hope I never stop learning, but I am not broken.
I am an imperfectly perfect human who happens to be perfectly imperfect.
You are an imperfectly perfect human who happens to be perfectly imperfect.
I am enough.
You are enough.
I am NOT broken.
You are NOT broken. | https://tlcooper.medium.com/you-are-not-broken-i-am-not-broken-7303dc40c75b | ['Tl Cooper'] | 2018-06-29 21:28:12.426000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Meditation', 'Self Improvement', 'Self Confidence'] |
How Blockchain Technology Is Beneficial for Mobile App Development? | With the fast acceptance and impact of new technologies such as IoT, AI, AR, VR, Robotics- many of us still misunderstand the concept of Blockchain. Especially regarding the development of apps.
Let me question you, what do you mean by Blockchain? Cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency, Etherum … all that? Yet it is worth researching the blockchain has a scope beyond reach.
Let’s take a look about what Blockchain is and why it unexpectedly became a buzzword
Understanding the concept of Blockchain
A blockchain is basically a product of unchangeable data governed by a decentralized structure,i.e. data isn’t controlled by a single entity. The decentralization of data ensures data security at all stages, and each data block is bound to each other by cryptographic principles.
“As per Statista reports, the blockchain market is expected to climb a revenue growth rate of over 23.3 billion US dollars in size by the year 2023"
What Blockchain can do for the Mobile App Development Industry?
The main segments of the industry are now leveraging Blockchain Technology for healthcare, automotive, to finance; why should the mobile app development market fall behind?
If you’re into the mobile app development industry, you would be having an idea about how important it is to stay updated with the latest technology trends to stay ahead of the competition.
Mobile app development is still in its early stage with the adoption of blockchain, and industry influencers are hesitant about this idea. But Blockchain technology can lend a helping hand by offering numerous hidden benefits like improved efficiency, productivity, performance, and even uplift the user experience.
Blockchain technology would allow developers to create streamlined eCommerce apps that enable buyers and suppliers to trade online without any intermediate intervention or to pay third party fees.
Now let's See Some Benefits of Blockchain Technology in App Development
Not only this, but there’s also a lot more blockchain can do for the mobile app development industry. Let’s dive deeper and learn the top benefits:
Benefit 1: Blockchain Offers Security
The initial benefit of the revolutionary blockchain technology is that it makes the applications safer. The technology can use the most advanced cryptography. This technology concept is somehow designed in such a way that it can offer the highest level of safety with the strengthened encryption.
The technology provides a standard series sequence or other interconnected block string. Each block has the data and timestamp for another block of transactions. The data is stored and encoded in a cryptographic hash, which alters every impossible block. Now, for the previous block, every neighborhood has a cryptographic route.
Benefit 2: Blockchain Increases Reliability
In addition to improving data protection, technology can greatly enhance the efficiency of a mobile application. It is mainly because the blockchain’s structure itself is robust and reliable blockchain architecture renders the network complete against any failure or crash. Blockchain also has several blocks that own the data in more than one place, making blockchain more secure.
The distributed design of the blockchain servers and other related hardware prevents any attempt at any unauthorized modification of data. Millions are routinely available, due to numerous data centers at different locations, just a little notification. All of these features make the blockchain method effective for a mobile app development solution for the enterprise.
Benefit 3: Blockchain Increases Transparency
Security enhances transparency. Blockchain technology tracks each transfer of funds in such a way that users can only track them whenever they want. The technology excluded the possibility of any fraudulent transaction or fabricated information. The blockchain makes the application and the entire system tamper-proof and resilient to any fraudulent activity.
The blockchain technology can also help entrepreneurs gain trust from the consumer. The users can safely transact through such applications and remain assured of the protection of their valuable data. Also, the concept is scalable to manage multiple users at once.
The use of blockchain technology is not limited to any market. With chief attributes such as secure data storage and transaction, Blockchain technology can be of benefit to any business field. Healthcare, logistics, and real estate can emerge as the most important benefits of the future creation of blockchain apps.
Benefit 4: Block Chainset you free from Passwords
No matter how powerful a password you’re setting for your computers, there’s still some concern that it could get leaked. Blockchain technology helps us get rid of this fear. For Blockchain, the password to verify any transaction or system is hardly needed. The two parties included in deals usually make the payments through an SSL certificate. In addition to this, the blockchain network reviews everything while making it visible and accessible to all, therefore eliminating the possibilities of being fake.
Benefit 5: Blockchain Promote Simplicity
Another major advantage of blockchain technology is its simplicity. The blockchain has a very upper hand over the relative models performing identical tasks when it comes to simplicity.
If the technology is sophisticated, it needs more effort, time, and money to integrate, maintain, and modify. In simple words, complex techniques contribute to increasing app development and maintenance-related costs. The blockchain will help companies rid themselves of higher costs by offering them a feature-rich mobile app
Benefit 6: Identity protection
Security is an essential requirement of blockchain technology. It is almost impossible for any hacker to shut down the entire system because the data is not in a server, but it is in every block. Blockchain offers secret key encryption with cryptography on the user’s work. The functioning of the blockchain ensures that no one can misuse any data.
Benefit 7: Safeguard Digital Information That Is needed by many users
Encryption is a Blockchain Technology with far-reaching complexity. It is so complex that it makes it impossible for anyone to fool any decryption key. It lends itself to any system that needs to be presented to different users but at the same time requires verification of the information that is organized.
In the legal and financial spheres, for example, multiple signatures on a single document or agreement are common. Through blockchain, this information can be accessed and edited simultaneously by different parties to communicate with each other. All you need to do is verify the Blockchain and configure it.
Benefit 8: Keep Blockchain Apps up to date
Blockchain technology is evolving at an alarming pace. The process by which this day is growing, we can expect it to bring more and more updates soon. The result will be a complete enterprise mobile app designed to meet the needs of the future, and finally, you can improve customer service with such an up-to-date mobile app.
The technology behind the blockchain is also available as an open-source technology. Blockchain app developers can easily share and use the promotion to make the application more powerful and secure. In a way, blockchain technology can help develop mobile app solutions while creating application time and cost.
Benefit 9: Blockchain is developing regularly
There are other techniques to compare the rate at which blockchain technology is advancing. Therefore, choosing a blockchain is the best decision. Because in the future, this technology will have a lot of software updates and more advanced services for your mobile application. The processes and tools used to design blockchain technology are readily available, and users can access them. Technology allows its users to make suggestions that can lead to the future success of the organization. With all the emerging technologies, it’s best to keep yourself updated as we move into another digital world.
Benefit 10: Blockchain incorporates a sophisticated digital laser system
This is a straightforward way to understand how Blockchain Development works when you think about it. Blockchain is simply a digital ledger powered by some extensive corporate network, supporting all parsing and data transmission. When some information is changed, the change is transmitted to the rest of the machines in the same machine and at the same time to adjust the value.
There is also a planned approach to this type of mobile technology. As it stands, most systems are not just mobile networks, as are server-side and client systems. The mobile app and phone act as clients and separate the central server data upon request. Mobile networks are tense with many channels trying to receive data wirelessly. This may cause some information to be lost. With the advent of more advanced storage and data streaming, blockchain technology can be improved.
Final Comments
Because Blockchain Technology has grown significantly in recent years, it has explored the needs of the market itself. We can expect many of its innovations and applications to be installed for free over the next several years as mobile app developers make it part of the global app development process. | https://medium.com/flutter-community/how-blockchain-technology-is-beneficial-for-mobile-app-development-26752051e820 | ['Priyanka Patil'] | 2020-11-07 17:33:25.146000+00:00 | ['App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Mobile Apps', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
Part one: A brief history of Black-owned news media (June 8, 2020) | Part one: A brief history of Black-owned news media (June 8, 2020)
Subscribe to The Idea, a weekly newsletter on the business of media, for more news, analysis, and interviews.
HISTORY
A 2019 report, “African American Media Today,” compiled by the Obsidian Collection for Democracy Fund, traces the arc of the Black press in the U.S. It starts with the first Black-owned and operated newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, founded in 1827 to advocate for the abolition of slavery. The Journal was an outlet for Black people to advocate for themselves, as its first issue declared: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.”
Historians estimate that over 500 Black newspapers would go on to spring up in the 35 years between 1865 and the start of the 20th century. These publications challenged what had been taken as objective news by “mainstream newspapers,” which were by-and-large by white writers and editors and for white audiences. “The Black press was never intended to be objective because it didn’t see the white press being objective,” Phyllis Garland, the first African American and first woman tenured professor at Columbia’s journalism school, said in PBS’s film on the Black press. “It often took a position. It had an attitude. This was a press of advocacy. There was news, but the news had an admitted and a deliberate slant.”
For example, The Oklahoma Eagle, a Black-owned weekly in Tulsa, aims to keep the memory of the 1921 Tulsa massacre, in which white mobs killed 300 Black people and forced thousands to flee, alive. The massacre was mostly ignored by the city’s mainstream newspapers — one of which only wrote about it for the first time 50 years after the massacre occurred.
Black newspapers more generally were instrumental to “pulling African Americans together after slavery into cohesive communities,” according to historian Christopher Reed. The Democracy Fund report cites examples of the essential role newspapers played in historical events, from tackling Hollywood’s derogatory depictions of African Americans in 1914 to fueling the Great Migration to the North after WWII.
The Black press also had a significant reach — by 1929, the most popular, the Pittsburgh Courier, had a weekly circulation of over 300,000, according to Nieman Reports. Most of these were from single-copy sales, and many issues were passed around, so readership was likely much higher. Sixty years later, magazines had also established an audience: Ebony, for example, reached 1.7 million homes in 1985, amounting to over 40% of African-American adults, more than any other general interest magazine during that time.
TODAY
Today, 205 publications are members of NNPA, the trade organization that represents Black press in the U.S. Like the rest of the industry, for whom ad revenue decreased from $60 billion to $20 billion from 2000 to 2015, declining ad revenue has also impacted Black newspapers. According to Pew, paid and free print circulation has also declined — with most relying on subscription rather than newsstand sales.
Many of the most popular papers of the 20th century have stopped printing: the Pittsburgh Courier, for example, stopped publishing in 1966. The circulation of other popular papers of the early-1900s — like the Baltimore Afro-American and Chicago Defender — has dropped to around 10,000. Still, Black newspapers reached over 20 million people weekly in print as of 2014. Some papers still reach the high five-figures: The Los Angeles Wave has 92,000 subscribers; The Philadelphia Tribune, the longest continuously publishing Black newspaper, founded in 1844, has a daily circulation of 91,200; and the Chicago Crusader has 88,000 subscribers.
The success of long-running Black magazines like Ebony, Essence, and Jet, meanwhile, has been mixed. Essence, in particular, has been able to translate its legacy into reaching new and increasingly larger audiences in recent years. It was owned by Time Inc. from 2000–2018, until it returned to Black ownership under Richelieu Dennis. Investments in revenue streams, namely events, have been fruitful : Essence Festival, held annually in New Orleans, attracts almost half a million attendees over four days and is reportedly the largest annual African-American gathering in the U.S.
Digital readership remains a challenge for both Ebony and Jet. Both magazines, owned by Johnson Publishing Company since the mid-1900s, were acquired by a private equity firm in 2016. While Essence reached 6.7 million readers in April, Ebony and Jet have not fared as well according to comScore data.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Democracy Fund report urges legacy Black news media companies to 1) collaborate to boost their digital presence and 2) preserve their archives.
NNPA has taken a first step towards collaboration with BlackPressUSA.com, which is the web presence of the NNPA’s wire service and of its member newspapers. The report suggests that there is room for further collaboration with other Black-owned media or the mainstream press on stories and training as well.
The report also highlights the importance of preserving the archives of legacy newspapers that are closed or are on the verge of closing, since they “hold huge amounts of the history of and by African Americans.” Obsidian Collection, which compiled the report, has partnered with newspapers to create a virtual, free-to-access portal of their collections to tap into the archives’ editorial and revenue potential.
Read Part Two, covering the first wave of digital-native publications aiming to reach Black audiences. | https://medium.com/the-idea/part-one-a-brief-history-of-black-owned-news-media-june-8-2020-1a09953323cd | ['Saanya Jain'] | 2020-06-17 19:43:25.825000+00:00 | ['The Latest', 'Media', 'Journalism', 'History', 'Newspapers'] |
Motherhood: Who’s Doing It Best? | Looks can be deceiving: We are not an athletic family.
I’ve never been much of a competitive person. I’m a middle child, comfortable with ambient neglect and isolation. You know the type: Not the awe-inspiring firstborn, or the doted on lastborn. I was just … there. And that was perfectly fine with me. It was others who seemed to have a problem with it, and try to console me with bullshit statements like, “You know what you and the Oreo have in common? Everyone likes the middle the best!”
Either way, I fell into my role as the peacemaker and people-pleaser. What was the point of fighting for something I didn’t have a chance in hell of getting? It was easier to accept defeat prematurely. My sister was born first so whatever it was, was hers first. And maybe in a few years, it would be mine. Patience, I was told. In the instances in which a situation would resort to physical blows, well, my sister was bigger and wasn’t afraid to knock me down to take what was hers.
And, come on, there was no point in competing with my brother because he was the baby and a boy: A double threat. I learned to be content with what I got and what I didn’t get. As my 4-year-old likes to say, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” That said, he’s a firstborn and creates rules he doesn’t follow.
When I was 10 and my brother five, my mom took us grocery shopping. After loading us and the groceries into the car, Mom noticed that my brother had stolen a piece of Brach’s candy. She made me return the stolen sweet. I walked into Fareway, handed the candy over to the clerk and said, “Here. My brother stole this.”
Four years later, I asked for a pair of Pepe Jeans for Christmas. My mom went shopping with my sister who, when Mom asked my size, gave her the wrong jean size. Guess whose size she did give her? And guess who got the jeans that year?
It’s been a few decades and now I’m the mom. After some reflection and experience, I feel like my brother was old enough to be marched back into the store and give back the candy himself. I also am still waiting for my Pepe Jeans — in the correct size. Clearly I’m judging my mom’s parenting here because as I’ve come to find out: Motherhood is a competitive sport.
The game kicks off at pregnancy with jabs like: How much weight have you gained because, you know, they only recommend you put on 35 pounds? Did you get stretch marks? You drink caffeine!? You’re still hiking … what if you fall?
But let’s not stop there. The game really peaks at childbirth: You’re not having a natural childbirth? I’ve heard epidurals can hurt the baby. The breast is best! As if pregnancy and childbirth weren’t frightening enough, we make it worse for one another.
Isla and I doing what we do best: Lounging.
I have a 4-year-old son and a 9-month-old daughter and I’ve experienced shame and competition with both. When my son was born, at just a few ounces over five pounds, I was on the receiving end of accusations of not eating enough during my pregnancy or drinking too much caffeine, etc. In other words, it was my fault for his low birth weight. My doctor later diagnosed me with Placental Insufficiency, which caused my son to have Fetal Growth Restriction. In layman’s terms, this means, for whatever reason, my placenta didn’t develop correctly and couldn’t supply my son with adequate nutrients. “It’s not your fault,” the doctor told me and then blamed herself for not catching it earlier, which did make me feel better. Regardless, my son is still not a big eater, is genetically thin and healthy, and I’m STILL being told to fatten him up.
My daughter, on the other hand, was born at just under seven pounds. A few weeks after her birth (and in the throes of postpartum depression) I commented on how stressful cutting a baby’s fingernails is. An innocent comment, right? Not to one mother. She took it upon herself to remind me that I was nothing but lucky to only have fingernails to worry about. It’s hurtful that women, who have gone and are going through similar experiences, attack each other this way. Reminder: You never know what’s going on in another person’s life, behind closed doors.
After birth, we must talk about who still needs to lose their baby weight and whose baby is sleeping through the night. As the kids get older, the comparisons get nit-pickier. Does your child know his ABCs? Is he any good at soccer? Are his verbal skills up to snuff? How often are you bathing your kids? How much screen time are you allowing? Why are you letting her sleep with you? You’re too soft on them. You’re too hard on them.
One thing is for certain: No one is a perfect parent. We’re all different. Our children are different. Thank god. But, kicking each other when we’re already down is not the answer. This is a team sport. Let’s cheer each other on.
And Mom, if you’re reading this: Can I have those Pepe Jeans now? I’ll DM you my size. | https://meghankrein.medium.com/motherhood-whos-doing-it-best-250b3b32810a | ['Meghan Krein'] | 2019-12-20 18:07:31.498000+00:00 | ['Pregnancy', 'Motherhood', 'Kids', 'Mental Health', 'Parenting'] |
The art of onboarding | The onboarding sequence has defaulted to become the go-to spot for Dribbble designers to flex their UI muscles. And usually, that happens with an utter disregard for the effects that the five-ish screens that sit pre-launch can have on a product.
Onboarding isn’t something that should be left in the dust. It’s no secret that effective onboarding can drive growth and retention, even Facebook attributes it to be a major factor in their rise to 1 Billion users. But, Facebook’s success is just the tip of the iceberg.
Major consumer apps all utilize a blend of experience, information, and conversion tactics that set users up for long-term product success. Does yours?
If you want to learn the strategies behind some of the biggest consumer apps onboarding flow, look no further. This article dives deep into activation, personalization, information, and how they are used in companies like Twitter, Pinterest, Duolingo, & more.
The art of the intro
Onboarding is a vague discipline when it comes to product design, but what is it? Onboarding is considered to be the sequence in which a user is made familiar with a product. This happens through a set of interactions, instructions, or information on what to expect with the product’s experience.
In the consumer space, it generally constitutes the few screens before the email sign-up. But for some use cases, explanations beyond the email sign-up are necessary to show the proper functionality of complex features. This is really difficult to do well on mobile, which is why Notion, and others, resort to saving their in-depth onboarding for the web.
The importance of onboarding
As you’ll quickly see once we dive into the strategies, onboarding is one of the most important sequences within any product.
As of this year, a whopping 25% of mobile apps are only used once. And if you look at the past ten years, we have made little to no progress improving this metric.
graph of app retention stats
Not only are we not making progress in early abandonment, but also long-term retention. App retention rates took a steep decline back to 2012 numbers, with only 32% of users using apps 11+ times.
graph of app retention stats
You might be wondering, “Why is this happening? Why do some apps see much more retention than others? How can I improve my abandonment and retention?”
And while there are many reasons why certain apps are finding success; clean, efficient, and effective onboarding is a few of them. So let’s dive in and look at what’s working.
Great onboarding isn’t easy
There are many reasons behind the lack of user retention within consumer apps, and poor onboarding is one of them. Great onboarding should do more than just make a good first impression, great onboarding should guide the user to the conclusion that the app they just downloaded, was made for them.
But how can onboarding guide users to that conclusion? Through sound strategies. Activation, personalization, information, and more all play into getting users hooked, so here’s how they work.
Activation
An activation metric is a measure of how many actions a user takes to receive value out of a product. Essentially, it is what a user has to do before they get value from the product.
Activation metrics grant you the ability to guide users to that value point faster, leading to better retention and more secure acquisition. Regardless of how good a product may be, if it is not acquiring users, the impact will always be limited.
“Ignore the benchmarks. Find the patterns in the stories of people who do get your product. Figure out what converted them and got them so excited to keep using your product every day or every week.” — Josh Elman
Onboarding does serve an educational purpose for most products, and weaving the right amount of information in your introduction can do wonders for guiding users to activation. The truth is that if a user doesn’t know how to use a product, optimizing for activation is useless.
How can you find your own activation metric?
An activation metric is not something that can be pulled out of thin air, or guessed. If your activation metric is wrong it will have a negative effect on your onboarding. So how do you find it?
Talk to your users. Ask your users what made them stay, probe deeper to uncover the insights and motivations that drive them to keep coming back to your product.
Running analyses on usage numbers will only tell part of the story. There is no better way than getting the product in a user’s hands and asking why they keep showing up.
The ‘Aha’ moment
Have you ever downloaded an app and within the first few minutes thought to yourself, “Wow, this is great.”? That’s the ‘Aha’ Moment.
Defined, the ‘Aha’ Moment is when the user realizes the value of a product. The moment when they realize that this app is going to solve a problem or provide entertainment. This is what Facebook focused on to achieve growth, it’s what Duolingo uses to teach languages, and so much more.
But how is this different from activation?
When comparing activation and the ‘Aha’ moment, it’s easy to notice their similarities. The reality is that they are separate concepts, one being measurable, the other being more subjective. The best way to explain this is through an example:
Instagram’s activation metric could be posting three posts over the course of a month, but it doesn’t take users a month to understand Instagram’s value. Meaning, while the activation metric will take a month to formalize, the ‘Aha’ moment could be following 5 friends or exploring on the explore page, neither of which take a month to do. These two concepts work independently of each other.
Intercom’s research team does a great job explaining the differences between these concepts and can be visualized in a chart they made. This model does justice in showing the independence of these concepts.
Intercoms visualization of the AHA framework
When guiding users to the ‘Aha’ moment in onboarding, there are pain points, or “Blockage Points” as David Skok says, that cause trouble for the user.
These are email grabs, asking to change settings or turn on notifications. When a user gets to this point, if they haven’t seen any value, the chances of them exiting are much higher. So the timeline for showing value just got shorter.
It’s easy to get greedy by asking for information too early, this is why in most cases, an email grab is the last thing in the onboarding flow.
image of the aha moment framework
David Skok, a famous Venture Capitalist, is a huge proponent of putting the ‘WOW!’ first. He is noted saying that through A/B testing this approach, “my bet is that this approach will lead to a higher overall conversion rate”. So, when actively trying to drive growth, wow first, sign-up second.
Personalization
Personalization is an overlooked facet of onboarding that when implemented correctly, can be a huge user retention asset. When users are presented with dynamic, personalized content early on, it puts them in the driver’s seat of their experience.
Factoring personalization into onboarding makes the initial interactions with the home screen much more intuitive. When done right, can guide the user to activation or ‘Aha’ much faster.
The strategy of great design
All of those insights, tactics, and strategies are useless if they aren’t properly designed in the product. Great design is often a result of great strategy, and finding that sweet spot is where real growth and traction can occur.
If you’ve really nailed it, maybe even *product-market fit.*
But enough of the small talk, how can you design for strategy?
Designing for activation
Designing for activation is tricky. The last thing you want is to implement a long and extensive onboarding flow when it isn’t necessary. The best apps are usually the most intuitive anyway.
Ideally, activation needs to be weaved into the story of the introduction. Duolingo does this perfectly. Their activation metric is probably getting a user to pick a language and complete a lesson or two, so they weaved that into their onboarding flow.
Before you are even done onboarding, you’ve already completed an entire lesson from your language of choice. They utilize their activation metric by letting users pick a language and start to learn, right away.
Duolingo onboarding screens
Tweet, Tweet, Tweet Away
We all know about Twitter and what makes it arguably the most interesting social platform. But can you think back to what got you hooked?
Most times, we can’t. It may be because our friends or co-workers are active and you want to keep up, or maybe it’s because you wanted to share your thoughts easily. If you can remember one thing, maybe it’s how you were prompted to follow some celebrities; that is an example of activation.
Twitter onboarding Screens
Twitter’s activation metric may be following five users and sending three tweets. Right away, Twitter makes use of this by suggesting you follow some famous accounts and some topics you’re interested in.
Pin on Pinterest
Like Twitter, Pinterest is another popular platform in which value is found through activity. For Pinterest, that activity comes with pinning items, creating boards, & finding ideas.
Pinterest’s activation metric is when users save content weekly for four weeks minimum. So, as you guessed, that concept is designed into their onboarding flow. Pinterest takes it a step further by giving a thoughtful introduction to what you can do with what you find. Because their activation metric is drawn out over time, they know they have to educate users on how it works in the onboarding flow.
Pinterest onboarding screens
A Facebook Friend
Another key way to uncover the right activation metric is simply by measuring what currently drives user success. Facebook is famous for doing this and uncovering their activation metric and driving user growth.
Early on at Facebook, the team wanted to drive growth (I think they did a pretty good job, with 2.6 Billion users). Chamath Palihapitiya, part-owner of the Warriors and early employee at Facebook said, “We just got really good at 3 simple principles: measuring, testing, and trying things.”
One of the things they tried was simply looking at what was different between active users and abandoned users. They split users into two groups, active and inactive, and measured their interactions with the product early on. What they noticed was that active users had a minimum of 7 friends within 10 days of signing up.
Facebook realized this was their activation metric, so naturally, they started prompting new users to add friends. This was a key factor in the road to 1 Billion Users, & is still in place today on the road to 3 Billion.
image of Facebook prompting you to invite friends
Only one screen, a quick and easy prompt that leads to connecting your contacts. This is one of the simpler asks, but most definitely still works.
Designing for the ‘Aha’ moment
How you design for the ‘Aha’ moment is by providing a blend of information & personalization to get the user to the activation metric. The ‘Aha’ moment can happen at any point within the product, but your goal as a designer, PM, or engineer is to make that point come as soon as possible.
Venmo does a really good job utilizing social proof in their onboarding introduction by showing a reel of transactions that happened with Venmo. This shows the users that this app is secure (other people using it), and fast (a ton of transactions). Essentially pushing users to come to their own realization that, “Wow if I want to send money to someone, this is where I should do it”.
The sign-up screen for Venmo
While that is obviously the ideal route, it’s not always easy to get the user to that point on the first try. Think back to an app that you have deleted and redownloaded, only to get hooked on the second, or third try with the app. We all do this. A few of mine were Spotify, Notion, & Todoist. All three took multiple tries to get me hooked, but now they are integral parts of my tech stack.
In most cases, having users “bounce-back” isn’t all bad news. Josh Elman, esteemed investor and product evangelist at Twitter, FB, and more, looks for bounce-backs, people he describes who “give it a try, delete it, and then come back again to be hooked”.
The key is to talk to those users, & ask what made them come back, what got them hooked. If you know what is driving users to bounce-back to your product, it’ll be much easier to turn that insight into an ‘Aha’ moment for next time.
Waze does a great job of incorporating the ‘Aha’ moment early on. Their onboarding flow provides the information necessary to show why users should use Waze over the other Map options. It takes them five screens to intro the value they provide.
Not to mention the super clean illustrations, this is one of my favorite ones. Again, in just five screens you are aware of the key pain points that Waze solves.
image of six phone mocks for Waze onboarding
Designing for personalization
Implementing personalization in onboarding is done by giving users control of their in-app experience. Essentially, asking questions and making the user make choices that will impact their initial experience.
Headspace is a great example of getting users to value as soon as possible through personalization. Their onboarding flow forces you to pick goals and get clear on your reasons for meditation.
Within 5 minutes of opening the app, you’ll have set your personalized goals, had a chance to start meditating, and have seen how easy it is with Headspace. This is also a case where onboarding goes into the app, Headspace masterfully weaves a nice introduction to the interface post-sign-up.
image of Headspace onboarding
Zenly also does a really good job of incorporating personalization, among a ton of other things, into their onboarding. For a deeper look at Zenly, I wrote an article covering their whole experience.
image of three screens within Zenly
Zenly focuses on connecting users with their friends, this sequence does exactly that. By letting users invite friends it personalizes their experience, getting them to the activation metric and ‘Aha’ moment much faster.
A product’s ability to get users to reach the activation metric and the ‘Aha’ moment is a key factor when determining success. But getting there takes personalization.
This is why Pinterest lets users pick their interests before getting thrown into their card heavy Home Screen. This is why Twitter lets you follow users as a part of onboarding. In most cases, you can’t guide a user to activation without some form of personalization. | https://uxdesign.cc/the-art-of-onboarding-15e037203d3 | ['Josh Nelson'] | 2020-10-15 15:42:21.886000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'UX Design', 'Startup', 'Tech', 'UX'] |
Mirrors of the Lost Heart | Sometimes there’s sadness
as moments pass,
and our experience of life disappears forever
like bath steam fading
from the surface of a mirror.
Those moments
when something in your eyes
dissolved all separation,
needing no words
though nothing was left unsaid,
nothing was left unknown,
are moments
also gone forever,
moments of our life
passing through awareness
like swirling eddies
passing through the surface of a river
or streams of light
passing through
the prism of our being.
And our acceptance
of the transience of all experience
helps us find an enduring
inner center of awareness,
a point of focus within
the conscious space
inside us,
and know our sadness
is the sadness of life’s
separation from itself,
just the empty echoes
of a heart adrift
from its moorings
in the center of our being,
lost within the consciousness
inside all life.
When our sadness lifts,
dissolves and blows away
like clouds across a windy sky,
we may know again
that all of life is a journey with meaning
to a place where we can see more clearly,
and every moment offers us the chance
to anchor our heart
in the consciousness
holding the Universe together.
And as light shines through leaves
on nearby trees,
their branches are tracing ovals
in the wind-blown sky. | https://medium.com/loose-words/mirrors-of-the-lost-heart-8b658214cdd8 | ['Paul Mulliner'] | 2020-12-06 04:32:18.980000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Yoga', 'Life', 'Poetry', 'Mindfulness'] |
Reading List #2 — Technology Hits | Dear Readers and Writers,
I am sorry for the delay of our second list. I was unwell due to some Covid like symptoms but fortunately the tests were negative.
Today, I compiled stories submitted to Technology Hits and named it Reading List #2.
Those who missed my first list can check it from this link.
I created my initial feature post for the stories that I reviewed. I hope you enjoy these great stories. Since I am feeling much better, I will create another featured list soon.
As I mentioned in my first post, Technology Hits blew my mind.
Today, I prepared this list for you hoping you will enjoy reading them.
Here goes my list!
Recent stories on Technology Hits
Collaboration at Technology Hits
Editor’s Faves — Top 10: Why Coding Knowledge Is the Future of Literacy
A Brief History of Programming
Using Poop and Artificial Intelligence to Save Lives
How to adapt COVID-related threats and attack surface changes
Basic Cybersecurity Tips for Online Moderators
We need 2 things to be great at what we do.
Google Apps Down After Massive Outage
Even The World of Luxury Brands is Adapting Its Business Model to Survive
Voyeurism In The Twenty-First Century
The Simple Chrome Extension to Supercharge Your Stats Page
I Confess, I’m In Love With An Appliance
My 3 Favourite Gadgets
The Best Programming Languages to Learn First — A Roadmap for the Indecisive Beginner
How to Publish Your Spring Boot App to the Cloud
Let’s develop an Ecommerce Application from Scratch using Java and Spring
FAANG Stocks Haven’t Moved In A Month — What That Means
Instantaneous
This Is Why Videos Are Important For 2021.
Want A Blockchain Crypto Worth Following? — Hint: It’s Not Ethereum!
android app for spring backend,
Android UI for E-Commerce User Profile backend
The Unexpected Analogy of Technical Data and Fictional Novels
These are the top 10 technologies that trended in 2020.
AI Diagnoses Alzheimer’s With More Than 95% Accuracy
Technology Hits: Education Becomes Edutech
How To Securely Configure SSH On Linux Servers
Bitcoin Breaks A New Record (But It’s Not Done Yet)
What Is This Ichi.Pro and Why do They Have Medium Pubs On Their Site?
Introduction to C++
Watch Again What The Very Best Of Film Offers
10 Useful Things To Know About Ransomware
One Easy Step To Stopping Online Harassment
How To Turn Yourself Into A Butterfly
7 Enjoyable Apps You Should Keep Using in 2021
Video games can change the life of a society.
“Hey, Google, are you Skynet?” — The Fear & Future of AI.
How to Trick People Into Thinking You Are Smart About Bitcoin
Technologies Change but Talents Remain
Are you tired of proprietary IT tools?
Do You Think That Technology Has Eroded The Human Touch?
Technology is a tool, not a human barrier.
I Want Me But Absent of Sentience
Let’s Create Vue.js Frontend for Products in our E-Commerce App
The New Atomic Clock Can Run For 14 Billion Years
Top 10 Scientific Discoveries Of 2020
I Prefer Texting Over Calling
Open The Floodgates For Creativity To Flow
Being Verified On Twitter Isn’t As Great As You Think
Why McDonald’s is Using Artificial Intelligence to Spy on Its Dumpsters
The best website to learn Data Science
Testing Matters : Both Software And Our Life
The Intriguing Routine & Life Lessons From Elon Musk Will Inspire The Sh*t Out Of You
Let’s Add Products in Android for E-Commerce App
This Is How You Can Smash Grammarly Into Pieces.
Social Commerce: A New Hightech Area Gaining Importance
Karen’s Weekly Technology Hits Review
One Organic Recruitment concept that I would like to explain is the kezayit.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Meet Space Force Guardians.
The Wonders Of Technology
AI-Songlines for Managing Corporate AI Data.
Why Are Central Banks Trying To Create Their Cryptocurrencies?
Why Are Central Banks Trying To Create Their Cryptocurrencies?/2
The Basics of Buying A Long Term Laptop
Marine Wall Climbing Robots
Humanity and TechNology Hits
Streaming Services
About Me — Aldric in Technology Hits.
Is Blockchain A Matured Technology?
When the Sun Bursts: Be Prepared for the Next SolarWinds.
Let’s Add Products for our E-Commerce App Using Javascript
A Useful Way To Chase The Phish
Red Biotechnology
After Death Requests Technology Might Force Us To Make
The Structure
Here is my first mechanical keyboard
Alone We Are Content To Be Together Again
End-to-end Encryption at Risk?
Will AI Replace Jobs Like Programming?
Internet of Things (IoT) Demystified.
That’s all for the day, folks.
I am an Editor of Technology Hits.
I invite you to join Technology Hits. You may find many aspects of technology here. I loved this publication and hope you will too.
Click here for writer inquiries. Subscribe to Technology Hits mailing list to receive highlights from insightful and engaging thought leaders in the industry.
Thank you for reading the stories I selected for you. | https://medium.com/illumination/reading-list-2-technology-hits-f567a883dd64 | ['Editor Of Technology Hits'] | 2020-12-24 11:27:53.791000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Programming', 'Writing', 'Security', 'Technology'] |
The Latest: Bloomberg and NYT offer free access to students (April 27, 2020) | The Latest: Bloomberg and NYT offer free access to students (April 27, 2020)
Subscribe to The Idea, a weekly newsletter on the business of media, for more news, analysis, and interviews.
THE NEWS
Bloomberg Media is giving undergraduate and graduate students globally free unlimited access to Bloomberg.com — otherwise priced at $40/month or $475/year — for the next three months.
SO WHAT
Bloomberg joins The New York Times, which partnered with Verizon earlier this month, to give all U.S. high schoolers free digital access for three months, in providing free news content to students as learning continues to be disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
News publishers’ past forays in the education space have generally fallen into three categories: discounted academic subscriptions, site licensing, and custom education products like supplemental teaching materials for articles. The Times and Bloomberg initiatives, however, are poised to reach a much wider audience than before, given the size of the targeted groups: There are 15 million public high school students, more than 20 million undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. alone.
For both the Times and Bloomberg, these initiatives work to familiarize the next generation of readers with their brands at little additional cost. Once the three months are up, the immediate benefit will be from increased engagement and any conversions. The greatest impact, however, will likely be in the long-term: Joshua Benton hypothesizes that “students will likely get some version of the standard onboarding for new Times subscribers, which pushes newsletters and podcasts like The Daily,” serving as initial steps of the subscriber journey.
The two publishers have executed their programs in different ways and are targeting different audiences. The Times’ initiative is underwritten by Verizon — which avoids potentially devaluing the subscription — and builds on a smaller scale version of this partnership that provided free access to 12,000 schools in low-income areas last year. (The Times also allows individuals to sponsor individual student subscriptions.) Bloomberg, in effect, is underwriting its program itself, perhaps because it is not as concerned with undervaluing the subscription — or because it more highly values the benefit of increased exposure. Also unlike the Times, this is a new initiative for Bloomberg: The company has not offered free access to its content aside from short-scale experiments when it launched its paywall in May 2018 and unpaywalling “critical” coronavirus coverage.
Moreover, Bloomberg is targeting an international audience, which likely has partly to do with Bloomberg’s brand as a “global news organization with reporters in more than 120 countries,” and audience, since about 40% of its subscribers are not U.S.-based. The Times, meanwhile, is both building off its existing high school program and has to keep the domestic interests of its partner in mind. It also already sells campus-wide access to academic institutions, the majority of which are likely colleges, a business which it likely doesn’t want to cannibalize.
LOOK FOR
Whether these programs extend beyond their initial three-month period, and whether publishers end up expanding free trialing for other audiences.
Also look for other longer-term benefits. Unpaywalling content now could help support other education products, particularly campus-wide subscriptions. The FT, for example, experienced an increase in interest in enterprise-style packages for universities after the launch of its FT Schools initiative, where students between 16 and 19 years old were given free access to the FT.
Also look for how other publishers adapt to the pandemic by expanding existing education programs or creating new ones. Publishers like the Wall Street Journal have existing partnerships with high schools, but like the previous iteration of the Times-Verizon partnership, have limited access to the schools’ premises. Other publishers, like The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa are filling the space originally devoted to arts and sports coverage or advertising with educational material. | https://medium.com/the-idea/the-latest-bloomberg-and-nyt-offer-free-access-to-students-april-27-2020-6b3a65cc976c | ['Saanya Jain'] | 2020-04-27 21:40:57.648000+00:00 | ['The Latest', 'Media', 'Journalism', 'New York Times', 'Covid 19'] |
A Beginner’s Guide to Business Dashboards | Speaking of the dashboard, you may think of the instrument panel of an airplane or a car dashboard, where drivers monitor the major functions at a glance via the instrument cluster. In the field of business intelligence, business dashboards have a similar role. They use data visualizations to show indicators and implementation of key business operations at any time, helping managers make scientific decisions.
1. What Is a Business Dashboard?
A business dashboard is a graphical display of various indicators, reflecting the operating status of the enterprise in real time and visualizing the collected data.
From FineReport
To put it simply, business managers can see all the important data they need to make decisions on the business dashboard. Just like the dashboard of an airplane, it displays the key performance indicators of the company’s operation through various common charts (speedometer, volume column, early warning radar, radar ball, etc.), so that managers can intuitively monitor business operations, and conduct early warning and data mining analysis of abnormal indicators.
From FineReport
2. Features of Business Dashboards
Thus, it can be seen that the business dashboard should have the following features:
Rich indicator system
Intuitive display system
Timeliness and authenticity of the data
Complete system architecture
3. Types of Business Dashboards
So how do we plan the business dashboard?
Generally, the display of dashboard has a specific theme or classification. From a strategic point of view, there are three types of business dashboards from top to bottom: strategic dashboard, analytical dashboard, and operational dashboard.
3.1 Strategic Dashboard
The role of the strategic dashboard is to allow users to quickly grasp the operations of the company, and to make decisions based on this, to summarize the past or to formulate strategic goals for the future. The operations here are mainly those that have happened in the past. Therefore, the strategic dashboard does not require real-time data display, but a simple visual display of mission-critical information. These simple and intuitive information helps managers quickly make decisions and locate and diagnose problems in bad operations.
The strategic dashboard can help managers to report results at any time, so that departments and companies can work toward the goal in the right direction. It is similar to the cockpit tools of cars and airplanes, which make managers to clearly know at any time what steps they are taking in the businesses they drive.
From FineReport
3.2 Analytical Dashboard
Through the analytical dashboard, managers can not only see the surface information, but also investigate the causes of surface phenomena. Through data drilling, linkage, filtering, etc., we can start from the phenomenon and find the cause along the data context. For example, why is the sales performance decreasing and what is the reason for the long payment time? Analytical dashboards are more of a service to middle-level managers, who implement strategies to tactical execution. Therefore, the design of the dashboard needs to directly reflect the problems, and sort them in order, and correlate the actions to be taken.
The analytical dashboard can be either strategic or operational. The main difference lies in the level of information. It contains a comparison of time-based details between multiple factors and variables.
From FineReport
3.3 Operational Dashboard
The operational dashboard emphasizes continuous and real-time information reporting, so the timeliness of the data on it is relatively high. It is used to monitor daily progress and output to ensure that the expected plan matches the actual performance achieved, that is, to ensure that the strategic goals are broken down into tasks for each day. Such a dashboard allows us to resolve problems in a timely manner before they turn into thorny big risks and helps to incrementally improve performance.
The design of the operational dashboard needs to start from the business needs, to achieve the reminding, monitoring and early warning functions of business operations.
KPI monitoring : The monitoring of key performance indicators can ensure that we control the overall operation. Operational dashboards show core indicators in the areas of business, risk and performance in front of monitors through graphics, tables, etc.
: The monitoring of key performance indicators can ensure that we control the overall operation. Operational dashboards show core indicators in the areas of business, risk and performance in front of monitors through graphics, tables, etc. Threshold warning : Another factor that is accompanied by KPI monitoring is necessarily the early warning factor. Alarms can be issued by background highlighting with eye-catching colors (like red, green, blue), tachometers, etc.
: Another factor that is accompanied by KPI monitoring is necessarily the early warning factor. Alarms can be issued by background highlighting with eye-catching colors (like red, green, blue), tachometers, etc. Real-time data monitoring: The dashboard of some industries requires real-time monitoring of key indicators, such as exchange volume monitoring, flight monitoring, and subway line operation monitoring.
From FineReport
4. Business Dashboard Templates
There are different templates of business dashboards for different industries and roles. The key information that managers at different levels focus on is different. Sales executives focus on sales management dashboard, and finance executives focus on capital operations dashboard. From the perspective of industries, the design of dashboards for manufacturing, retail, transportation, government organizations, telecommunications, and catering industries is also different.
FineReport Demo provides a variety of common analysis ideas and templates. It can instantly access enterprise data according to different industries, different roles and different scenarios. You can learn from the best data analysis practices in the industry, and quickly build a business dashboard.
Education Industry Template
From FineReport
IOT Industry Template
From FineReport
Financial Theme Template
From FineReport
From FineReport
At Last
If you want to learn to make a business dashboard, here is a guide to the design of data visualization dashboards. And you’d better use an easy-to-use tool like FineReport. Its personal version is completely free. You can also go to its official website to view more business dashboard templates!
You might also be interested in…
How Can Beginners Design Cool Data Visualizations?
4 Uses of Data Maps in Business Analysis | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-beginners-guide-to-business-dashboards-981a8192a967 | ['Lewis Chou'] | 2019-07-15 04:08:53.408000+00:00 | ['Dashboard', 'Guides And Tutorials', 'Business', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization'] |
Our Sadness | Our Sadness
Micropoetry about sadness
Photo by Anthony Intraversato on Unsplash
we grow with our sadness
somehow we learn to fly.
our heart makes space
for the tenderness which
we need to survive. | https://medium.com/warm-hearts/our-sadness-1734534b8161 | ['Priyanka Srivastava'] | 2020-11-26 15:32:16.793000+00:00 | ['Kindness', 'Writing', 'Empathy', 'Sadness', 'Poetry'] |
Jungian Psychology: In Lieu of a Bottom-Up Understanding of the Psyche | What is Jungian psychology?
Carl Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, who, after a feud with Sigmund Freud, cultivated his theory of personality which has come to be known as Jungian or Analytical Psychology. This is summarised by Joseph Campbell in Mythos using a version of the diagram below. He describes the psyche is the yellow circle, above the red line is the section of the psyche that is available for us to analyse through personal introspection (including the ego) and the section below the red line is the unconscious (including the shadow). The self communicates to the ego through the language of myths.
(The above image is adapted from Mythos, Season 1 Episode 1: Psyche & Symbol by Joseph Campbell)
Jung postulated two ‘levels’ of the unconscious mind: 1) the personal unconscious which contains memories and habits, and 2) the collective unconscious which contains archetypes and myths in the form of memories passed down from previous generations. He says that these archetypes are universal, inherited tendencies, for example, a baby having an immediate attachment to its mother or people being scared of the dark. In Owning Your Own Shadow, Robert Johnson says “The refused and unacceptable characteristics [of our psyche] do not go away; they only collect in the dark corners of our personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own — the shadow life.” This shadow is represented by Joseph Campbell in the above diagram, with five lines representing five layers of the unconscious shadow.
Jung described four main archetypes to help us understand ourselves, the persona (mask we wear), shadow (unconscious or repressed aspects of ourselves), anima/animus (masculine or feminine side) and self; as well as numerous others such as the father, mother, child, wise old man, hero, maiden and trickster.
We learn through stories and myths.
Throughout history, we have learnt through stories, stories that are told from one generation to the next, and so on. Not long all that long ago we used stories to communicate our morals and information about our origin (I need not cite verses from any number of religious texts), to me Jung’s discoveries about the human psyche also fall into this category. The origin story in the Judeo-Christian holy books was considered by many to be an accurate recount of our origin, albeit without a bottom-up, or first principles, understanding or explanation of the cosmos. We now know that Genesis is not a literal recount, it is a myth, or story, that conveys greater meaning about our place in the world than what one will get in a physics textbook.
The twelve archetypes described by Carol Pearson in Awakening the Heroes Within and the journey one must take to get to the point where they can express their soul in the world is of a similar fashion to the origin story in Genesis. She got these insights from Jung and many other myths and formed a top-down story about the psyche. Claude Braun and Shaun Lovejoy quote Karl Marx in The biology of consciousness from the bottom up, “Marx termed the top-down phase of scientific thinking the “descent into the abstract.”
Jungian psychology as a user interface.
Braun and Lovejoy describe the two camps in the “war of hermeneutics”. In the first camp are people that claim that consciousness (or as Plato and Aristotle defined it as ‘essence’) has always existed as a miracle and currently doesn’t have any material substance. Many cite qualia and say that consciousness is irreducible. Jungian psychology is born from this camp; it is what leads to claims of archetypes and myths being encoded into our collective unconscious.
If you were to ask me to describe how a plant grows I wouldn’t give you an answer starting with what can be observed and explaining it based on abstract stories and myths; this is because I can explain to you every function of a plant from first principles, or bottom-up. The base unit of a plant is a cell if one understands the psychology and role of each cell; they can extrapolate this up to an understanding of the whole plant.
Braun and Lovejoy claim that “Consciousness of the sort which most amazes people and which is cognised by introspection carried out by literate human adults grows out of (or emerges from) something far less complex, bottom-up.” Similarly to a plant, consciousness, and the psyche, can be reduced to its base units. The second camp in the “war of hermeneutics” tends to have a disdain for the abstractness of Jungian psychology. They aim to reduce consciousness (or the psyche) to its base units and formulate a first-principles, or bottom-up, understanding. Once reduced to this level of simplicity, the psyche loses its allure, and it can be seen as merely a trick to keep living things engaged with life. Johnson toys with this notion when he writes “One might complain that this is a senseless round trip except that the wholeness at the end is conscious.” However, he returns to the conclusion that there is something essential about consciousness.
Many have stopped here and concluded that these two camps are irreconcilable as if these two processes of arriving at truths about ourselves are mutually exclusive. The bottom-up approach lacks pragmatic utility for us, although sometime we may develop a complete understanding of the nature of consciousness and the psyche from first principles. Just as stories in religious texts gave an understanding of morals, Jungian psychology can provide a story-like understanding of our psyche and a way to communicate with it.
I’ll use an analogy of the interaction between the hardware and the software on a computer to make my point. Note that when we describe the hardware, we will most often say the “hardware in the computer”, yet we say the “software on the computer”. The hardware is like the neurons firing in our brain that are the basis of consciousness, and the software operates on top of the hardware, similar to the Jungian archetypes or myths. The hardware in and the software on a computer are not mutually exclusive; they operate together and serve different, yet vital functions. The purpose of the software is as an interface, so people without an understanding of the hardware functioning underneath. Similarly, Jungian psychology is the method from which we can understand truths about our psyche without a bottom-up understanding.
Embracing the shadow
Throughout Jungian psychology, people are encouraged to look into their shadow and discover what archetypes they are hiding from society. “One purpose of shining the light of consciousness on the archetype is to see the specific form it takes in your life,” says Carol Pearson. Once one has found what archetypes they are relegating to the shadow, they should learn to embrace the positive aspects of this archetype and incorporate it into their persona. Most often, people’s ego and shadow are not aligned if you follow Jungian teachings; the aim is to develop your personality so that the ego and shadow are aligned. These archetypes are, claimed to be, encoded in our collective unconscious.
Neuroplasticity (also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity) is the remapping of the brain from a cellular and cortical level which leads to changes in psychological experiences. Jung and his contemporaries speak of archetypes that are embedded in our unconscious and how we must learn to embrace them to change our psychological experience. It sounds a lot like Jung gave us a story one hundred years ago that helped us understand, at least one aspect of, neuroplasticity from a top-down, user-friendly, perspective.
Conclusion
Although Jungian psychology is not literally true, from a bottom-up perspective, it does give us all a story from which we can understand how our psyche works. The “repair of our fractured world must start with individuals who have the insight and courage to own their own shadow”, Robert Johnson says. Consider for a moment, if we all have an understanding of what ‘makes us tick’ and a story that helps us change certain behaviours, how different our society would be. Carol Pearson talks about the butterfly effect and how one person changing their behaviour can have an impact on all the people they interact with, and so on. | https://brandongordon75.medium.com/jungian-psychology-in-lieu-of-a-bottom-up-understanding-of-the-psyche-3f692cb9c193 | ['Brandon Gordon'] | 2020-11-04 02:59:23.264000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Hermeneutics', 'Behavior Change', 'Jung'] |
[我的Team答應我的工作都做不完] — 一次學會如何摧毀PO制度 | Kuma老師的軟體工程教室
Welcome to the Kingdom of Software Engineering | https://medium.com/kuma%E8%80%81%E5%B8%AB%E7%9A%84%E8%BB%9F%E9%AB%94%E5%B7%A5%E7%A8%8B%E6%95%99%E5%AE%A4/%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84team%E7%AD%94%E6%87%89%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E9%83%BD%E5%81%9A%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%8C-%E4%B8%80%E6%AC%A1%E5%AD%B8%E6%9C%83%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E6%91%A7%E6%AF%80po%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6-16529342108 | ['Yu-Song Syu'] | 2019-01-14 07:38:41.182000+00:00 | ['Product Owner', 'Scrum', 'Software Engineering', 'Agile', 'Agile Methodology'] |
Evolution to Advanced Coding : Any Kid Can Code | PYTHON IS OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE.
What does this mean? In python, everything is an object and object has one good thing they can be assigned to variable and instance can be created for the objects.
What is OOP (Object oriented programming)?
OOP is the concept which preaches to create objects. And, objects contains their own properties and functions. Let us correlate this to real life, any object like computer mouse, has its own properties and functions. Properties: mouse has button (right/left), it has scroller on top etc. Functions: move cursor, click, scroll etc. I hope it makes easy to correlate coding to real life examples.
Here in programming, object is created as instance of class which is created using keyword “class” and then, inside class we can create different variables and functions (this we have learnt earlier). Those functions can be used by object and we can create any number of objects in a class. You can refresh your basic knowledge:
Here we go, we have exposure to most important concept of programming i.e, oOP. We are growing in the same manner as the word looking like.
Benefit of using OOP: Modularity, reusability and scalability. We will go in depth when the time comes or we will understood when we do practice.
How it makes code compact — Let us assume you bought a computer mouse, it has various functions and it works plug n play manner. If you want to attach it to laptop, TV or any other device, it will function as same. So, you need not to buy multiple mouse. This is just to understand the concept of object as an instance. We will deep dive into that as and when required.
Just focus that object is an instance of class and there can be many instances to the class. Animal is class and dog, cat etc are their instances with different functions
OOP has many other concept like polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation and abstraction. We will learn all over the time.
You can understand how important and easy it will become, if we have class widgetObject which allows to create different instance and it has function of move object. Let us now wait too much. First do the program using loop and then use the concept just learnt. And, I will leave it to you to see the difference for understanding and easiness. | https://medium.com/swlh/evolution-to-advanced-coding-any-kid-can-code-40121a1d6c52 | ['Laxman Singh'] | 2020-12-02 15:09:26.543000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Python3', 'Kids And Tech', 'Kids', 'Python'] |
How to learn Machine Learning? | Some time ago I started a journey into one of the most exciting fields in Computer Science — Machine Learning. This is my subjective guide for anyone who would like to explore this topic, but don’t know how to start.
Before You Go
It’s time to pack our bag:
math is a must — it will be hard to start if you don’t know a glimpse of algebra and calculus. You don’t have to be an expert, but you must know what a minimum of a function is and understand that math can be done on symbols.
programming — some programming experience is necessary. Machine Learning is not a place to take baby steps in programming. If you cannot code, take one of many Programming 101 courses. Python is a good language of choice.
First Steps
Your first steps should lead to Stanford Machine Learning class at Coursera by Andrew Ng. This course is simply brilliant! Along a way, you will be given everything you need to know, including algebra review. You will not only get the overview of supervised and unsupervised techniques but you will gather hands on experience through coding assignments in Octave (or Matlab). Pull in your weight and you will gain a lot of self-confidence. You will probably reach peak in Dunning-Kruger Effect.
As pointed out by Piotr Migdal this is real Dunning-Krugger effect.
Try Yourself Out
Try yourself out in one of ML competitions on Kaggle. You probably will not win, but you will get an idea what you still need to learn.
Walking Shoes
It’s time to buy better shoes. There are plenty of options, but two stands out: Python and R.
This two have strong and opinionated believers. Among people I met, those with math background prefer R and those with roots in CS get along with Python. I would recommend to start with Python. It is beautiful language and you will get faster to exciting stuff. The most popular ML library for Python is scikit-learn. To make your work convenient try out interactive environments: ipython is better console for python and Jupyter is programming notebook which works also with R. Data processing can be done with PANDAS.
With R you get caret package, RStudio, knitr and Shiny as counter parts.
Deep Learning
Admit it. You still seek fame. You have heard about deep learning and you want jump on a bandwagon. You are lucky! Google prepared great course on Deep Learning on Udacity. You will learn everything you need to know about neural networks with hands on experience using TensorFlow library.
It Is All About Data
Is it is getting to you that whole Machine Learning fuss is all about data? It is time to learn R and become Data Scientist with John Hopkins specialization on Coursera. It is 9 classes that will teach you data scientist toolkit, data exploration and visualization, statistical inference and regression. Everything is wrapped up with the capstone project.
It Is Just Statistics
Practical Machine Learning from Data Science specialization probably opened your eyes that there is more into ML than Andrew Ng taught you. Get deep into the field of Statistical Learning with Stanford course by Rob Tibshirani and Trevor Hastie. These two and Jerome Friedman are the authors of ML Bible Elements of Statistical Learning which is available online for free.
Rob Tibshirani and Trevor Hastie. (Take a class, you will get it.)
You may feel that you need to supplement your knowledge of probability. There is a great class from MIT Introduction to Probability — The Science of Uncertainty on edX. I would also recommend a great book: Introduction to Probability by course instructor John N. Tsitsiklis.
Big Data
It was proved that more data beats better algorithm. How to handle huge datasets?
Graphic cards are able to do matrix calculations effectively and thats what we need in ML. To speed up calculations you can use libraries like OpenCL or Theano, but usually you can use frameworks like Keras that will do it for you.
You can also to make computations parallel using map reduce paradigm. You can use Hadoop for that, but nowadays it becomes overshadowed by Spark which comes with own ML library MLib. If you want to learn more, take two great classes at Berkley via edX: Introduction to Big Data with Apache Spark and Scalable Machine Learning.
Search Your Own Path
It’s time for you to search your own path. For fresh news in the field pay regular visits to ML Reddit, DataTau. It is also good idea to join Facebook groups like R-Cran Fan Club! Sign up to different MOOC platforms. Interesting courses keeps popping out.
Good luck with your journey! | https://medium.com/machine-intelligence-report/how-to-learn-machine-learning-6fa1c66bf039 | ['Roman Kierzkowski'] | 2016-03-23 03:07:32.952000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning'] |
My favorite Courses to Learn Kotlin in 2021 | My favorite Courses to Learn Kotlin in 2021
These are the best online courses to join if you want to learn Kotlin in 2021 for Android or Java development
If you don’t know Kotlin, it’s a relatively new programming language that makes programming on Android and Java easy. It’s Android’s official Application development language and 100% compatible with Java and removes some of the pain points of Java.
Ever since Google announced Kotlin as the official language for Android Development, I received a lot of queries from my readers about whether Java developers should learn Kotlin now? Or, which one is better to start with Android development, — Kotlin or Java?
I have answered that question in my last article, but I am still receiving a lot of queries about learning Kotlin and whether a Java developer should learn Kotlin or not?
Well, to be honest with you, being a Polyglot programmer, i.e. a programmer who knows more than one programming language, is an important and distinguished skill.
It not only widens your thoughts but also makes you a better developer — that’s why I recommend every Java developer to at least learn one more JVM language, and Kotlin is a place to start.
Kotlin is now the official language for Android app development. So, if you are Java developer with a passion for writing Android apps or want to reach masses to promote your next startup idea, you should learn Kotlin.
But, even if you don’t have an interest in mobile development, you can learn Kotlin, because it improves your productivity while remaining 100 percent compatible with Java.
What you can do in 100 lines of code in Java can be done in just a few lines in Kotlin. It allows you to auto-generate getter , setter , equals , hashCode , toString , and other common methods; you don't need to write that on your own.
Kotlin was created by JetBrains, the company behind IntelliJ IDEA, and they created Kotlin to reduce Java boilerplate code while keeping features from the functional programming paradigm.
But, it wasn’t possible for them to rewrite all their IDEs in Kotlin from scratch, so they made sure that it remains 100 percent compatible with Java. If you don’t know this, Kotlin generates bytecodes that can run in the JVM.
Until last year, I was suggesting that Java developers learn Scala because of its impressive list of functional programming features, but 2018 is different.
This is the year to learn Kotlin! I expect Kotlin to surpass Java for Android development in a few years because of its distinguished position as the official language for Android development.
5 Best Kolin Courses for Android and Java Developers
In this article, I am going to share some of the best online courses to learn Kotlin from scratch.
The courses are divided into two categories — the first teaches Android development with Kotlin and second teaches the Kotlin programming language itself. You can choose the course that best suits your requirements.
If you are a Java developer who wants to learn Kotlin and enhance your career prospects, then this is the perfect course for you. It allows you to use your Java skills to learn Kotlin faster.
I strongly suggest Java developers learn Kotlin, not just for Android app development but also as a skill that they will use in the near future.
Since Kotlin works anywhere that Java works and can even be called from Java code (and vice-versa), this brings with it a massive opportunity for Java developers. Being able to work with both Java and Kotlin is going to give you a massive advantage over all other programmers.
This is a no non-sense course that has the right kind of pace and depth needed for experienced Java programmers.
It is specially designed to teach Java developers on how to use Kotlin in the shortest possible time.
Sarah Ettritch, the instructor of this course, is an experienced Java and Kotlin developer, which makes her qualified to teach you this powerful and exciting language in a short amount of time.
In short, this is a perfect course for Java developers to learn Kotlin and also to understand the key differences between Kotlin and Java. I have recently purchased this course for just $9.99 in Udemy’s flash sale, which is seriously a bargain.
This course is the best of both worlds. It will not only teach you the Kotlin programming language but also how to develop Android apps using Kotlin.
You will learn about variables, strings, and other data types in Kotlin, as well as essential programming constructs e.g. conditionals, for loops, Maps, Functions, classes, Nullables, etc.
You will also learn how Kotlin and Java are related to each other.
In short, a good course to learn Kotlin basics along with its practical use for developing Android Apps. Going forward, you should use Kotlin instead of Java and create JavaScript code from Kotlin.
The course is created by Rob Percival and Nick Walter, two of the best instructors on Udemy.
This is an ideal course to learn Kotlin from scratch and understand object-orientation and idiomatic Kotlin for Android app development.
This course will teach you programming in Kotlin right, starting with the basics, which makes this course ideal for beginners.
You will put what you have learned into practice in several coding challenges. So, in the end, you’ll be able to create your own applications in Kotlin.
If you’re an Android developer, you can use this course to get up to speed with this awesome language. Kotlin will allow you to maintain a cleaner and more expressive code base, use concepts that go beyond even Java 8, and write more robust apps for Android.
This is one of the most comprehensive courses on Kotlin for Android app development. Containing more than 100 lectures, you will learn almost everything about Android development with Kotlin.
Whether you’re a Java developer or have NO Android experience, this course will teach you everything you need to know how to build apps using Kotlin.
The best part of the course is that it not only teaches you theory and basics of Kotlin programming language but also teaches you everything about developing with Kotlin, working with interface builder, all the SDKs, and the tools you actually need to build apps.
You will develop real-life projects which is the best way to learn a new programming language or technology.
Kotlin is an expressive, concise, and powerful development language for Android development, and there is a high probability that it will overtake Java on Android, which makes it important for all the programmers who want to do app development.
This is a complete Masterclass on Android development with Kotlin and teaches you everything you need to effectively write Android code using this powerful programming language.
If you want to make your career in Android application development, then Kotlin is indispensable for you.
You must learn Kotlin sooner rather than later, and this course is perfect to start with.
That’s all for now about some of the best courses to learn Kotlin in 2018. As I have said, after Google’s announcement of Kotlin as the official language for Android development, the demand for Kotlin developers is sure to rise, and this is the right time to learn Kotlin and tap the demand.
For Java developers, it’s a win-win situation because you not only get a chance to tab into Android development but also improve your productivity because of Kotlin’s concise and powerful syntax.
Other Java Articles you may like to explore:
The 2021 Java Developer RoadMap
10 Tools Every Java Developer Learn in 2021
Top 5 Courses to learn Spring Boot in 2021
10 Programming languages to Learn in 2021
10 Books Java Developers Should Read in 2021
10 Frameworks Java and Web Developer Should learn
20 Libraries Java developer should know
My favorite free courses to learn Java in depth
Top 5 courses to learn Spring Framework in Depth
10 Free courses to learn Maven, Jenkins, and Docker for Java developers
Closing Notes
Thanks, You made it to the end of the article … Good luck with your Kotlin journey! It’s certainly not going to be easy, but by following these courses, you are one step closer to becoming a Kotlin Developer.
If you like this article, then please share it with your friends and colleagues, and don’t forget to follow javinpaul on Twitter! and javinpaul on Medium.
P.S. — If you need some Android development courses, you can check out this list of Android training courses to start your journey. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/top-5-courses-to-learn-kotlin-in-2020-dfc3fa7706d8 | [] | 2020-12-11 09:48:36.331000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Programming', 'Java', 'Android App Development', 'Kotlin'] |
Why I Am Picky on Giving Advice | Getting lost in motivational videos or stories can be empowering. You feel like you’re at a low point in life and need something to pull you out of it. The likes of Joe Rogan, David Goggins, Jordan Peterson, and others lay out stories of survival and overcoming.
Listening to others tell their stories of escaping lows and reaching highs can be very motivating. If Goggins can shed weight like it’s nothing and turn into one of the most accomplished military men ever, why can’t I find similar success in achieving my dreams?
Eventually, you get sick of the videos and start getting to work. You start having some success. Then, you want to tell everyone your story and how they can find success, too.
2020 has been a tumultuous year for me. Yes, I know — I’m not special. It has sucked for many people.
I dug myself into perhaps the deepest hole I’ve ever been in, spending my days focusing on unimportant things and questioning my own self-worth. I felt very lost and didn’t know where to go.
After confronting my issues and what was causing them, I removed the troubling causes from my life and started looking forward. I re-discovered Medium and my love for writing.
I began writing on what I thought I felt I could best advise an audience on: investing in the stock market. After reading more and more self-help Medium articles and recalling my motivational YouTube indulgences, I asked myself, “why can’t I write these types of stories?”
From a numbers standpoint, these types of articles clearly brought in views and attention. Everyone is looking to improve themselves in some way, and Medium writers have realized the vast demand for that kind of content.
The more you read these articles, though, the more you realize how useless many of them are.
There are people that have important stories to tell with useful advice attached. But there are just as many stories that are copy-and-paste — writers using the experience of others to give advice without actually using the advice themselves.
It’s understandable why people do this. The idea of self-help will sell. Again, people want to improve themselves. If you can offer some sort of a solution for someone’s struggles, they will feel great coming away from your article.
The advice doesn’t carry weight when it is not your own, however.
Many times I have come away from a motivational YouTube video wanting to pass the lessons I learned along to others. Before doing so, however, I figured I should try taking the advice for myself first. Then, with some actual results to pair with the advice, I could write a useful story for my readers.
To this point, I am proud to not have abused the needy motivational audience and shoved someone else’s advice down their throats.
I have written on why diets suck because I have experience with diets. I have written on how large corporations can both kill and spark creativity in other areas because I have experience with it. I wrote on my happiness after actually experiencing happiness.
Moving forward, I will continue to only write on my own experiences because the audience deserves authentic, personal advice. I hope my fellow writers on this platform will do the same. | https://medium.com/curious/why-i-am-picky-on-giving-advice-54a111558452 | ['Dylan Hughes'] | 2020-11-12 21:54:47.867000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Life'] |
I Signed Up For 1,124,765 Newsletters And My E-mail Is Utter Chaos | SATIRE
I Signed Up For 1,124,765 Newsletters And My E-mail Is Utter Chaos
How am I going to see all those emails begging me to donate to politicians?
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
I love newsletters. I can’t get enough of them, and I obviously want to know what’s going on in my favorite people’s lives.
But I realized I might be a people pleaser. Across Substack, Mailchimp, and GetResponse, I’m currently signed up for 1,124,765 newsletters. Every day, all that comes into my e-mail are newsletters, newsletters, and more newsletters. I want to find out what’s going on in John’s life, but then I’ll search his name on my e-mail and I can’t find the right John! There’s John Johnston, John Smith, John Wang, and John Pruitt, and all of them have daily newsletters.
Gone are the days when people wrote weekly newsletters — I get newsletters from some people twice a day! Some people who have no lives even send me three newsletters a day. What do they think I do — just sit around and read newsletters all day? I’m a busy guy, and I have a lot of things going on.
What’s worse is that it’s my personal e-mail, so I had to make a new personal e-mail because the e-mail with 1,124,765 newsletters just became my newsletter e-mail.
I also thought people would be more grateful. Since I was following and subscribing to their newsletters, I thought they would pay it back and sign up for my newsletter. Alas, they did not — I learned the hard way that that transactional way of thinking doesn’t really work out in life. Damn.
And don’t even ask me about my spam folder. That’s a complete disaster.
Why did I think it was a good idea to sign up for so many newsletters in the first place? I don’t know — but instead of trying to fight it and unsubscribe, I’ve just given up. I’ll read the subject line of all the newsletters and make a split second inference of what it’s about after that. Some days, when I want to torture myself, I spend all day trying to “read” the newsletters and give everyone due diligence.
After all, I know how much work and writing someone put into their newsletters and I want to read, but it’s just too much. By the time I read one newsletter, there are 20 new ones in my inbox! And some people make their newsletters so long, around 10,000 words. How much time do they think people have to read their newsletters?
It’s gotten to the point where I can’t see all the actual important e-mails. I got into graduate school, and I couldn’t find my acceptance e-mail. I don’t see bills either! And don’t even get me started on my insurance payments. I haven’t paid a credit card bill in two years and my credit is below 600 now!
And on an ultra-serious note, how am I going to see all those emails begging me to donate to politicians? Those politicians really need more money so they can serve their constituents, right? You know, the soup kitchen e-mail me begging for money, so that probably means they’re probably doing fine. And what about my alma mater? I’m still $45,000 in debt from my undergrad, but how are they going to support their endowment without my money — their endowment is way too small! How are they going to pay $20 million for their new dining hall?
These newsletters are not only ruining my inbox, but they’re ruining my life. And I need help. | https://medium.com/muddyum/i-signed-up-for-1-124-765-newsletters-and-my-e-mail-is-utter-chaos-cfa6d4cb1864 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-10-17 03:10:13.658000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Humor', 'Gadgets', 'Technology', 'Productivity'] |
Leaving Facebook After 1.5 Years as a Software Engineer | Don’t get me wrong — working at Facebook was my dream job. Was.
How could it not be? In 2015, it was one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with no sign of stopping. It had everything: talented engineers, ridiculous compensation, happy employees, etc… Don’t even get me started on all the free food.
Dozens of cafeterias filled with every possible cuisine you could imagine.
Micro-kitchens jam-packed to the ceiling with tasty treats that you gobble down between meetings.
And it was great…until it wasn’t.
The beginning of my time at Facebook was like the start of a new relationship. There’s nothing quite like it. Everything feels so new and exciting. Colors seem brighter, food tastes better, and every love song feels like it’s about you.
But then quickly, the honeymoon period fades and you see the relationship for what it really is.
This is the pivotal make or break moment where a relationship either blossoms or fades. Compatibility is crucial, but so is timing and little bit of luck.
Bootcamp
I always found it comical that Facebook’s onboarding program for new employees is called “Bootcamp” as the actual experience is quite the opposite.
“Bootcamp” is a 6–8 week program where new engineers get the chance to explore the company with the eventual goal of choosing a team.
Yes, employees get to choose their own team at Facebook. Not typical for a tech company, but one of the reasons that I fell in love with the Facebook culture early.
My bootcamp experience, in particular, was some of the most fun I’ve had in my life. Having previously interned at Facebook, I was very familiar with the tooling and infrastructure. Ramping up for me was not a problem.
Bootcamp is a lot like an accelerated version of a typical 4-year undergrad program. Just like freshmen year, it starts off with loads of boring info sessions and an obnoxious amount of beer with fellow freshies.
Week 2: Picking a Specialty. Whereas in college, you’d pick between Psychology, English, Economics, etc…choices in bootcamp are restricted to specific technologies: Android, iOS, Web, ML, etc…
Week 3: Team Matching. Resumes are sent out to prospective mangers and thus begins the intricate dance between new hires and hiring managers. Except, in this scenario, new hires have all the power.
Managers desperately try to woo new hires by inviting them to game nights, team dinners, or even to fly across the country to attend a conference with the rest of their org.
It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being an NBA all-star who was about to become a free agent.
I won’t say managers “lie” perse, but some definitely bend the truth. Managers will say things like: “Yeah you know, we don’t really have any Machine Learning opportunities right now, but down the road, we’d definitely be open to you leading the initiative for something like this…”
Translation: “No you, sucker. We don’t have ML opportunities, but you should join our team anyway.”
I saw so many fall victim to these false promises. To make it worse, you’ve lost all your leverage once you’ve committed to joining a team. The game nights, fun offsite activities, and team happy hours will quickly start to decrease in frequency just as the dread of a day job creeps in.
The Cost of Ego in a Workplace
I breezed through Bootcamp.
I knocked out Bootcamp tasks left and right which grabbed the attention of a few managers and started a bidding war of sorts.
The whole ordeal went to my head. And in a moment of irrational decision-making, I decided to commit to a team despite having only been in Bootcamp for about five weeks.
Some lessons are so important that it’s not worth waiting until the end to discuss so I’ll just say this now:
If you ever find yourself on the brink of making a big life decision, don’t rush it. Take every bit of time you can and make sure it’s the right one for god sake.
I sure wish I had.
My decision to join a team was purely based on the fact that I loved the people on the team as well as the technology that I would be working with. The manager, on the other hand, was just okay.
But that’s ultimately where things went wrong. As a new grad, more important than the work you’re doing and the co-workers you’re doing it with, you need a great manager. Someone who supports your dreams and aspirations while also pushing you to grow.
A bad manager will make your life worse is every way.
Fast-forward 3 months
The honeymoon period had definitely worn off and I was unhappy in every way.
The most senior engineer on our team had left leaving four junior engineers to fend for ourselves. As a growth team, we had the most aggressive six-month goals in the entire organization, but we weren’t even close to reaching them.
For my manager, this meant going into lockdown.
When a team at Facebook goes into lockdown, they’re put in a conference room turned into a dedicated workspace. This is primarily a mechanism meant to be used for teams that need a focused space leading up to a big launch or are severely behind on goals.
We were the latter.
Being in lockdown put a strain on my manager who in turn put that strain on us engineers. Work-life balance quickly faded. I remember one meeting distinctly where he said: “I don’t believe in work-life balance.” Concerned expressions quickly emerged around the conference room.
Eight hour days became ten-hour days which became twelve-hour days.
To make it worse, we weren’t even coding. Our primary job for this three-month stretch was to optimize the click-through rate for various Ads. I was a professional, button-pusher now. So much for my Masters in Computer Science.
This wasn’t what I signed up for. Only if I had stayed the full eight weeks in bootcamp…I surely would have seen this coming.
Who was I to turn to? Any issue I brought to my manager was dismissed as a temporary hurdle. Plus, he now had eighteen reports across four teams. He wasn’t in any position to support anyone.
Three Months Later
…three out of four us left the team. It’s quite unusual at Facebook for an engineer to leave a team before the one-year mark, but circumstances had gotten bad.
I dragged it out for another nine months, but my decision had already been made. If it could get that bad this early on, it could happen again.
And I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
My new team was fine, but the work wasn’t all that full-filling. I was now working on an internal tool that helped manage employee records.
The excitement that I had in the early days of Bootcamp was long gone.
It Wasn’t All Bad
There is definitely a sore spot as I reflect on my time at Facebook, but I think that’s quite heavily tainted by one truly terrible experience. But to be honest, it wasn’t all bad.
I know in the current media news cycle, it has become quite trendy to accuse Facebook of being a group of evil scientists tirelessly working to get the rest of us addicted to our phones, but that’s just not true.
The people I worked with at Facebook were genuinely good people…at least most of them.
The data breaches and privacy concerns that have come out over the past two years is what happens when a fast-moving culture mixed with a healthy dose of complacency goes too far.
I will say — no company, that I’ve heard of, puts as much into employee happiness as Facebook. While the work could be tough at times, it was surrounded by a quirky atmosphere that actually made the place seem like Disney World at times.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t for me.
What Makes a Dream Job
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a dream job. Working at Facebook was my dream job…until it wasn’t.
A lot of college students nowadays tell me that working at Facebook, Google, or Apple is their dream job, but I wonder if it’s just the idea of working there is their dream job.
Don’t get me wrong, the all-you-can-eat sushi bar and rotating smoothie station was pretty rad, but underneath it all, it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.
I didn’t want to be just a Software engineer. I’ve always loved marketing, product, design just as much. Why waste those skills on a job that doesn’t let me bring my other passions to work.
Through this entire ordeal, I’ve learned that a dream job is not to work at Facebook, Google, or any other company you could imagine.
A dream job is doing something that lets you bring your passion to work with the people you want to be working with.
I truly don’t think you can know that a job is your dream job from a job posting on LinkedIn. You only find out in the first six seconds of waking up on a workday.
You’ll know in those six seconds whether you’re excited to get to work or if the thought of going to work fills you with dread.
What’s Next for Me?
It was always going to be the startup world for me. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed with creative projects and building mini-businesses.
Nothing has given me more satisfaction than building something from scratch. That’s exactly what I’m doing now.
Seven months in and I’m happier than I ever was at Facebook. I own my time. No set hours, no dress code, no rules.
I can work from anywhere, anytime.
Look, I know it’s not for everyone, but it’s my dream job. And this I know for sure. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/leaving-facebook-after-1-5-years-as-a-software-engineer-641e84bad1e0 | ['Ish Baid'] | 2019-10-29 12:26:01.482000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Life Lessons', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Personal Development'] |
How to Usability Test a Government Service | How to Usability Test a Government Service
An overview of my favorite approach to getting government services in front of real users, and making use of the feedback as quickly as possible.
As you may have heard, some folks have had a hard time trying to conduct usability testing in the Federal government (and other governments!). Not only can it be easy and fun, I have a *favorite* easy and fun approach to conducting usability testing — which I’m excited to share with you today.
For the feds: This process does not require PRA review by OMB or even your agency PRA Officer! It’s on less than 9 people, and it’s nonstandard oral communication, and it’s observation! Three exceptions, when even one of them would do!
Step 1: Decide what you’re going to test.
This may seem obvious, but this choice is important, especially on your first round of testing. Choose something that has a chance of getting changed based on the feedback because the “owner” of the service is interested in it working well. A response letter from your office? The IVR (phone maze) that folks hear when they call you? If you already have buy-in and can choose anything you want, run, don’t walk, to the most important service that you provide.
If you’re already working on a project to build/update a service, you should make sure to do usability testing starting *before a single line of code is written.* Use paper (or PDF) prototypes to test. You will get a ton of critical information.
So, in this case, we’re going to pretend that the service is applying for Veterans Widgets (not a real thing [I think]) and that the owner is pumped to make the changes.
Step 2: Draft your field guide.
Unlike a survey, where there are a list of exact questions that are presented in the same way to every user, usability testing is a conversation. Surveys, especially government service feedback surveys, in my opinion don’t produce useful feedback about how well a service is performing. For example, a real, live government website currently surveys users on a 1–9 scale and asks “*Please rate the site procedures to accomplish tasks on this site.” (Emphasis theirs.) What does that mean? Who knows! What will they learn? Nothing useful!
For a field guide, you’re making a list of what you want to go over in your testing sessions, and writing example questions as a guide. For our test of the Veteran Widget application, that field guide could look like this:
You’re a former servicemember and need a contraption from the VA. What would you do now? Are you eligible for the widget? How do you know? Sign up to get the widget. Check the status on your widget application. They denied your application! Appeal your widget determination.
“I dunno man, this seems like an exact list of questions, kind of like a survey.” Nay! Check out a video of how this goes in real life. Usability testing involves a nonstandard conversation — you’re responding to a human in real time. Reading an exact list of questions wouldn’t work.
Step 3: Recruit your users.
In non-government contexts, this can be super hard and expensive! In government, it’s actually super lovely and convenient. And remember, for this round of testing you need *at most* five people. I like to have a mix of approach A and B.
Approach A: Contact your correspondence office (or mail center or call center or wherever someone would go if they gave feedback to your office), and ask if they have any correspondence they can share from your target users. In our example, let’s say it’s Veterans who love electronics. They send you 40 letters from Veterans who wrote in about widgets and contraptions and other electronics. Choose a few, and ask if they’d like to help out on a design project to make widget applications work better for Veterans. They will be pumped.
Note: When we did this at the White House, people were SO excited to help. A USDS team once needed Veterans who were LGBTQ to help test a new, faster process to remove less-than-honorable discharges (“bad papers”) from Veteran records so they could receive the appropriate benefits. The White House correspondence office shared a stack of letters, and it was a delight to contact folks who had written in, to help fix an unfair system.
Approach B: Work with your community affairs office (or whoever connects with outside groups!) to find a great community group, and ask their leaders for help finding the right people (referring them or forwarding along an ask). I strongly recommend that you explain it’s a “design project” so that they don’t assume it’s the normal feedback that advocacy groups offer government agencies — it’s a real potential user, trying to finish a task.
TIP — Recruit more folks than you need, and work with them on future rounds of testing!
Step 4: Get the right team in place
At bare minimum, you should have someone conducting the test (using the field guide) and someone observing. I strongly recommend having anyone on your team who will later make suggestions to make it harder to use (your general counsel, perhaps!), as well as the person who will get to approve any changes (This can even be your executive! Sitting in these testing sessions are extraordinary) also sit in to observe and take notes.
Step 5: Test!
It’s possible to get “thank you” gifts for participants in government, but may be more red tape than is worth it for quick rounds of usability testing that you’ll (hopefully!) be conducting frequently. Be upfront so no one is surprised.
Instead, if it’s in person (and not a pandemic!), bring snacks and offer coffee and water. If you have swag (like mugs or stickers), that’s often appreciated. If it’s online, a hand-written note, ideally on the government stationary, saying “thank you” and also how their contributions will help other people sent in the mail will be very meaningful. If possible, have your executive (mayor, secretary, commissioner etc.) sign the card as well.
Example notes
For the observer(s), have them take notes about every time a participant gets stuck/lost/frustrated in the process.
Example notes for multiple participants
Ideally, have the test be 45 minutes, and then at the conclusion of the test, thank the participant and spend 15 minutes collecting notes from your observers to put in one spreadsheet, and make a “P1” column to represent Participant 1, and put an X next to each issue they had. Do the same for Participant 2 (P2) and Participant 3 (P3), also marking “X” for issues that they shared with other participants. This is a process I learned many years ago at UX Camp NYC, and it’s perfect for government usability testing.
Example notes with draft actions
Then, at the end of your testing sessions for the day, keep the same folks in the room to discuss what should be done about each issue. Sometimes, the answer is “nothing,” and sometimes the answer has nothing to do with the user interface, and that’s ok! It will be very clear from your tests what the most important items are, and making this a discussion with your observers will help build buy in (shout out to general counsels across government!) from folks who may otherwise resist the simplification of a process. Draft the proposed actions together.
The same day as testing, email your feedback and actions spreadsheet to as large a group as will not be mad at you for the spam, and include reflections about what the participants were like. Things like “They were so excited, because they had never been asked for their feedback before,” or “One of the participants is a 3rd generation Veteran, and is from my home state of Ohio!” Include an invitation to attend the next session as an observer, and stress that no experience is required.
This is critical, because in my roughly 10 years of on-and-off Federal service, I have never once seen a beautifully designed, narrative report about the findings from a single usability test 1) result in those changes actually being made, or 2) be read and understood by anyone not on the design team. Never. This is not the time to make a glossy, beautiful report. Make it casual, make it fast, make it simple, make it action-oriented. One spreadsheet, some notes, send email.
Step 6: Make it a system!
Use bureaucracy to bake it into your agency’s work. Here are just a few ideas, but think creatively about what would make usability testing “a thing” in your agency.
Book the same conference room for a few hours, recurring every month, for testing.
When you get more participants who are willing to help than you need for that month, book them for next month.
Government agencies typically have a very formal review process for launching things. Work with your “executive secretary” or general counsel (or whoever is in charge of reviewing and approving things before they go live) to add “How many users was this tested with?” to the clearance cover sheet or process. This both helps make it something folks “need” before a thing can go live, and also helps raise awareness that this is expected.
Troubleshooting
My agency is too scared to show something before it’s final, even if it’s only to 3 people!
Start with a service that’s live on your site today, and have folks who are scared sit in to observe. They’ll learn how important the work is and meet the very un-scary test participants who are excited to serve their country in a small way. Then try again with a new service and work with those previously scared folks to advocate with you.
As a fed, won’t I need PRA clearance if even though I’m only testing 3–5 people with this specific test, I will eventually test more than 10 people total?
Nope! Each round of testing is different. Here’s an example where the United States Digital Service and the Federal Student Aid office tested with dozens and dozens of people and did not need PRA clearance because, for example, there were 19 different prototypes tested and each one was only tested with 1–5 people.
Prototypes by the brilliant Stephanie T. Nguyen. Public Domain GIF
I’m not a designer or design expert!
That’s ok! You don’t need a design degree to do a usability test. Here are two books that can help increase your confidence.
The people who own “services” here are super skeptical because this has been so expensive and hard in previous attempts.
Start with something super simple like a “closing letter,” (the letter a person gets at the end of a process) and ask some of the skeptical folks to sit in and watch. Empathize and don’t excuse past things that went wrong — acknowledge that it sounds very frustrating. The previous folks were likely trying to help, but got stuck in some common design-meets-government pitfalls.
We’re not building anything new right now.
That’s ok! Try something that’s live on your site now.
I totally agree with all of this in theory, but I feel really alone.
Good news! There are sweethearts all over government working on doing this work that would love to cheer you on. If you have a .gov or a .mil email address, join this UX Community listserv hosted by the General Services Administration (GSA)!: https://digital.gov/communities/user-experience/
I don’t have a remote way to host a usability test because no videoconference solutions are approved at my agency.
Reach out to folks at the GSA on that listserv, and ask if they’d observe *and digitally host* your test. They have very simple videoconferencing approved and love collaborating with different government agencies.
Note: This is just one way to accomplish this work. There are different ways that work well, too! | https://eriemeyer.medium.com/how-to-usability-test-a-government-service-e43d03834383 | [] | 2020-12-07 01:51:57.594000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Design', 'Policy', 'Technology'] |
Machine Learning: Python Linear Regression Estimator Using Gradient Descent | Simple Linear Regression Estimator in Python | Towards AI
In this article, we describe how a simple python estimator can be built to perform linear regression using the gradient descent method. Let’s assume we have a one-dimensional dataset containing a single feature (X) and an outcome (y), and let’s assume there are N observations in the dataset:
A linear model to fit the data is given as:
where w0 and w1 are the weights that the algorithm learns during training.
Gradient Descent Algorithm
If we assume that the error in the model is independent and normally distributed, then the likelihood function is given as:
To maximize the likelihood function, we minimize the sum of squared errors (SSE) with respect to w0 and w1:
The objective function or our SSE function is often minimized using the gradient descent (GD) algorithm. In the GD method, the weights are updated according to the following procedure:
i.e., in the direction opposite to the gradient. Here, eta is a small positive constant referred to as the learning rate. This equation can be written in component form as:
If you would like to find out more about the GD algorithm and why it works, see the following article: https://medium.com/@benjaminobi/machine-learning-how-the-gradient-descent-algorithm-works-61682d8570b6
Implementation Using Python Estimator
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
class GradientDescent(object):
"""Gradient descent optimizer.
Parameters
------------
eta : float
Learning rate (between 0.0 and 1.0)
n_iter : int
Passes over the training dataset.
Attributes
-----------
w_ : 1d-array
Weights after fitting.
errors_ : list
Error in every epoch.
""" def __init__(self, eta=0.01, n_iter=10):
self.eta = eta
self.n_iter = n_iter
def fit(self, X, y):
"""Fit the data.
Parameters
----------
X : {array-like}, shape = [n_points]
Independent variable or predictor.
y : array-like, shape = [n_points]
Outcome of prediction.
Returns
-------
self : object
"""
self.w_ = np.zeros(2)
self.errors_ = []
for i in range(self.n_iter):
errors = 0
for j in range(X.shape[0]):
self.w_[1:] += self.eta*X[j]*(y[j] - self.w_[0] - self.w_[1]*X[j])
self.w_[0] += self.eta*(y[j] - self.w_[0] - self.w_[1]*X[j])
errors += 0.5*(y[j] - self.w_[0] - self.w_[1]*X[j])**2
self.errors_.append(errors)
return self def predict(self, X):
"""Return predicted y values"""
return self.w_[0] + self.w_[1]*X
Application of Python Estimator
a) Create dataset
np.random.seed(1)
X=np.linspace(0,1,10)
y = 2*X + 1
y = y + np.random.normal(0,0.05,X.shape[0])
b) Fit and Predict
gda = GradientDescent(eta=0.1, n_iter=100)
gda.fit(X,y)
y_hat=gda.predict(X)
c) Plot Output
plt.figure()
plt.scatter(X,y, marker='x',c='r',alpha=0.5,label='data')
plt.plot(X,y_hat, marker='s',c='b',alpha=0.5,label='fit')
plt.xlabel('x')
plt.ylabel('y')
plt.legend()
d) Calculate R-square value
R_sq = 1-((y_hat - y)**2).sum()/((y-np.mean(y))**2).sum()
R_sq
0.991281901588877
In summary, we have shown how a simple linear regression estimator using the GD algorithm can be built and implemented in Python. If you would like to see how the GD algorithm is used in a real machine learning classification algorithm, see the following Github repository.
Thanks for reading. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/machine-leaning-python-linear-regression-estimator-using-gradient-descent-b0b2c496e463 | ['Benjamin Obi Tayo Ph.D.'] | 2019-05-27 15:04:05.394000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Gradient Descent', 'Python', 'Linear Regression', 'Optimization'] |
can the honey badger guy inspire us to love nature? | What’s got my thinking about the honey badger, the Jesus Lizard, the American Bull Frog and the Nasty Disgusting World of Vampire Bats is Randall’s World of WIld Wild Animals.
Admittedly I’m a little late to this party. The honey badger video was posted in January of this year and has racked up 12 million views. Randall’s latest animal video was posted in June and has garnered close to 100,000 views, down from the over 200,000 (and in some cases 300,000 to 600,0000) views his preview videos received, so this meme may have run its course. Still, Randall’s Wild Wild World of Animals is a monster YouTube hit.
With it’s off-color, femme-voiced narration and pirated animal videos, Randall’s Wild Wild World of Animals is both hilarious and nostalgic. The clips bring viewers back to a childhood of watching nature documentaries while at the same time reminding them of the crazy friend of a friend they met last weekend (or last month, or that time before they had kids and used to go out to bars — remember how crazy he was!?!).
What’s most surprising about the shows is that they actually have a lot of interesting information about the animals they profile and you get the sense that Randall is really fascinated by these creatures and cares about them. Without this secret sauce, I don’t think the videos would be as popular as they are.
The question I’ve been mulling, and haven’t really come up with an answer to yet, is how can an organization like mine (The Nature Conservancy) — an organization trying to get GenX and GenY to care about environmental conservation — capture some of the magic that Randall’s Wild Wild World of Animals has tapped into. To be clear, that magic is a potent combination of humor, familiarity and honest concern.
Certainly the easiest (and most assuredly least successful) thing to do would be to simply ape the shows and create a knock off. That’s a bad idea.
The second easiest thing to do would be to hire Randall to do a series of spots with a deeper environmental/conservation message, fewer swear words and some light branding. That’s a better idea and would probably get tens of thousands of views if marketed properly — I don’t think it would become as popular as his home-grown videos however because branded doesn’t work as well as user-generated on YouTube. As evidence just look at the hit counts Randall’s Wild WIld World of Animals is getting compared to National Geographic’s YouTube presence.
The most difficult and most successful long-term play would be to study Randall’s secret sauce, learn from it and infuse it into some targeted marketing campaigns. To do this, we need to be brave. We need to not be afraid of the inevitable (and I would guess, swift) backlash from old-gaurd donors and supporters. This means really not being afraid to fail. it also means taking on an underground marketing campaign that you run on Tumblr, YouTube, Twitter (probably not Facebook) and other spots where your target audience hangs out, but the old-gaurd ignores. If it’s successful, maybe it means approaching someone like the Cheezburger Network about a long-term content partnership.
Environmental groups need to do more of this kind of messaging if they want to reach younger audiences. They need to not take themselves so seriously and they need to not be afraid to offend. Otherwise they’re just going to be left behind and ultimately Randall’s Wild Wild World of Animals will have fewer subjects like this awesome guy: | https://medium.com/david-connell/can-the-honey-badger-guy-inspire-us-to-love-nature-83068fe50e01 | ['David Connell'] | 2016-08-20 13:06:53.463000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Nonprofit', 'Honey Badger', 'Environment Films', 'Environment'] |
Fluentbit Stream Processing with Kubernetes | Fluentbit (https://fluentbit.io/) is becoming increasingly popular as a light-weight alternative to Fluentd for log collection, processing and forwarding in Kubernetes environments. Fluentbit is typically deployed as a DaemonSet(https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/daemonset/) in production environments, where a Fluentbit instance runs on every node in the cluster. In a typical EFK (Elastic Search + Fluentbit + Kibana) stack, this instance tails docker (usually the container runtime) container logs (written to stdout/stderr of containers) on the node (/var/log/containers/*.log). Fluentbit parses these JSON formatted logs using a pre-configured docker json parser, enriches the log message with Kubernetes metadata, using a Kubernetes filter, and outputs that to an Elastic Search index, which can be visualized using Kibana. A recommended pattern is for applications to log in JSON format, so that the log messages at Elastic Search can be deserialized into separate fields, which can be queried/filtered/visualized on Kibana.
As described above, the same Fluentbit instance, running on a node, processes all container logs of all the pods running on that node. So all log messages across the pods get sent to same Elastic Search index. This may be undesirable sometimes because the index schema might need to be different for different applications/services on the Kubernetes cluster. For example, a given field may be a string in one application, and a number in another application. This can lead to parsing errors on Elastic Search when it maps that field to one type, but it receives a log message which has that field set to a different type. Another use-case could be to send log messages of namespace A to Elastic Search (on-prem) and another, say, namespace B, to AWS CloudWatch (off-prem). Yet another use-case may be to have different retention requirements for different applications. Whatever the case may be, we can leverage Fluentbit Stream Processing (https://docs.fluentbit.io/stream-processing/) to create different streams for different Kubernetes namespaces, annotations, labels etc., and forward each stream to a different endpoint configuration.
Let’s consider an example to demonstrate this. This example is implemented on a MacBook, which has Docker Desktop with Kubernetes installed (https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/kubernetes/).
Create 2 pods, hello-pod (which prints “hello world” to stdout indefinitely) and bye-pod (which prints “bye world” to stdout indefinitely).
# cat hello/Dockerfile
FROM alpine:3.7
ENTRYPOINT while :; do echo "hello world"; sleep 2; done # cat bye/Dockerfile
FROM alpine:3.7
ENTRYPOINT while :; do echo "bye world"; sleep 2; done # docker build . -t hello:latest -f hello/Dockerfile # docker build . -t bye:latest -f bye/Dockerfile # cat hello.yaml
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: hello-pod
annotations:
purpose: greeting
spec:
containers:
- image: hello:latest
name: hello-container
imagePullPolicy: Never # cat bye.yaml
kind: Pod
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: bye-pod
annotations:
purpose: goodbye
spec:
containers:
- image: bye:latest
name: bye-container
imagePullPolicy: Never # kubectl apply -f pod_hello.yaml -n hello
pod/hello-pod created # kubectl apply -f pod_bye.yaml -n bye
pod/bye-pod created # kubectl get pods --all-namespaces | egrep 'hello|bye'
hello bye-pod 1/1 Running 0 81s
bye hello-pod 1/1 Running 0 88s
The pod hello-pod above is created in namespace hello, while the pod bye-pod is created in namespace bye. Each pod prints log messages to stdout as shown below:
# kubectl logs --follow hello-pod -n hello
hello world
hello world
... # kubectl logs --follow bye-pod -n bye
bye world
bye world
...
We will now create the EFK stack to process these log messages. Let’s first deploy Elastic Search and Kibana using “helm” (Installing helm is beyond the scope of this article).
Initialize “helm”:
# helm init
...
Tiller (the Helm server-side component) has been installed into your Kubernetes Cluster.
... # kubectl get pods -n kube-system | grep tiller
tiller-deploy-75f6c87b87-v7mkt 1/1 Running 0 23s
Add “elastic” helm repo:
"elastic" has been added to your repositories # helm repo add elastic https://Helm.elastic.co "elastic" has been added to your repositories
Setup helm charts for Elastic Search and Kibana:
# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elastic/helm-charts/master/elasticsearch/examples/docker-for-mac/values.yaml # helm install --name elasticsearch elastic/elasticsearch -f ./values.yaml NAME: elasticsearch
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May 3 17:39:07 2020
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: DEPLOYED RESOURCES:
==> v1/Pod(related)
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
elasticsearch-master-0 0/1 Pending 0 0s
elasticsearch-master-1 0/1 Pending 0 0s
elasticsearch-master-2 0/1 Pending 0 0s ==> v1/Service
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
elasticsearch-master ClusterIP 10.101.188.46 <none> 9200/TCP,9300/TCP 0s
elasticsearch-master-headless ClusterIP None <none> 9200/TCP,9300/TCP 0s ==> v1/StatefulSet
NAME READY AGE
elasticsearch-master 0/3 0s ==> v1beta1/PodDisruptionBudget
NAME MIN AVAILABLE MAX UNAVAILABLE ALLOWED DISRUPTIONS AGE
elasticsearch-master-pdb N/A 1 0 0s NOTES:
1. Watch all cluster members come up.
$ kubectl get pods --namespace=default -l app=elasticsearch-master -w
2. Test cluster health using Helm test.
$ helm test elasticsearch --namespace=default # helm install --name kibana elastic/kibana
NAME: kibana
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May 3 17:41:43 2020
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: DEPLOYED RESOURCES:
==> v1/Deployment
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
kibana-kibana 0/1 1 0 0s ==> v1/Pod(related)
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
kibana-kibana-57dfc79db8-fmq4s 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 0s ==> v1/Service
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kibana-kibana ClusterIP 10.108.57.206 <none> 5601/TCP 0s # kubectl get services | egrep 'elastic|kibana'
elasticsearch-master ClusterIP 10.101.188.46 <none> 9200/TCP,9300/TCP 158m
elasticsearch-master-headless ClusterIP None <none> 9200/TCP,9300/TCP 158m
kibana-kibana ClusterIP 10.108.57.206 <none> 5601/TCP 155m
Wait a few minutes for Elastic Search/Kibana to come up. Eventually:
# kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
elasticsearch-master-0 1/1 Running 0 4m40s
elasticsearch-master-1 1/1 Running 0 4m40s
elasticsearch-master-2 1/1 Running 0 4m40s
kibana-kibana-57dfc79db8-fmq4s 1/1 Running 0 2m4s
We will now setup Fluentbit:
# kubectl create namespace logging
namespace/logging created
serviceaccount/fluent-bit created # kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluent/fluent-bit-kubernetes-logging/master/fluent-bit-service-account.yaml serviceaccount/fluent-bit created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/fluent-bit-read created # kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluent/fluent-bit-kubernetes-logging/master/fluent-bit-role.yaml clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/fluent-bit-read created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/fluent-bit-read created # kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluent/fluent-bit-kubernetes-logging/master/fluent-bit-role-binding.yaml clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/fluent-bit-read created
Configure the config map (https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-pod-configmap/) used to create configuration for Fluent bit process. Setup 2 streams called hello and bye, one for namespace hello and another for namespace bye respectively. We also forward these 2 streams to different Elastic Search indices, as shown below:
# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluent/fluent-bit-kubernetes-logging/master/output/elasticsearch/fluent-bit-configmap.yaml # cat fluent-bit-configmap.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: fluent-bit-config
namespace: logging
labels:
k8s-app: fluent-bit
data:
# Configuration files: server, input, filters and output
# ======================================================
fluent-bit.conf: |
[SERVICE]
Flush 1
Log_Level info
Daemon off
Parsers_File parsers.conf
Streams_File streams.conf
HTTP_Server On
HTTP_Listen 0.0.0.0
HTTP_Port 2020
@INCLUDE input-kubernetes.conf @INCLUDE filter-kubernetes.conf @INCLUDE output-elasticsearch.conf input-kubernetes.conf: |
[INPUT]
Name tail
Tag kube.*
Path /var/log/containers/*.log
Parser docker
DB /var/log/flb_kube.db
Mem_Buf_Limit 5MB
Skip_Long_Lines On
Refresh_Interval 10
[FILTER]
Name kubernetes
Match kube.*
Kube_URL
Kube_CA_File /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/ca.crt
Kube_Token_File /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
Kube_Tag_Prefix kube.var.log.containers.
Merge_Log On
Merge_Log_Key log_processed
K8S-Logging.Parser On
K8S-Logging.Exclude Off filter-kubernetes.conf: |[FILTER]Name kubernetesMatch kube.*Kube_URL https://kubernetes.default.svc:443 Kube_CA_File /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/ca.crtKube_Token_File /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/tokenKube_Tag_Prefix kube.var.log.containers.Merge_Log OnMerge_Log_Key log_processedK8S-Logging.Parser OnK8S-Logging.Exclude Off output-elasticsearch.conf: |
[OUTPUT]
Name es
Match hello*
Host ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST}
Port ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT}
Logstash_Format On
Replace_Dots On
Retry_Limit False
Logstash_Prefix hello [OUTPUT]
Name es
Match bye*
Host ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST}
Port ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT}
Logstash_Format On
Replace_Dots On
Retry_Limit False
Logstash_Prefix bye parsers.conf: |
[PARSER]
Name apache
Format regex
Regex ^(?<host>[^ ]*) [^ ]* (?<user>[^ ]*) \[(?<time>[^\]]*)\] "(?<method>\S+)(?: +(?<path>[^\"]*?)(?: +\S*)?)?" (?<code>[^ ]*) (?<size>[^ ]*)(?: "(?<referer>[^\"]*)" "(?<agent>[^\"]*)")?$
Time_Key time
Time_Format %d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z [PARSER]
Name apache2
Format regex
Regex ^(?<host>[^ ]*) [^ ]* (?<user>[^ ]*) \[(?<time>[^\]]*)\] "(?<method>\S+)(?: +(?<path>[^ ]*) +\S*)?" (?<code>[^ ]*) (?<size>[^ ]*)(?: "(?<referer>[^\"]*)" "(?<agent>[^\"]*)")?$
Time_Key time
Time_Format %d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z [PARSER]
Name apache_error
Format regex
Regex ^\[[^ ]* (?<time>[^\]]*)\] \[(?<level>[^\]]*)\](?: \[pid (?<pid>[^\]]*)\])?( \[client (?<client>[^\]]*)\])? (?<message>.*)$ [PARSER]
Name nginx
Format regex
Regex ^(?<remote>[^ ]*) (?<host>[^ ]*) (?<user>[^ ]*) \[(?<time>[^\]]*)\] "(?<method>\S+)(?: +(?<path>[^\"]*?)(?: +\S*)?)?" (?<code>[^ ]*) (?<size>[^ ]*)(?: "(?<referer>[^\"]*)" "(?<agent>[^\"]*)")?$
Time_Key time
Time_Format %d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z [PARSER]
Name json
Format json
Time_Key time
Time_Format %d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z [PARSER]
Name docker
Format json
Time_Key time
Time_Format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%L
Time_Keep On [PARSER]
Name syslog
Format regex
Regex ^\<(?<pri>[0-9]+)\>(?<time>[^ ]* {1,2}[^ ]* [^ ]*) (?<host>[^ ]*) (?<ident>[a-zA-Z0-9_\/\.\-]*)(?:\[(?<pid>[0-9]+)\])?(?:[^\:]*\:)? *(?<message>.*)$
Time_Key time
Time_Format %b %d %H:%M:%S streams.conf: |
[STREAM_TASK]
Name hello
Exec CREATE STREAM hello WITH (tag='hello') AS SELECT * FROM TAG:'kube.*' WHERE kubernetes['namespace_name'] = 'hello'; [STREAM_TASK]
Name bye
Exec CREATE STREAM argento WITH (tag='bye') AS SELECT * FROM TAG:'kube.*' WHERE kubernetes['namespace_name'] = 'bye';
Configure DaemonSet YAML like below to update Fluentbit version and Elastic Search host information:
# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluent/fluent-bit-kubernetes-logging/master/output/elasticsearch/fluent-bit-ds.yaml # cat fluent-bit-ds.yaml
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
name: fluent-bit
namespace: logging
labels:
k8s-app: fluent-bit-logging
version: v1
kubernetes.io/cluster-service: "true"
spec:
template:
metadata:
labels:
k8s-app: fluent-bit-logging
version: v1
kubernetes.io/cluster-service: "true"
annotations:
prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
prometheus.io/port: "2020"
prometheus.io/path: /api/v1/metrics/prometheus
spec:
containers:
- name: fluent-bit
image: fluent/fluent-bit:1.4.2
imagePullPolicy: Always
ports:
- containerPort: 2020
env:
- name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST
value: "elasticsearch-master.default.svc.cluster.local"
- name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT
value: "9200"
volumeMounts:
- name: varlog
mountPath: /var/log
- name: varlibdockercontainers
mountPath: /var/lib/docker/containers
readOnly: true
- name: fluent-bit-config
mountPath: /fluent-bit/etc/
terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 10
volumes:
- name: varlog
hostPath:
path: /var/log
- name: varlibdockercontainers
hostPath:
path: /var/lib/docker/containers
- name: fluent-bit-config
configMap:
name: fluent-bit-config
serviceAccountName: fluent-bit
tolerations:
- key: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
operator: Exists
effect: NoSchedule
- operator: "Exists"
effect: "NoExecute"
- operator: "Exists"
effect: "NoSchedule" # kubectl apply -f fluent-bit-configmap.yaml
configmap/fluent-bit-config created # kubectl apply -f fluent-bit-ds.yaml
daemonset.extensions/fluent-bit created
Verify that Fluentbit comes up and registers the 2 streams we created:
# kubectl get pods -n logging
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
fluent-bit-nl267 1/1 Running 0 13s
Fluent Bit v1.4.2
* Copyright (C) 2019-2020 The Fluent Bit Authors
* Copyright (C) 2015-2018 Treasure Data
* Fluent Bit is a CNCF sub-project under the umbrella of Fluentd
* https://fluentbit.io # kubectl logs --follow fluent-bit-t6lx7 -n loggingFluent Bit v1.4.2* Copyright (C) 2019-2020 The Fluent Bit Authors* Copyright (C) 2015-2018 Treasure Data* Fluent Bit is a CNCF sub-project under the umbrella of Fluentd [2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [storage] version=1.0.3, initializing...
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [storage] in-memory
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [storage] normal synchronization mode, checksum disabled, max_chunks_up=128
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [engine] started (pid=1)
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [filter:kubernetes:kubernetes.0] https=1 host=kubernetes.default.svc port=443
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [filter:kubernetes:kubernetes.0] local POD info OK
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [filter:kubernetes:kubernetes.0] testing connectivity with API server...
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [filter:kubernetes:kubernetes.0] API server connectivity OK
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [http_server] listen iface=0.0.0.0 tcp_port=2020
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [sp] stream processor started
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [sp] registered task: hello
[2020/05/04 01:32:49] [ info] [sp] registered task: bye
We can now view our pods’ logs (hello-pod and bye-pod) on Kibana:
# kubectl port-forward deployment/kibana-kibana 5601
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:5601 -> 5601
Forwarding from [::1]:5601 -> 5601
Open browser and go to URL: http://localhost:5601
We can see below 2 indices, one for stream hello and another for stream bye:
After creating index patterns:
View log messages for each index:
As seen above, log messages from each Kubernetes namespace, hello and bye, ended up in a different Elastic Search index.
Conclusion
Stream processing in Fluentbit is pretty versatile that allows different workflows possible, based on custom requirements. Configuring stream processing is pretty easy, using familiar SQL statements that can query/filter on JSON fields. Explore more at: https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/stream-processing/introduction | https://medium.com/swlh/fluentbit-stream-processing-with-kubernetes-plugin-caefffd9f9e4 | ['Sudhindra Tirupati Nagaraj'] | 2020-05-05 07:05:33.385000+00:00 | ['Fluentbit', 'Kubernetes', 'Elasticsearch', 'Docker', 'Stream Processing'] |
How to keep up with academic literature | How to keep up with academic literature
Learn to do literature review efficiently and consistently
Keeping up with academic literature is like trying to drink water from a fire hydrant — it seems impossible to keep up! (credits to Alex Konings). Artwork from dlpng.com, freepik.com.
Academic publishing is exploding. More than 2.5 million papers are published every year and the fact that the pace of publishing is climbing 8% every year isn’t helping. With so much to read out there, it is easy to feel like we’re barely keeping our heads above the water.
Unfortunately, keeping up with literature is one of those things — like walking — that isn’t really taught to us. We are expected to learn it by ourselves. However, over the past few years, I have realized that even though we have our own styles of finding and reading papers, there are some common good practices held by many, but not known to all. This became apparent to me only after I sat in a classroom and learnt how to keep up with literature (lecture by Andrew Ng).
In this article, I will combine those lessons with other valuable insights from my colleagues, professors, and my own experience. By the end of the article we would have learnt:
How to find papers that are relevant to us? How to read those papers efficiently using the three-pass approach? Why consistent reading beats bursts of activity?
What to read? A curated set of articles.
Even before we learn how to read efficiently, one way to keep up with academic literature is to narrow our scope and choose what we read carefully. Unless you are a polymath like Da Vinci, your field of interest is likely narrow enough to be defined using 6–10 keywords. As I am an Earth Scientist, I use keywords like “wildfire”, “forest mortality”, etc.
You may use as many key words as you like to define your scope, but try to keep each keyword specific. For example, “deep learning” is a terrible keyword because it is not specific enough. It will lead to thousands of irrelevant papers and to find what is relevant to you among them is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. On the other hand, “Image segmentation” is a good keyword as it is specific. Finally, don’t be shy to update your keywords with time to reflect your changing interests.
Using specific keywords like “image segmentation” is preferred to broad keywords like “deep learning” to decrease the clutter and keeping your reading list manageable. Data source: Web of Science. Image by Author.
Once you have defined your keywords, use any of the following resources to gather literature relevant to you-
Online search on Google Scholar (free), Scopus (paid), or Web of Science (paid). This option is only effective for one-time searches. You cannot rely on this solely for keeping yourself up to date with literature (explained later). Conference proceedings Twitter- Use your keywords to search for the right people and follow them. Friends and colleagues- Leverage your network to find the right papers. You can return the favor to them if you find papers from their area. Google Scholar alerts- Set up alerts with your keywords or “follow” the professors whose work you are interested in. Table of contents- Setup alerts to receive the table of contents of the journals where articles from your area are frequently published. JournalTOCs is a great service as it combines and sends alerts for most journals. People have varying views regarding the importance of looking through the table of contents. However, I have found it useful to get over the feeling of having blinders on — it gives a peek into the developments in the broader scientific world.
Once we have compiled a curated list of papers using our keywords, we can read them using the three-pass approach.
How to read? The three-pass approach visualized.
While reading the papers, we want to make sure that we read all the important and relevant papers in detail while skimming through the rest. Of course, there is no way of knowing what is important beforehand. Thus, reading each paper from start to end is not a valuable use of our time since each paper’s relevance differ — some may be important for their background, some may help motivate our particular project, some may have analyses that we would like to replicate, and some might have results that go against our initial hypotheses (and thus very important to read thoroughly).
Do not waste your time sequentially reading each paper from beginning to end. Image by Author.
Instead of reading each paper sequentially, I find that the three-pass approach (paper by S. Keshav) of reading papers not only helps me identify the important papers for my project, but also lets me focus on the relevant sections within each paper. This way, I can do multiple passes per paper, with each pass getting into greater depths
Round 1: The highlights.
Round 1: Title, abstract, and figures+captions. Artwork from freepik.com.
Round 1 consists of reading the title, abstract, and figures+captions. This round is meant to just grab the highlights of a paper without going through its details. The title and abstract will help us grab the main conclusion of the paper. The figures provide the results at a glance.
Keep in mind that we still haven’t learnt about the exact results, or the background motivating the paper, which is perfectly fine. At this stage, we are mostly interested in “what” of a paper without being concerned about “why” or “how”. Since Round 1 is fairly short, I cover every paper I collect from the previous section in this round.
Some food for thought to keep in mind during Round 1:
What did the authors try to accomplish? How can the figures be made better? (a useful skill to learn, regardless of the paper content)
At the end of round 1, we can filter out those papers that were clearly not linked to our topic of interest. We then proceed to round 2.
Round 2: The core.
Round 2: Introduction, results, conclusions, figures+captions, skim the rest. Artwork from freepik.com.
Round 2 consists of reading the introduction, results, conclusions, figures+captions, and skimming the rest. This is where we really start to understand the papers. The introduction will help us align with the need for the research, while the results and conclusions will help us understand the findings of the paper clearly. I find that this is the round in which I learn the most.
Some prompts to keep in mind during Round 2:
What ideas or data can you use yourself? What references do you want to follow?
Round 3: The details.
Round 3: Methods, Discussion, References, skim the rest. Artwork from freepik.com.
Round 3 consists of reading the methods, discussion, noting some references, and skimming the rest. This round is meant to get into the depth of the papers. By going through the methods in detail, we should be fairly confident of being able to replicate the approach ourselves. Since we dive deep into the papers in Round 3, this round is reserved only for those papers that are directly relevant to our topic of interest.
Since we have gone through multiple rounds by the end of this round, it is a good time to make a note of all the papers which were cited frequently among the initial set of papers. The added focus on the discussion section should in round 3 should also point us to other relevant papers with similar findings or where the results might be of high importance.
Some prompts to keep in mind during Round 3:
What are the key elements of the approach? What references do you want to follow?
What a three-pass might look like. Image by Author.
With the three-pass approach, I am able to read through ~25 papers a week without spending too much time on those that are not of much relevance to my current interest. It thus saves me a lot of time, without compromising on my need of keeping up with academic literature. However, it is successful only if it is performed frequently.
When to read? Everyday!
If you take away just one thing from this article, let it be this- When it comes to reading, consistency beats bursts of activity. While literature review is no doubt useful during the start of a new project, it is not an activity meant for only the start. Not reviewing literature consistently, leaves us prone to become outdated. This is even more true in budding fields like deep learning where papers from 4 years ago are considered old.
Aim to be consistent with your reading. Image by Author.
Not being consistent with reading is dangerous for 2 reasons-
Once the initial round of literature review is completed we are no more up to date with the latest developments in our field There is a greater chance of missing out on some important paper which we hadn’t covered initially
The latter consequence hit me in the face at a conference when someone asked me after my presentation, “Why did you assume X when paper Y showed that it does not hold true in cases like yours?” Generally speaking, there are several acceptable answers to such questions, but none of those start with “I have not read that paper, but …”. Since then, I have been reading at least 1 paper every night before going to sleep and it has greatly helped me keep up with the literature.
A paper a day keeps embarrassment at bay.
Conclusion
In this article, we learnt how to keep up with academic literature. While an online search is ok, it is vital to use tools such as scholar alerts or table of content alerts that feed us with papers frequently. With a curated set of papers, we can then follow the three-pass approach to efficiently read through them — first to grab the highlights, then to get into the core, and finally to understand the details of the papers. At the end of each round, feel free to drop the papers that are not relevant to your topic of interest. Lastly, through my own embarrassing experience, I hope you value the need for reading daily and do not set aside literature review as a one-time activity. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-keep-up-with-academic-literature-15ffc40e5758 | ['Krishna Rao'] | 2020-06-23 04:57:16.204000+00:00 | ['Academia', 'Reading', 'Science', 'Education', 'Towards Data Science'] |
Cypress — January 22, 2020. Mental Health Boost Needed!! | Dr. Jen uses her own experiences, skiing, books, movies, and real people to help curb the pains of life
Follow | https://medium.com/mind-your-madness/cypress-january-22-2020-7dcaf7143d79 | ['Jennifer Hammersmark'] | 2020-01-28 06:10:07.551000+00:00 | ['Outdoors', 'Skiing', 'Vitamin D', 'Mental Health'] |
Dreams & Stories -A New Name For The Publication This Shall Be Our Story | Dreams & Stories -A New Name For The Publication This Shall Be Our Story
Our Stories connects each other as a family.
designed by author
Hey All,
After a few interactions with our regular writers and editors, we have decided to change our name to Dreams & Stories.
This change in publication comes because of our hunger to reach and appeal to more audiences. “This Shall Be Our Story” is a close and personal name, but to make our theme more clear, we give our publication a new name, “Dreams & Stories.”
Nothing else has changed. We will keep posting stories that resonate with each of us.
We accept stories on Relationship, Travel, Life advice, and spirituality in any form of poetry, essay, or fiction.
We hope you continue to write in Dreams & Stories.
We will love to have you as a writer if your stories connect with you or the audience in any way. Kindly have a look at our submission guidelines here.
We will soon come up with updated guidelines.
Till then, See you, take care and stay safe. | https://medium.com/this-shall-be-our-story/dreams-stories-a-new-name-for-the-publication-this-shall-be-our-story-1cc3532895cb | ['Suraj Ghimire'] | 2020-11-12 12:26:32.247000+00:00 | ['This Shall Be Our Story', 'Writing', 'Dreams', 'Relationships', 'Family'] |
A Game to Get You Un-Stuck on Crappy Feelings | A Game to Get You Un-Stuck on Crappy Feelings
I started doing this when I needed it, and now I use it all the time
My friend Anna once joked that before we both got married (not to each other), we dated each other for years (open relationship, technically speaking). We would do lovely dinners at spots we’d added to our mental lists, saving them for each other. We’d day-drink Sancerre on weekends and then take long, chilly walks through lower Manhattan, telling each other everything. We went to Miami once and shared a bed. Our early thirties were super fun! And also hard.
At our dinners, we sometimes played a game we called Five Nice Things. It is what it sounds like: You take turns naming things that are nice. Five is the number. It can be a thing that makes you happy, a compliment for the other person, a win at work, “This broccoli is tasty,” whatever. It’s a bit sappy, but it’s not the sappiest, and the rules were: Don’t overthink it, and be specific. We’d roll it out in other settings: group hangs, work, whatnot. It was, generally speaking, a hit. Even Eeyores can get into it if you bring to the game your Tigger energy. But it was most meaningful when it was just the two of us.
We named the game, but we didn’t invent it, obviously. It’s just a less-corny name for a gratitude exercise, which is a practice as old as the Buddha. The game has the power to knock out a temporary funk. Or a big one. There seems to be some science to support this.
Here’s a thing that is not nice, and also true: The vast majority of people in the United States die when they are quite old. (If you like looking at data, you can see the breakdown by age here.) All death brings great grief, and the point I am about to make does not discount that; it’s just different. We are a species whose attitudes are informed by norms. When someone you love dies when they are not old, it is not normal. And when that happens, a thin veil goes up between you and most other people.
You ask yourself: Did someone else put up that veil, scared of catching death? Or did you, scared that your pain might be seen? I think it’s a combination of both, and I think this is fine. As was said to me recently by a friend facing early, anticipatory grief (I am paraphrasing): “I feel lonely. But people are people, and death can be scary.”
There are people with whom that veil lifts, with whom death is less scary, maybe because they’ve seen it. We tend to find each other. This usually, but not always, occurs with people who have lost someone when that person was not old.
When Anna and I started the game, my older brother was in his last months of this life. (I have written about him before, and I will again, as he is always with me, the friend I cannot see.) Before this, Anna’s vibrant, healthy, best-friend mother had recently passed unexpectedly, the always-there friend that she cannot see.
There is something sweet and unspoken about spending time with someone for whom the veil is lifted. And to play Five Nice Things with them is a treasure. And it’s not just for us, but take it from us: We only have a tiny spot of time together. We can notice, or we can not notice, nice things. I recommend the former.
So I’m going to go first. Then you go. Let me know what you come up with. | https://forge.medium.com/a-game-to-get-you-un-stuck-on-crappy-feelings-86742b3706f | ["Siobhan O'Connor"] | 2020-10-29 20:55:25.825000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Grief', 'Self Improvement', 'Gratitude', 'Mental Health'] |
Bitfury AI Opens Offices in Italy and Netherlands | Today the Bitfury Group announced its artificial intelligence division, Bitfury AI, has opened two new offices. The first office, focused on R&D, is now open in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, a leading tech and innovation hub. The second office is a regional location in Milan, Italy.
Beginning with the appointment of veteran technologist Fabrizio Del Maffeo in August 2019, Bitfury’s artificial intelligence team now has more than a dozen employees hailing from technology, AI and IoT powerhouses like Intel, Synopsys, Advantech and the ASUS Group. The team was also joined by two expert advisors in 2019, Prof. Dr. Luca Benini and Prof. Dr. Marian Verhelst. Prof. Dr. Luca Benini is the chair of Digital Circuits and Systems at D-ITET ETH Zurich, specializing in RISC V/CPU artificial intelligence accelerators. Prof. Dr. Marian Verhelst is the Senior Scientific Director of IMEC and professor at KU Leuven, specializing in digital and analog accelerators.
“Artificial intelligence is the emerging technology of the century,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO and co-founder of Bitfury. “This newly expanded team will help us fulfill our mission of making the world more trusted and secure by delivering intelligent solutions that help humanity take full advantage of the benefits of AI.”
“Eindhoven is renowned internationally as an engineering and technological center, with major companies like Philips, Intel, Synopsys operating R&D divisions here,” said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, head of Bitfury AI. “The expansion of our team into this region will help us have access to the best R&D expertise and resources in the Netherlands, while our Italy office will lead development of our AI turnkey solutions.” | https://medium.com/meetbitfury/bitfury-ai-opens-offices-in-italy-and-netherlands-c2482685121c | ['The Bitfury Group'] | 2020-03-04 07:20:40.786000+00:00 | ['Bitfury', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Medium Stories Well Done | The breadth of expertise was impressive too, ranging from UX design, inclusive design, hardware design, game design, mixed reality, app and voice design, to Fluent Design—a design system that will unite these experiences across devices and beyond. There were also expert contributions from UX writing, research, and data science.
Here are the top 5 most read stories from the past year:
5. UX writing tips
Like designers, UX writers work very hard to make things look easy. Torrey Podmajersky shares 3 real world examples full of insights, tips, and common sense.
4. Digital archealogy
In order to see where you’re going, it’s helpful to know where you’ve been. Juliet Weiss’s first design project on a new design team produced a rich and useful perspective on Window’s design history. (Note to Microsoft design fans: The missing “Office design history” is in the works for 2018.)
3. Evolving iconography is a subtle art
User testing identified an opportunity for Paula Chuchro’s Design team. Find out how meaning, ubiquity, and familiarity factored into their icon redesign.
2. How far can design stretch?
What principles and best practices from 2D design will translate into emerging 3D mixed reality experiences—and where will new opportunities arise? Our design team of Cara Tyler, Ramiro Torres, and Oscar Murillo share a Fluent Design System exploration.
1. Myth busting
Our most popular story did not come from design, but rather from the allied discipline of data science. Bill Pardi breaks big data (and its attendant myths) down with practical examples and fascinating brain teasers.
In addition to being republished on several blogs internationally, this made The Best of 2017 for all Medium stories.
If you liked this, here’s Bill’s second installment.
Bonus: Creating a platform for impact
My favorite story (among many) came from Italy. Roberto D’Angelo’s personal journey went from being a parent to a founder and entrepreneur. He shares how he combined inclusive design with other products from the Microsoft ecosystem to create the Mirrorable app for his son. Roberto embodies the inclusive “solve for one and extend for many” principle with his Fight The Stoke non-profit org. | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/medium-stories-well-done-bead6e87af62 | ['David Betz'] | 2019-08-27 17:17:43.929000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Data Science', 'UX', 'Inclusive Design', 'Mixed Reality'] |
20 Lessons For 20 Years | In honor of my birthday coming up, I decided it might be fun to bestow what little wisdom I have. You’re probably wondering why you should listen to the ramblings of a 20-year-old? Well, me too. Hopefully, there is something here for you. In 20 years I’ve had the pleasure (and often displeasure) of learning some hard lessons.
1. Don’t Settle
Don’t go for junk food when you can easily cook a healthy meal that will boost your mood and immune system. Don’t settle for the guy who doesn’t answer when you call. Don’t settle for fake friends. Don’t settle for anything less than you deserve.
2. Be Yourself
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to learn this one, but I’ve always struggled with showing people a version of me, that well… wasn’t me. Always put your best self forward, and never let anyone make you feel bad for who you are.
3. Work Smarter… and Harder
I’m all for finding an easier way to accomplish a task, but I’m also a firm believer in you get what you put in. Never lose sight of your end goals, and always put in 110% effort.
4. Your Journey is Yours
Never let someone else’s life make you feel like you’re behind on yours. Everyone moves at their own pace. Some people may graduate college in 3 years, some may graduate in 8. You’ll reach your goals when you’re meant to.
5. Relax and Enjoy
Speaking of your journey, enjoy it! Life is to short to only focus on the bad. You’ll be a lot happier if you relish in the good things.
6. Loosen Your Grip
No one, in the entire world, has control over every aspect of their life. There may be some people that portray that image, but it’s an act. Focus on what you can control, and let go of what you can’t.
7. Family Isn’t Always Blood
You don’t have to be related to have a family bond with someone. The people who stick by you through the good, the bad, and the ugly can be better for you than your blood relatives.
8. You Lose Some, You Gain Some
People come, and people go. If they want to leave, let them.
9. Turn Rejection Into Motivation
You’re going to face a lot of rejection in this lifetime so you might as well use it for good. Take every “no,” and let it push you to work harder.
10. We Aren’t All The Same, and That’s Okay
You’re going to meet people that disagree with you. They’re going to disagree on small things, they’re going to disagree on huge, fundamental, things. It’s okay to disagree without fighting.
11. Be Kind
This one’s a little cheesy, but it’s so true. Simple kindnesses make a big difference in other people’s lives and a big difference in yours. Never forget, you get what you give.
12. Give Yourself Permission To Be Lazy
Every once in awhile we all need to lay around and do absolutely nothing. Don’t feel bad for letting yourself rest, but don’t forget to pick yourself up off the couch the next day and get back to work.
13. Your Opinion is King
Not everyone is going to like you or the things you do. It doesn’t matter. If you’re happy, then it’s right for you. Don’t let other people control your happiness.
14. Read as Much as You Can
Reading can change your life and change your mindset. Even if you hate reading, listen to an audiobook. There’s so much in this life to learn and experience. Books are a cheap vacation in another world.
15. Jump At The Chance To Learn
Take that online course, go back to college, listen to an educational podcast, watch the news. Every time you have an opportunity to learn something, take it. It will help you grow and allow you to help others.
16. Get Outside
Going outside can fix just about anything, in my opinion. Bad day? Soak in the sunshine. Happy? Go for a walk and enjoy the view. You can’t go wrong if you just go outside.
17. Keep a Record
You can take photos, you can write it out, do it whatever way you want, but get all those memories somewhere you can keep them and look back on them.
18. Volunteer
Whether it’s for an organization or an individual you know, do something to help them. Volunteer your time, offer a donation, create a bond. You’ll meet people you might never have come in contact with otherwise, and it’ll change your perspective on life.
19. Don’t Bottle It In
Angry at someone? Let them know. Hurting? Tell a loved one. Struggling? Want to see a therapist? Do it. Don’t let society tell you what you should and shouldn’t be feeling, and certainly don’t hold it all in until you can’t anymore.
20. Life Isn’t Always Easy
Life may not be easy, in fact, it will most definitely be very difficult at times. Don’t give up. Don’t let it throw you off. It may not be easy, but it’s always worth it. | https://medium.com/be-unique/20-lessons-for-20-years-55b2d3aa268d | ['Emma Comeaux'] | 2020-05-14 17:04:15.155000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Life Lessons', 'Personal Development', 'Development', 'Learning'] |
A Warning to My Fellow Residents of West Egg | by Staff
Stanford is new money. Those old, prestigious elite universities on the east coast? They are old money. We are West Egg and they are East Egg. I have heard this comparison quite often made around campus, and I started hearing it before I was even accepted to Stanford. The comparison is not exactly difficult to make, especially for those of us witnessing the adrenaline rush that is Silicon Valley at present. Out here, you can build up a company for only a few years and walk away with a billion dollars. At no other time or place in American history has a path to “hard-earned riches” ever been that quick.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs wear hoodies and jeans to work–sporting a suit and tie to work on a startup development team would seem almost blasphemous; Stanford students study on lawns under the sun in weather that regularly makes our friends on the East Coast jealous.
Those of us in the techie world hear endlessly from our friends how engineering and computer science are “new money”–how what we do contributes far more to society than Wall Street banking or Washington politics–and we begin to express those opinions ourselves. We consider these career options to be on the path of “new money”–making the distinction that we do not fraternize and conspire for riches as our proverbial future Wall Street executive friends at Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Dartmouth do.
Yet, despite all these claims, we still complain constantly about what we see as the annoyingly opportunistic nature of Silicon Valley and those of us who want to capitalize on it as entrepreneurs. We joke about our revolutionary ideas for new social media websites that will develop new ways for you to connect with your friends online. We poke fun at buzzterms like “leveraging the cloud” or “crowdsourcing” or, if your startup really wants that venture capital attention, “cloudsourcing.”
We get frustrated by the ridiculous amount of startups created by our friends here where the main innovation is simply finding some way to rehash what someone else has already perfected. We wonder what all these start-ups actually contribute to society, and after a while we begin to note similarities between our eccentrically entrepreneurial classmates and those on Wall Street and Washington we despise for their opportunism.
This line between new money and old money, between our West Egg and their East Egg, is not drawn by whether or not the riches someone may control are earned or inherited. Bankers and lawyers very often make their way to the one percent from the ground up: building connections in college and working extremely hard, day and night, for a number of years, rising up through the corporate ladder to larger and larger dividends and holiday bonuses. Stanford students are not more rags-to-riches than other universities–we have approximately the same ratio of public to private high school-educated students as does Harvard.
So, it does not seem fair to say that Stanford students are any more worthy of the term “new money” in that context than our friends at Ivy League schools. No, this distinction between west coast and east coast wealth is not a matter of origin, but of attitude.
Just like our friends at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton we all have to network at some point. We just as easily come to the sad realization that success is often found through knowing the right people, not doing the best job. But the differences between us and them appear, at least on the surface, to lie in how we approach those relationships and how we develop respect for those around us.
A recent article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth’s Hazing Abuses,” if accurate, offers a harrowing insight into the sort of bizarre compliance with the laws of tradition and the old world that just plainly do not seem to be present here at Stanford–at least not as openly. I do not think I know anyone who could consider vomiting on another human being for the sake of brotherhood a respectable activity. I do not know anyone who could take pride in networking with people on the basis that they have both participated in such activities.
Perhaps I am optimistic, but in nearly two years that I have been here, I have never really felt that the students here are out to compete like dogs in the same ways that we hear about across the country. In my classes I have found it easy to make friends without having to think in the back of my mind that I will be competing with them for a job soon enough. I have never felt uncomfortable by snarky elitism or excluded by any organizations.
We do not have finals clubs; we do not have secret societies; we do not have eating clubs. These are among many reasons why I love Stanford. It is not the lack of greedy opportunism, because greedy opportunism is more than present here; it is not that students here come from less elite backgrounds, because on average they do not. I love Stanford because the attitude here is friendly and because students here seem more comfortable taking the opportunity to meet people for the sake of friendship and not merely for competition or to gain some sort of societal advantage.
Of course, I generalize. Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Dartmouth are not necessarily these incredible bastions of highly unsavory competitive fraternization, and Stanford is not necessarily the beacon of cooperation or meritocracy. But at the end of the day, we will still be making the Great Gatsby distinction because, at least on a certain level, it encourages us not to be East Egg–not to be mired in old world tradition or kingmaker attitudes towards experiences as simple as friendship.
As we have seen in recent days and weeks, Stanford can be just as harsh towards its fellow students as any east coast school, and it seems to me that the seeds of antagonism and exclusivity have begun to develop, even if for far different reasons. One of the most important lessons to be learned from Fitzgerald’s novel is that people are still people, and when we begin to expect perfection as highly meritocratic societies tend to, we often throw some of our friends under the bus. I do not know about you, but that is not the Stanford I know.
So maybe, at the end of the day, we do not have to be West Egg. Maybe we do not have to bog ourselves down in the entrepreneurial, go-getter muck that can often bear painful similarity to Wall Street or Washington arrogance that we deride. If we read Gatsby we realize that West Egg is not exactly the pinnacle of human society either, and that while the supposed freshness of our attitudes and traditions may be more charming to us than those on the east coast, we may find at the end of the day that our poolside relaxation may not be as beneficial as we originally thought. | https://medium.com/stanfordreview/a-warning-to-my-fellow-residents-of-west-egg-b9a9f06b3600 | [] | 2016-12-07 11:20:36.991000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Education'] |
Breathe Your Way To Better Health | Breathe Your Way To Better Health
Just Make Sure It Is Through Your Nose, Not Your Mouth
We all breathe.
To be exact, we take around 25,000 breathes a day.
It is what sustains our life and all our metabolic functions.
Without it, we would die.
Despite its importance, very few of us do it well and this is to our own detriment.
Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash
Breathing is the most fundamental component of health. It is more important than exercise, diet and lifestyle choices and yet we don’t give it the attention it seems to deserve.
I am not stating anything new.
We’ve known about the benefits of breathing for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. It is one of the most ancient and overlooked practices we have to get sleep better, exercising longer and helping to prevent many lifestyle diseases acquired through modernity.
You can even see this for yourself. You’ll often notice that those with the worst breathing, often have the worst health.
Many ancient texts, rituals and religions are strong proponents of some form of breathing technique. Meditation, yoga and religious prayer are practices formed around controlling the breath to control the body and mind.
But unlike religion, the benefits of breathing are not based on some mystical ancient text with unknown sources and difficult verifiability. Through documented scientific studies, you don’t need to rely on faith to understand that breathing has real benefits and consequences for the human body.
I am not going to go into all the nuances of breathing and its benefits. But if I could leave you with one thing is that there is a proper way to breathe and that’s through the nose, not the mouth.
Breathe Through The Nose, Not the Mouth
You might be thinking: what’s the difference? Doesn’t it all go through the same internal pipes and end up in the same place anyway? Does it really matter how we breathe?
The short answer is: Yes. It matters a lot how you breathe.
The long answer, according to James Nestor in his book Breath, is:
‘Mouth breathing, it turns out, changes the physical body and transforms airways, all for the worse. Inhaling air through the mouth decreases pressure, which causes the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward, creating less space and making breathing more difficult. Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing.’
When I first read this, I was really shocked.
I did not understand how bad long-term unconscious mouth breathing can be for my health. I was never really educated on the difference.
What recent research has found is that through the nose, evolution has given humans a specialized breathing weapon that can filter bacteria, regulate temperature and change the internal pressure of our body. It is pretty amazing when you think about it. It is how freedivers can hold their breath for minutes at a time and dive to deeps previously thought impossible.
What we also know is that nature is parsimonious. Meaning that evolution never intended the mouth to be used as the primary mechanism for breathing. The body is simply not designed to process raw air from the mouth for hours at a time, day or night. There is nothing normal about it.
Where we see mouth breathing impact on our health the most is through sleep.
Breathing and Sleep
Snoring and sleep apnea are worsened due to mouth breathing.
Teaching yourself to breathe through your nose during the night and developing breathing techniques can radically reduce the impact of snoring and sleep apnea. As a consequence, your sleep will drastically improve.
Thanks to research by Matthew Walker, we now know how fundamental sleep is to health. People who are suffering from sleep apnea and chronic snoring are getting themselves in double trouble. Their sleep quality and quantity are less and at the same time, they are breathing incorrectly, often through their mouth. This is a recipe for poor sleep and even poorer long-term health.
Since reading the book by James Nestor, I’ve developed some tips that I’ve been using to breathe and sleep better.
Be warned, some of them are really weird.
1. Tape your mouth shut when you sleep.
Using regular tape, I put a small amount on my lips to prevent my mouth from opening while I sleep. This prevents me from unconsciously breathing through my mouth when sleeping as well as significantly lessens my snoring and sleep apnea symptoms.
I’ve been doing this for a couple of months now and I can honestly feel my sleep quality improve. I hardly wake up during the middle of the night, my mouth doesn’t feel like a barren desert in the morning and I hardly snore anymore. Taping my mouth has been quite the value add for my sleep given its low cost and effort.
2. Breathing Exercises
I’ve been experimenting with basic Tummo and Resonant breathing:
Tummo:
Take 30 deep breathes with full exhalation. Do this sitting or laying down. After about 20 deep breathes you might feel your lips tingle, feet or hands go a bit numb and a bit lightheaded. Don’t stress. This is all normal.
I’ll usually do Tummo breathing techniques in the morning to give me energy before I take a cold shower. I’ve noticed that I have been able to withstand the cold for much longer periods of time than before. You could call it the placebo effect, but I find that I feel mentally and physically sharper. No harm no foul I say.
Resonant Breathing:
Take a 6-second inhalation through your nose and 6-second exhalation. Repeat for 10 rounds. This is great before a big meeting, speaking event or bed. It really helps to relax and calm my nerves.
Summary:
In short, improving how you breathe is free and accessible to everyone.
I am not asking you to become a perfect breather but what I am saying is that everyone can at least improve their breathing technique. Most of the techniques can be taught via YouTube tutorials and have an abundance of research to back them up.
What have you got to lose?
There is a minimal downside but unbounded upside if these techniques work for you. You might find that your sleep improves, your performance at the gym is enhanced and you now have an outlet for achieving a calm and relaxed state. That’s a pretty good bargain for something you already do every day.
Learn to breathe better. Your health and the quality of your life depend on it. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/breathe-your-way-to-better-health-795162f33506 | ['Michael Lim'] | 2020-11-20 15:55:12.772000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Life Hacking', 'Self Improvement', 'Reading', 'Breathing'] |
Adopting a dog during the coronavirus scare | Adopting a dog during the coronavirus scare
How to socialize your pet during social isolation
One of my top-five favorite dogs to hang out with as a dog walker. Although I’m never thrilled when dogs catch me in a close-to-mouth kiss, I adore this dog so he got a free pass. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)
Your timing isn’t the best, but you really wanted a dog. And now you’ve found out that you’ve got one, in the middle of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health scare. The easy choice would be to opt out of pet adoption or turn down your friend’s puppy offer. Dog delivery puts you at risk of going outside around countless passersby and pet adoption employees before signing off on this dog’s veterinary wellness visit and exam, spaying or neutering procedure, heartworm tests, flea/tick treatments and other vaccinations. And if that’s not done, it’s your responsibility. But you’re already at home by your lonesome — or maybe with other family members — and had your heart set on getting a pet.
The truth of the matter is this health crisis shall pass, as did influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), H1N1 swine flu pandemic and ebola. Even the seasonal flu affects more than 1 billion people annually. And opting out now may result in you losing out on a dog you really want. You take all the proper precautions — staying at least six feet away from other two-legged folks — and now that you’ve got this dog at home, you’ve got to deal with one major conundrum. Regardless of what’s going on in the world, your dog doesn’t know it and the first few months of its life — especially as a puppy — socialization is a huge deal. Without it, you may have yourself one mean, antisocial dog.
Photo credit: SanduStefan/Pixabay
But how do you do this when you’re already trying to dodge other people in the first place until the coronavirus numbers start decreasing (3,487 total cases yesterday and 4,226 cases today). Here are a few tips to help you socialize your dog inside your home.
Prioritize time to play with your new dog. In an ideal world, your responsible breeder has already started the dog’s socialization options in the first three months of his or her life. According to the American Kennel Club, puppies may voluntarily start coming up to people who are observing them within the first three weeks. You’re already in your own home, so make sure all of the closest family members who you need your dog to trust try to spend time with this dog. “Behavioral issues, not infectious diseases, are the number one cause of death for dogs under three years of age,” according to the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior.
Introduce this dog to all kinds of sounds, smells and sights in the neighborhood. For homeowners, a trip to the backyard is an easy way to do this. For apartment dwellers, this can become a bit of a problem depending on the neighborhood. If you’re adopting a puppy, hanging out and sniffing carpet and floors (tile, linoleum, hardwood) are good ways to get your puppy moving and curious. For older dogs who aren’t particularly new to this environment, they’ll still want to check their new home out. But eventually, they’ll want to go outside. While your dog can “see” as many people as possible on various television programs, that’s just not the same as touching and/or smelling a diverse group of people.
If you do not already live in a multicultural household, this useful checklist (“Some Thoughts About Dogs” socialization ideas) is going to be tougher to do. However, there are some things that you can indeed do from home — move a wheel suitcase around, open and close an umbrella, vacuum the carpet or a rug, wave a flag, dry your hair with a blow dryer, play an instrument, test out some grooming techniques, etc. These are not only things that will help your dog get used to your touch but also get used to changes. If you get into the habit of just sitting on your couch and watching TV all day, with the occasional trip to clean up after him, your dog will also start thinking that’s a “normal” day.
Consider a drive around the neighborhood. If you live in a community where you can quickly get to your parking spot or garage area, this is yet another way to help your dog get used to traveling. There are plenty of noises outside — ambulances, fire trucks, raindrops, thunder, lawnmowers, motorcycles, buses, trains — that can help your dog become comfortable with hearing them. So by the time you’re able to regularly walk your dog, this won’t be a completely new site to see.
One of my two top favorite dogs (and usually number one) that I have walked, sat and boarded. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)
Meetups via cars: So maybe you’ve had to distance yourself from some family and friends who you hang with every once in awhile. This is as good of a time as any to decide who else you want your dog to trust. Of course with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraging people to isolate themselves, you don’t want to bounce around from home to home. But no one is stopping you from having verbal conversations via speakerphone so your dog can get used to the sound of your social circle’s voices. Stop typing away on social media, texting and email and let your dog know who is on the other side of the computer or smartphone. And if you’re really serious about certain people, maybe meet up in neutral locations. Your dog stays in your car, and your friend stays in her car. But you two can talk via phone — on speaker — while your dog is checking out who your friend is in the next car. And if your friend has a dog, this is as good of a time as any for those two to meet, too, from one car window to another.
Clean your home regularly. The CDC has a checklist of home maintenance during the coronavirus outbreak. Unless you absolutely have to, skip the bleach cleaning altogether and stick to eco-friendly cleaning options. A curious dog — whether a puppy or a new adult dog —is a magnet for strong smells and tastes, and the last thing you want to do is expose this dog to dangerous toxins and poison. Fresh lemons (stockpile a bag), baking soda and vinegar are just fine. They also help control pet smells in your home. If you’re someone who likes candles and incense, make sure to light those as well so your dog is used to seeing the fire (enclosed environment in an inaccessible area only) and smelling those scents, too.
Contact a veterinarian about next steps. If the dog you’ve adopted does not already have all major shots, check with the veterinarian of your choice to find out how to safely get this done. As of now, there have been no cases of dogs (or cats) that have infected humans with COVID-19. For the one dog from Hong Kong who did get weak positive results, there is still no evidence from the World Health Organization (WHO) that dogs can spread the disease or become ill from coronavirus. However, there are plenty of other dog health precautions that should be taken into consideration. You may be asked to come inside on an individual basis — again, waiting in your car until the vet is ready to see your dog — instead of being in a waiting room. Depending on the age of your dog, some shots may be able to wait while others won’t. But you should inquire about what shots are and are not needed. In the meantime, this is a great time to sign up for pet health insurance online. | https://medium.com/doggone-world/adopting-a-dog-during-the-coronavirus-scare-7fc1e4570470 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-05-04 22:15:39.553000+00:00 | ['Dogs', 'Dog Adoption', 'Pet Owners', 'Coronavirus', 'Dog Socialization'] |
What to Read if You’re Learning French | What to Read if You’re Learning French
You don’t have to be fluent to enjoy these
Photo by Phix Nguyen on Unsplash
Are you learning French? Ready for the challenge of reading a whole book?
Stop! Don’t pick just any book. You may be feeling it now, but three pages into the latest translated Sophie Kinsella, your dictionary will be soaked with tears of frustration.
And let’s take chick lit as an example. It feels easy to read in our language. But it’s full of slang, in-fashion vocabulary, and the kind of words you probably aren’t learning at your intensive EU course. It’s hard. So you will feel stupid, even though you are not, and you feel doubly stupid because you will (wrongly) think that the thing you are finding difficult is in fact really easy.
Here are a few you can start with instead.
Le Petit Nicolas, by Sempé-Gosciny
I grew up reading Le Petit Nicolas, and he is ace. His adventures in a classic old-fashioned French primary school will raise a smile.
Not only that, but it’s written in the passé composé — ie, not in that odd tense we inexplicably call the passé simple, which makes it much easier to understand — and will painlessly reinforce all those past participles your French teacher has been trying to get you to learn.
Also, it’s not a novel, but rather a series of stand-alone adventures: much more manageable to tell yourself you will read one story this week than, say, one novel in three months.
Rendez-Moi Mes Poux, by Pef
Another childhood classic is the adventure of this little boy who finds headlice in his hair, and befriends them. It’s short, and funny, and full of word play (nothing too complicated, though), and the illustrations alone make it a worthwhile purchase.
Astérix, by Gosciny/Uderzo
Another oldie but goodie (okay, so I grew up in the 80s, and I’m not going to apologise for that) is Astérix. There is, of course, plenty of word play in this too, which makes it not the easiest of reads — though it also makes it fun once you work out what all the names are supposed to mean.
Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan
If you’re more advanced, you might — might — want to try Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan. It is as French as French gets — deeply philosophical musings on the inner life of a French teenager during her stifling hot summer in the South of France. It’s also beautifully written and — again — short. Honestly, you cannot underestimate the feeling of achievement that comes with finishing a novel — and those feelings fuel further learning.
Have you discovered any good French reads? | https://medium.com/language-lab/french-books-for-learners-ddc6a19477f7 | ['Claire Handscombe'] | 2020-07-14 11:11:56.708000+00:00 | ['Language', 'Self Improvement', 'French', 'Reading', 'Books'] |
Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Prologue | Serialised book (with a progressively updated ToC Links page)
Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Prologue
Prologue
Image by the author
It all kept coming back to our being a form of matter called Life that has a need to know combined with serious limitations in its ability to understand and explain reality.
The origin of the quest for knowledge and the limitations arose from a single fundamental reality, as far as I could see. It is a reality that appears simple but is not. I have regularly questioned my view of this in forty years of thinking, waiting for it to change, to prove false. But it hasn’t. This reality is what I call — The Life Instinct.
I will elaborate on the dimensions of The Life Instinct in Chapter 4. In subsequent chapters, I will consider essential features of life from the perspective of The Life Instinct. We will try to understand each feature’s origins, the implications, and how to work with it.
In my journey through the many puzzles, I have found they belong to one of two categories: metaphysical or philosophical enquiries. We will apply the Philosophy of Life Instinct to shine a light on both types — Metaphysical ones and those from the Humanities.
Book Structure
Part I of the book delves into reality, time and our ability to comprehend them, in the context of The Life Instinct. The metaphysical questions and their answers are not practically critical, but as they are the foundations of the philosophy, they need to be dealt with — and I begin with them.
In Part II, I take up the philosophical enquiries that broadly correspond to our world’s sphere and our existence within it, along with other forms of life. It is an anthropocentric area of enquiry and could be termed the Humanities, being questions that humans ask about themselves, from their viewpoint in the cosmos. I have asked the vital questions that concern us and tried to answer them as best I can in the light of the Life Instinct.
In Part III, I consider: How will the answers stand the test of time? Will they make sense in a hundred, a thousand or a million years from now? Will the questions themselves change by then? What are the finalities on how we should live our lives? What is the purest form of this philosophy that can act as our daily guide to living the most wholesome lives we can?
How to Use this Book
Despite the above broad structure, as long as you have read Chapter 4 — ‘The Nature of Life and The Life Instinct’, all the other chapters can be read independently. I have written them to make sense on their own. They are beads on the single string of the philosophy that holds them all up. Chapter 4 sets up that underlying, unifying theme.
The book may sometimes feel like a hairball of strands of thought, doubling back, intersecting and running parallel for short and long distances. But go with it, because once you get the underlying philosophy and viewpoint under your skin, it will be your ever-present and reliable friend that jumps out to tackle any problem, esoteric or banal.
Reading all the topics will give you a well-rounded ability to deal with almost everything that concerns us in life, so I recommend it. However, you may choose to focus on the problems that interest you at a point in time and move through the others as per your needs or curiosity.
We may never know in an absolute sense if this philosophy and metaphysics are accurate. But if it is more or less so, all other philosophies and metaphysics, large and small, would be subsets of it. It is not hubris. There can be none of that as we, and everything we create, will vanish one day, forgotten and unmissed. Rather, it is confidence, that entirely within the ambit of our world, minuscule and inconsequential, this framework of thought will help us survive better.
This philosophy’s aspects will appear to correspond to other ones, particularly rationalism, scepticism, objectivism, vitalism, existentialism, and nihilism. There are also ‘-logies’ such as evolutionary ontology, psychology, sociology and so on, that apply to several explorations in this book. However, I have not used these terms in this book because I want the reader to come to it without any such prior frameworks. I also want to stay with a single, simple, unifying theme throughout the various questions, rather than deviate into well developed but distracting academic areas.
Of course, correlation is unavoidable for those who are conversant with the existing philosophical schools and movements. However, I would advise them to set those aside for a while and read every part of this book from one viewpoint only — its premise. One may be tempted to coin a label, for example, ‘Life Instinctivism’, but the concept goes substantially beyond both life and instinct, so I deprecate the term myself.
This book does not cover every aspect of life, but you can apply it to answer any other question if you understand and accept this philosophy. Once we consider both Metaphysics and Humanities in the light of the Life Instinct, this mental paradigm will be a powerful tool for any seeker of knowledge, insight and wisdom.
There is no doubt in my mind of the fundamental soundness of this philosophy. However, I may not have applied it correctly in all cases, in minor and major ways. For that, I readily accept complete responsibility.
If this edifice can be improved further through its application by you, my reader, and through your experiences, thoughts and feedback, I will be delighted. | https://medium.com/illumination/book-philosophy-of-life-instinct-prologue-c12ed6386acf | ['Shashi Sastry'] | 2020-12-30 16:17:41.022000+00:00 | ['Metaphysics', 'Happiness', 'Philosophy', 'Life', 'Books'] |
The mindsets leaders need when innovating is every day | The majority of organisations are well along the way with the design adoption journey. Organisations have moved towards more human-centred processes, and design thinking is commonplace along with new ways of working such as agile. As designers who’ve long advocated for this change, we now have our seat at the table in our respective organisations.
As design leaders how should we behave to unlock our teams’ potential to make positive change?
The separation of strategy from action
All innovation, including how organisations adapt and evolve their business, services and teams, lives on a scale from Strategy to Action. Pure strategy is building strategic visions and communication — and pure action is building, creating, and implementing.
Strategy without action is innovation for innovation’s sake, and action without strategy is just a task. The edges make people sad, are de-motivating, and no actual progress is made.
Even more challenging is that traditionally organisations’ structures cause this gap to grow over time. On one end, you have the pull of hierarchy, which moves people towards promotions, getting paid more, and having more influence. On the other side, you have the push of doing — people who are too busy to plan. People who have millions of tasks to get through.
And this push and pull separates strategy and action further and further apart. Powerpoint presentations that won’t get seen, and Jira tickets that aren’t properly understood. The worst case scenario is that the talent that can see this will eventually leave and those who remain become institutionalised to these ways of working.
Design leadership has traditionally lived at the Strategy end of this line and had been closely associated with vision setting and advocacy. Design management has lived at the Action end of the line and has been closely associated with ensuring process and quality of final output.
The new demand on leaders to close the gap
True innovation asks more from our people than ever and is imbued with uncertainty. We know from a wide range of cross-sector experience that ‘the good place’, where true innovation sits is in the middle of that scale. These new types of teams require a new kind of leadership.
‘The Good Place’ — Where empowered teams combine strategy with action.
Mindsets for moving forward
As important as the following mindsets are for us as leaders it is just as important for our teams to behave similarly. None of these mindset are top-down mandates, they’re mindsets and behaviours we all need to share in the modern team environment.
Tangible system change over advocacy
Innovation can be tricky to define, irrespective of your experience it remains fluffy and hard to explain. As leaders we have to strike the balance between guiding vision and practical design management. If we want to change culture it’s not enough to repeatedly talk about it. We need to take action to change that system. We need to combine strategy with action to ensure that what we design will actually deliver tangible benefits for our teams on the coal-face.
Put people and not process first
For all of us our roles are broadening and the traditional career ladders we once climbed are falling away. It’s a big ask, combine your hard skills with emotional intelligence, empathy, intuition, social awareness and layer on top of this a rigorous and scientific data-driven decision-making process to project the commercial risks being taken.
It’s disorientating at the best of times and we need to be sensitive to that burden and have the sense making skills to help people navigate that in project work and in their personal progression.
Have the wherewithal for the tough side of innovation
As exciting as innovation can look on Ideo’s Instagram there is a messier and more deeply challenging side. For example, innovation requires a candid feedback culture which is not something that can be switched on overnight. These are marathon distance challenges where we are iterating people’s lives.
What’s next?
If we as leaders can adapt to provide the servant leadership our teams necessarily require to operate in the middle of the Strategy-Action scale then we unlock a point of more fulfilling work and tangible change.
This is the point where people in empowered teams drive the process and not the other way around. Teams that operate in an environment where they can work cohesively, bring together diverse skills and knowledge to make for a greater whole, have the autonomy to make decisions for themselves and the freedom to fail and at times deliver bad news along-with the good.
In a time when numerous research has identified that the vast majority of people are unhappy at work there has never been a greater time to start actively combining strategy and action so we can help our organisations to work better together, raise the impact design has on the world and ultimately make work more fulfilling. | https://medium.com/futurefriendly/the-mindsets-leaders-need-when-innovation-is-your-every-day-c77c07bf19d1 | ['Johnny Rogers'] | 2019-03-09 00:40:52.917000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Innovation', 'Leadership', 'Design', 'Future Of Work'] |
Why I Became A Teacher And Then Quit | Why I Became A Teacher And Then Quit
I learned about my own self-worth after I quit teaching
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
This story isn’t an unusual one. It’s quite common. I grew up in Australia, but this story could be universal. This is the story of a teacher who failed.
And there lies the problem.
Are teachers put under so much scrutiny and stress today, that in the end, the hopeful, bright-eyed newly graduated teachers end up quitting after just a few years?
Or is there something else that makes them quit?
I lasted eight years as a teacher, but during that time, I stopped for almost a year to raise a baby. So, I guess you could say I was a teacher for seven years. Lucky seven, hey?
After my extended year-long maternity leave from teaching, I moved to China with my partner and our one-year-old son. My husband’s work took him overseas and I wanted to join him. We decided it would be a great opportunity for us as a family to try something new and different.
Since I already had teaching qualifications, it seemed natural that I would go into teaching in China. I applied to a few different international schools, but in the end, it was a “small” college in the industrial town of Taiyuan that accepted me into their multi-storied doors.
Let me explain what I mean by “small,” because the town had almost five million people living in it. The college had over twenty thousand students. It felt massive to someone who came from the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.
Everything about China was different. The food, the people, the history. And I loved it. Walking the Great Wall of China was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. The sheer size of the wall was mind-blowing. And taking the toboggan ride down to the bottom of the wall was pretty cool, too.
However, one thing I didn’t love was teaching. I began to lose my passion for it. I wanted to spend more time with my son, so we moved up to Beijing and changed schools. I started working at a Chinese International high school where Chinese students learned English and moved to America, Canada and Australia to complete their university degrees.
But moving to Beijing was a big mistake. Now we lived in a bigger city, with more traffic, more pollution. More problems. The work hours were terrible. Classes started at 7am and finished at 9pm. Although, I managed to “knock-off” work early at 5.30pm each day, since I didn’t live on campus.
While the students were polite, the classrooms were run-down and the food on campus was terrible. But it was all we had and no one else seemed to complain.
The teachers worked hard. They stayed back late, worked weekends and barely saw their own children. It was the beginning of the end for me. By the time I left China, I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore.
But it was the only thing I knew. Teaching was convenient, and we still needed to pay our mortgage back in Australia. When we returned to Australia, I resumed teaching at a local high school. I became more bitter each day.
My fellow teachers were amazing. They were the kind of teachers you hope your children will have. They were excited about introducing new novels to students and devised ingenious ways to make learning fun. I was jealous of them. I envied their enthusiasm for teaching, and the ease in which they walked into their classrooms with a smile on their faces. Like they were genuinely happy to be there.
I told myself I was a bad teacher. I couldn’t keep the kids engaged. I had to force myself out of bed each weekday morning. I kept telling my partner that I wasn’t made out to be a high school teacher. I was too soft. The kids hated me.
The weird thing is, a few years later, I received a text message from a fellow teacher in Sydney who had been promoted to Head Teacher at a new school. She wanted to know if I could come and teach there.
By that time, I’d let my teaching licence lapse. I never wanted to step foot into another classroom again as a teacher. I was busy working in the office of my family concreting business and trying to get my writing career kick-started.
I look back on my time as a high school teacher and I wonder why I thought it was all so bad. Why I thought I was a bad teacher.
I bump into old students of mine every now and then. Many of them have kids of their own now. And when I talk to them about their high school days, they never talk about the bad things. It’s always positive. They remember me as a different person to who I remember myself as. They talk about this person who was fair and caring and sometimes even funny.
Why was I focused on the negatives of being a teacher? Why didn’t I see who I really was? That maybe I was an alright teacher. Or even a good one.
My self-worth plummeted after I came back from China. I think it had a lot to do with the unrealistic expectations I set for myself. Of course, it was going to be hard moving overseas with a baby and working full-time in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the native language. I didn’t see failure as an option, though. All I saw was the opportunity to try something new and different. And to be grateful for that opportunity. I had to succeed, or else in my head, it was all a waste of time.
My health suffered because of that self-doubt. If only I’d given myself a break. I shouldn’t have done everything I was asked to do. It was overwhelming. I should have allowed myself to relax a bit. To be easier on myself, and to feel more confident in the person that I was becoming. Because I was a good teacher. I should have told myself that more often.
Perhaps then, I would have walked into my classes with a smile on my face, enthusiastic about each day. Perhaps then I would have enjoyed being a teacher. And perhaps I might still be a teacher today. | https://medium.com/illumination/why-i-became-a-teacher-and-then-quit-9f65a0adb02f | ['Lana Graham'] | 2020-09-23 01:24:45.627000+00:00 | ['Teaching', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Worth', 'Mental Health', 'Positivity'] |
Reusable, N95 alternative face mask developed by a collaborative team hits production | When nations across the globe began facing the growing danger of the Covid-19 pandemic, it became evident that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) would be in short supply. In March 2020, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted that the country struggles to meet even a fraction of the demand for respirator face masks.
In response to this serious need, a diverse team consisting of engineers, designers, clinicians, technicians, molders, among other entities, concentrated their intellects and efforts towards the rapid deployment and mass manufacture of an “open hardware, reusable, sterilizable, modular, and filter-media agnostic face mask that aims to hit the N95 efficacy criteria.” The project coalesced from a collaboration through Helpful Engineering, a volunteer-run nonprofit dedicated to aiding the fight against Covid-19, though Open Standard Respirator currently spearheads the project organization.
Co-leads of the project include MIT Media Lab postdoctoral researcher Matt Carney, Aaron Cantrell (Principal Designer at Cofab Design), and Philip Brown (PhD, Wake Forest Baptist Health). An interview with Carney on the front porch of his home in Somerville, MA, sheds light on specific aspects of the creation process.
Credit: Jimmy Day
Instead of “reinvent[ing] the wheel,” Carney says, the team has focused on addressing current supply deficiencies with a design that can better utilize available resources. For example, the face piece of the mask is constructed to be compatible with either LSR or TPE manufacturing processes, so traditional machines can deploy the masks quickly, but also take advantage of the mechanical and sterilizable properties of silicone. Additionally, the modular design requires less filter material and generates less medical waste, while keeping people safe and being cost-effective.
The mask itself, like the N95 mask, aims to be a tight-fitting, elastomeric respirator with a comfortable seal around the face, and includes a replaceable bi-directional filter. However, governmental safety regulations provide an extra layer of complexity to the situation — as Carney says, “those safety rules are actually very hard to hit.”
Credit: Jimmy Day
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) specify a handful of tests that must be satisfied to ensure the safety of this type of PPE. In addition to testing the filter media, there are two tests that directly relate to the combination of the face mask’s mechanical design and the specific filter material: the residual CO2 test and the particle filtration efficiency test at specific volume flow-rates (and resulting air-velocities). Both of these metrics can only be evaluated with analytical equipment and directly affect the safety of the mask.
The team’s early advantages included rapid iteration with access to 3D-printed silicone (technology developed at MIT), technical testing of their prototypes at every stage of development, and intense focus on the user experience. From the first week they were sending parts to test on equipment similar to that specified by NIOSH and ASTM, particularly to assess the safety of the mask, which encompasses three main criteria: 1) inhale/exhale pressure drop or breathing resistance, 2) re-breathing of residual CO2, and 3) filter efficiency. “As you exhale, you breathe out a bunch of CO2, and if there’s dead space between your face and the mask, when you re-inhale that you’re re-inhaling CO2, so you’re not getting as much oxygen as you would expect…[and] as the filter area shrinks, the air and particle velocities increase, making the filter media less effective at protecting you,” Carney states.
Credit: Forsyth County Emergency Services
Medical workers have provided feedback on the design of these prototypes; three hospitals and three county emergency medical services are currently evaluating them. Bryan Gallimore, Battalion Chief of the Quality Assurance/Training Division at Forsyth County Emergency Services (Winston-Salem, NC), says that “this project has been really, really good for us…I’ve had multiple users wear them and run through some of the standard procedures [and] job requirements that we would have with the other PPE that typically would go hand-in-hand with an N95.”
Starting in early June 2020, the “Open Standard Respirator, Model 1” has entered large scale production phases in the US, Portugal, and expanding to Colombia and Brazil. From the very beginning, as Carney notes, the project’s collaborative nature embodies the spirit of the MIT Media Lab. “It’s leveraging what we’re good at, at the Media Lab. This desire to jump in and think a little differently about things, and to build up a team to actually make things happen.” | https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/reusable-n95-alternative-face-mask-developed-by-a-collaborative-team-hits-production-9522cb76ba33 | ['Mit Media Lab'] | 2020-06-12 15:44:34.504000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Design', 'Manufacturing', 'Public Health', 'Research'] |
You really think the world would be better off without people? | More from rstevens Follow
I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans. | https://rstevens.medium.com/you-really-think-the-world-would-be-better-off-without-people-30b572cc70f3 | [] | 2020-02-19 03:16:26.553000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Comics', 'Apocalypse', 'Environment'] |
Visualizing symptoms, sensations and stories | Drawing symptoms on a body shape
Some of the most fascinating findings came out of analyzing the body drawings; these represented how someone’s body was feeling when they came to the ER. Here’s what the empty worksheet looked like:
What did we learn?
The color red means pain, heat, injury
I’m going to start with the most obvious one, but it’s worth laying down — you’ll see this over and over through the rest of the examples.
Sharp shapes indicate sharp pain
Especially when combined with a red-orange-yellow color scheme:
Star polygons and lightning bolts combined with red-orange-yellow indicate sharp pain. The lower left image shows swirly patterns inside — perhaps this is meant to be a colon?
This interesting drawing seems to show skewers in the head, along with pain in the left eye. What appears to be a delicious slice of pizza in the middle I’ve just realized is a shining light…so this might be a migraine image.
Radiating lines from a wound mean pain
These lines from two different people’s drawings are emanating from a wound and, combined with the color red, seem to indicate ‘pain.’
Dots showed ‘itching’
These red dots were used to show ‘itchy pain’
Cross-hatching meant ‘tightness’
The image on the left shows cross-hatching on core muscles; the one on the right is showing a tight back/back pain.
People drew both literal and figurative sensations
Some people drew organs, like lungs, on the body. I find this interesting because there are not as many metaphors for the sensation of not being able to breathe; so drawing the lungs is a reasonable way to explain what’s going on.
Both people drew lungs as pink — very literal. The one on the left drew yellow liquid in the lungs.
At other times, people drew a metaphor on the body. Below, the drawing on the left shows a lower back ‘on fire’ and the one on the right shows some kind of striated cube on the lower back (interesting that both of these were on the lower back):
The image on the left shows a lower back cut open with a sharp knife and flames coming out. The cube on the right seems to communicate tightness.
Cool tones helped contrast the area of pain/injury with the rest of the body
Looking at the images together, another trend surfaces; some people tended to color the entire body in a ‘cool’ green or blue hue, to indicate that that part of the body was fine. Cool colors indicate calm, while warm colors were used to show when something was wrong.
Participants had different strategies for visualizing mental state
There are a lot of sensations in the mind that are hard to communicate: confusion, wooziness, lack of concentration, worry. People tend to draw these sensations outside of the body, especially the head. You’ll notice a ‘scribble cloud’ theme below:
Three of the above images show a ‘cloud’ around the head. We see words like woozy, help. The person in the lower left seemed to draw an actual brain (with the left and right hemispheres) combined with the words ‘can’t concentrate on anything else.’
Here two different people drew lines coming out of the head:
The lines seem to indicate a feeling of alarm, worry.
People used facial expressions to communicate mood & sensation
Another way to reflect mental state was to draw expressions:
The person on the left is clearly not happy. The one on the right is happy enough but has a lot of questions.
One patient with arthritis actually drew little faces all over the body shape to indicate how a given part of his body felt:
This is a fascinating way to think about pain. It makes me think — what if people could draw or paint on their actual bodies to show how they were feeling?
Body fluids
One person drew body fluids —both sweat and vomit:
Note the colors — sweat is blue, vomit is green, the wound is red.
UTI similarities
It was fascinating to see how two different drawings of a urinary tract infection; the drawings have different colors but overall are very similar. Both include fever, lower left back pain, and pain while urinating.
It hints at the potential of drawings to assist with diagnosis; what do given conditions ‘look’ like, on average, from a symptom/sensation perspective? | https://medium.com/pictal-health/visualizing-symptoms-sensations-and-stories-7de99c7ad1d8 | ['Katie Mccurdy'] | 2018-06-12 15:43:14.443000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Healthcare', 'Patient Experience', 'Healthcare Innovations'] |
From Published Author to Successful Ghostwriter | For many Author Academy Elite authors, the journey doesn’t stop at publishing our books. We have dreams of doing more, both to inspire our vision of our potential and to inspire the potential of others.
Author April Tribe-Giauque dreamed of taking her story of survival and perseverance to another level by helping other abuse survivors tell their stories. Today, not only is she a soon-to-be twice-published author, but she also runs a successful ghostwriting business that allows her to further pursue her writing dreams. I sat down to have a talk with April this week about her book Pinpoints of Light: Escaping the Abyss of Abuse and how that launched her into her current success.
AAE: What brought you to Author Academy Elite?
I knew I needed to tell my story, my memoir, about surviving domestic violence, but I did not know how to even go about the publishing side of things. I researched for six months. I was so full of fear that I would be taken advantage of and that I would be scammed. I had it narrowed to two companies.
My finger was shaking, and it hovered over the send button to my first company. I clicked it, and as soon as I did, I felt light leave me. I know that sounds crazy. But the instant I clicked it, I knew it was wrong. I called them and waited to get a live person and shared with them that I have made a mistake and to please cancel the transaction. They were very obliging and did just that. I was so grateful that I knew without any doubt that the other company was not for me — but AAE was. I immediately signed up with Author Academy Elite, had my interview, and I have been taking action ever since.
AAE: What did you experience during the coaching process with AAE?
Honestly, I felt, fear, shame, and that I was going to never make my questions clear, concise, or direct. I did all that I could do based on the growth I had at that time. I would listen to the calls and my negative voice — I call him the Shame Shadow© — Old Shamey would whisper things like, “Your story will never make it out of the computer.” “It will die with you.” Or, “So you call yourself a writer? You are not worth this.”
So, I reached out to [an AAE team member] and she saved my thoughts from spiraling out of control. She helped to slap me back to reality and to what I was amazing at. It was the best coaching I ever received. After that, I really kept showing up and asking, asking, asking all types of questions with the Igniter Track [AAE’s proprietary step-by-step publishing system]. I stuck with it and had my book in hand for the first conference.
AAE: What did you learn at Igniting Souls Conference 2018?
I learned so many things, but my biggest takeaway was that I needed to involve my husband in the business and that I truly was not alone in this journey. That “learn” saved our marriage and brought us closer together.
AAE: Then, what happened at ISC 2019?
Two amazing things: 1) My husband and I work well together, and I can help him grow his business, and 2) was a review from Skip Prichard. I handed him my book on Friday, and he sought me out on Sunday to tell me the impact it had on him. That confirmed deep within me what I already knew. “I am a writer!” One week later, my life changed forever.
AAE: That is powerful! What happened?
When I declared myself a ghostwriter, I had my first client in two hours. Two days later, I had my second client. One week after signing the contracts, I thought, I’d better find a way to become a certified ghostwriter.
AAE: In 20 seconds, why did you join Ghostwriter Academy?
I remember Kary Oberbrunner saying that the need for ghostwriters was growing, and the demand was high. I felt that this fit perfectly into my new business, and so Ghostwriter Academy was my next best step.
AAE: What was a big takeaway you learned through Ghostwriter Academy?
I learned what my value was as a ghostwriter. My gifts and skill are in demand. I capture my client’s voice and message in my head, sending it deep into my heart and out through my hands. That is my value. I empower the client to have the book they have always wanted or needed because of my skills. The words within that book can change the lives that read it.
AAE: Thank you for sharing with us your journey through AAE to becoming a ghostwriter.
It has been my pleasure. Thank you for this opportunity to share a part of my journey with you.
You can contact April Tribe-Giauque through her website — https://apriltribegiauque.com — or on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/apriltribegiauqueauthor/.
April is a valued member of both Author Academy Elite and The Guild, AAE’s elite group of editors and ghostwriters. If you’ve worked with any of our editors or ghostwriters in the past, we’d love to hear about your experience! Comment below and share this post with your own tribe. | https://medium.com/author-academy-elite/from-published-author-to-successful-ghostwriter-49c8feca0ae1 | ['Kary Oberbrunner'] | 2020-03-16 12:01:00.944000+00:00 | ['Publishing', 'Authors', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] |
Top 5 crypto initiatives making the world a better place | Cryptocurrency is not just about trading. As the industry continues to boom, more and more practical applications are increasingly being developed. This includes a wide range of initiatives which benefit the greater good. Our own CLN community, whose aim is to make more equitable local financial ecosystems a reality, is a great example.
Meanwhile, plenty of initiatives now exist which utilize cryptocurrency in order to reduce poverty, help the environment and more. This is not an exhaustive list, but here is a selection of the top 5 crypto initiatives, which are helping to make the world a better place:
City of Berkeley using crypto to fund social housing
This is an ICO with a difference. Rather than an “Initial Coin Offering,” this is an “Initial Community Offering” in which the Californian city of Berkeley hopes to raise funds in order to provide affordable housing. There are currently at least 1,000 homeless people in Berkeley and the forward-thinking city council hopes that selling “crypto enabled microbonds” can help provide a new and innovative answer to the problem.
Cryptocurrency for Syrian refugees
For the millions who have fled Syria’s brutal civil war, accessing currency in order to perform ordinary transactions is problematic. Typically, they no longer have access to bank accounts and the everyday structures that existed back home. So, the United Nations’ World Food Program has given cryptocurrency-based vouchers to around 10,000 refugees in Jordan, which can be redeemed for products at local vendors.
Boosting higher education in Brazil
This one was a little bit ahead of its time and was never actually implemented, but the Brazilian government was close to adopting it all the way back in 2003. The idea was to issue educational vouchers in the form of the complementary Saber currency, to children as young as 7 years old, in return for participating in an educational mentoring scheme. Additional Sabers could be accumulated over the years and redeemed aged 17, in return for paying university fees.
UNICEF’s “Hope Page”
Earlier this year, UNICEF Australia launched the “Hope Page.” The idea is a simple one — Visit the page and agree to allow your computer’s processing power to help mine cryptocurrency. All cryptocurrency created by this effort is to be used to support UNICEF’s work helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In essence, the public is being given the chance to mine cryptocurrency for people who desperately need it, not profit.
Carbon credits saving the environment
Believe it or not, it is now possible to measure the carbon value of everyday products. Thanks to a blockchain-based system developed by a Swiss non-profit, consumers are able to purchase ‘climate-positive’ products, which can earn carbon credit. This methodology, which can track emissions and reward those choosing to limit them, has attracted the attention of the World Economic Forum. | https://medium.com/colu/top-5-crypto-initiatives-making-the-world-a-better-place-4f66f796ce66 | ['Dan Kosky'] | 2018-08-13 16:18:58.173000+00:00 | ['Community', 'Refugees', 'Cryptocurrency', 'World', 'Environment'] |
Isolation & Fear: in the Arms of the Virus | Writers, Prism & Pen offers you a somber challenge
As the covid-19 pandemic explodes, many of us feel isolated and afraid. The holiday season approaches for many, but the virus denies us the comfort of family and communal hearth. For some, it is snatching loved ones. In the US and the UK, inept politicians leave us feeling thrown to the wolves without leadership to help pull us through.
P&P’s new two-week prompt starts today
For many queer people, the holiday season is already hard. For some (like me) the holidays are more about mourning than joy. But even for those who delight in the festivals, this year challenges us in unexpected ways.
Writers, my challenge to you is to write about isolation & fear with candor and strength. Shout your defiance, dance with joy, whisper your dreams, or share you pain through personal stories, fiction, or poetry.
But you don’t have to write about isolation & fear. The prompt is there to inspire, not restrict. You’re welcome to write about anything within our guidelines at any time.
New to Prism and Pen?
Here are our submissions guidelines. Hope to hear from you soon!
Alert! We now accept artist interviews and reviews (book, film, music, etc) about queer-focused art.
Stories so far — | https://medium.com/prismnpen/isolation-fear-in-the-arms-of-the-virus-b45361adc41e | ['James Finn'] | 2020-12-02 13:06:26.970000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Storytelling', 'Covid 19', 'Writing Challenge', 'Writing Prompts'] |
From a python project to an open source package: an A to Z guide | Written by Gabriel Lerner and Nathan Toubiana
Excited about your python project? Do you want to share it with a wider audience? Packaging and publishing your package is a great way to get other people interested in your project. Here is a simple step by step guide to build and publish your first python package.
We’ll describe all the steps we’ve been through to create Scitime, a package that gives an estimate of algorithm training times (you can learn more about Scitime here).
Note: We will assume that you already have a project in GitHub that you would like to package and publish.
Step 0: Have your project licensed
Before doing anything else, your project should have a license since it’s going to be open source. Depending on how you’d like your package to be used, many licenses are available. Some usual licenses for open source projects are MIT , BSD or GPL.
To add a license to your project, simply add a LICENSE file to the repository root by following the steps described here.
Step 1: make your code publish-ready
There are a few preliminary things you need to do to have your project package-able:
Your project structure needs to be in place. Usually, the root of the repository contains a folder with the name of the repository — this is where the core project code should be. What’s outside of this folder is the extra code that’s necessary to run and build the package (tests, documentation, etc.)
needs to be in place. Usually, the root of the repository contains a folder with the name of the repository — this is where the core project code should be. What’s outside of this folder is the extra code that’s necessary to run and build the package (tests, documentation, etc.) The core folder should include one (or more) module(s) and an __init__.py file which imports the classes/functions you’ll want the end user to have access to. This file can also include the version of the package, to make it easily accessible to the end user.
file which imports the classes/functions you’ll want the end user to have access to. This file can also include the version of the package, to make it easily accessible to the end user. Ideally, a proper logging system (instead of prints ) should be set by using the logging package.
(instead of ) should be set by using the package. When relevant, your core code should be organized in one or more classes.
Example of __init__.py if Estimator is the class that will be accessed by the end user (this class being defined in the estimate.py file)
Example of log system: the LogMixin class can then be used inside any other class
Step 2: Create a setup.py with setuptools
Once your project has a set structure, you should then add a setup.py file at the root of the repository. This mostly helps to automate all the publishing and version maintaining processes. Here’s an example of what a setup.py should look like (source here).
Example of a setup.py file
A few notes:
If your package has minimum dependencies, a clean way to handle these is to add them in the setup file, through the install_requires argument. If you’d like to share all transitive dependencies, you can also traditionnally point to them in a requirement.txt (however, only minimum dependencies have to be in setup.py)
argument. If you’d like to share all transitive dependencies, you can also traditionnally point to them in a requirement.txt (however, only minimum dependencies have to be in setup.py) If you want metadata (from the repository) to be downloaded when anyone installs the package, you should add these through the package_data argument
argument More information about the setup() function can be found here
Note: steps 3 to 6 are optional (but highly recommended), however you can jump straight to step 7 if you want to publish your package right now.
Step 3: Set local tests and test coverage checks
If it is not already the case, at this point, your project should definitely have unit tests. Although there are many frameworks that can help you do that, one simple way of doing it is using pytest. All tests should be in a dedicated folder (named tests/ or testing/ for example). In that folder, put all the test files you need in order to cover as much of your core code as possible. Here’s an example of how to write a unit test. Here’s also one of our Scitime’s test files.
Once in place, you can run your tests locally by running python -m pytest from the repository root.
Once your tests are created, you should also be able to estimate the coverage. This is important as you want to maximize the amount of code that’s tested in your project (to reduce the amount of unexpected bugs).
A lot of frameworks are available for this as well, for Scitime we used codecov. You can decide on a threshold of minimum coverage allowed by creating a .codecov.yml file and also decide on what files to include in the coverage analysis by creating a .coveragerc file.
Example of a .codecov.yml file
Example of a .coveragerc file
Step 4: Standardize syntax and code style
You’ll also need to make sure that your code follows the PEP8 guidelines (i.e has a standard style and that the syntax is correct). Again, a lot of tools can help here. We used flake8.
Step 5: Create a proper documentation
Now that your project has tests and a good to structure, it should be a good time to add a proper documentation. First thing is to have a nice readme file that will show up on your Github repo root. Once this is done, here are a few additional “nice to have”:
Pull Request & issue templates : when a new PR or issue is created, these files permit you to template the descriptions as you wish. Follow these steps for PRs and these steps for issues to create them. Here are Scitime’s PR template and issue template.
: when a new PR or issue is created, these files permit you to template the descriptions as you wish. Follow these steps for PRs and these steps for issues to create them. Here are Scitime’s PR template and issue template. A contribution guide . This should be a short guide on how you want external users to contribute to your package. Here’s Scitime’s contribution guide.
. This should be a short guide on how you want external users to contribute to your package. Here’s Scitime’s contribution guide. A code of conduct (here’s Scitime’s).
(here’s Scitime’s). Tags and a description (see screenshot below).
(see screenshot below). Badges in the readme file (here’s a nice article on how to set these up).
As the readme file should be quite synthesized, it’s also pretty standard to have a more in-depth documentation. You can use sphinx to do so, and then host the documentation on readthedocs (here’s Scitime’s example). The documentation related files are usually in a docs/ folder (as done for Scitime). Here’s a nice sphinx & readthedocs tutorial.
Example of a repo that has tags and a description
Step 6: Set up continuous integration
At this point, your project is not far away from being ready to be published. However, it seems a little overwhelming to have to deal with updating the docs, running the tests and checking the style and coverage after each commit. Fortunately, Continuous Integration (CI) helps you with that. You can use webhooks to GitHub to automate all these things after each commit. Here’s the set of CI tools we used for Scitime:
For running tests, we used travis-ci and appveyor (for tests on windows platforms). For travis-ci, besides setting up the webhooks on the repository, you also have to create a .travis.yml file in which you can not only run tests but also upload updated coverage outputs and check style and format. Same goes for appveyor by creating a appveyor.yml file
Codecov and readthdocs also have dedicated webhooks
Example of a .travis.yml file: note that here, for each commit, the tests are run along with the test coverage checks. But there’s also a flake8 check (the logic being defined in the flake_diff.sh file)
Example of a appveyor.yml file: here, we only run the tests
This should make the whole process of updating the repository a lot easier.
Example of commit history with integrated webhooks
Step 7: Create your first release and publication
At this point, your soon-to-be package should look similar to this:
your_package/
__init__.py
your_module.py docs/
tests/
setup.py
travis.yml
appveyor.yml
.coveragerc
.codecov.yml
README.md
LICENSE .github/
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md
PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
It’s now ready to be published! The first thing to do is to create your first release on GitHub — this is to keep track of the state of your project at a given point in time, a release should be created each time the version changes. You can follow this to create the release.
Once done, the only thing left to do is to publish your package. The most common platforms to publish a python package are PyPI and Conda. We will describe how to publish in both:
For PyPI , you first need to create an account, and then follow these steps using twine . This should be fairly straightforward, and PyPI also provides a test environment that can be used right before the actual deploy. The latter basically consists of creating a source distribution ( python setup.py sdist ) and uploading it with twine ( twine upload dist/* ). Once done, there should be a PyPI page corresponding to your package (here’s Scitime’s) and anyone should be able to install your package running the pip command.
, you first need to create an account, and then follow these steps using . This should be fairly straightforward, and PyPI also provides a test environment that can be used right before the actual deploy. The latter basically consists of creating a source distribution ( ) and uploading it with twine ( ). Once done, there should be a PyPI page corresponding to your package (here’s Scitime’s) and anyone should be able to install your package running the command. For conda, we recommend publishing your package through conda-forge which is a community that helps you publish and maintain your package through their conda channel. You can follow these steps to add your package to the community, you will then be added to the conda-forge GitHub organization and be able to maintain your package quite easily (here’s Scitime’s conda-forge page) — anyone should then be able to install your package running the conda command.
All done!
You should now have your package finally published and available to anyone! Although most of the work is done, you’ll still have to maintain your project as you need to make some updates: this basically means changing the versions each time you make significant changes, creating new releases and going through step 7 again. | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/from-a-python-project-to-an-open-source-package-an-a-to-z-guide-c34cb7139a22 | ['Nathan Toubiana'] | 2019-05-24 02:03:55.423000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Tech', 'Github', 'Open Source', 'Python'] |
Lao Tzu on the Truth of Life and the Nature of Reality | Lao Tzu on the Truth of Life and the Nature of Reality
Reflections on the ancient text that still speaks timely wisdom
Source: Wikipedia Commons/Pictured: Lao Tzu
It’s a real art to remain present while life is continually changing, shifting, evolving into something vast, spacious, and fleeting — yet eternal.
I had a big plan for writing this week: at least 2 or 3 articles, maybe even a few book reviews, the sky was the limit! Then the email came, which instructed all parents to resume remote learning until at least January.
At first, the eternally optimistic side of me thought, “My freelance writing is going well, the dogs are adjusting to each other, and after a course of physical therapy, I can handle this! We will make the best of it. We can go to the forest and learn about nature (except that it is freezing, windy, and the earth blanketed with snow, and oh, my truck broke down last week — good timing!)…
I’ll step back into remote learning mode, a challenge that I both relish and somewhat dread with equal love and intensity.”
And then reality set in.
I couldn’t think for a while, couldn’t separate the peaceful way that I go about working from home with the chaos of assuming teaching responsibilities in addition to everything else — again. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching my son, in all his optimistic exuberance; but I have difficulty keeping up with his energy. “Difficulty” is an understatement.
Cue the coffee maker.
“Wait,” I thought, “why am I succumbing to this stress created in my brain? Or rather, why am I allowing it? I’ll have to par down on the writing and other endeavors, work a little slower on those projects, and assume the teacher’s role again while carefully carving out time to work. It will be a lesson in creativity and stillness,” as I brought out an old pocket copy of the Tao Te Ching, lovingly creased and folded from years of daily meditation.
The first verse that I turned to read:
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
It’s easy to ignore the difficult things in life while letting our angst pile up and stress multiply. I’m a firm believer that we don’t have to be perfect, but taking a step in the right direction while facing challenges head-on, saves precious emotional energy that we can use to focus on the things that bring us joy. Taking that first step is the hardest but also the most important.
Perfect words for today.
Breathing a sigh of needed relief, I turned the recycled card-stock page again, this time it read:
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them — that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
It’s such a human tendency to control and shape things how we would like, but that only creates suffering. Letting things exist as they are is a more peaceful way to live. Because we will never fully know our true nature and purpose if we are constantly chasing the next best thing and resisting reality.
Who was Lao Tzu?
Source: Wikipedia Commons/Pictured: Lao Tzu
Although there isn’t much historical information on Lao Tzu (and some historians wonder if he was actually a mythical conglomeration of several philosophers), he is said to have been an ancient Chinese philosopher and poet who is best known for penning the book Tao Te Ching.
He was the founder of the philosophy of Taoism, a religious and ethical custom of ancient China, and he is also believed to have been a senior contemporary of the famous philosopher Confucius. Source
Lao Tzu’s journey toward enlightenment began as he set foot towards the western border of China, currently Tibet. He was troubled by what he saw around him: men being led away from nature and the goodness that it brings.
An officer whom he met on the border asked Lao Tzu to write down his teachings as he traveled. This is when he wrote the famous Tao Te Ching, a 5,000 character account of his thoughts and philosophical ideas. There are several hypotheses on the origins of the Tao Te Ching; learn more here and here.
And much like the unique journey that stands waiting before each of us, Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching can help us remember to stay present, to be aware, and to take a chance on those inevitable hunches that we all get. Maybe I should… or What if I…
Those nudges happen for a reason. The world would be a dimmer place without the philosophical genius of Lao Tzu, and the same goes for every single one of us. The world needs that special gift or gifts that each of us has to offer. What are your unique gifts?
Taoist Philosophy and The Tao Te Ching
Tzu is also the father of the Taoist philosophy which, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, is one of the foundational pillars of ancient Chinese thought and has assumed the form of an organized religion. Though the two elements of religion and philosophy are separate, they are also profoundly intertwined. Lao Tzu’s teachings encompass the depths of both.
Written well over two millennia ago, the Tao Te Ching is considered one of the most profound philosophical pieces known to humankind, spanning countries, ideologies, and the changing fabric of time. Written with Taoist teachings in mind, it touches on humanistic issues such as happiness, success, power, and the meaning behind it all.
Like various ancient Chinese philosophers, Lao Tzu used rhyme and rhythm, paradoxes, and interesting analogies to get his points across. Realistically speaking, the entire book can be considered as one great analogy.
The Tao Te Ching, which can be translated to something like “The Book of The Way and Its Power,” presents the idea of Tao as being the end all and be all of existence. It is powerful yet down to earth. It is the source of everything in the world. The book guides readers on returning to the ways of nature to maintain the balance of the Tao.
The passages contain uncommon wisdom such as:
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
Have you ever looked up from the busyness of life and thought, how did I get here? Try paying attention to daily habits and routines now because it’s the little things we do and say each day that cumulatively add up. This is one way to get more of what we want in life. And that’s the beauty of our interconnected lives, that at any moment we can radically or minutely change direction, but the key is in being aware.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
Life is an exciting, unpredictable journey, which is similar to traveling. We prepare ourselves each day and leave home to a destination on a mission. Whether it’s to work or the grocery store, during our journey, we often encounter surprises and challenges. But good travelers can overcome and adapt as circumstances change, all while continuing to move toward our goals with determination. By not fixating on the destination, we can grasp the lessons given to us throughout our lives. And there is always a lesson.
This wisdom endured across time and eventually expanded in the West. And although it can be considered an ancient text, those who read it feel that it applies directly to the lives that they live right now, yesterday, and tomorrow.
It reads like a continual river, equally as changing as it is unchanging.
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
Owning our own true story can be tough but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities takes practice and great courage but it is only when we are courageous enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
It often happens that the more you hurry, the less you achieve. The more pressure, the less positive results. I’ve noticed and perhaps you have also, that this directly impacts writing and creativity. Some of my favorite pieces were created in twenty-minutes, sitting on the bathroom floor, getting a pause from the daily house chaos.
Book Structure:
The Tao Te Ching is part verse and part prose, and everything that Lao Tzu says has an elusive quality to it. The lack of specificity is part of what gives it a deep sense of wisdom paired with an incisive intellect, all written in poetic flair.
The Tao Te Ching is a type of limitless reverent prose with no boundaries and no limits in its imagination, as each carefully sculpted verse weaves itself into a broader picture of the vast mystery of which we are all a part.
And at its core, Lao Tzu’s philosophy was a simple one. He was against struggle and saw it as not only futile but also an obstacle to productivity. In his theory of “Wu-Wei,” he advises doing nothing, but which means not to go against the forces of nature, and instead wait for the stream of events nature brings to you, naturally acting without thought or struggle.
He advised bringing spontaneity to one’s actions as one honors the natural way of existence. Followers of Taoism believe that striving for nothing will never lead them to failure.
Lao Tzu’s works have continued to influence individuals and anti-authoritarian campaigns around the world. Belonging to the sixth century, Lao Tzu taught the world about the importance of the ways of nature and how embracing the principle of doing nothing can help achieve everything.
I included several passages from the Tao Te Ching throughout this article, and here are 3 additional lines that are brief yet brimming with timeless wisdom, and which can offer us peace and solace throughout our ephemeral lives:
Source: Wikipedia Commons, by Thanto/Pictured: Lao Tzu
Timeless passages from the Tao Te Ching:
“Use the lights but return to your insight.”
In a way, our experiences shape and teach us crucial lessons on our paths. It is our choice whether these challenges build us up or set us on a path of destruction. We can use these metaphorical lights to let these subtle messages permeate our psyche. But peace, truth, and freedom are in knowing when to return to our insight, using the wisdom and knowledge we’ve gleaned over time, to make conscious, wise, and loving decisions.
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”
These three loving teachers are eager to guide us in all of life’s experiences. Simplicity is a state of being. At the same time, patience means trusting the process and focusing on our unique and much-needed contribution to the world. And compassion, especially toward ourselves, helps to reconcile all beings in the world. Because to bring peace and light to all beings, we first need to bring peace and love to our souls.
“Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
Knowledge about others can make us wiser, smarter, and more able to sustain ourselves in our limited existence. When we truly know ourselves, that’s when we step out of the empty existence and into the eternal voice of the soul. That’s when we become one with everything. Because when we know ourselves, we know everything. No illusions or curtains things exist anymore; we know reality in full.
Final Thoughts:
Lao Tzu’s philosophy advocates naturalness, spontaneity, and freedom from social conventions and desires. In the Tao, Lao Tzu refers to the ultimate order of things and the ultimate truth of reality. He instructs us how to live a pleasant life in the here and now without causing ourselves needless suffering by worrying about the past or future. He tells us that one who can harmonize with Tao will be at peace with all existence.
When it comes down to it, reality is never more accessible than it is right now. This is where we live, in the now. There is no direct route to the truth; all that matters is that we see through the fictitious façade of the rest of the world, and then everything becomes clear. | https://medium.com/real-1-0/lao-tzu-on-the-truth-of-life-and-the-nature-of-reality-a8e516cb9120 | ['Aurora Eliam'] | 2020-11-17 19:20:54.002000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Spirtuality', 'Life Lessons'] |
Learning from School Leaders About SEL During a Time of Crisis | The quote above is only one of many school leader voices we collected in late spring and early summer 2020 through RAND’s nationally representative American School Leader Panel and in virtual community dialogues with the #PrincipalProject’s national Principal Panel. As this assistant principal reminds us, uncertainty and disruption can take a toll on students and staff, and school leaders understand the value of social and emotional learning (SEL) to ensure the well-being of everyone in their schools, regardless of what form schooling takes. Effective SEL involves promoting competencies such as self-awareness and teamwork, creating supportive school and classroom climates, prioritizing relationships, and providing culturally relevant, equitable learning opportunities (PDF). Educators across the country believe, and research confirms, that SEL supports rather than detracts from academic learning.
By synthesizing the perspectives of principals who participated in our research, we identified how they feel SEL needs to change to meet the needs of the current moment and what they need to facilitate it in their schools.
Schools Need Remote SEL Resources
Roughly a quarter of school leaders in the RAND surveys expressed a “major” or “very major” need for high-quality materials to support SEL during building closures, especially those in urban communities and in schools serving high proportions of low-income students and students of color. School leaders in the community dialogues (PDF) also wanted policymakers and funders to be aware of the need for immediate as well as longer-term, recovery-focused SEL support for school communities.
SEL Provides a Way to Improve Academic Instruction
Schools can integrate SEL into instruction through approaches like exploring emotions of characters in novels or using break-out rooms in video apps to encourage small-group discussion, but they need tools and guidance to facilitate this. In the community dialogues (PDF), school leaders also saw the current moment as an opportunity to reexamine the extent to which traditional classroom instruction is effectively serving students: “Maybe we need to be asking ourselves if what we were doing is still what we need? Is it even effective?”
SEL Assessment Should Proceed with Caution Right Now — and Always
Teachers in RAND’s survey were more likely in spring 2020 to say they needed guidance or tools to assess students’ social and emotional well-being than to assess their academic learning. SEL assessment can provide crucial information to guide instruction and resource allocation, but school leaders should ensure that teachers are familiar with published guidance to inform assessment decisions.
Engagement and Relationships Matter, Especially Remotely
RAND’s surveys identified a need for strategies to improve students’ engagement in remote learning. In the community dialogues school leaders described distance learning as negatively impacting student engagement. However, they also observed that teachers who normally cultivate strong student relationships have seen stronger student engagement in distance learning. Educators need time and support to build relationships with students and families — including strategies to virtually recreate the formal and informal interactions they normally rely on to forge connections.
Educators need time and support to build relationships with students and families.
Following the murder of George Floyd, school leaders voiced deep concern for the well-being of their students, especially their Black students who are navigating the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism. Schools can draw on guidance to adapt SEL strategies to emphasize issues related to equity. School leaders in our community dialogues argued that schools should adopt SEL approaches that acknowledge the contexts in which students live, including helping educators build the skill sets required to navigate difficult conversations about power, privilege, and race.
Adults’ Well-Being Is an Important Precursor to Student SEL
School leaders will need to support the social and emotional well-being of adults in their buildings to ensure those adults can provide for students’ needs. In RAND’s teacher surveys, many teachers expressed feelings of burnout or loneliness, and more than two-thirds said they had major concerns about the well-being of their students.
School leaders’ jobs have always been complex, challenging, and crucial for ensuring high-quality, equitable learning for students. This is the case now more than ever, but it would be easy for SEL to fall by the wayside as school leaders work to address students’ health, safety, and learning loss. Our work with school leaders indicates that they value SEL, and most say it is a larger priority in fall 2020 than it was last year. But following through on this priority could require policymakers and funders to take seriously the perspectives and concerns that school leaders have shared.
Laura Hamilton is a senior behavioral scientist and distinguished chair in learning and assessment at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. She directs the RAND Center for Social and Emotional Learning Research and codirects the American Educator Panels, RAND’s nationally representative survey panels of teachers and principals. Kai Fierle-Hedrick is the founder and lead facilitator of Create Knowledge, a consulting firm that works at the intersection of learning and evaluation, organizational change, and DEIJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice) to help change agents strengthen their practice and make meaningful progress. In 2019 and 2020, in her previous role as an evaluator at Vantage Evaluation, she worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch and lead the #PrincipalProject’s Virtual Principal Panel and co-facilitated the panel’s COVID-19 community dialogues. The #PrincipalProject Virtual Principal Panel is currently convened by ResultsLab. | https://medium.com/rand-corporation/learning-from-school-leaders-about-sel-during-a-time-of-crisis-cb7538235c29 | ['Rand Corporation'] | 2020-09-15 16:03:41.873000+00:00 | ['Racial Equity', 'Social Emotional Learning', 'Coronavirus', 'School Administration', 'Teachers'] |
The Geography of Space Exploration: APOLLO (Graphic Novel Review) | A well-researched account of the Apollo 11 mission in graphic novel form, Fitch, Baker & Collins’ book is surely right up there with LEGO’s Saturn V as a must-have for Apollo dorks.
Apollo cover, art by Mike Collins (Image: apollocomic.com)
What is it? Graphic Novel
What’s it about? Apollo 11, the first Moon Landing
Who made it? Authors Matt Fitch & C.S. Baker, and artist Mike Collins (not the astronaut)
Where can I get it? SelfMadeHero an independent publisher out of the U.K.
Review: Telling a Famous Story
Even in 2018, the historic successes of NASA’s Apollo program are well known as memories of the first Moon landing remain vivid among an entire generation.
On top of this, several generations since, like my own, have experienced the story of the Moon landing in books, TV shows, and documentaries, and recently, major film, several times over.
Because of the pervasiveness of the Moon landing mythology in popular culture (certainly among North Americans), you have to admire the authors for taking on the artistic challenge of re-telling of one the most well-known and documented events in human history.
Meeting this challenge, creators Fitch, Baker & Collins do an impressive job presenting well-tread material in a manner that is both engaging and interesting. From reading Apollo, it seems the authors knew that the way to make such a well known story engaging was to inject their artistic talent while accurately telling a true story.
What helps the book in this vein is what I, in my instructor mode, call ”evidence of effective research”. Indeed, if I were marking this as a final project in my second year university course Space Exploration, the authors would score very well in the ‘research’ criterion.
Inside panel art by Mike Collins (Image: apollocomic.com)
But comparisons to a student project are not quite apt. This is a polished, professional work. While I’m always hesitant to critique art which I myself am not practised enough to create, as a lifelong comic book reader, I hope by now I can appreciate effective storytelling in the medium.
What’s particularly refreshing about Apollo is that it avoids some of the common tropes of space history writing. In the mythology of human spaceflight, astronauts can sometimes be stripped of character and context. thankfully, Apollo does not do this.
At the core of the graphic novel’s main story are of course Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin. As with Damien Chazelle’s First Man, the Apollo 11 astronauts are conveyed with the real life depth we’d expect from real-life people.
As many have pointed out regarding First Man, ultimately Baker & Fitch’s approach of writing the astronauts, as people, helps the reader better relate to them. In this sense, the authors build off of the existing heroic stature of the crew, and subvert it to effectively tell an even more engaging story.
Far from usurping the accomplishment of the Apollo astronauts, this approach highlights the incredible feats of the program. The flight crew and ground crew were not perfect, they were humans, they could have (and did) make mistakes. While its famously quipped that “failure was not an option”, Fitch, Baker, and Collins’ book makes clear that failure remained a possibility.
In the end, Apollo helps both new and old audiences appreciate how impressive it is that these guys (and 24 others) sat on top of the most powerful rocket ever built and flew to the Moon with no guarantee of success.
Multiple Audiences
In order to reach both space nerds and broader audiences, the authors do well to make clear things that might trip people up, such as acronyms and astronaut nicknames. In this sense the book easily works for casual (non-space-nerd) readers.
For hardcores, or those of us who study space history, the book is still engaging due to the artistic skill of the creators (my first reading was entirely uninterrupted). The crux of this is the weaving of the astronauts personal lives (in flashback from) with the main narrative of the Apollo 11 mission itself.
It’s possible that for the most hardcore space history buffs there probably isn’t much new in terms of facts or insights. Nonetheless, the story telling and character development does well to make you keep reading and enjoying the book. On top of that, there are Collins’ wonderful interiors that depict Apollo hardware with accuracy.
A Graphic Textbook
As I do in my lectures, the book helps highlight key aspects of the Apollo program’s infrastructure: the lunar module (LEM), the command service module(CSM), and the Saturn V’s three stages.
Because of this I am currently using Apollo as a reading in my Space Exploration course. From my experience, anytime you can reinforce key class content within storytelling, you have the opportunity to meaningfully enhance student learning.
Further, with what could be described as ‘historical easter eggs’, Apollo briefly touches on a few key parts of the Space Race that I believe will peak student curiosity and tie nicely into class lectures. These include the Apollo 1 fire, the The Mercury and Gemini programs, the Apollo resistance community, and Nixon’s view of the space program.
Mike Collins’ splash page of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module “Eagle” landing on the Moon’s surface (Image: apollocomic.com)
The Graphic has Landed
To be sure, we can expect a barrage of Apollo 11 media coming our way over the next twelve months thanks to Ryan Gosling’s wonderful portrayal of Neil Armstrong in First Man and the upcoming 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s success on July 20, 1969.
Despite the attention it will rightfully receive next year and omnipresence of the Moon landing story in American mythology, I believe Fitch, Baker, & Collin’s book carves out a nice spot for itself. It’s combination of strong research with effective story telling and brilliant art make it unrivaled in its presentation of the subject matter.
For educators and history buffs, Apollo is yet another indication of how powerful the graphic novel form can be for telling historical events. While Apollo can’t carry the emotional power of the best known true-story graphic Maus, on any day it can hang in conversation as among the better recent entries in the growing non-fiction graphic genre.
Danny Bednar, PhD is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada where he studies climate change adaptation, environmental governance, and the geopolitics of space exploration. All views are his own | https://danny-bednar.medium.com/review-apollo-2018-graphic-novel-9992d0f2f82a | ['Danny Bednar'] | 2020-06-03 21:06:01.391000+00:00 | ['History', 'Comic Books', 'Space', 'Apollo', 'Science'] |
You will never believe how machines can learn like humans: Part 2 | You will never believe how machines can learn like humans: Part 2 Anvitha Gowda Follow Jul 7 · 7 min read
In my previous article, I wrote about some fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence. If you haven’t read that one, please click on the link given below.
https://medium.com/dev-genius/you-will-never-believe-how-machine-can-learn-like-humans-b67faf26bf9c
Well today let us dive a bit deep into the concepts of AI.
Did you know that “ Machine learning results depend on the Data you entered to train it”
We all know that one cannot function properly without a brain. There has to be a connection between our body parts as well as the brain. This connection has been established by neural networks. Same type of neural networks are responsible for Machines to learn!
Neural networks
Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash
Deep learning uses layers of non-linear processing units for features extraction and transformation called neural networks. The simplest of all the neural network is perceptron. Perceptron uses a single-layer neural network that uses a list of input features. Let us look at the example, say x1 to xn where x1 maybe cost and x2 maybe quantity and so on. These x1 to xn are called feature vectors. In this example, we need to determine if the customer would buy the product or not, looking at the input features. Along with input features, there is also a bias term like intercepts in the linear regression model. This input features, space along with intercepts form a linear feature that gives output. In order to obtain the output, we need to provide the linear model with the activation function. This activation function is basically non-linear and depends on the type of the problem we are trying to solve. And here activation function is the sigmoid function. In our example, we need to find out whether the customer will buy our product or not. For this the output is binary form. Either yes or no!
Perceptrons are very simple that has a single layer which is composed of the sum of input features and activation function that gives output. The concept of perceptrons were prevalent a long time ago. Overtime people added many layers to the perceptrons. Now we have an input layer, original layer and hidden layer. Once we have multiple layers, perceptron becomes neural networks. Neural networks are very complicated and have multiple layers within one single layer. They are even very difficult to understand, interpret and train. Due to the revolution in deep learning, we have different frameworks to design, train and implement neural networks. This has lead to the development of multiple layers and due to which we can have large input data than before. The deep learning frameworks are Mxnet, TensorFlow, Cafe, PyTorch, etc. These are developed from different sources, but can be accessed using Python. Yes, we can design, train and fit a neural network using python.
Understanding Machine Learning Algorithms
Any machine exhibiting intelligent behaviour needs to have two basic features
1. Knowledge acquisition: The ability of a machine to acquire the knowledge of surrounding and use the knowledge acquired to make predictions is very important aspect of machine learning.
2. Inference: The ability of a machine to infer the knowledge of previous experience to make present predictions is a basic aspect of machine learning.
We have seen the types of machine learning in the previous article. They are Supervised, Unsupervised and Reinforcement. Let us now see how are the algorithms of these types devised.
1. Supervised learning algorithm
In the case of supervised learning, Algorithm will be generated after showing a machine with many examples and a teacher explaining the machine what it is. This is also known as training a machine learning model. After training, the machine can be able to identify other similar things which are not shown in examples. It is simply like a newborn trying to identify apple and banana after showing it an orange and telling what it is! There are hundreds of supervised learning algorithms out there. It is not necessary to mention them all. So we can classify them according to certain families. We have also seen about the types of predictions in the previous article. Among them, regression is a type of prediction which predicts the unknown value based on the input given. In order to separate objects based on class or category, we need a hyperplane also known as a decision boundary that separates two objects. If there exists a linear surface that separates two classes, then they are called linearly separable. These are very simple and has errors. so we need logistic function applied to the output of the linear combination of model. This forms the basis of the logistic regression algorithm. An example for this is Amazon Sage Maker
2. Unsupervised Algorithm
In the case of unsupervised learning, the algorithm as in case of supervised will not be linear. That means there has to be circular or even square boundaries. These boundaries form trees. Instead of constructing a single tree, these trees from tree family form many trees and give predictions. Algorithms such as Random Forest, XGBoost are based on these approaches. In fact, Amazon Sagemaker also make use of XGBoost. The idea is to build a strong classifier out of many weak classifiers. This kind of approach is called Boosting. XGBoost is a general-purpose supervised algorithm. Factorisation Machines is also an algorithm that is used when we need to look at a large amount of spars data such as click predictions in online advertisement.
Clustering
In the case of unsupervised learning, clustering is a very important. Given a large number of data points, they are divided into groups and clusters. The problem in clustering is that we do not know how many clusters to make. If we request the algorithm to make two clusters, the answer obtained is different from that obtained when requested to make four.
Anomaly Detection
Another extremely popular and different family of unsupervised algorithm attempts to detect anomaly or tries to find outliners to the data. There’s no explicit teacher labelling the historic data as anomalies instead, the algorithm learns on its own what normal looks like by simply observing the data. One anomaly detection algorithm was developed by scientists working at Amazon. It is called random cut forest. The algorithm works by constructing a forest of the so-called random cut trees. Each tree is constructed by a recursive procedure which first surrounds the data points with a bounding box and then cuts or splits at along the coordinate axis by picking cut points randomly. The procedure is repeated until every point is sorted into a particular leaf of the tree.
Topic Modelling
Yet another example of an unsupervised algorithm is the so-called topic modelling for documents with text content. The algorithm is the basis of the eponymous feature in the Amazon comprehend service. Given a collection of documents, news articles for example and the number of topics we would like to discover, the algorithm produces the top words that appear to define the topic, together with the weight that each of these words has in relation to the topic. As with clustering in general, the approach is sensitive to the number of topics requested and it still requires us to assign the meaning to the discovered topic such as health, sports or politics.
To summarize, Amazon SageMaker includes a popular clustering algorithm called k-means. It’s an Amazon improvement over the well-known and scalable algorithm called Web-scale k-means. Another member of the unsupervised family is called Principal Component Analysis or PCA for short. Likewise available in SageMaker. It’s especially useful in reducing the dimensionality of the dataset and is often used as a feature engineering step before passing the data to a supervised algorithms. Latent Dirichlet Allocation or LDA is the name of a particular topic modelling algorithm. A variant is used by the topic modelling feature of Amazon comprehend and the algorithm is also available in sage maker. The Random cut forest algorithm for anomaly detection is available in SageMaker as well as an Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics, for easy application to streaming data. Kinesis Data Analytics also features hotspot detection, another example of an unsupervised learning algorithm which you can use to identify relatively dense regions in your data.
Convolutional Neural network
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
One important breakthrough in deep learning was the invention of the so-called Convolutional Neural Networks or CNNs for short, which are especially useful for image processing. The main idea behind CNNs is that it is able to relate nearby pixels in the image instead of treating them as completely independent inputs, which was the case prior to CNNs. A special operation called convolution is applied to the entire subsections of the image and more importantly, the parameters of these convolutions are also being learned in the process. If several convolutional layers are stacked one after another, each convolutional layer learns to recognize patterns of increasing complexity as we move through the layers. For example, they can be used for semantic segmentation or classification of individual pixels as belonging or not belonging to detected objects.
If we take the output of a neuron and feed it as input to itself or neurons from previous layers, we are creating the so-called recurrent neural networks. It’s as if the neuron remembers its output from the previous iteration thus creating a kind of memory. On the right-hand side, you see just one unit of a more complex network called LSTM, which stands for Long Short-Term Memory. It is commonly used for speech recognition and translation. In fact, LSTMs are used as a building block to the Sequence to Sequence modelling which is used in neural machine translation. Amazon released an entire library called Sockeye for state of the art sequence to sequence modelling tasks that customers can use in their projects.
Amazon SageMaker conveniently provides a built-in algorithm for image classification based on Resnet, a kind of CNN, but it also provides a sequence to sequence algorithm, a neural topic modelling algorithm to complement Latent Dirichlet allocation and also DeepAR forecasting algorithm for time series…
It was really fun writing this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing…..!
Thank you | https://medium.com/dev-genius/you-will-never-believe-how-machines-can-learn-like-humans-part-2-d62e080fe0f5 | ['Anvitha Gowda'] | 2020-07-07 07:27:18.668000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Neural Networks', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning'] |
Conquer Patience Thanks To Writing By Hand | I’ve already discussed the importance of writing by hand when it comes to learning languages. Indeed, the time it takes gives time to the brain to form memories which will last longer.
However, that isn’t the only advantage there is to it. Another often overlooked one is developing patience.
No matter how fast you can write, it’s pretty much always going to be slower than typing on a computer or phone.
Do we have the time to spend on such a task then?
No, we don’t.
But that’s exactly the point.
We’re always in a rush to do things and writing something is no exception. We want to get to the next thing quickly after all.
Our agendas are cramped with tasks, both useful and somehow pointless ones.
“I have to check Instagram after this.” “I need to watch that next episode today.” “I know it’s late but I have to reply to that person today.”
What’s the common factor of all those? The need.
But is that “need” actually true? Many actions we do on a daily basis can be retrograded to a few times a week, weekly tasks or even just monthly ones.
Fixing the time to write for yourself will force you to figure out what you are doing too much of and what could be retrograded.
Dig within
That first task of looking for time to write will provide you with an overview of your time.
Overviews are useful but usually not enough to actually dig deep in what actually matters.
Writing by hand gives you that opportunity. As you write a sentence, you can already start having ideas for the following one. And the following one, and so on.
But still, the longer the sentences you write, the more time you have, don’t you?
What can you do with this time? You can look reconsider your thoughts.
We all know this. The more time we have, the more we procrastinate and ponder.
A classic example of this is writing a thesis. You’ve got months ahead of you, all the time you need to write it but keep on reconsidering details, finding new ideas which contradict some of the original ones. But when the deadline is coming close, all of a sudden, you start writing and going forward quickly. You finish on time and wonder why you had so much trouble at the beginning. It doesn’t make sense anymore.
Reconsidering is good for yourself
When writing by hand and starting to reconsider your next thoughts, you find the opportunity to dig deeper, to challenge ideas you’ve had.
Little by little, you’ll actually even go as far as stopping between ideas to develop your thoughts on a certain topic.
This is obviously possible when typing on a phone or computer but the habit of typing quickly takes over most of the time. As a result, you end up going forward instead of stopping for a moment.
The action of stopping for a moment is where patience lies.
Instead of following your urge to go forward, you slowly learn that taking the time to think things over isn’t such a bad idea, and can appreciate more and more taking a break to think things over.
Such a tiny change in your life can modify the way you will act outside of writing too. You will ponder just a bit more, just a tad deeper, just slightly more, before you act.
And you know what? Taking just a few extra moments to think won’t bother anybody and you’ll act/reply more in alignment with who you truly are. | https://mathiasbarra.medium.com/conquer-patience-thanks-to-writing-by-hand-6f0a3cb54b98 | ['Mathias Barra'] | 2019-07-21 23:46:01.653000+00:00 | ['Handwriting', 'Writing', 'Patience', 'Time', 'Self Reflection'] |
I’ve Learned to Receive Messages From The Universe | I’ve Learned to Receive Messages From The Universe
The signs will be obvious to you if you just tune in
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
“One of your ancestors from Europe is watching over you,” said a woman to me when I was 19 years old, working at a chocolate store in Union Station in DC.
She was buying a truffle from me, wearing a woven scarf, and looked at me with complete calm and sincerity. I was bewildered.
I went home and called my grandmother, and she speculated about who in the family it could be. I felt strongly that it was someone from her father’s side. It was just a feeling.
Since then, years later, I have now become very familiar with these ‘feelings’. When I have them, what used to seem like a hunch now seems like a complete certainty.
I’ve learned to receive messages from my ‘third eye’, my intuition — the eye I have into the realm of knowledge that logic and science cannot explain.
Anyone can receive messages from the universe. All you have to do is open yourself to it.
The more you meditate, become aware, and tune into the energy around you, the more clear the messages will become.
There are some things I’ve listed here to help you open yourself to the messages.
Nothing is a Coincidence
It’s hard to let go of the idea that the world you experience is dead, random, and meaningless. Growing up, this is what we learn.
We live in a universe teeming with energies, and we take part in it, yet we deny this all the time. It interacts with us, and it is affected by our energy.
Once you let go of the idea you were probably raised to believe — that ‘weird’ things that happen are coincidences — you’ll be ready to receive the messages that have probably been lost on you for your entire life.
Have you heard a voice sometimes when you are the only one hearing it? Have you seen the future coming, but denied it because you think there’s no such thing as clairvoyance?
Do you dismiss weird occurrences and instead, try to explain them logically?
Most people block out their intuition because it doesn’t make sense in the world they are used to. Don’t be like them.
Animals Carry Messages
Early on, the messages I was used to receiving were always in the form of animals. I’ve come to view animals as spirits that are embodying qualities they want you to examine.
If a bluebird lands on your shoulder and flies away, you are feeling freedom or about to take off. If you see a dead raccoon, then something clever and beautiful has died in you.
All you have to do is look closely at what’s going on.
Crows have always been very interesting to me. Their behavior can always be interpreted, and I often think it is an omen. Crows that surround you in the trees are definitely trying to make you aware of something. But they can also embody good energy.
Just after the US election, when the sides were clashing hard and before they announced the results, I saw two crows chasing off a hawk. I was in a park and I noticed a hawk trying to land in a tree, and the crows aggressively showed the hawk that there was no way a big predator was going to move into their territory.
When I saw that, I knew it was a sign that the people will take back what is theirs and finally get rid of oppressors.
This past summer, when my husband abandoned me and I was feeling hurt and vulnerable, I found a turtle in my parents’ suburban garden. In my 37 years of experience with that house, we had never seen a wild turtle wandering around. It was truly “out of the blue”.
I know the turtle crossed my path that day to show me that I am strong; I have a tough shell, and I will endure.
Numbers Have Meaning
I have finally opened myself to numerology.
Numerology is the reading of numbers that seem repetitive and coincidental. But we no longer believe in coincidences, do we?
The universe takes care of us. It sends us messages in the hardest of times when we are lost or worried. And these messages can be in the form of numbers.
Open yourself to the idea that clocks, odometers, street numbers, and Medium stats can be messages for you.
You may feel you just happened to see that number — but it drew you to it on purpose.
I saw the number 555 yesterday, and as soon as I googled what that meant in numerology, it was obvious. Higher beings are trying to tell me I am on the right path. And I received that message loud and clear.
At a slightly earlier time in my life, I would have just ignored it, but I know that the things my attention lands on are never random.
Do You Get Chills?
When I started reading about the meaning of the number 555, my entire body began tingling.
It is a feeling I have often when something important is being called to my awareness. It happens when something foretelling occurs.
I call it “the chills” but it also feels like a grand spinning of my energies.
I felt it when I read that Kamala Harris would be Biden’s running mate. I feel it when I am thinking about something that is in true alignment with the universal consciousness.
It tells me when I am tapping into my intuition very clearly. Pay attention to the chills you get.
Learn to trust your intuition, and you will open yourself to a beautiful life rich with purpose and meaning.
The universe and those higher beings are trying to give you the knowledge, and trying to download truths to you.
You just have to be open to it. | https://medium.com/mystic-minds/ive-learned-to-receive-messages-from-the-universe-20cb366589d4 | ['Emily Jennings'] | 2020-12-05 17:21:56.777000+00:00 | ['Intuition', 'Spirituality', 'Consciousness', 'Self-awareness', 'Life'] |
Privacy International calls on UK government to reveal secret intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States | Privacy International has today written to government ministers, members of the opposition, and oversight bodies reaffirming its call for the UK government to reveal secret intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States.
The original UKUSA agreement — drafted shortly after World War II — allows UK and US agencies to share, by default, any raw intelligence, collection equipment, decryption techniques, and translated documents.
Current arrangements also allow US intelligence agencies to collect intelligence and operate from within the UK, reportedly including in support of special operations involving lethal force.
Disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 drew the world’s attention to the staggering scale of surveillance permitted by the global internet infrastructure, allowing intelligence agencies to intercept the communications of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis.
Except for the decades old UKUSA agreement, no information about the rules governing the extent of this sharing were publicly available prior to a 2013 challenge brought Privacy International and nine other human rights organisations at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a government body which hears complaints about surveillance activities in the UK empowered to accept evidence from government in secret.
Aside from a few paragraphs summarising its approach to obtaining information from the US released during the lawsuit, the UK government has consistently refused to reveal to the public details about intelligence sharing practices and policies. It has also argued that such intelligence sharing should not be subject to the same safeguards as its own interception powers.
The IPT rejected the majority of Privacy International’s claims in judgments in December 2014 and February 2015, although it found the complete lack of publicly available rules on intelligence sharing prior to the lawsuit to be problematic. Privacy International and the nine other human rights organisations have appealed the IPT’s judgments to the European Court of Human Rights.
In its letter, Privacy International has called for the UK government to release key documents outlining the UK’s intelligence sharing arrangements. The government has already presented many of those documents to the IPT in a closed hearing, but has so far refused to make them publicly available.
Privacy International has also forwarded reports detailing the extent of what is publicly known about intelligence sharing with the U.S. Government, and concerns about the existing lack of details, adequate safeguards, and oversight mechanisms.
The letter has been sent to the UK Secretary of State for Defence, Home Secretary, and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, their parliamentary opposition, as well as the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office. | https://medium.com/privacy-international/privacy-international-calls-on-uk-government-to-reveal-secret-intelligence-sharing-arrangements-9d166e68fa97 | ['Privacy International'] | 2016-11-10 18:16:16.233000+00:00 | ['Surveillance', 'United States', 'Big Data', 'Donald Trump', 'Privacy'] |
What Are Ideas? | Where do they live and how do they grow?
Photo by Rohan Makhecha on Unsplash
Like all forms of life, we humans are amazingly complicated beings. We are made up of trillions of cells, which are composed of even larger numbers of molecules, all of which cooperate to keep us alive. Yet during our lifetimes we move and act as individual units at our level of awareness. We can only be at one place, and only perform a few deliberate, conscious activities at a time. Our nervous system, consisting of our brains, our spinal cords, and the peripheral nerves that branch to and from the muscles and sensory organs of our bodies, are what enable us to behave as coordinated living things.
Although our brains consist of many different types of cells all working together, including neurons, astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes, and others, it is enough for this essay to lump the types together and simply call them nerve cells. (We could call them brain cells, except that many of them are situated outside or extend outside our brains, from our perceptual organs, in our spinal cords, and to our muscles.)
Nerve cells are amazing forms of life. They can be active or fairly dormant for long periods of time. They connect to sensory cells, muscle cells, and other nerve cells in ways that their actions can stimulate or inhibit, and can be stimulated by or inhibited by, the actions of the other cells to which they are connected. They can form nerve networks in which actions can spread, and those networks can include cycles that enable the actions of nerve cells to repeat or reverberate. Very crude analogies of nerve networks are networks of roads through which traffic can flow, or networks of branches in a tree, although tree branches don’t include cycles. The internet is another, modern analogy of our nerve networks.
When nerve cells are active, sending signals to other cells, they require more energy than when they are dormant. That energy is provided by oxygen and other chemicals delivered to them by blood flow and by other cells specialized to support the activity of nerve cells. The activations of nerve cells and networks can be measured directly by tiny probes inserted into them, or they can be measured indirectly in large numbers by brain imaging systems that detect their energy metabolism. In order not to introduce new jargon, and because I think its common meaning is most appropriate, I propose that our common idea of the word “idea” can be understood more specifically as a network of nerve cells that can activate and support each other’s activation. Ideas literally live as networks of nerve cells in our brains and nervous systems.
Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash
We can classify ideas into three basic kinds: perceptual ideas, which are activated by our sensory organs, action ideas, which activate our organs of action (mainly our muscles), and internal ideas, which connect perceptual ideas to action ideas directly or indirectly. When perceptual ideas are active, we usually call them “sensations” or “perceptions”. When action ideas are activated, we usually call them “plans” or “intentions”; when the actions are carried out by our muscles, we call them “acts”. Finally, when internal ideas are activated, we usually call them “thoughts”. Generally, we can refer to all kinds of activated ideas as “thoughts”. Thoughts of any of the three kinds can be subconscious or conscious. (More about that later.)
As we develop from conception through birth, the nerve cells and nerve networks in our brains develop according to information contained in our genetic material — our DNA. We are born “pre-wired” with sensory cells, nerve cells and nerve networks to serve as our senses and our beginning perceptual ideas. We are born with muscle cells and with other nerve cells and nerve networks to serve as our beginning action ideas and abilities to act on them. There are some built-in internal ideas, too. We humans are pretty helpless at birth — more so than many other animals — but we do have some very useful built-in ideas from which more elaborate ideas can be developed.
For example, one of our most useful built-in ideas is the perceptual idea of a face. It’s important to understand that the idea of a face is separate from the word “face”. The word is a separate idea that speakers of English develop later on in life and that becomes part of our larger idea of face. The most primitive, built-in idea of face is an infant’s ability to interpret some configurations of more primitive visual ideas — circles or spots, and edge boundaries or lines — as faces. Think of the familiar “happy face” drawing as a visual representation of our primitive idea of a face. From “happy faces” and similar drawings, we can guess that, in order of importance to our primitive face idea are circles or spots for two eyes, a line for a mouth, and optionally, or more weakly, dots or a line for a nose. The eye ideas are most important, but the mouth idea is important, too. (Think of Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat face.) The primitive idea for a face is extremely important to an infant as a way to recognize a person, an idea which itself is probably present in a rudimentary way in the infant brain.
Two other vital, built-in ideas in infants are the action ideas of the sucking reflex and the grasping reflex. Those are the basic ideas a baby needs for accessing and taking in its first food. The face idea, the grasping reflex idea, and the sucking reflex idea are joined in the infant by a developing idea of nurturer or parent person or, more specifically, mother, which is also connected to primitive built-in ideas of warmth, softness, comfort and the like. Unpleasant ideas of hunger, cold, and distress are also normally built into us at birth.
Other important build-in ideas are the action ideas of directing the gaze of our eyes and focusing them. They begin as fairly simple nerve networks that become more elaborate and accurate as they incorporate other nerve cells and connections, as a result of repeated experience with controlling our vision. Similarly, our primitive action ideas for controlling the movements of our arms and hands and our legs and feet are fairly simple at birth but become more refined through practice.
So, too, our internal ideas of person, and parent or nurturer grow larger and more elaborate with experience, and we develop ideas of ourselves in a similar way from basic, primitive ideas.
Beginning with our built-in idea networks, ideas grow by combining tens, hundreds, thousands of idea networks to create new idea networks until we have developed billions of overlapping idea networks in our nervous systems. The sheer numbers of nerve cells and connections in our brains give us the potential to create and grow astronomical numbers of ideas.
A crude way to illustrate the ways in which nerve networks overlap is by use of Venn diagrams, which you may have learned about in mathematics. Yet those fail to capture the full complexities and subtleties of how nerve networks can overlap and interact. A better analogy is to think of trillions of tree roots overlapping and interacting in a forest, or the network shown in this picture.
Creating new ideas or modifying old ones is what we think of as learning. Connections between nerve cells can become stronger through repeated activity, either more strongly activational or more strongly inhibitory of the nerve cells to which they connect. Or connections between nerve cells can become weaker from lack of use. Entirely new connections between nerve cells can grow, and some can disappear. Many nerve cells die and new nerve cells are born. By all of those means, the connections between existing ideas (nerve cell networks) change, resulting in modified nerve cell networks, which constitute new or modified ideas.
Learning can be guided by teachers who try to activate ideas in us that they know we are likely to combine into new ideas, or learning can occur spontaneously in us as different but overlapping idea networks become activated in our brains and develop new connections of activation or inhibition among their nerve cells.
But, still, there are limits to the ideas we can have — limits that depend on the limitations of our senses, the capabilities of our muscles and skeletons, and the ideas our brains are born with.
Other animals share our ability to grow ideas as networks of nerve cells, but the ideas they can have differ from ours because of differences in their senses and their muscular-skeletal systems. Dogs have such complex olfactory systems (senses of smell) that they no doubt have olfactory ideas that we can’t even imagine. Similarly, bats have wings and echolocation systems and must have corresponding ideas that we find it difficult or impossible to imagine.
Other people also have different potentials for ideas than we do, because of differences in their senses and/or muscular systems at birth. Color blindness is a well-known example of a common sensory deficit. Similarly, some of us have various deficits of hearing, smell, or touch that limit our abilities to have some ideas. Less well known are unusual sensory abilities that many of us lack but that some people have, such as perfect pitch, unusual abilities to detect smells of various kinds, and even synesthesias — for example, abilities to “see” or “smell” sounds — that are due to unusual nerve connections in their brains. There is even some evidence from synesthesia that people with color blindness due to defects in the retinas of their eyes can have perceptual ideas for colors in their brains which they can experience from sound-color synesthesia but which they are unable to experience through their eyes.
On the action side, some people are born with unusual body structures and unusual abilities or disabilities to control the actions of their muscles. They can have correspondingly different action ideas than other people do.
The basic idea nerve networks that we are born with seem to me to constitute and, when active, produce what some philosophers call the “qualia” of experience — the indescribable essence of the color blue, the pure sound of a chime, the taste of sugar, the feeling of sadness, or the experience of running. Despite claims that such qualia transcend explanation in terms of nerve cell activity, we know from differences in people’s brains that we can each experience such qualia in different ways, differences that correspond to differences in our sensory organs and nerve networks in our brains and those extending to our muscles. Your idea and experience of the color green may not be the same as mine, especially if you are color blind. Similarly, animals like dogs that can smell and hear things that we cannot smell or hear must have “qualia” for those extra smells and sounds that we don’t have and can’t imagine.
Also, it’s interesting that, while we experience visual qualia for frequencies of electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum but not outside that part of the spectrum, we do experience feelings of warmth or heat when our skin is exposed to infrared radiation that we can’t see. Sensory cells in our skin that detect warmth are responsible for those sensations. The qualia for colors and heat that are invoked in us by exposure to electromagnetic radiation definitely emerge from activations of nerve networks in us; they don’t exist abstractly somewhere else.
Our internal ideas, including those that connect sensory ideas to action ideas, can become incredibly elaborate and complicated as our brains develop through experience. Many of our ideas are vague or “fuzzy”, because our nerve networks overlap in complicated ways, and the activation of our nerve networks is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Some parts of a network are usually activated more weakly than others.
Think of your idea of grandmother as an example. If you have known one or both of your actual grandmothers, your specific ideas of them will be related to your general idea of a grandmother. But based on ideas obtained from elsewhere by observing other people’s grandmothers and learning about grandmothers, your general idea of grandmother may overlap with ideas of old, possibly gray-haired, and biological parent of your biological parent, whether or not your own grandmothers have those specific properties. So some of the parts of the general grandmother idea are optional, while others are essential. In particular, the idea networks woman and mother-of-a-parent (not necessarily a biological-parent) are essential, mutually supportive parts of the idea of grandmother, while the idea man is mutually inhibitory to it. For speakers and readers of English, the word “grandmother” is also an important part of the general idea of grandmother, even if you call your own grandmothers by other names.
How idea networks are activated in our brains
I’m now going to present an extended example of how ideas become activated in our brains, so that you can experience that activation first-hand and think about it. Because this is a text document, my example will start with an idea from written English.
If I write a C, and you understand a language like English that uses the Roman alphabet, some of your visual perceptual ideas are activated by seeing C. Those activate, in turn and at a low level, many other idea networks in your brain, most prominently the idea of the letter c itself, along with the ideas letter, black and capitalized. For readers of English the idea of the letter c, in turn, activates the ideas third and alphabet. For some people it may also activate the idea middling grade in school.
If I next add the letter O to make the sequence CO, the ideas activated in you change. Some, such as middling grade in school are inhibited, while others such as abbreviation and possibly company are activated. Continuing with the addition of the letters L and another O to see COLO, the idea company is suppressed and the ideas word and possibly color, colony, and others may be weakly activated.
Continuation with the letter R to make the visual pattern COLOR strongly activates word and color and inhibits colony and others. The word color, in turn, activates many non-language ideas, including the colors of the visible spectrum, and combined with the colors of the perceived printed letters, it re-enforces the activation of the idea black.
However, further continuation with an A to make COLORA inhibits the idea color and partly inhibits the idea black. In some people, especially those living in the United States, it may activate the ideas Colorado, state, and possibly river which are strengthened by continuation with the letters D and then O.
If I now begin anew with the letters ORE, which activate the word-idea ore, that can combine with the idea Colorado to activate the idea silver, if you know enough of the history of Colorado. But if I continue that sequence with a G, making OREG, the ideas ore and silver are inhibited, and for those familiar with United States geography, the idea Oregon may become activated through the ideas western and state that have been activated by the idea Colorado. Other people, less familiar with US geography, might activate the idea oregano from OREG instead of Oregon especially if you are a cook or an Italian.
Notice that activations of ideas are often bi-directional. The word “Colorado” invokes the idea Colorado, which can invoke ideas such as state, western, United States, and mountains. In the other direction, the ideas state, western, United States, and mountains can invoke the idea Colorado but also others such as Nevada and Utah. Again for those who know US geography, activation of the idea Pike’s Peak can inhibit Nevada and Utah and re-enforce Colorado.
Then, as a further step in the reverse direction, the idea Colorado normally invokes the spoken and written words for it, but not necessarily the spelling of the written word. That requires a sequence of activations of letters which may or may not be correct.
Sometimes the idea Colorado may not be immediately and fully successful in activating the word for it. That causes the familiar “tip-of-my-tongue” experience. In that case ideas related to the word may be activated, such as name of a state and multi-syllabic, and the actual word may be activated by the process of going through the alphabet: Does it start with an a? No. Does it start with a b? No. Does it start with a c? Yes! That can be enough to activate the word idea, though not necessarily its fully correct spelling idea.
Notice how the example in this section illustrates the importance of sequence in the activation of ideas in our brains. We recognize the word idea Colorado from the letters in the word and their sequence. The same letters in another sequence, such as ODORACOL, don’t easily activate the word idea.
This section also shows the importance of timing in the activation of ideas. I have deliberately slowed things down for the foregoing example. If we read the word “Colorado” at normal speed, the ideas letter, C, middling grade in school, and color don’t have time to be activated and become self-sustaining. We tend to activate the word idea Colorado rapidly from the visual shape of the printed word as a whole. In fact, that enables us to activate that idea, at least temporarily, even if the word is slightly misspelled as “Colorabo”.
Ideas versus beliefs
Beliefs are ideas to which we attribute an idea of truth as opposed to falsity. Actually, the idea of truth can be a matter of degree, not just a binary distinction. But what does truth mean to most of us? There can be more than one kind of truth and more than one kind of belief.
A belief may be an idea that has, from our experience, become a useful one for making decisions that lead us to successful acts. If we benefit from those acts, we can say that the idea has truth from usefulness or practical truth.
Or a belief may be an idea that invokes built-in, basic ideas of comfort, pleasure, and well-being. In that case it has emotional truth, whether or not it also leads to overt acts.
The belief, sometimes active in dreams, that we can fly alone like birds has an emotional truth but is not a very useful belief in our waking lives. Many other beliefs — that we are bound to win a lottery, inherit great wealth, or achieve great power — may also have more emotional truth than practical truth. Acting repeatedly on beliefs of future winnings from gambling can result in harmful gambling obsessions and compulsions — a case in which emotional truth dominates an absence of practical truth.
Beliefs that involve either kind of truth are probably more frequently and more extensively active in our brains, than ideas which are not our own beliefs are active in us. It takes extra effort to activate ideas in us that are not beliefs of ours.
The ability to understand beliefs held by other people as different from our own beliefs provides the basis for the act of lying, which involves communicating with the intention to create and/or activate in other people ideas which are not beliefs of our own, in the hope that those people will adopt those ideas as beliefs of their own. Ideas that motivate us to lie should be distinguished from delusional beliefs, which may have emotional truth for the believer, but which may not only lack practical truth but may actually lead to potentially harmful acts. People who communicate delusional beliefs are not necessarily lying, but their ideas can still be harmful to other people if those people adopt them as beliefs of their own.
Ideas and decision making
Some of our action idea networks automatically activate our muscular action systems. We call those “reflexes”. Others require a choice of whether to act or not, or a choice between two or more incompatible action ideas regarding which action idea to act upon. That is, they involve decisions that are made somehow by the nerve networks in our brains.
Action decisions are ultimately the result of the relative strengths of two or more simultaneously activated action ideas. The strongest one determines the act. The relative strengths of their activations may simply be due to the numbers of nerve cells and the numbers and strengths of the interconnections in each network. Or the successfully activated action idea network may be the one which is most strongly activated and least strongly inhibited by other active idea networks in our brains at the time of the decision. We like to believe that we exercise free will when we make decisions, but it’s not that simple. Decisions ultimately result from interactions of many idea networks in our nervous systems, not all of which are under our conscious control.
Communication of ideas through demonstration, art, and language
Communication of ideas requires both the sender and the receiver to have enough similarities in their existing ideas that actions taken by the sender will activate perceptual ideas in the receiver, which will in turn activate similar internal and possibly action ideas in the receiver. Any kind of action that can activate a perceptual idea may suffice. Sometimes we can communicate ideas by gesturing or by demonstrating how to do things. Our human works of visual and sculptural art, music, and dance can also communicate ideas by activating them in people who observe the work, as can diagrams and three-dimensional models of various kinds that we can construct.
Human language is just a very special and uniquely important case of communication of ideas. At its base, our language ability involves a number of specific action ideas and perceptual ideas. Our vocal apparatus in our throats and mouths enables us to make a variety of sounds easily and quickly, ranging from harmonious sounds to more noisy sounds to sudden changes that produce sound boundaries. Our sense of hearing enables us to perceive sounds produced by our vocal apparatus as what we call “vowels” (from harmonious sounds), “fricative” and “sibilant” consonants (from noisy sounds like the ones that make “f” and “s”), and other consonant sounds such as “plosives” like “p”, “t”, and “d” (from sudden changes in sound boundaries). From birth we learn to distinguish the sounds that are used significantly in the languages of people around us, and we learn to recognize repeated combinations of those significant sounds as what we later learn to call “words”, “phrases”, and “sentences”. For brevity let us call all multi-word utterances “phrases” We learn not only to recognize words and phrases but also how to perform actions that produce the sounds that we have learned will activate those words and phrases in other people.
We also have a secondary possibility, using our hands and arms and our visual system, to communicate with other people by sign language. It gives us the same rapid ability to learn and exchange words and phrases that spoken language provides. Finally, we have developed written languages by inventing and learning systems for making marks on various semi-permanent materials that can be perceived by our visual systems and can activate word and phrase idea networks in our brains.
In our first few years as infants we learn hundreds of internal word and phrase ideas, usually through spoken language that become the bases of our native languages. Most important, we learn to overlap word and phrase ideas with other ideas in our brains. It works both ways: a word can trigger associated ideas, and an idea can trigger associated words and phrases. Word and phrase ideas can also activate other word and phrase ideas, providing sequential activations that become the basis of grammar. Learning grammar (informally in spoken language, more formally in written language) enables us to create new and complicated language experiences — like this essay and the sentences and paragraphs in it — that have never been created in the same way before.
Our language ability, as we develop it, becomes a powerful tool for activating specific ideas in other people’s brains and for enabling other people to activate specific ideas in our own brains. That allows us humans to coordinate our thinking — our activation of ideas in each other — in ways that surpass the abilities of other animals.
That’s not to say that other animals lack language abilities entirely. Many other animals can communicate by making and hearing sounds and, in doing so, activating idea networks in each other’s brains. We humans just have a much greater ability in that way than other animals do. Individuals from our closest relative species — chimpanzees for example — have been taught to use gestural sign languages in the same ways we do.
We have co-evolved with dogs by forming hybrid supra-organisms — cooperating groups of people and dogs. Such supra-organisms combine the superiority of dogs’ senses of smell and hearing and their superiority in running and biting with our human superiority in vocal and manual dexterity and in our brain capacity to form idea networks. In the past that combination gave human-dog supra-organisms survival advantages over human groups and dog packs alone.
We share with dogs, as mammals, many perceptual and internal ideas. I’m convinced that if and when we can give dogs artificial voices that they can manipulate easily, as we do, and if we can motivate and teach them to uses their artificial voices, we will be able to converse with dogs and cooperate with them in surprisingly new and effective ways. As most dog owners know already, dogs can learn to recognize the sounds and meanings of a considerable number of our words and phrases, including “walk”, “out”, “sit”, “good boy/girl”, “treat”, “ball”, “toy”, “bed”, and names of people and other dogs that a particular dog knows. Also, many dogs try to talk to us, and they can make many of the vowel sounds that we do, but they aren’t able to make most of the sounds that we use as consonants in our human languages. Imagine a dog being able to tell you about some of the things it can identify by its superior senses of smell and hearing!
Ideas versus communications
What is the difference between ideas and the instruments of language or other communications that we use to convey ideas to other people? Utterances in spoken language are fleeting and ephemeral (except when recorded for replay), but expressions in written language are semi-permanent. Can they — this essay for example — be considered to be ideas all by themselves?
Spoken or written expressions in language are not, by themselves, self-activating. To convey ideas in a meaningful way, as intended by the person who expresses them, expressions in language must be interpreted by another person or persons who understands the same language, at least in a similar way. Otherwise they are just structures which can cause perceptual events that may be experienced in many different ways by different people or may be dismissed as incomprehensible or meaningless. Consequently, most communications by language or works of art are not, themselves, ideas, but our perceptual experiences of them can activate existing ideas and can lead to the creation of new ideas in our nervous systems.
However, specific expressions of language, art, or music can be memorized to become true ideas in the brains of people who learn them — ideas that we can re-activate and can communicate about. From that observation and others we can see that new ideas are created as one-time experiences in our nervous systems, but they can be consolidated and grow stronger as a result of repeated activation of them. For example, a poem is not an idea on first hearing or reading, though it activates ideas then. But with enough repetition the poem itself can become an idea in the brains of its hearers and readers.
In fact, that’s how we learn our languages. We learn the basic sounds and written forms of our first languages when we are young, but throughout our lives we can continue to learn new word ideas and phrase ideas. First we experience a new word as an unfamiliar combination of the basic sound ideas (phonemes) and letter ideas or character ideas of our native language. Then, with focus on that experience and repetition of it, we consolidate the nerve network which that experience activated into a new communication idea that activates other idea networks in us that constitute its meaning. After that, we can recognize the new communication idea and even begin to use it as an action idea of our own.
Conscious and subconscious ideas
We humans have limited organs for action, mostly operated through our muscles. We can only eat a limited amount of food at a time. We can only focus our vision in one direction at a time. We can only make vocal sounds one at a time. We can only walk in one direction at a time. We can perform a few acts at the same time — such as, for most of us, walking and chewing gum, or at least walking and talking.
Our brains have so many idea networks of the perceptual and internal kind which could be active at the same time, that if many of them were to trigger action ideas at the same time, we would be overwhelmed with them and find ourselves unable to choose between competing muscle acts. (Actually that can happen. We “freeze”.) In order to control our limited action capabilities effectively, our brains have mechanisms for controlling what we call our “consciousness”.
Parts of our brains control the ways in which our active perceptual ideas and our active internal ideas can activate our action ideas. They can also control how our active internal ideas can activate other internal ideas. Some of those control mechanisms are in the evolutionarily older parts of our brains, which act widely on other areas of our brains, for example by putting us to sleep, which inhibits many of our muscle-action ideas. Other control networks are in our frontal lobes, which act in more specific ways to enhance or inhibit other networks in our nervous systems..
We know that consciousness is a specific internal mechanism in our brains because of the ways it can be turned on or off by chemical intervention, by physical intervention or injury, or by normal processes like sleep. We all know how our consciousness is altered when we sleep. There are periods of deep, dreamless sleep when many of our idea networks are inactive and we experience no consciousness. The same occurs under general chemical anaesthesia.
During other periods of sleep, when we dream, many of our perceptual idea networks and action idea networks are inactive, but our internal idea networks, including ones that are connected from our primary perceptual ideas and to our action ideas, remain active. We dream that we are seeing and hearing things and that we are moving and talking, but without the actual corresponding inputs from our senses and without the actual movements of our muscles. Our conscious control networks are still partly active then, though the activations of ideas seem more random than in waking life. But our inability to act and to receive feedback from our senses that would confirm the success of our conscious intentions (action ideas) results in the frustration that we often experience in dreams — when we try to do things, but they don’t work.
Physical interventions in our brains, whether intentional through surgery or by electromagnetic stimulation or through accidental injury, can also affect our consciousness. We can lose the ability to activate some of our idea networks because they are damaged or because connections to them from other idea networks are disrupted. Some of those losses can be permanent, as happens with serious brain injuries, strokes, or various kinds of degenerative dementia.
Other kinds of chemical interventions with psychoactive drugs can affect our consciousness by increasing the numbers of idea networks that are active at the same time. Through them we can achieve feelings of heightened sensations or activation of so many internal thoughts at once that are overwhelmed by feelings of “cosmic consciousness” and left temporarily unable to act.
Even without physical or chemical intervention, we can learn to control our consciousness by techniques we call “meditation”. Similarly, by using techniques we call “hypnosis”, we can learn to “turn off” or ignore perceptual ideas of pain or unpleasant internal thoughts by using our mechanisms of consciousness to inhibit those nerve networks. Hypnosis techniques that we allow other people to use on us can sometimes control our consciousness and can even affect our subconscious idea networks.
So how do our mechanisms of consciousness work? The parts of our brains that control our consciousness, in the absence to external chemical or physical intervention, act as a selection mechanism that we often think of as “focusing”, by analogy with the way our visual systems work. In fact our visual systems are more than just an analogy for consciousness; they are also a prime example of how our consciousness mechanism works.
To experience how our visual consciousness works, take the following guided tour with me, keeping your eyes open at the same time so you can read more of this paragraph. Think of a house or other building where you have spent a lot of time in your life, but which you are not in right now. Maybe it’s the house or apartment where you grew up. Imagine walking around the building, then up to the entrance and inside the building, “seeing” it from many different views as you walk around inside. You should be able to shift the focus of your consciousness around as you take this tour — from focusing on each of the many “views” of the familiar building you are imagining, to focusing on what your open eyes are actually looking at. Notice that you are more-or-less conscious of all of those thoughts at the same time, but you are most conscious of — that is, focused on — one of them at a time. Take some time to continue with the imagined tour of the building you have chosen, and resume reading here when you feel finished with the tour.
How did your tour go? If you are like me, you will be surprised at the amount of detail about the building that you gradually remember as you mentally “walk” around and through it, focusing your attention on various things. You may even have shifted your focus temporarily to an idea of the building as a whole, or to the words you name it with or refer to it by, or to the people you knew when you lived there..
As the foregoing example illustrates, our consciousness mechanism involves a continual process of activating some of our idea networks and inhibiting others. We experience that process as our “stream of consciousness”. The successive activations are usually related; idea networks that become active can then activate or inhibit other networks to which they are connected.
We can even have more than one stream of consciousness going at the same time. I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that I can have a musical “ear worm” playing in the background while I am thinking about other things, and from time to time I can switch my full conscious attention to it. I can also be carrying on internal speech, perhaps reciting a memorized poem, while I think about wordless things. Sometime a perceptual idea can suddenly become active — a pain in my foot as I step on a sharp object — and temporarily interrupt the other streams of consciousness, but those streams can soon resume focus as before if the sensation of pain subsides. (After the interruption, we may ask ourselves, “Where was I?”)
Stronger active networks can dominate the activities of weaker networks and thus take fpcus our stream of consciousness for periods of time. That can enable us to focus our consciousness to perform specific tasks. If you followed carefully the foregoing tour of a familiar building, and the previous section of this essay titled “How idea networks are activated in our brains”, you will have experienced the dominance and shift in control of ideas in your brain. Those experiences show that consciousness, even when we are awake, is a matter of more or less rather than all or nothing.
And even when idea networks in our brains are inhibited by stronger networks that are dominating our stream of consciousness or are suppressing them during sleep, they can remain active to some extent and can interact with each other subconsciously. Most of us have had experiences of having solved problems or having gained new insights subconsciously while we sleep. When we face a difficult decision, we often say we will “sleep on it”, and we find it easier to make the decision when we wake up. Or we may try to remember a name, and be unable to think of it, only to have it “pop up” later, while we are thinking of other things. In that case, subconscious idea networks have been activated, which activated others, that ultimately activated the name idea.
The development of special controlling idea networks occurs in parts of our brains as they develop. They are rudimentary in infants and continue to develop through childhood, puberty, and early adulthood, at least. Studies of brain development and brain injury have located some of our main consciousness-controlling nerve networks in the frontal lobes of our brains.
The parts of our brains that enable us to focus our conscious awareness of the ideas that are active in other parts of our brains are what we think of as ourselves — the kernel of the idea that we refer to in English as “I”. That idea is active during most of our waking lives and even in our dreams, though it is deactivated during deep sleep or under general anaesthetia. As we grow from infancy our idea of myself becomes larger and more elaborate by incorporating many other ideas that we believe about ourselves.
It’s interesting that even the idea of myself is surprisingly incomplete and inaccurate. It doesn’t incorporate a very detailed idea of what the back of my head looks like. My wife has a better idea of that than I do. And my ideas of my face and the sound of my voice are different from those ideas held by other people. I know my face best visually as its mirror image, and my voice sounds a bit deeper when I’m speaking than it does when I hear it played back from a recording. And those are just some superficial inaccuracies in my idea of myself. There must be other, more important ones related to my ideas of my own behavior. There are probably similar inaccuracies in your idea of yourself.
Ideas and memory
The idea nerve networks in our brains are, themselves, components of our long-term memory. A clear example of that is your memory of the familiar building that you toured a bit earlier in this essay. As we saw, ideas in our long-term memory are quite intricate and interrelated, and we can activate and explore them in many different ways. Some long-term memory networks are not so detailed, and we may mistakenly fill in missing parts with false memories. Not all of our idea nerve networks are memories of actual past events. Some are entirely imaginative creations of our own, from combinations of other idea nerve networks, but once created, they do become long-term memories of ours.
There is another kind of long-term memory that is called “episodic memory”. It is memory for specific sequences of events (episodes) in our lives. The continuing events in our lives activate, beginning through our perceptual ideas, corresponding idea networks throughout our brains. The ideas so activated constitute our short-term memory, and while they are active, connections between the nerve cells involved in them are strengthened. Furthermore, our brains have specialized nerve networks, many in our hypocampus, that are connected with many other parts of our brains and that are able to re-activate (remember or recall) parts of ideas that were previously active as short-term memories. Those specialized networks constitute our episodic memory systems.
As an example of how your episodic memory system works, recall how you took a mental visual tour of a familiar building when you read part of this essay earlier. You may even remember how you chose the building that you “visited” and how you moved around it and inside it. Notice that recalling your tour is initially different from taking the tour in the first place, but it can easily change to taking a new, different tour of the same remembered building. Now you have built even more episodic memories, one of “visiting” the building in the first instance, and new ones of “remembering” the first tour and “revisiting” the building. It’s amazing how complicated such short-term and episodic memories can be, and they do seem to follow a definite sequence in time.
You can probably also remember specific episodes — sequences of events — that took place in that building in the past. Think of one and then notice how you can explore your idea of that event by re-imagining it repeatedly forward in time, the same way you explored the remembered building itself.
From cases in which people have lost the ability to recall short-term memories at later times, and from knowledge of what parts of the brain are involved in such losses, we know that our episodic memory systems have key components that operate in specific areas in our brains.
Are there ideas other than those in biological nerve networks?
Do structures similar to the nerve networks in the brains of ourselves and other animals exist elsewhere in nature — ones that have the characteristics of semi-permanency, spreading activation and inhibition, possible dormancy, ability to combine and change, and importance in decision-making and actions? I can’t think of ways that individual plants have idea systems the way animal nervous systems do, but maybe botanists know of some. What about nerve-like networks in more complex systems?
We know that animals of migratory species — flocks of birds and herds of animals — have action ideas that are activated in them at about the same time and that cause them to move together. But it isn’t clear that they can be considered to have group ideas that transcend the ideas in their individual brains.
Plant supra-organisms, such as forests, have semi-permanent communication systems through root networks and airborne chemical signals that enable individual trees to coordinate their activities. Those may enable forests to have ideas of climate conditions or environmental threats that transcend their individual trees.
Human supra-organisms may also be thought of as having idea systems that transcend the ideas in the nerve networks of individual brains. Many human organizations maintain semi-permanent structures for record keeping, communication, and decision-making. Those systems have some properties similar to the idea networks in our brains.
Idea-like behavior often occurs through the communication systems of human organizations. Circulation of communications (in language, photographs, videos, and in art, including music) among people for example through the internet, can result in many people activating and modifying similar ideas in their brains more-or-less simultaneously. Such communications and the ideas they activate are called “memes”. They can give rise to fads and other social manias, such as wide interests among people in collecting specific things or engaging in similar activities. Manias about witches and witchcraft are an example, as are active political or religious ideologies that inspire many people to behave in similar ways, including supporting or opposing group activities such as wars.
Do computers and their programs have mechanisms similar to natural idea networks? So far such mechanisms in computers and programs are fairly rudimentary. Computer programs involve data structures and associated decision-making algorithms, but they have usually been very unlike biological nerve networks. Recently, some computer programs have been developed that are modeled on the perception-idea nerve networks of biological organisms. Those have become very successful at such tasks as predicting weather patterns, recognizing components of spoken and written languages, and recognizing human faces. So those computer systems might be said to have ideas that correspond to the patterns they can recognize. Further development of machines with associative networks similar to those in our human nerve networks should enable them to develop and modify ideas more and more in ways like we do.
We may be able, in the near future, to be augment our brains with artificial senses and memories, and with high-speed connections to external computing devices. That will enable hybrid natural/artificial beings, sometimes called “cyborgs” that exceed and transcend our natural human capacities for ideas.
So far, the maintenance and activation of information and communication systems in human organizations have relied ultimately on ideas in individual human brains and on decisions and actions by individual humans. But recently algorithms — automatic information-processing and decision-making systems involving computers — have begun to replace people in our organizational roles. So it is possible to contemplate hybrid human-computer supra-organisms in which computer systems will play increasingly important roles and in which hybrid idea networks might be developed that transcend individual human brains and even individual cyborg brains.
One can also argue that the “World Wide Web” of the internet is developing trans-human idea-like behavior, as an ever growing and changing network of connections between active web sites that can influence the behavior of other web sites and of the people interacting with them.
Can ideas come directly from outside our brains?
As far as I know now, new ideas — changes in nerve cell networks in our nervous systems are created only as a result of activation of existing ideas, either because of activation of our perceptual ideas by our sensory organs, including those involved in receiving communications from elsewhere, or because of random activities of nerve cells. Even nerve cells that are dormant but still alive can become active without much external stimulation.
However, some people believe in extra-sensory perception or what might be called more accurately extra-sensory communication. There are several different ideas of extra-sensory communication, some more plausible than others. One kind is by direct electrical stimulation of the brain during brain surgery. Another way is by electrical or magnetic stimulation of brain areas through the skull. Still another possibility is that we have sensory organs that have not been discovered yet, perhaps using as yet undiscovered physical phenomena. Still another possibility is that there are physical phenomena that can stimulate brain activity directly from afar, bypassing our senses.
Indeed, some people believe that ideas are received by our brains from outside sources in a manner that is analogous to the way radio and television sets receive transmissions from outside sources. But that seems to me an unnecessary hypothesis, because the immense complexity of the nerve networks in our brains allows for the more likely possibility that new ideas are created by random interactions between already existing ideas, and the fact that similar thoughts active in different people can interact in similar ways to activate and even create new ideas. (We say “Great minds think alike.”) I know of no systematic, repeatable evidence for possibilities of distant extra-sensory communication, or that they could have specific, directed effects on certain nerve cell idea networks in our brains rather than others.
Another possible idea of extra-sensory communication is that it could involve communication beyond the possible laws of physics altogether. Then it would better be termed “metaphysical communication”, which would leave it in the realm of permanently inexplicable phenomena. Either way, whether ideas can be received directly in our brains by unknown physical means or by metaphysical means, there is still a question of the source. Where would those ideas come from, and how would they “exist” in that source?
Whether one chooses to believe in metaphysical communication or not seems to be a matter of personal taste. That difference in taste seems to be related to differences in curiosity. People like me with a scientifically curious personality try to explain things by experiencing and examining many special cases and drawing general conclusions from them — a “bottom up” approach — while people with a metaphysical taste seem to prefer starting with a few abstract internal ideas (beliefs) they consider fundamentally valid and elaborating them by applying them to particular experiences. Either way, beliefs or lacks of belief in ideas of extra-sensory communication may have more emotional truth than practical truth.
For those of us with curiosity, the ability to explore our existence by asking questions and enlarging our experience provides more pleasure than if we were to stop asking questions and just accept mysterious ideas. We enjoy creating new ideas by combining existing ideas, rather than just repeatedly activating old ideas. That’s what active learning is all about.
What are the most basic ideas that we humans are usually born with?
Some of the basic idea networks infants are normally born with have been mentioned earlier. They include the face perception idea, the sucking and grasping action ideas, probably basic internal ideas of parent or nurturer, and also even a rudimentary idea of self.
I won’t attempt a full listing here of the other basic idea networks we usually have at birth, but I will list enough to suggest the overall picture. Many of these basic networks have been identified by using fine electrical probes within living brains, either of animals or of people undergoing brain surgery. Others are more speculative but plausible.
On the action idea side, it has been known for a long time that the part of our brain called our “motor cortex” is organized as a kind of map of our bodies, with nerve cells and small networks in small areas of the map that correspond to parts of our bodies that we can move with our muscles. That map is probably fairly crude at birth but becomes more refined through learning how to move.
On the perception idea side, we are born with specific nerve networks that represent the qualia of our senses — shades, boundaries, colors and locations in our visual systems, tone combinations and other combinations of sound frequencies and temporal sequences in our hearing systems, the five basic tastes our tongues can detect (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory or umami), our temperature sensations (hot, warm, cool, and cold), touch sensations (light to heavy pressure and small area to larger area touch), and varieties of pain (sharp or dull) from various senses. Related to pain ideas are more general ideas of unpleasantness, which are activated by some perception ideas (sour, bitter, hot, cold, raspy-sounding, etc.) and contrasted with those — that is, mutually inhibitory with them — are various built-in pleasantness or pleasure ideas (from mild to extreme) that are associated with various other perceptual ideas (sweet, salty, savory, warm, cool, melodious and harmonious-sounding, and so on)
Our built-in internal idea networks seem to include a generalized two-dimensional spatial representation related to our visual perceptual ideas and a generalized time sequence idea related initially to our built-in auditory perceptual ideas and ultimately to our episodic memory mechanisms. There may also be a basic built-in a generalized three-dimensional space idea connected to our binocular stereoscopic vision networks and our proprioceptive ideas of the locations of our limbs, although all of those basic networks must grow and change rapidly as a newborn infant grows into a crawling baby, a toddler, and a running child.
Our built-in internal ideas also seem to include an idea of discrete objects — things like our fingers that can be clearly distinguished from one another. That constitutes the basis of numbers (not to be confused with numerals, which are communication ideas that we learn later). We can recognize small numbers (1 through 7 or 8) of objects in our visual field without enumerating them directly. Even some other animals, including some kinds of birds, exhibit that ability. Combined with our time sequence idea, our discrete object idea provides the basis for the idea of counting that we are usually taught when we are very young. It is then that we learn names for numbers in our native language, and still later that we learn written numerals and even later that we learn positional notation for communicating numbers greater than nine.
Defects or unusual aspects of the usual built-in ideas or of the usual connections between them seem to account for various behavioral differences, including abnormalities, that people can have. For example, some people may be born with stronger internal pleasantness ideas and connections to those ideas, while other people may be born with stronger unpleasantness ideas and connections to those, accounting for people’s inherent differences in what we call “disposition”. And defects in the perceptual face idea or faults in the usual connection of face and smile with a built-in pleasantness idea might account for some kinds of autistic behavior.
Conclusion
By writing this essay I hope I have enabled you to elaborate your own ideas of ideas in ways that are similar to mine and to those of neuroscientists and other cognitive scientists. Those beliefs have both emotional truth and practical truth for people like us.
And by understanding ideas as I have described them in this essay, I think we can all gain better understanding of ourselves as animals, and more specifically as social animals. That understanding can enable us to act more cooperatively and harmoniously among ourselves and with other forms of life that share our planet with us. | https://medium.com/curious/what-are-ideas-79e378b0656b | ['Jim Mason'] | 2020-11-04 20:07:45.941000+00:00 | ['Cognition', 'Psychology', 'Philosophy Of Mind', 'Ideas', 'Language'] |
Review of Pandas DataFrame | Image source: edureka.co
Let’s learn how to get data in and look at it.We’ll need to remember a few things about pandas. First, pandas is a library for data analysis. The powerful tool of pandas is the data frame, a tabular data structure with labeled rows and columns.
Image source geeksforgeeks.org
As an example, we’ll use a data frame with Boston data.(here)The rows are labeled by a special data structure called an index.Indexes in pandas are tabled. Lists of labels that permit fast look up and some powerful relational operations.The index labels in the Boston Dataframe are unnamed.Labeled rows and columns improve the clarity and intuition of many data analysis tasks.
When we ask for the type of the Boston , it’s a data frame.
When we ask for its shape, it has 506 rows and 15 columns.
The Dataframe columns attribute gives the names of its Unnamed, crim, zn, indus, chas, nox , rm , age, dis, rad, tax, ptratio, black, lstat, medv. Notice the boston columns attribute is also a pandas index.
Data frames can be sliced like NUM PY arrays or Python lists using colons to specify the start end and the stride of a splice.
First, we can slice from the start of the dataframe to the 5th row non inclusive using the iloc accessor to express the slice positionally.
2nd, we can slice from the 5th last row to the end of the dataframe using a negative index.
There’s another way to see just the top rows of the dataframe, the head method specifying head five returns the first 5 rows. Specifying head two returns just the first 2 rows.
The head method is particularly useful because our data frame here has over 500 rows.
The opposite of head is tail. Specifying tail without an argument returns the last five rows. By default. Specifying tail three returns the last three rows.Again, tail gives a useful summary of large data frames.
Another useful summary method is info Info returns other useful summary information, including the kind of index, the column labels, the number of rows and columns, and the data type of each column.
The columns of a dataframe themselves are a specialized data structure called a series, extracting a single column from a dataframe returns a series.
Notice. The series extracted has its own head method and inherits its name attribute from the Dataframe column.
To extract the numerical entries from the series.Use the values attribute. The data in this series actually form a NUM py array, which is what the values attribute actually yields.
A pandas series then is a 1 dimensional labeled numpy array and a dataframe is a 2 dimensional labeled array whose columns are series.We’ve seen a few concepts extending what we already knew, including head, Tail info, index values, and series.Take some time to practice using these concepts, here you can find the link to notebook and boston.csv file on Github. | https://devzohaib.medium.com/review-of-pandas-dataframe-beginner-introduction-427af56e43ae | ['Muhammad Zohaib'] | 2020-11-18 19:56:25.006000+00:00 | ['Python Pandas', 'Data Mining', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Wrangling'] |
Ten Books Every Comms Planner Needs to Read | This actually isn’t a book but a report. It forms the backbone of the importance of creativity in the advertising process. Using the data from 996 campaigns entered in the IPA Creative Effectiveness Awards, Binet and Field make a compelling case on the role of media, creativity, emotion, short/long term focus, and fame in achieving advertising effectiveness. They have also come out with an update this year which suggests that short term impact is having a bigger impact.
Sharp brings academic rigour and data to the advertising world and helps dispel a number of myths around advertising. Some of his key highlights are the importance of advertising to everyone in the category vs. specific target, crushing of the concept of loyalty programs and the importance of creating distinctive assets.
The bible for brand planning. Jon Steel is an amazing storyteller who helps teach the raw skills with great examples that help land his points. An important read for anyone who is getting into the planning discipline.
Daniel Kahneman’s iconic book, Thinking Fast and Slow, opened the world up to how the brain actually makes decisions and created a new field of research in behavioral economics. In Decoded, Phil Barden shows how this applies directly to marketing, he covers all the major theories and shows how they impact package design, brand choice and the consumer journey with clear examples.
A great follow up read to Decoded, Lindstrom takes behavioral economics thinking and applies it to advertising using a mix of his own primary research and secondary examples that helps bolster this book.
Adam Ferrier is a consumer psychologist and my first boss. In his book ‘Advertising Effect’, he takes forward the thinking around behavioral economics and puts forward a model for planning on how you can incorporate a lot of the thinking of behavioral economics into a campaign.
Having a strong knowledge of System 1 & System 2 thinking is necessary to jump into Heath’s great book. After a career in advertising, Heath has gone back to academia to work out how advertising actually works, putting some great ground work into explaining low attention processing.
Advising clients on how we measure creative is a fundamentally important role for a comms planner. Paul Feldwick helps outline where the current measurement techniques originate from. As he explains, in a lot of cases, the tools are not backed in rigour and do not reflect the current communication environment.
As Anatomy of a Humbug outlines where advertising measurement comes from Jim Taylor outlines the beginning of Comms Planning as a discipline. It is an interesting read for how it all began and Taylor’s predictions from 10 years ago about where the discipline might head are fascinating.
The chasm between academia and practice has always been frightening. While Byron Sharp has done a wonderful job at bringing the two worlds together, more needs to be done from the current practitioners side of thing to stay up to date. These three journals consistently produce great articles with a high level of rigour behind the findings.
Passing it forward
Passing the knowledge forward, I would love to hear what others see as essential reads. So Richard Shotton, Tom Morton, Colleen Leddy and Byron Sharp you guys are up next for top ten essential reads for planners. | https://medium.com/comms-planning/first-ten-books-you-should-read-as-a-comms-planner-b33db2fa5f2e | ['Julian Cole'] | 2016-10-10 18:19:22.284000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Advertising', 'Strategy', 'Marketing', 'Behavioral Economics'] |
Let’s Adopt a Habit to Keep Our Code Clean | Don’t call the World Dirty because you Forgot to Clean Your Glasses! — Aaron Hill
Let’s make this task easier. During this test, we’ll first discuss some Benefits of Writing the Clean Code. Then, We’ll take a jump at some tips, or practices, for writing clean code to make it a good habit.
Major Benefits:
One of the most benefits is that clean code helps us minimize the time. We’d like to spend reading and trying to know the code. Messy code has the uncanny ability to hamper any developer and make his work much harder.
Another advantage of writing clean code is closely associated with the primary one. It allows for easier and faster adoption. What I mean is this! Let’s say that we’d like to hire another developer. How long will it take her to know the code and find out how to figure with it? It depends. If our code is messy and poorly written, she is going to need longer to urge through it. On the opposite hand, If our Code is Clean, Readable, Comprehensible, and Straightforward, She is going to be ready to start faster.
Now, once we discussed the advantages of writing clean code, It’s time to find out some tips which can help us roll in the hay.
Write For Humans:
The code we write is going to be interpreted by machines. However, it’ll be read and improved by humans. So, Write Incredibly Beautiful, Impressive, Attractive, and Readable Code.
Example of Indentation - Make code readable for people
Use Meaningful Names:
Meaningful names are descriptive enough that other developers are going to be ready to understand the aim of the variable, function, or object.
Use meaningful names for variables, functions, and methods
One Task At A Function:
Let every Function perform only one task. This may make your functions smaller, and increase your specialization in implementing that specific feature and therefore the ability to debug that function.
This practice of letting every function, or method, perform just one task is named the Single Responsibility Principle. — Introduced by Robert C. Martin.
One function or method performs only one task (Single Responsibility Principle)
No matter how hard you are trying to Write Readable Code, Sometimes you ought to insert some comments into your code to elucidate that's why and make your code more understandable.
Consistency Is Key:
Pick a group of Coding for practices then stick with those practices altogether of your projects. It’ll be much easier to return to your older code and continue where you left off. Like Indentation, Naming style, File structuring and etc.
Review Your Code:
When you write code, If you would like to stay it within the best shape you would like to update it regularly. You ought to review it daily, Clean it up, and Improve it. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/lets-adopt-a-habit-to-keep-our-code-clean-5a9f9c73315 | ['Adiba Abid'] | 2020-08-12 11:17:37.043000+00:00 | ['Javascript Tips', 'Coding', 'JavaScript', 'React', 'Programming'] |
“You don’t get it. You aren’t the point.” | “You don’t get it. You aren’t the point.”
The surprising reason why your brand sucks at storytelling, and what to do about it.
Meet the upside down triangle
Among the super simple things that they teach in journalism school there is the super simplest thing of all. It’s called the inverted pyramid, aka the upside down triangle.
The upside down triangle is an article template.
It’s designed to maximize the article’s attractiveness.
News that speaks to the widest audience goes up top.
News that speaks to the least amount of people goes at the bottom.
So news articles tend to be written like this:
The headline is most important.
It’s written to attract the widest audience.
The kicker is least important.
It only attracts the people who’ve read the rest of the article.
In between, there’s a logical progression of information that provides deeper and deeper context.
The article is telling you a story. Taking you on a journey. First it grabs your attention, then it connects the dots.
This is the simplest concept in media.
Happily enough, everything works this way.
Consider the humble magazine.
The goal of the humble magazine is to capture as much of its desired audience’s attention as possible. The humble magazine’s humble editors build each issue by selecting stories that are relevant, timely, and interesting to their chosen audience. They lead with what appeals to the greatest number of people in their audience. This is why magazines have celebrities on their covers, and tiny book reviews somewhere else.
This is, for example, how GQ works.
And The Economist.
And Portable Restroom Operator.
Don’t judge, restrooms are a great business.
In fact, a publication is simply a collection of upside down triangles
A magazine, for example, has sections. Each section (or vertical) is designed to be maximally attractive to a subset of an audience.
And each article within each vertical within each magazine is designed to be maximally attractive.
Yes, this is an inverted Sierpinski Triangle. Isn’t it pretty.
Anyway, this is an attention strategy.
Every decision begins with the audience in mind.
The publication leads with what’s most relevant, timely, and interesting to the audience.
Who the publication is, who the editors are, where the pages are printed or the pixels positioned, why this publication may be better than another publication, all of that — it’s incidental. The publication isn’t the point. The audience is the point.
The audience is the point because what the audience cares about leads naturally to who the publication is.
That is the exact opposite of a brand
Funnel-shaped silliness aside, most brands do not function like upside down triangles. Brands are right side up.
A brand does not begin with the audience in mind, and that’s true whether you’re doing feature-based selling or solution-based selling.
A brand begins as an idea about itself (the product) and then tries to sell that idea to an audience (the market). This is why it’s called “product-market fit”.
You in the market for a horse saddle? Here’s a horse saddle.
You’re not in the market for a horse saddle? Fuck right off.
This is a conversion strategy
Conversion strategies are right and good. When there is a clear problem to be solved — i.e., when there’s an audience that knows it needs a horse saddle — then a conversion strategy works.
But when the audience doesn’t know that it needs a horse saddle — or when the market is flooded with identical horse saddles — then a conversion strategy doesn’t work as well.
That’s when brands, who know they SHOULD be “doing content”, start wondering whether now is the time to start.
The challenge is that most brands aren’t good at awareness
A brand is a selfish thing.
It was born as an idea about itself, it raised money talking about itself, it sells product talking about itself.
It rightly and correctly does SEO and programmatic advertising and targeted banner ads and webinars and cold calls and feature releases and press releases about itself.
But this is why brands aren’t good at telling stories beyond themselves.
A brand wants people to aspire to its product. To a brand, their product is the customer’s goal.
But people don’t aspire to products.
People aspire to feelings that products give them. This is true for everything from candy bars to sports cars to cloud-based document storage solutions.
You can probably see where this is going
Publications don’t sell horse saddles.
Publications sell the idea of horseback riding. (And so do brands like Slack)
They sell stories about sun-drenched Wild West prairies and glistening Lipizzaner Stallions and the ecstatic freedom of a horse at full gallop.
There are infinitely more people interested in sun-drenched Wild West prairies and glistening Lipizzaner Stallions and the ecstatic freedom of a horse at full gallop than there are people who own a horse and need a saddle.
Now if you’re a brand marketer you might say well yeah, sure, but people who are interested in sun-drenched Wild West prairies and glistening Lipizzaner Stallions and the ecstatic freedom of a horse at full gallop are an unqualified audience. Most of them will never buy a saddle. And also my bonus structure is tied to yearly sales, and this content thing sounds like it takes a long time.
All of that is true.
Content does take a long time, and tying content to sales is difficult. Bigly difficult. (Exactly why it’s difficult and how to overcome some of those difficulties is the topic of an upcoming post.)
But the desire to directly link content to sales misses the point. If you’re getting into content to make some quick sales, you’re doing it wrong and for the wrong reasons.
The point of an awareness strategy is not to capture dollars by selling a thing. The point of an awareness strategy is to capture attention by selling an idea adjacent to that thing.
By capturing attention with ideas you own that idea. By owning the idea, you own the audience.
By owning the audience you can tell the audience what to pay attention to, and thereby define the marketplace.
That is a long term play.
But that is the power of an awareness strategy, and thus the power of content.
To succeed, you just need to stop talking about yourself…and start talking about what your audience already cares about. | https://stevebryant.medium.com/you-dont-get-it-you-aren-t-the-point-7ac2e5f84300 | ['Steve Bryant'] | 2020-03-09 13:42:29.684000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'News', 'Branding', 'Social Media', 'Tech'] |
Make Black Lives Matter In Your Workplace | Make Black Lives Matter In Your Workplace
Seeing your prejudices and bringing your privilege out into the light is a step towards change.
Previously published on Forbes
Say what you need to on social media. Then put down your phone and pick up your life. Not many will see you learning, confessing, repenting, uprooting, retooling, forgiving, inviting, empowering. But we will see its fruit. The hidden work is the heart work is the hard work. — Ashlee Eiland
Racist. This is not a term I have ever used to describe myself. But after reading “ White Fragility “ by Robin DiAngelo, I can identify my own racism. As a friend of mine said about the book, “It’s a tough but necessary read for white people.” It’s also illuminating and transformational. That’s why I am inviting every white person I know to read it.
With straightforward language and an unapologetic perspective, DiAngelo writes about why it’s so hard to admit one’s own racism and prejudice: We have it in our minds and hearts that racist people are bad people. And no one wants to be a bad person.
In an interview with Sandee LaMotte at CNN, DiAngelo explains:
One of the most important white pillars is what I call the good/bad binary — you’re either racist or you’re not. If you’re racist, you’re bad. You’re intentionally and consciously mean to people based on race. And if you’re not racist, you’re good, you’re nice and you’re open minded. What that sets up is that being a good person and being complicit with racism become mutually exclusive.
Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. Our culture has reinforced the message of white supremacy (the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society) for hundreds of years. It’s the water we’ve swum in. It’s the air we’ve breathed. This article by Isaac Bailey, demonstrates that no one is immune to the influence of white supremacy. You and I have absorbed these messages, whether we consciously chose to or not.
But seeing your prejudices and bringing your privilege and sense of superiority out into the light is a step towards change.
How Good Leaders Model the Way
What does leadership look like now that the Black Lives Matter movement has finally come to the forefront of all of our conversations and consciousness?
First and foremost, it looks like having people of color on your leadership team.
Don’t just give lip-service to this, build diversity into your organization by ensuring that your internal practices — hiring, promotions, who gets opportunities, etc. is not just for people who look like you. Second, true leadership looks like doing your own work. It looks like educating yourself about racism and prejudice. It is taking responsibility for how you are part of the problem. Then it’s sharing vulnerably with your team about what you are learning and what’s becoming clearer to you.
This kind of vulnerability-based sharing is no easy thing. It may even be one of the more challenging things you do in the days to come — in an already uniquely challenging environment.
Good leaders model the way. They show others what is possible and open perspectives for those that follow them. This is the heart of good leadership.
I am engaging in this conversation in a way I never have before. As I said, I didn’t think any of this applied to me. I had never considered myself racist and like to think I am a “good” person. I now know that those two terms are not mutually exclusive. The challenge is to walk straight into this conversation, this inquiry. To look at it squarely and not flinch or look away out of discomfort. It might get messy. You may not like what you see. But do not look away. This is a life or death matter.
In my own case, I recently discovered that I have been marginalizing a woman of color who reports to me, and I wasn’t even aware of it. She told me that she feels like I’m not listening to her as fully as I do others and that I seem to be more effusive with other team members. Predictably, I became defensive. I denied it.
But, with further reflection, I can see that she was right. I didn’t listen fully to her. I valued the contributions of other team members over hers. Not once did I become curious about her culture, her way of seeing the world, the impact of our white-dominated western culture on her. My own racism was hidden in the shadows. Now I am seeing all of this, and I’m grateful.
Before the death of George Floyd and the subsequent wake-up call for all white people, I would have argued and defended myself if someone had called me “racist.” As DiAngelo points out, “White people who see themselves as liberal can be the hardest, the most defensive, the most resistant, the most arrogant in their certitude that it is not them.” Now I can see that, too.
Consider that there is no way any of us white people could have avoided internalizing a racist worldview. It’s liberating to learn and understand why you need to stop saying that you’re not racist. It opens up your mind and your heart to a larger conversation, where new choices and actions are possible.
Many of us are asking, “What can I do?” If you are a leader, here are a few tips from a colleague of mine, Carmen Morris, on Forbes:
Recognize your own privilege. Advocate for radically changing systems of inequality. Don’t take it personally, recognize your position. Listen to the experiences of black and brown people. They matter. Practice reflective thinking and act to make changes.
I will be traveling beside you on this journey toward inclusive leadership.
*Ashlee Eiland is the author of Human (Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together | https://medium.com/swlh/make-black-lives-matter-in-your-workplace-ecbce9ed8b12 | ['Dede Henley'] | 2020-06-26 18:11:47.470000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Self-awareness', 'Unconscious Bias', 'Racism', 'Personal Development'] |
Why My Suicidal Thoughts Haven’t Gone Away | Trigger warning: The following article talks about suicide.
I’m not exactly private about my tendency to have suicidal thoughts. I’ve briefly mentioned it at least once or twice in written pieces before. I’ve talked about it with friends I’ve never met in real life.
Suicidal thoughts are nothing new to me. When I was just eight years old, I burst into tears in front of my aunt, uncle, and grandparents, screaming “I wish I could die” at least a hundred times.
At the tender age of eight, I already felt useless, not smart enough, not gifted enough, and even not imaginative enough. I felt like the majority of people in the world were cruel and “out to pick apart every flaw and use it against me.” Maybe I have a severe case of paranoia, which then has festered over time every time I’m let down and disappointed by somebody or an instance where I am proven right — that nobody really gives a shit about me because I’m very awkward, ordinary, and so different from some flawless “it girl” that society adores and favors and wants to shower with praise, prestige, wealth, and fame.
Now to clarify, I don’t want to be put on a pedestal like famous people nor am I insinuating that I aim to be like that in order not to get rid of feelings of worthlessness.
The root of it is feeling like I can’t ever be appreciated as I am, if I am not that kind of productive, smart, beautiful, flawless, and charming “it girl” that exceeds every (albeit, superficial) unspoken standard set by society.
But at the same time, I don’t want to force myself to be someone I’m not just to be well-liked, but many times in my life, I’ve felt sidelined for two basic reasons:
Outwardly, most people just don’t vibe well with me. I often think it’s because I don’t have the right personality, I’m socially awkward, and I’m not stereotypically hot or drop dead gorgeous like people on TV. I don’t have the “right mannerisms” or the ability to persuade people. I stumble over my words when I’m speaking and struggle with basic social skills. I have the charisma of a rock and I hate that about myself. Inwardly, I also think I have deficiencies that prevent me from getting better significantly in things I do care about. These traits specifically are laziness, procrastination, my tendency to be in mentally frozen in place, perpetual self-loathing, and lack of motivation. I don’t think I’m inherently creative enough or able to process more complex thoughts and it’s a struggle for me to do what I love consistently and creative blocks prevent me from keeping the momentum going at high rates.
I may be externalizing my worth and letting what other people think of me control the way I feel about myself and what confuses me the most is that I understand that their opinions of me, especially negative ones that form without the intent to make me better but just beat me down, don’t hold weight and I should just be as I am and continue to improve in ways that I actually do care about, while letting go of my self-destructive perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies, in order to move on, heal, and change who I am from the inside in order to feel like my worth is how I define it, not how anyone else does.
But no matter what I think or how much I try to think positively or how much I reassure myself that even if I don’t meet everyone’s standards on how I ought to be in order to make my own life worthwhile, it’s insanely difficult. I beat myself up almost every day and I’m extremely sensitive to reminders of how I’m not enough and how I can’t ever amount to anything great in life because of both the aforementioned outward and inward deficiencies that I perceive as unfixable, which leads me to a downward spiral of thinking that I don’t deserve to live and that I will never be enough. | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/why-my-suicidal-tendencies-have-increased-even-if-things-have-gotten-objectively-better-than-3f55f5d54caa | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-12-26 05:43:14.696000+00:00 | ['Suicide', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Depression', 'Life'] |
FROM WEB DEVELOPMENT TO BI- EP01 | From Web Development To Business intelligence
Hello everyone i decide to write this series of stories about my experience where i passed From Web development to Business intelligence.
Firstly i’m a web developer i choose to move to data field starting from BI , after more than 4 years in programming (java,c++,c…) and i’m planning to write series of stories from my experience with one or two articles per month .
i will start with questions that any one who want to move from programming to Data will ask :
- can i move to Data domain ?
yeep that’s absolutely possible .
- my previous experience will be an advantage for me ?
again that’s absolutely right the previous experience will help because when we write programs we use database (Relational database) and the start point for BI is a relational database (in most cases) so the past knowledge will help to made the data understandable .
new let’s move to what i learn in this month so the firstly i started by reading generally about BI from different sources like books (Business Intelligence For Dummies,Oracle Business Intelligence EE 11g,…) ,Videos (youtube , dailymotion,…) and websites (openclassroom, udemy, lynda,..)…, so i learned the history of BI and the process or life cycle of a BI Project .
Since i will work with Oracle BI Solution i started with learning the Oracle ELT Which is ODI (Oracle Data Integrator )- oracle use the concept of ELT (extract Load Transform ) instead of ETL (Extract Transform Load) which is used by many Companies (microsoft,IBM,…).
ELT made it possible to integrate many data sources to one target database (Data Warehouse) from different types RDBMS (Oracle, sql server, Mysql…),files, (xml,json,log,…) or web services…, oracle use ELt so we benefit from the treatment speed of database management system instead of using server to make transformation between source and target DBs.
after that i moved to learn OBIEE which is used after data warehouse for making and publishing reports.
this is the end of the 1st episode , in the next one i will speak about generally about the project which i’m working on, and more technical information about oracle solution until then i will leave you, thank you for your priceless time . | https://medium.com/from-web-development-to-business-intelligence/hello-everyone-i-decide-to-write-this-serie-of-stories-about-my-experience-with-from-web-949e8ca2c5a4 | ['Ismail Talhaoui'] | 2019-06-12 01:43:45.265000+00:00 | ['Obiee', 'Odi', 'Oracle', 'Java', 'Jee'] |
I Start To Wrinkle Like The Bed | What if I don’t want to be strong?
Is that so wrong?
How I stand outside the desolation of a stage house
singing the same old song
Everyone listens,
Cheering with an outlandish applause
but no one hears me
I sit at the foot of a bed with wrinkled bedsheets
Falling back to lie down,
as I wait for the next round
I frown out of frustration
Out of defeat
Out of depression
Out of deceit
I wasn’t prepared for this living
This process of elimination
That I’m beaten down for
Falling back further,
I start to wrinkle like the bed
Old, shriveled up, tossed out
Used up until I’m dead | https://medium.com/scrittura/i-start-to-wrinkle-like-the-bed-b355f3250234 | ['Mary Jones'] | 2020-12-10 17:54:47.135000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life', 'Depression', 'Mental Health'] |
Building Neural Networks with Neural Networks: A Gentle Introduction to Neural Architecture Search | Building Neural Networks with Neural Networks: A Gentle Introduction to Neural Architecture Search
A recent survey by IBM outlined the main neural architecture search methods used to automate the design of deep learning systems.
I recently started a new newsletter focus on AI education. TheSequence is a no-BS( meaning no hype, no news etc) AI-focused newsletter that takes 5 minutes to read. The goal is to keep you up to date with machine learning projects, research papers and concepts. Please give it a try by subscribing below:
Designing deep learning systems is hard and highly subjective. Any midsize neural network could contain millions of nodes and hundreds of hidden layers. Given a specific deep learning problem, there is a large number of possible neural network architectures that can serve as a solution. Typically, we need to rely on the expertise or subjective preferences of data scientists to settle on a specific approach but that seems highly unpractical. Recently, neural architecture search(NAS) has emerged as an alternative solution to this problem by making the design of deep learning systems a machine learning problem by itself. NAS is rapidly gaining popularity as an active area of research in the deep learning space. A few months ago, researchers from IBM published a survey about some of the most popular NAS methods that help us design more effective neural network architectures.
What is Neural Architecture Search?
The principles behind NAS are as simple as its implementation is complex 😉 Conceptually, NAS methods use machine learning to find suitable architectures for training deep learning models. At a high level, the architecture of a deep learning model is cast as a search problem over a set of decisions that define the different components of a neural network. The raising popularity of NAS has caused an exploring in the number of techniques in this area which makes it increasingly hard to keep track of. However, most NAS methods are based in two fundamental components:
· What to search for?: A search space that constraints the different options available for the design of a specific neural networks.
· How to search?: A search algorithm defined by an optimizer that interacts with the search space.
Those two principles: the search space and the optimizer model, helps us understand the core NAS methods in the market.
Search Space
Let’s define a neural network as a function that transforms a series of inputs into a series of outputs using operations such as convolutions, pooling, actions etc. From that perspective, the search space of a NAS model constraints the combinations of operations that can be applied to a given problem. In simpler terms, the search space refer to the set of feasible solutions of a NAS method. Given a deep learning problem, there are two fundamental groups of search spaces:
· Global Search Space: This space covers graphs that represent an entire neural architecture.
· Cell Search Space: This space focuses on discovering the architecture of specific cells that can be combined to assemble the entire neural network.
Global Search Space
The global search space is, by definition, the dimension that admits the largest degrees of freedom in terms of how to combine the different operations in a neural network. An architecture template may be assumed which limits the
freedom of admissible structural choices within an architecture definition. This template often fixes certain aspects of the network graph. For instance, it may divide the architecture graph into several segments or enforce specific constraints on operations and connections both within and across these segments, thereby limiting the type of architectures that belong to a search space.
In principle, the global search space can be based on the order of operations applied in a neural network or based on higher level templates for a neural network architecture. Using those ideas, IBM identified three main types of global search spaces:
1) Chain-Structured: This search space consists of architectures that can be represented by an arbitrary sequence of ordered nodes such that for any node, the previous node is its only parent
2) Chain-Structured with Skips: A variation of the previous model that introduces arbitrary skip connections to exist between the ordered nodes of a chain-structured architecture, members belonging to this search space exhibit a wider variety of designs.
3) Architecture Template: This search space is based on architecture templates that separate neural network architectures into segments connected in a non-sequential form.
Cell Search Space
A cell-based search space builds upon the observation that many effective handcrafted architectures are designed with repetitions of fixed structures. Such architectures often consist of smaller-sized graphs that are stacked to form a larger architecture. Those smaller graphs are often referred as cells. The main benefit of the cell-based search space is that yields architectures that are smaller and more effective but can also be composed into larger architectures.
In the cell-based search space a network is constructed by repeating a structure called a cell in a prespecified arrangement as determined by a template. A cell is often a small directed acyclic graph representing a feature transformation.
Optimization Methods
After we define the search space, the next phase of the problem is to identify the optimization method required to define the neural network architecture. In recent years, researchers have explored a wide range of optimization paradigms including reinforcement learning and evolutionary algorithms for devising novel NAS methods. While the former set of methods consist in learning a policy to create networks so as to yield high performing models, the latter set of methods explores a pool of candidates and modifies them with an objective to improve performance.
Defining an optimizer in a NAS model is a black-box optimization problem which essentially means that the optimizer will be querying the target model to evaluate its performance during the process. In the current state of the market, there are three main optimization models for NAS.
Reinforcement Learning
These optimization models leverage reinforcement learning action-reward duality to have agents that modify the architecture of a neural network and receive a reward based on its performance. In that model, a controller is regularly updating a series of criteria’s in the neural network and evaluates its accuracy.
Evolutionary Algorithms
Evolutionary algorithms are population-based global optimizer for black-box functions which consist of following essential components: initialization, parent selection, recombination and mutation, survivor selection. In the context of neural architecture search, the population consists of a pool of network architectures. A parent architecture or a pair of architectures is selected in step 1 for mutation or recombination, respectively. The steps of mutation and recombination refer to operations that lead to novel architectures in the search space which are evaluated for fitness and the process is repeated till termination.
One-Shot Models
We define an architecture search method as one-shot if it trains a single neural network during the search process. This neural network is then used to derive architectures throughout the search space as candidate solutions to the optimization problem. This model uses an interconnected graph of possible components and the paths represent a potential architecture.
NAS is one of the most fascinating disciplines in the deep learning space. However, its popularity is also making the space incredibly crowded. The taxonomy based on search spaces and optimization models is a good starting point to start understanding NAS methods as one of the most effective approaches to design neural networks. | https://medium.com/dataseries/building-neural-networks-with-neural-networks-a-gentle-introduction-to-neural-architecture-search-b5a8a562040d | ['Jesus Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-02 14:20:03.234000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Thesequence', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
What is a Researcher for Purpose Doing at OutSystems? | Before I joined OutSystems as part of the User Experience Research team, my work as a researcher and designer focused on impacting ‘real-world’ environments, from industrial cities in Italy to remote communities in Mozambique.
My purpose was — and has always been — to spot opportunities and problems. In my previous life, that meant traveling around the world, getting close to (and occasionally living with) a specific group of people, and collecting data about their work, their lives, and their cultural attitudes. With some targeted individuals, we even co-created solutions to match their needs and expectations.
I have been lucky enough to meet some of the most fascinating cultures and people on Earth because this kind of work is strongly tied to social or developmental organizations. So it may have come as a bit of a surprise to some people when I joined OutSystems, a software company that has little to do with remote communities in far-flung corners of the world.
UX research at OutSystems
Ethnographic Research for Digital Experiences
Actually, what a User Experience Research team does in a software company isn’t that different from what I was doing in those remote communities. Trust me: we may not live with OutSystems users, but we are getting closer and closer to them.
We regularly meet with our stakeholders (users, teams, clients, and partners) and apply multiple participatory research methodologies to better understand them. What does this mean? It means our research emphasizes participation and action, and as part of this approach, a method I have always been a big fan of is creating field diaries.
I first realized the full potential of written and photo diaries in Ethiopia and Mozambique, where efforts by entities to help people often fail due to the lack of on-the-ground knowledge about the communities in which they operate. In fact, projects and products can fall short of their original intent and design because of cultural beliefs or different priorities.
For instance, a classic example is mosquito nets being distributed to fight malaria, only to have the inhabitants of coastal regions use the nets for fishing, as this is a higher economic priority.
Capturing a Community
To address this, we implemented written and photo diaries so that people could clearly express what is important in their everyday lives, which in turn allowed us to identify community changes, whether big or small.
As an example, one of our agroforestry stakeholders was generating a substantial amount of new employment in rural areas, and not all changes were positive. The diaries allowed us to identify and avoid major conflicts between locals and the company, perform program course corrections, reduce downtime, and rationalize production, as well as spot further business opportunities.
Moreover, we provided research participants with cameras to capture everyday life through community photography. Frame by frame, they captured unconventional scenarios that outsiders would never be able to witness, from witch doctor rituals, household routines, and traditional dances to farming practices.
Field diaries in a rural community in Mozambique
Field diaries at OutSystems
Field Diaries at OutSystems
Back then, field diaries helped us address the question: “What happens when the company arrives?” Now, at OutSystems, we use the same method to address a different question: “What happens when users develop with our platform?”
Instead of receiving handwritten diaries and photos, we receive digital journals and screenshots from our users about their experience. Then, we further explore their needs, concerns, and improvement suggestions in talks. Users also provide feedback proactively in the OutSystems Community, and I very much appreciate reading their amazing suggestions in a collaborative space called OutSystems Ideas. Not every suggestion is brought to life, but the engineering team considers each proposal.
So, it’s all about establishing proximity with our users and asking the right questions. In fact, a very important responsibility of our User Experience Research Team is to enable product teams to perform good research that will allow OutSystems to make reliable fact-based decisions.
Workshop about unbiased questions for UX research
As you can see here, User Experience Researchers play an essential role in supporting decision-making processes. There is a different challenge to solve almost every day, new teams to support, and exciting things to learn! The fast-paced environment allows me to work at both strategic and operational levels.
At OutSystems, our research is of course business-oriented, but for me, the beauty of it is to realize the great impact we are having on people’s lives.
Only by getting close to users did I begin to understand exactly how OutSystems is helping people. I see their eyes light up when they talk about how their lives changed for the better after becoming an OutSystems developer and integrating it in their work. Here’s what they had to say:
I didn’t like my job because it was always the same routine, nothing new to learn and no problems to solve. I wanted to change my career path but I didn’t want to go back to the university and study for another five years. So, I learned to develop with OutSystems to have exciting professional challenges and solve problems every day!” — Former mechanical engineer
“We are creating a business platform and timing is a big issue! In this new project we have limited technical people, and writing in traditional code would take too long (…) So, we switched to OutSystems and accelerated the process. (…) Now I can finally implement my ideas, quickly!” — Python developer and entrepreneur
“I couldn’t find a job in my area and now I’m a developer!” — Former social assistant
Research for Purpose at OutSystems
So there you have it. Not only do the research methodologies share common aspects, with our team increasingly embracing an approach in which we want to deeply understand the reality of our users, but we also want them to be part of our solutions.
But more importantly for me, I see how OutSystems can change people’s lives for the better. More and more people who were struggling to implement their ideas, or were frustrated with their career paths, adopted OutSystems and found an unforeseen passion. I can quite confidently say that User Experience Research at OutSystems is research for purpose, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. | https://medium.com/outsystems-engineering/what-is-a-researcher-for-purpose-doing-at-outsystems-dd7d86c3928e | ['Ana Filipa Couvinhas'] | 2020-12-29 11:49:10.789000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UX Research', 'Research', 'User Experience', 'UX'] |
Distancing Self | Written by
Daily comic by Lisa Burdige and John Hazard about balancing life, love and kids in the gig economy. | https://backgroundnoisecomic.medium.com/distancing-self-df8e97d7ac58 | ['Background Noise Comics'] | 2020-05-09 00:52:48.534000+00:00 | ['Comics', 'Humor', 'Mental Health', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Therapy'] |
Penjelasan singkat tentang project dan product serta perbedaan antara keduanya | Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways
Follow | https://medium.com/easyread/project-vs-product-b9c89a079fed | ['Fitra Akbar'] | 2020-11-22 07:34:45.314000+00:00 | ['Indonesia', 'Project Management', 'Product Manager', 'Startup', 'Product Management'] |
Editor’s Picks — Top 10: How to Break Writing Rules With Grace | These are the top 10 writer’s, we want you to read and enjoy today:
10. Why Peter Dinklage Will Be the Ultimate Toxic Avenger
Tim Ebl is an author, adventurer, and mindfulness mentor. His style is simple, direct, and engaging. You’ll love it. If you read this story, you’d definitely like to check his other work.
The 1984 film The Toxic Avenger is getting a reboot. It was announced in late November that Peter Dinklage will be the protagonist of the film. It’s a cult classic remake that has a lot of us waiting on the edge of our seats for release day. Peter Dinklage is best known for his role as Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones. He also appeared in Elf (2003), Lassie (2005), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Avengers: Infinity War (2018)and many other movies. What makes him a great choice for this role? Let’s break it down. But first, who is the Toxic Avenger?
9. Our Love for MyLibooks
Melissa Bee is an excellent writer who believes in the power of love. Her style is charmingly engaging. She is sharing Kaylee’s first reading experiences. I still remember the joy I felt on the day when I read my first story. Don’t miss this one.
As more parents have been homeschooling amid the pandemic, we search for resources that can make learning fun, easy, and enjoyable. MyLibooks has been able to deliver on it all, positively impacting my 4-year-old, Kaylee. MyLibooks are a series of personalized books created for early emergent readers. These books have made Kaylee excited to read!
8. For the Love of Audiobooks
Yolanda Fleming has authored a novel. She is a superb writer who loves to write short stories. She shares her joy of exploring audiobooks. Written word — in spoken form. Don’t miss this one.
I enjoy shopping for my next audiobook to listen to on Audible or Libby on my daily commute almost as much as I enjoy indulging in the act of listening itself. Why audiobooks? Simple. Reading while driving is illegal. Not only that, but I’m a writer with a reading to-do list five miles long and a full-time job that put me in reading glasses two years ago. Since I started commuting an hour each way to work nearly three years ago, I decided I didn’t want to think of driving as time I’ll never get back. The only way that ever happens now is when the book I’m listening to isn’t making me love sitting in traffic. Don’t get me wrong, I love music, but I’ve never felt hungrier for stories than I do now.
7. Do You Know What A Nurse Actually Does?
Julie Nyhus MSN, FNP-BC is a nurse practitioner and an excellent write who likes to focus on health and medicine. You cannot — should not — ignore her work. Follow her. Read her story to know more about what a nurse actually does.
The majority of people don’t know what it is that nurses do. It’s not the public’s fault. Nurses have been quiet about it for too long. I’ve been a nurse for over 20 years and none of us expect non-nurses to understand the scope of nursing practice from which we unwind our magic every day. But when television and media — (cough) the new medical drama Nurses — portray my incredible profession as unfriendly, incompetent, and poorly trained, it’s time to spread the word: that is not who we are!
6. Five Tips You Need to Know Before Starting a Side-Hustle
Vera Laurent is travel obsessed International Affairs undergraduate. She is passionate about personal finance, books, honey-sweetened tea, and plane ticket prices.
She is an exceptional writer. Her style is charming, frank, and direct. If you missed it, here is your chance to undo that.
I have a side hustle — well actually I have a few. All of them are profitable. Now they didn’t all start that way, and yes some are still more profitable than others, but to me, they are all worth it. Over time I’ve realized there are steps that can help make your hustle more successful. Before we get any further let me say this — these tips aren’t going to make you rich and famous overnight. They are just tips, but if followed and executed correctly they can help you towards a more financially lucrative future.
5. Beating the Startup Grind
Clint Perez is a marketing and technology enthusiast. He is an outstanding writer. His writing style is logically consistent, formal, and engaging. You’ll love this story. Don’t miss it.
Contrary to popular folklore of the overnight successful American entrepreneur, starting a business is hard, often lonely work. You may have a great idea, a vision for a better future. And you are highly motivated to see that vision through to reality. But the path to success is fraught with uncertainty and hardship. You work long hours with seemingly minimal progress. Products fail to gain traction, marketing campaigns bomb, competitors enter the market and funding is hard to come by. It may even seem like the company is entirely dependent on you for success. That’s a lot of stress for one person. Where does an entrepreneur turn for answers and support?
4. These Are Uncertain Times, Find Whatever Sources of Income You Can
Henner Townlove likes to write about science and loves his Toyota. He captures your attention right from the start and doesn’t let you click away easily. If you are a citizen of our world — and your name is not on the Forbes’ richest people list — read this story. Don’t miss it.
Is the Economy going to get worse before it gets better? Most financial institutions will tell you that your money is gonna be okay, but they’re only saying that because that’s what the general public wants to hear, and these billion-dollar institutions are way above that to even care. Most will even tell you about how “normal” this cycle is — that when economies crash, they always end up recovering. We’ll, there is a bit of truth in that, but these time frames are set in years, and some can even go for a decade. The truth is — nobody knows what’s gonna happen.
3. How To Improve Your Relationship With Money
Matt Reicher is a writer and researcher. His style is interactive, thought-provoking, and highly engaging. If you hate money — or don’t love it like most of us — read this unique relationship expert who can make you and money live together for life. Don’t miss this one.
“Many folks think they aren’t good at earning money, when what they don’t know is how to use it.” ~ Frank A. Clark Let’s you and I play the word association game. When I say the word ‘money,’ what is the first word that pops into your mind? I immediately think of words like ‘bills,’ ‘spend,’ and ‘not enough’ (I know that’s actually two words — but stay with me here). Who among us thought of the word ‘tool.’
2. What It Means to ‘Do Your Own Research’
Ana Mamic is a fine writer. Her writing style is engaging and her voice is calm and logical. She can teach you to be more careful next time you are scrolling through endless social media content — if you allow her. Do check her other work.
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. (Frank Herbert, “Dune”) The most efficient fiction of Nazi propaganda was the story of a Jewish world conspiracy. (Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”) I see it more and more in the comments sections on social media: the exhortation to “do your own research.” The call to question not just authority, but everything that‘s presented to you as fact. To wake up. To refuse the blue pill of complacence and ignorance and follow the White Rabbit instead, like Neo in The Matrix. To start preparing.
1. In this Season of Giving, Follow Your Heart
At number one today, meet Tracy Stengel. She is an exceptional writer and a freelance editor. Her style is gentle, charming, engaging, and heartwarming. If you read this story, you’ll become a better human being. If everybody reads it, it would be a better world when we wake up tomorrow. Don’t miss this one. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/editors-picks-top-10-how-to-break-writing-rules-with-grace-66a857585817 | ['Dew Langrial'] | 2020-12-19 02:36:15.862000+00:00 | ['Reading', 'Writing', 'Readinglist', 'Writing Tips', 'Self Improvement'] |
An in-depth look at the AppBar widget | In this article, we’re going to review the AppBar widget’s parameters one by one using a little app I whipped up for this exercise. It’s available to you for download on Github called, appbar_example. You can then ‘look under the hood’ at the code and see how to use AppBar widget’s many parameters.
I Like Screenshots. Click For Gists.
As always, I prefer using screenshots in my articles over gists to show concepts rather than just show code. I find them easier to work with frankly. However, you can click or tap on these screenshots to see the code in a gist or in Github. Further, it’s better to read this article about mobile development on your computer than on your phone. Besides, we program mostly on our computers — not on our phones. Not yet anyway.
No Moving Pictures, No Social Media
There will be gif files in this article demonstrating aspects of the topic at hand. However, it’s said viewing such gif files is not possible when reading this article on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc. They may come out as static pictures or simply blank placeholder boxes. Please, be aware of this and maybe read this article on medium.com
Let’s begin.
We’ll work our way down the AppBar’s named parameters and illustrate how each affects the appearance of the app bar and the general ‘look and feel’ of the app overall. This widget is, in fact, a StatefulWidget. That means it has a corresponding State object (_AppBarState) that retains some values for the duration of the app. Below is a screenshot of the AppBar widget.
Implements A Preferred Size
Further note, the widget implements another class called, PreferredSizeWidget. Unlike Java with its explicit Interface types, Dart has implicit Interfaces. In Dart, as you see in the screenshot above, you can assign any class as ‘an interface’ to any other class by simply specifying it with the keyword, implements. That means, however, you’ve now some further work to do. All the functions from that class will need to be re-implemented in your own class (unless yours is an abstract class). Further, any instance fields from that class will need to be re-assigned values — otherwise, they’re null.
In the case of the AppBar class implementing the class, PreferredSizeWidget, it is the instance field, preferredSize, that now has to be assigned a value. You see, it’s seen as the height in which the AppBar widget would prefer to be if it were unconstrained. In most cases, that height is the sum of [toolbarHeight] and the [bottom] widget’s preferred height forming a band (a bar) along the top of the screen.
Play With Your AppBar
Again, the sample app on Github, will allow you to try out to some degree each and every parameter offered by the AppBar widget. Note, its parent widget, in this case, is the Scaffold widget and is also using a Drawer widget in this app. It this drawer that you’ll use to adjust the AppBar’s parameter values: | https://andrious.medium.com/decode-appbar-4e810020f744 | ['Greg Perry'] | 2020-12-22 17:22:12.997000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Flutter', 'Android App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'iOS App Development'] |
Progress is About the Convergence of Technologies | The essay predicted advances in business and technology with eerie precision, including how exponential growth would ripple through any technology that became an information technology, such as computing, biotechnology, or energy.
The past 15 years have shown that while some of Kurzweil’s specific predictions may or may not pan out exactly as predicted, the underlying idea of the law of accelerating returns grows more relevant with each passing week.
But as we start to look at the next fifteen years, I believe there is another concept just as significant as the law of accelerating returns that we need to understand.
The Law of Accelerating Convergence
The strangest, most interesting and magical-seeming creations of the future will occur at the intersection of multiple exponential trend lines. You might call this the law of accelerating convergence and can summarize it as follows:
As technology continues to exponentially accelerate, the interactions between various subsets of exponential technology will create opportunities to slingshot past the already breakneck speed of accelerating change in ways that are even stranger and more difficult to predict than the path of any individual exponential technology.
If we look at any singular outgrowth of exponential tech and focus solely on it, we’re missing the vast possibility space of the ways technology is about to reshape the world.
This is a tough concept to get our heads around.
Even trying to work through the ramifications and implications of a single exponential technology requires diligent thought and the willingness to take intellectual risks. Trying to comprehend how they’re all going to affect each other is six shades of impossible.
After all, what’s more important: artificial intelligence or biotechnology? What is going to have a bigger impact on the world: nanotechnology or solar energy? These questions don’t have easy answers. There’s an insidious assumption hidden within, which is that different technologies operate independently of each other. But in practice, they don’t. The importance of biotech might hinge on a crucial development in artificial intelligence. A new solar breakthrough could come about by applying concepts from nanotechnology.
The only way to know the future of virtual reality is to study the future of artificial intelligence. The only way to know the future of 3D printing is to study the future of biotech. The only way to know the future of energy systems is to study advanced materials design.
Convergence in Action
At Singularity University Global Summit, I had the chance to talk to and learn from innovators who realize that being able to capitalize on convergence is key to their continued success. They tend to start out being interested in one exponential technology before realizing that by augmenting their original strategy with elements of other exponential technologies they are able to make something transcendent.
What does this look like? Here are a few examples I came across at the conference:
Virtual Reality + AI = Stories that feel like real life : Virtual reality filmmaker and storyteller Chris Milk told me about his belief that artificial intelligence will be a critical component underlying the virtual reality stories of the future, allowing us to create complex, sweeping, and exponentially branching narratives.
: Virtual reality filmmaker and storyteller Chris Milk told me about his belief that artificial intelligence will be a critical component underlying the virtual reality stories of the future, allowing us to create complex, sweeping, and exponentially branching narratives. Mobile + Neuroscience = Optimal productivity and performance on demand: By combining cutting-edge research on optimal human performance with the ubiquity of mobile devices, Focus@Will helps users enter peak productivity flow states much more frequently. And now you can even quantify just how in the zone you get with Muse, a headband that can show you your brainwave patterns and let you know the moment you get distracted.
By combining cutting-edge research on optimal human performance with the ubiquity of mobile devices, Focus@Will helps users enter peak productivity flow states much more frequently. And now you can even quantify just how in the zone you get with Muse, a headband that can show you your brainwave patterns and let you know the moment you get distracted. 3D printing + Artificial Intelligence + Space Travel = Crazy Awesome: Made In Space is a company that creates 3D printers for use in, you guessed it, space. Their 3D printer is already on the International Space Station. More than that though, they aim to create products that couldn’t be designed by human engineers, built by human hands, or even crafted on Earth. In the future, they envision making designs using AI genetic algorithms and 3D printers to build objects that couldn’t be created in a gravity well.
So how do you get out ahead of the curve? It’s not easy. You read books. A lot of them.
You read blogs like this one. You talk to people, not just in your field, but in other fields.
There are even organizations that can help get you there.
But at the end of the day, we aren’t going to be able to predict all the effects of convergence. Not even as well as we’ve been able to write out some of the potential impacts of accelerating returns. The possibility space is too wide and the complexity too great.
Quite simply, if you’re a leader or entrepreneur ignoring the convergence points of exponential technology today, it’s like ignoring the rise of the Internet 15 years ago. The next wave of awesome and magical new inventions will be born when two or more technologies collide. | https://medium.com/singularityu/progress-is-about-the-convergence-of-technologies-90c01c6ea446 | ['Singularity University'] | 2016-11-29 22:18:47.483000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Singularity University', 'Abundance', 'Convergence', 'Technology'] |
How to Choose a 21st Century Career | How to Choose a 21st Century Career
Or: how to work with robots rather than against them
How many times have you heard a sentence that started with the words “I wish I had…”? College graduates wish they had understood how the world works before they chose their majors (or, indeed, whether to attend university at all). Middle-aged men and women wish they had chosen this industry over that.
Everybody has 20/20 hindsight, but peering into the future is a completely different animal. For my young readers, there is no better use of your time than to try to understand two things:
Which industries will blossom in the coming decades Which skills will be required within those industries
When trying to imagine the future today, the keyword is automation. You don’t want to be the guy training to drive a horse carriage the year before cars are invented. Once you start considering the implications of automation, your mind might swirl, and with good reason. But, is there an algorithm that can help us tackle this problem? The answer is yes.
For example, let’s say your first thought is: I want to build websites for a living. That’s great. Now, will web development be automated soon? It already has been, to a great extent. There are plenty of ways to build a web store, presentation, or landing page without writing a line of code.
So, what opportunities will arise from that? If you learn to use a good website building tool better than most people, you can excel and get a lot of projects done quickly. Add to that some coding skills and some design knowledge, and you have yourself a decent career in the making.
But, can you do better? Yes, you can, by focusing on what can’t be automated. For now, solving complex problems with code can’t be automated. A website builder can generate a web page, but it can’t generate, for example, a stock market analysis platform. Even if artificial intelligence grows so clever that it can code anything, it will still need to first understand what it is that the client wants to build. “Build a stock market analysis platform” is not a viable command for a machine. You need to provide exceedingly detailed project specifications before even the smartest robot can begin to comprehend what it needs to do. Even then, it’s not enough. If there is one thing experienced software developers know, it is this: no project spec is ever good enough. Every specification document needs to be discussed, revised, revamped, refactored and, sometimes, tossed out to be replaced with something that makes sense. So, where does that bring us in our career quest? Project management, creativity, and communication are more things that are difficult to automate and therefore have a future.
But wait, the rabbit hole goes deeper. What if computer-brain interfaces become very advanced in the next couple of decades? This could spell the end of the middle-man. The moment thoughts can be translated into code is the moment that programming dies. The good news is, I highly doubt that this will be a problem for your generation. If and when it does, it will open some amazing doors — new possibilities, new products, new ideas, and entirely new modes of living. Jobs will never disappear unless the economic need for people to work disappears. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-to-choose-a-21st-century-career-14062ab6a64 | ['Jovan Cicmil'] | 2020-09-17 12:12:54.047000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Automation', 'Work', 'Business', 'Future'] |
A Complete Guide to the Python Range Function | Syntax
range(start, stop, step_size)
Here:
start : Starting point of the sequence. Optional and by default 0 .
: Starting point of the sequence. Optional and by default . stop : Ending point of the sequence. The sequence ends one element before stop .
: Ending point of the sequence. The sequence ends one element before . step_size : Increment sequence by step_size . Optional and by default 1 .
Range returns a sequence of numbers that begins at start and ends before stop . The difference between the elements is step_size .
Let’s take a closer look at all three possible variants of the range() function.
Variant 1: Using only one argument (stop)
Here, we only pass a stop argument (where to end) to the range function. start and step_size will take default values of 0 and 1 , respectively:
# Print first 10 numbers starting at 0
for i in range(10):
print(i, end=' ') # Output
# 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Note: In the output above, the sequence ends an element before the stop value of 10. stop is not a part of this sequence.
Variant 2: Using two arguments (start and stop)
Both starting and stopping parameters receive values. step_size is 1 by default:
# Print integers starting at 1 and ending before 5
for i in range(1, 5):
print(i, end=' ') # Output
# 1 2 3 4
Variant 3: Using all three arguments
Now, we will use all three arguments: start = 4 , stop = 15 and step_size = 3 .
# Print integers starting at 4 and ending before 15 with a step of 3 for i in range(4, 15, 3):
print(i, end=' ') # Output
# 4 7 10 13
Note: The step value is 3 , so the difference between each number is 3 .
All three variants of Python’s range function (photo by the author).
Here is a quick snippet of the output when printing all even values between 2 and 20 :
for i in range(2, 20, 2):
print(i, end=' ') # Output
# 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 | https://medium.com/better-programming/a-complete-guide-to-the-python-range-function-d59d5209b14 | ['Chaitanya Baweja'] | 2020-06-30 14:44:02.250000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Software Development', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Team Zero — Welcome Laura 👋 | Team Zero would like to welcome Laura, who’ll be helping with Marketing & PR at Zero.
https://twitter.com/ZeroCurrencies/status/1334104600186671107?s=20
Blockchain PR | https://medium.com/zerocurrency/team-zero-welcome-laura-337a0d3665 | ['Zero Currency'] | 2020-12-08 16:05:03.495000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Zero', 'Marketing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto'] |
These Three New Species Of Peacock Spiders May Be An Arachnophobe’s Best Friend | Are you afraid of spiders? Most people are, but you might change your mind after learning about three newly-described peacock spiders, Maratus species, discovered in southwestern Australia. In fact, these tiny spiders are so adorable that an entire community of people from all walks of life have come together to devote time and resources to better understand them, making this a labor of love.
“I work on these spiders in my spare time after work hours,” said the author of the study, biologist Joseph Schubert, who pays his bills by researching a group of invertebrates known as Collembola (these are six-legged relatives of insects), at Monash University.
These new species were discovered by the citizen science group, Project Maratus
“These spiders were found by a group of keen-eyed individuals called ‘Project Maratus’, who actively head out into the wilderness and seek out new species of Maratus,” Mr. Schubert said in email. “They sent the specimens they found to me to formally classify in the lab.”
Project Maratus is a not-for-profit self-funded group of citizen scientists that undertakes field work and promotes peacock spider research. According to their Facebook page, Project Maratus is a “mammoth commitment”, often involving many thousands of kilometers of driving from habitat to habitat throughout Australia and weeks spent away from home.
“Our dedication and passion for the natural world is what drives us,” writes Project Maratus on their Facebook page.
The devotion of Project Maratus’s volunteers is invaluable. Currently, little is known about these spiders’ status in Australia, so Project Maratus’s findings are essential for expanding our meager understanding of peacock spider evolution and ecology. This dedicated community of spider hunters and macro photographers and videographers is the first coordinated effort to locate and identify these overlooked spiders’ distributions and preferred habitats throughout Australia.
Peacock spiders are Australia’s most charismatic minibeasts
“Surprisingly, I grew up an arachnophobe,” Mr. Schubert said in email. “In an attempt to cure my fear, I began keeping spiders as pets in high school. My fear slowly developed into fascination, and over time I have learned to love them!” | https://medium.com/discourse/these-three-new-species-of-peacock-spiders-may-be-an-arachnophobes-best-friend-cf4c5c92127d | ['𝐆𝐫𝐫𝐥𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭', 'Scientist'] | 2019-03-15 22:44:39.897000+00:00 | ['Evolution', 'Zoology', 'New Species', 'Spiders', 'Science'] |
For Rachel Carson, Wonder Was a Radical State of Mind | For Rachel Carson, wonder was a radical state of mind - Jennifer Stitt | Aeon Ideas
In 1957, the world watched in wonder as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into outer… | https://medium.com/philosophorum/for-rachel-carson-wonder-was-a-radical-state-of-mind-80ca3b3fbd51 | ['Kris Wetherholt'] | 2019-10-13 23:15:21.673000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Philosophy', 'Articles', 'Science', 'Rachel Carson'] |
The Most Important Thing My Dad Did for Me | 15 Years Later
Seventh grade was a long time ago. I have now finished graduate school and have been working full time for almost two years. This story has repeatedly popped in my head this year and has taught me a lot during 2020. I realized what my dad did for me then carries over into what I can do in my life now. That past experience has taught me two important lessons.
Lesson 1: It is better to be the worst player on the best team than the best player on the worst team
Right now in my life, I’m reaching a middle ground. I have been working for a couple of years, so I am confident in my skills as a clinician versus when I first started work. This creates the temptation to coast through work.
I’ve been working as a travel physical therapist, which pays well and makes it easy to coast if desired as I move from company to company every couple of months. Along the way, I tried to learn at least one thing from each coworker I met, but always sensed something was missing. I realized I did not have anyone to challenge me. All my bosses cared about was how many patients I see. No one was challenging my clinical skills.
I was recently offered a job from an owner with an incredible skill-set. He has gone back and earned additional certificates that require passing difficult exams. The dilemma is the job comes with a significant pay cut compared to travel physical therapy. During my decision on whether to take the job, my seventh-grade story played a key role in my decision making.
I realize I could continue being the best player on the worst team, or I take the pay cut and practice with players on a better team. I did the latter.
Honestly, it has been frustrating so far. I run into patients that would rather work with my boss because he is a “more experienced physical therapist”. This leads to constant self-doubt and wondering if I am a good clinician. I look back at my experience of joining that league where everyone was much better than I was and find comfort.
I will get better, my skill-set will improve, and ultimately I and my patients will benefit from it in the long run.
Lesson 2: Skill is important but skill without effort is useless
Like I mentioned earlier, I was a terrible shooter and my basketball skills were subpar at best. I received playing time despite this because of my effort when playing defense and grabbing rebounds.
It is important to master your skill, but effort is equally important. I know at work I could show up a minute before my patient walks in and have enough skill to wing it through their treatment.
Is that going to be my best work, though? Absolutely not.
By taking the time (effort) to get to the office 30 minutes early and plan each patient’s treatment, they will have a better experience. It will also place less stress on myself throughout the day.
In addition, I try to put in some extra effort and study first thing in the morning to continue mastering my craft as a physical therapist. There’s always the tempation to hit the snooze button when I first wake up, but I’ve seen how effort has made progress in my past and know it will continue to progress me towards a better future. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/the-most-important-thing-my-dad-did-for-me-e46343e1a5ea | ['Jordan Clevenger Dpt'] | 2020-12-24 13:40:44.774000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Happiness', 'Wellness', 'Mindset', 'Lifestyle'] |
Behind the White Picket Fence: we’re all pandemic children living in a dysfunctional family | Claudia Black is one of the best writers about dysfunctional families. Her book It Will Never Happen to Me is a primary text for those who were raised by alcoholics or those trying to understand someone in their life who had this experience.
And although these “rules” are not framed and hung on the wall, everyone knows/feels “the rules” that the dysfunctional/alcoholic family lives by:
Don’t talk. Don’t trust. Don’t feel.
These rules end up being a point of gravity that the family moves around, maybe not being able to see “the rules”, but knowing their presence. And especially when you violate “the rules”, there is a quick effort to bring you back into the orbit around what keeps everyone “happy”.
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
Don’t Talk!
If my own social media feed is any indication, people are talking about our leader’s decisions on reopening for business. Yet talk quickly moves to sniping and arguing in some perceived battle between wanting to provide for their family and accusing others of killing grandma.
“The rule” about “don’t talk” attempts to enforce agreement. There is a protection that the “adult” enjoys in a dysfunctional system. We all know that there is something wrong, but we cannot talk about it. Talking about it brings conflict, which hurts and harms the “children” in this family system.
This “rule” also helps keep up the appearance of the white picket fence. We all love the fantasy of “everything is just fine”; talking about the problem means that we can’t hold up the fantasy image of our family.
Photo by Jannis Lucas on Unsplash
Don’t Trust!
In a family with dysfunction/difficulty, there is an implicit (but sometimes explicit) effort not to rely on anyone outside of the family. “You take care of yourself and your family” can be the motto.
Some southern states are especially prone to this sort of “leave us alone” mentality that includes a rigid social structure.
This adds to the pressure in a dysfunctional/alcoholic family in that the person in charge demands your trust … even if you can clearly see that they are not worthy of that trust.
The white picket fence is further maintained because those within the family do not “trust” others to help them. You stay inside and are told to not trust anyone outside “the family”.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
Don’t Feel!
Most children in a dysfunctional family will hold all of these difficult feelings inside. On the outside, these children may seem to be “just fine”.
But inside, they “feel” all of it, yet are not allowed to express any of those feelings.
And then we are surprised when “children” in these families show their anger. Or we ponder why some of that anger turns inward to sadness and depression.
Many of these children become quite anxious not knowing how they are “supposed” to feel and trying to gauge what they should feel next based on what the adults around them are displaying. Especially when the “adults” (in state and national leadership) are arguing over funding for unemployment or what businesses should open and how or even arguing over “data” and medical science that should be uncontroversial.
So what do we who are children in this family do? We break the rules.
If the rules are “don’t talk” and “don’t trust” and “don’t feel”, then it is time to speak up when something is happening to us or others. We have to risk trusting others in our community to be able to handle our voice. And finally, we allow ourselves and others to feel what is happening.
All of this may be quite messy and difficult. The dysfunctional family prefers to live without conflict, to maintain the external white picket fence. But in the face of dysfunction, we often have to be honest with ourselves and our family members. We try to trust that we can hold on through the difficult feelings, talking through it all.
And even though that is a very hard path, this is the only way through to a better functioning family … and maybe even a better functioning government. | https://jasonhobbslcsw.medium.com/behind-the-white-picket-fence-were-all-pandemic-children-living-in-a-dysfunctional-family-b0c04d82d49c | ['Jason B. Hobbs Lcsw'] | 2020-04-25 01:26:18.394000+00:00 | ['Alcoholic', 'Politics', 'Therapy', 'Georgia', 'Psychology'] |
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