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Data Preprocessing in Python | Handling of Missing Data
I talk in detail about handling of missing data in the following post.
Well the first idea is to remove the lines in the observations where there is some missing data. But that can be quite dangerous because imagine this data set contains crucial information. It would be quite dangerous to remove an observation. So we need to figure out a better idea to handle this problem. And another idea that’s actually the most common idea to handle missing data is to take the mean of the columns.
If you noticed in our dataset, we have two values missing, one for age column in 7th data row and for Income column in 5th data row. Missing values should be handled during the data analysis. So, we do that as follows.
# handling the missing data and replace missing values with nan from numpy and replace with mean of all the other values
imputer = SimpleImputer(missing_values=np.nan, strategy='mean') imputer = imputer.fit(X[:, 1:])
X[:, 1:] = imputer.transform(X[:, 1:])
After execution of this code, the independent variable X will transform into the following. | https://towardsdatascience.com/data-preprocessing-in-python-b52b652e37d5 | ['Tarun Gupta'] | 2020-12-25 14:48:35.042000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Mining', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Is Amazons Logo a Phallus Symbol? | AFTER ALL THE YEARS of getting packages delivered by Amazon or watching Amazon Prime movies or going to the Amazon website I just noticed something.
The yellow squiggly thing under the Amazon word is most definitely shaped like an upward sloping penis!
Isn’t it?
I thought it was just a smile until my boyfriend Bob pointed said this while drinking his morning coffee:
“Have you noticed that the Amazon logo looks like a dick?”
HMMM. yeaaaaaaaaa. OMG. I never noticed. | https://medium.com/pickle-fork/prime-penis-video-deb93e4b7cc7 | ['Michelle Monet'] | 2019-01-16 20:52:43.009000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Fun', 'Advertising', 'Humor', 'Comedy'] |
Happy Mother’s Day Fellow Mommiors | Happy Mother’s Day Fellow Mommiors
You are the original badass
Image by Annalise Batista from Pixabay
If it weren’t for a post I saw on Facebook, I would not have known today was Mother’s Day. And yet, when I realized it was this weekend, I was not amused. One. More. Thing. To. Do.
I don’t have the energy to get the house ready for ‘my day’ to celebrate ‘me’ because truthfully looking at the pile of clean laundry that has been growing on my coffee table for the past two months doesn’t put me in the mood. Nor does my floor — which I clean daily, and yet, the dirt only comes off on the white socks that traipse all over it.
Don’t get me wrong, by all means, please take a day to think of me. But my work — my labor of love, blood sweat and tears, and general superheroness — has been compounded by this parallel universe/twilight zone of an era we’ve all been subject to.
In case you didn’t notice, let me remind you all of what me and my sisters have done to keep this boat afloat.
While we don’t necessarily want to get out of bed in the morning — we still do. And not because we’re being lazy or emotional. Because quite frankly, the sheer load of things we have to get done to keep everyone else sailing on this ship — is utter BS.
Thank you to the school districts for scrambling to find a viable solution to teaching our children during lockdown. With all the brilliant minds at work, I was certain we would at least be able to see our kids’ teachers and classmates in tiny boxes on the screen, waving frantically and sharing quarantine stories. But no, no, no. That was not so.
I realize the school board directors and scholars (you know the ones who write the curriculum but have never stepped foot in a classroom) were in a real pickle trying to figure out how to teach our children from a distance. However, online lessons without instruction or teacher support have only one direction to go. That’s right, “Hey mom! Can you help me?”
Thanks for yet another thankless task we have to complete, and you somehow get credit for.
Boredom and monotony are real issues as well. In fact, live entertainment is limited these days. But you know who brings on the works at least three times a day? Moms that’s who.
Introducing: breakfast, lunch and dinner at your service. We prep, perform, and clean our set — only to realize by the time we’re done, it’s time to put on another show. While good partners can take on a meal or two, who’s the one who cleans it all up when the curtain goes down? Who checks behind the seats, sweeps the floors and puts everything back in its place?
Oh and who runs the dishwasher two or three times a day? And the washing machine? Who magically vanquishes the mess and the spills? Who bids the boo-boos farewell?
Who takes the brunt of the whining, the arguing, and the negotiating with frustrated children who didn’t ask for any of this and do not know how or where to process this new normal? Who offers support for our partners (who are hauling this ship too) as we writhe through exhaustion, blurred by our own tears, fully aware that we are neglecting ourselves (yet again) in the midst of all of this? Us, that’s who.
Rock on sisters. You might be doing all of this before you even start your day job. You know, the one that may or may no longer be paying you.
It’s very hard to have any sense of ‘me’ in this equation because at the end of the day, when you haven’t had a chance to sit down, write an email, or even wash your face, you just want to cry because this all seems too familiar and so unfair.
Hey mom, remember how you spent years and years cultivating yourself? You wanted to be your own person, respected, valued, and appreciated for your worth. You may have gone the route of finishing school, getting a job and/or even starting a family. Whatever you did, you did well and worked your ass off. You took care of everything and everyone.
But somewhere, in between the to-dos, you found time for you. You knew your worth and you treated yourself. Maybe it was good book, a trip to a coffee shop, a date night, a girls’ night out, or a fabulous bath.
You developed this wonderful, hard earned sense of self. You had purpose. You had people that depended on you and you wanted to take care of them at home and elsewhere.
You could go to the store, post office, gas station , beach — the good ol’ days, if you will. You weren’t afraid of standing too close to people, you actually liked seeing other humans.
You had no clue these were things you might later think could have been taken for granted. You had no reason to believe the mundane would be a refreshing change of pace. You had no idea a coronavirus would make you question your sanity over and over again.
And yet, here you are smack in the middle of Mother’s Day 2020. You may have thought this year was going to be great — a year of vision. My wise friend, Brittany, told me perhaps we are all having to focus our gaze on what is truly important.
So fellow Mommior, fixer-of-things, good do-er, and lover of her children and family: you are the original badass, my dear.
You have always focused your gaze on what is truly important. When the world offers you lemons, you turn it into Zoom. When all you can do is walk around the block, you teach your child how to ride a bike (even though you didn’t sleep well the night before). You make those chocolate chip cookies and play outside. And you let your children have tantrums in front of the neighbors because you know they’re trying and you love them more than your rules.
When it’s your turn to have a bad day, you cry in front of your children so they know superheroes cry too.
And when you wake up this morning (and possibly get to sleep in) remember the part of yourself you like the most. Gaze into the beautiful eyes of the creatures you helped create. Embrace the paper clip-on earrings and yarn bracelets they made for you. And the homemade cards and fresh flowers picked from the yard just for you. And the breakfast you asked for. And most importantly, the gift of them you cherish most.
And know this: yes, you give a lot, way more than you ever thought you could. But you know what? You also get a lot and you mean so much to this world.
So sisters, whether you’re sipping caffeine-free weed tea from your garden, mocha-I’m-gonna-choke-ya-latte, or Pinot de Drunkio, here’s to you, fellow Mommior. Cheers to YOU.
And Happy Mother’s Day. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/happy-mothers-day-fellow-mommiers-74c5b468b477 | ['Tami Bulmash'] | 2020-05-11 04:08:48.727000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Motherhood', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Parenting'] |
AI, Sensor-Based Analytics, and a Generational Shift: Three Trends to be Aware of in 2017 | AI, Sensor-Based Analytics, and a Generational Shift: Three Trends to be Aware of in 2017
by Daniel Kimmel
Opex’s Mike Watson recently appeared on the Supply Chain Television Channel to discuss three defining trends that he has watched develop in the world of Supply Chain Analytics so far in 2017. Dan Gilmore, editor of Supply Chain Digest, facilitated the interview.
To give you an idea of what you will learn when you view the video:
He discusses what business leaders need to be aware of now that “Artificial Intelligence” has developed into a general umbrella term for “anything that uses data,” and explains the difference between the general buzzword and what AI means among the technical community, as well as a few of AI’s more sophisticated applications. (For example, quality control, which he previously wrote about on our blog here using one of his favorite examples, the Lay’s potato chip). He notes the growing use of Sensor-Based Analytics to track inventory across the global supply chain, as well as addresses the complicated question concerning the massive amounts of data provided by sensors and determining what data is worth saving and what is not worth saving. And finally, he discusses the implications of the “generational gap” that is growing between younger data scientists, who increasingly prefer to use open-source tools such as Python and R, and supply chain planners who are accustomed to more traditional modes of operation working with Excel or other off-the-shelf packages.
View the interview as a stand-alone video here.
Also, check out Mike’s follow-up article in the SC Digest, “Supply Chain by Design: Three Things That Supply Chain Managers Should Know about Artificial Intelligence.”
If you liked this blog post, check out more of our work, follow us on social media or join us for our free monthly Academy webinars. | https://medium.com/opex-analytics/ai-sensor-based-analytics-and-a-generational-shift-three-trends-to-be-aware-of-in-2017-1a1ab9cd70c5 | ['Opex Analytics'] | 2019-01-16 21:22:29.568000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Supply Chain', 'Logistics', 'Analytics'] |
Bullying & Manipulation At Work — Management’s Responsibility | Bullying In The Workplace — Management’s Obligations and Responsibilities
Photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash
Summary: Bullying at work is becoming a more recognized problem, and some jurisdictions, (e.g. Quebec, Canada) have introduced anti-bullying legislation. Read more about workplace bullying and the role of managers in dealing with it.
You know the problem. All of us do. Many workplaces have at least one person who is aggressive, selfish, pushy, and seems to be concerned with getting his or her own way rather than doing the job, or helping the organization. Or perhaps you are more familiar with bullying that comes from members of the public. Whatever the source, bullying and self-centered behavior can be stressful, reduce productivity and create supervisory and management problems.
We are going to look at bullying and manipulation and look at how supervisors might address these problems in their workplaces.
What Are We Really Talking About?
Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash
Bullying is probably not the best word to describe self-centered behavior. That’s because we associate bullying with a very aggressive stance where a sense of threat is involved — like the “schoolyard bully”. If we use the word bullying, we may miss other, more “tricky” behavior that is less “in your face”, but is as damaging or more damaging.
A better term is manipulative behavior. Manipulative behavior is designed to help the person using it get his or her way, OR exercise control OVER other people. It may be aggressive, but it may not be. For example, manipulative behavior may take the following forms:
whining
trying to make others feel guilty
the martyr approach (poor poor pitiful me)
passive-aggressive behavior (that’s being nasty but denying there is a problem)
making fun of or inappropriate use of humor to demean others or their ideas
Whether we call these behaviors bullying or manipulative, one thing is held in common by both. Both involve a person trying to get their own way with no concern for the rights, needs, wants and desires of others around them.
The Game of Manipulation
To improve at dealing with manipulative behavior you need to understand what it’s about. Manipulation and bullying are about two things. The first is about getting one’s own way. The second is about control and power. Manipulators tend to use manipulative techniques even when they don’t work because manipulation gives them a sense of importance, power and control. The manipulative person draws other people into the web, and gets to control conversations and discussions, becoming the center of attention. Manipulative people win by getting their own way, becoming the focus of attention or controlling others.
There’s one other thing to keep in mind. Manipulative behavior is a part of being human. Probably most people use it some of the time, particularly the less aggressive forms. It doesn’t just come from people with emotional problems. Of course some people use it as their main way of dealing with the world, and those are the situations we tend to notice. “Chronic manipulators” just manipulate more often than the rest of us.
So, What Steps To Follow: What To DO?
Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash
Managers and supervisors have a responsibility to do their best to create a respectful workplace, as free of manipulation as possible. That isn’t to say supervisors are the only ones responsible. Ultimately everyone can help. Let’s look at some suggestions.
1) Policy Issues
Some forms of aggression in the workplace are illegal. The more subtle forms of manipulation that occur are often not illegal. It is important that YOUR work area have a policy (it can be formal, or informal) that identifies the kinds of behavior that are inappropriate and how people in the work unit should treat each other. Involve staff in your work unit in drafting a simple informal policy. A good starting point is for staff to answer the following question: “How should we treat each other in our workplace?” Then, define what the answer to that question means in terms of specific behavior and action (eg. No gossip, dealing with problems directly with an individual, no laying on guilt, no blaming).
2) Abide By The Policy
Staff look to you for guidance. If YOU gossip or blame, your staff will gossip or blame. If YOU use guilt and indirect, “tricky” ways of communicating, so will your staff. Model what you want each and every day, no exceptions. Consider also that your position of authority (such as it is these days) is not reason enough to flaunt it or exercise it indiscriminately. The best use of authority and position is “rare use”.
3) Managing Meeting Behavior
Staff meetings are important. Attempts to monopolize the floor, blame others, innuendo, aggressive behavior in meetings send a signal to employees that manipulative, controlling behavior is acceptable. You can get around this by using proper meeting management techniques, and having a chairperson who will interrupt if discussions go over the line. Having that informal policy in place allows this to work. The chairperson need not be you, but it must be someone who is able to jump in assertively if required.
4) Involvement in Disagreements
Managers and supervisors can be drawn into attempts to convince them to side with one person or another in a manipulative disagreement. If you are “in the middle”, don’t play this game. Focus on solving the problem or addressing the issue, not figuring out who is at fault (often it’s everyone!). Keep in mind that you are not a professional counsellor or mediator. In some cases, particularly involving two difficult employees, the situation can be referred to people who specialize in mediation. Don’t try to go beyond your training and abilities.
5) Helping Staff Develop Better Ways
Apart from your own positive influence, consider this. Many people who use manipulative techniques do so because they don’t know any other way to deal with disagreement, or express themselves in constructive ways. Their difficult behavior may be a result of lacking skill.
In SOME cases, opportunity to attend training in assertiveness, or communication can be helpful. However, if an employee is forced to attend, the chances of change are minimal. Training in communication, conflict resolution and assertiveness works best when people attending recognize they are making their own lives difficult, and want to find better ways.
6) Incorporating “Respectful Behavior” in Performance Discussions
If you have a formal or informal policy in place, you can include or reference it in the expectations regarding work performance that should occur regularly as a result of performance management or communication about job performance. Some organizations will indicate to each employee individually, that they are responsible, not only for their “job tasks” but for ensuring they treat their co-workers with respect (or in accordance with the estalished guidelines or policies). This is helpful in two ways. It allows one-on-one discussion between you and each employee. It also allows the use of progressive discipline in cases where a person is persistently treating others poorly.
Conclusion
Manipulative behavior and its more extreme cousin, bullying, can seriously damage the productivity and effectiveness of everyone in your organization. If you are in the middle, it’s no fun. The best approach is to prevent it from starting, and if it starts, to address it early.
While the subject is a complex one, if you work with staff to create clear understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, act as a role-model for how people should treat each other in your work unit, and help staff develop alternate and better ways of interacting and communicating you will go a long way to reducing the time, stress and aggravation that results from one or more manipulative people in your workplace. | https://medium.com/leading-and-managing/bullying-manipulation-at-work-managements-responsibility-5bbd2430ddd2 | ['Robert Bacal'] | 2020-07-24 18:40:02.678000+00:00 | ['Human Resources', 'Bullying', 'Conflict', 'Management And Leadership', 'Management'] |
Null Safety in Kotlin | Null Safety in Kotlin
The definitive guide to handling null references in Kotlin
Overview
In this article, we’ll look into the null safety in Kotlin.
Any programming language which has the concept of null reference throws a NullPointerException. It has been referred to as a billion-dollar mistake. (Wiki)
Nullable and Non-Nullable Type
Kotlin aims at eliminating the risk of NullPointerException. It distinguishes between nullable and non-nullable references as a part of its type system.
In Kotlin, all variables are non-nullable by default. We cannot assign a null value to a variable because it’ll throw a compilation error:
var country: String = "India" country = null //compilation error
To define a nullable variable, we must append a question mark(?) to the type declaration:
var city: String? = "Kolkata" city = null
We can call a method or access a property on a non-nullable variable. However, in the case of nullable variables, we need to handle the null case explicitly. Otherwise, it will throw a compilation error since Kotlin knows that the variable contains null references:
val a : String = country.length val b : String = city.length //compilation error
Let’s look at the different ways how we can handle null references safely in Kotlin.
Working With Nullable Types
Null Check
We can use the if-else expression to explicitly check for nullable variables. This option works only where the variable is immutable. Depending on the complexity of the conditions, this can also lead to nested expressions.
Let’s look at an example:
val city: String? = "Kolkata"
return if (city != null) {
city.length
} else {
null
}
Safe Call Operator ( ?. )
Kotlin has a safe call operator(?.) to handle null references. This operator executes any action only when the reference has a non-null value. Otherwise, it returns a null value. The safe call operator combines a null check along with a method call in a single expression.
Let’s see how to use a safe call operator:
val country: String? = "India"
assertEquals(5, country?.length) val city: String? = null
assertNull(city?.length)
We can also use the safe call operator for multiple chain calls:
val country: Country? = Country(City("Kolkata", "003"))
val code: String? = country?.city?.code
assertEquals("003", code)
The chain calls return null if any of the properties are null:
val country: Country? = Country(null)
val code: String? = country?.city?.code
assertNull(code)
Using let() Method
We can use the let() method along with the safe call operator to act on a non-nullable variable:
val cities: List<String?> = listOf("Kolkata", null, "Mumbai")
var name: List<String?> = emptyList()
for (city in cities) {
city?.let { name = name.plus(it) }
}
return name assertEquals(2, name.size)
Using also() Method
We can use the also() method to execute additional operations like logging and printing of the non-nullable variables. This method can be used in a chain with let() or run() method.
Here's how we can use also() method along with let() method:
val cities: List<String?> = listOf("Kolkata", null, "Mumbai")
var name: List<String?> = emptyList()
for (city in cities) {
city?.let {
name = name.plus(it)
it
}?.also { println("Logging the value: $it") }
}
return name assertEquals(2, name.size)
Using run() Method
We can use the run() method to execute some operations on a non-nullable reference. This method operates using this reference and returns the value of the lambda result:
val countries: List<String?> = listOf("India", null, "Germany")
var name: List<String?> = emptyList()
for (country in countries) {
country?.run {
name = name.plus(this)
this
}?.also { println("Logging the value: $it") }
}
return name assertEquals(2, name.size)
Elvis Operator ( ?: )
We can use the Elvis operator(?:) to return a default value only if the original variable has a null value. If the left-side expression of the Elvis operator has a non-nullable value, then it is returned. Otherwise, the right-side expression is returned.
Let’s take a look at how the Elvis operator works:
val country: Country? = Country(City("New Delhi", null))
val result = country?.city?.code ?: "Not available" assertEquals("Not available", result)
We can use the Elvis operator with a safe call operator to invoke a method or property of the variable:
val country: Country? = Country(City("Mumbai", "002"))
val result = country?.city?.code ?: "Not available" assertEquals("002", result)
We can also use throw and return expression in the right-side expression of the Elvis operator. So instead of default values, we can throw specific exceptions in the right-side expressions of the Elvis operator:
val country: Country? = Country(City("Chennai", null))
val result = country?.city?.code ?: throw IllegalArgumentException("Not a valid code") assertThrows<IllegalArgumentException> { result }
Not Null Assertion Operator ( !! )
We can use the not-null assertion operator(!!) to explicitly throw a NullPointerException. This operator converts any reference to its non-nullable type and throws an exception if the reference has a null value.
Let’s have a look into how we can throw NullPointerException using not-null assertion operator(!!):
val country: String? = null
val result : Int = country!!.length assertThrows<NullPointerException> { result }
However, if the reference has a non-nullable value, then it is executed successfully:
val country: String? = "India"
val result : Int = country!!.length assertEquals(5, result)
The not-null assertion operator should be used carefully since it’s a potential sign of a NullPointerException. We should avoid using multiple non-null assertions like the following since it makes it harder to debug which property is null:
country!!.city!!.code
We should always try to use safe call operator in such cases to ensure NullPointerException doesn’t occur:
country?.city?.code
Nullability in Collections
Kotlin collections are non-nullable by default. To define a collection of nullable types in Kotlin, we have to append question mark(?) to the type declaration:
val countries: List<String?> = listOf("India", null, "Germany", "Russia", null)
We can use the following way to define a nullable collection in Kotlin:
var countries: List<String>? = listOf("India", "Germany", "Russia")
countries = null
Filtering Nullable Types
We can filter a list that contains nullable values to return only the non-nullable values using the filterNotNull() method.
Let’s have a look at an example:
val countries: List<String?> = listOf("India", null, "Germany", "Russia", null)
val result: List<String> = countries.filterNotNull() assertEquals(3, result.size)
assertEquals("Russia", result[2])
Conclusion
In this article, we look into the various ways to handle nullable references in Kotlin.
The code for these examples is available on GitHub. | https://medium.com/swlh/null-safety-in-kotlin-88298e64a1dc | ['Anirban Chatterjee'] | 2020-10-07 21:51:02.441000+00:00 | ['Kotlin', 'Software Engineering', 'Functional Programming', 'Programming', 'Null Safety'] |
I'm Drowning Beneath The Weight Of My Family's Mental Illness | I’ve written a lot about my mother’s mental illness over the past year. Lately, I write about it less because I don’t know what else to say.
This is the woman who raised me. A woman whom I love and appreciate. Yet she is also a woman who has abused and wounded me, sometimes it seems her damage has gone too far beyond any hope of healing.
Over this past month, she has been much harder to live with. She hasn't been to the doctor once since moving to Tennessee. Isn't trying to manage her diabetes. And now she's even let her cellulitis go.
My mom's calves look awful. Purple and red skin, bruised, blistered, and seeping. She sits all day in the kitchen, watching sermons on YouTube and supposedly prophetic videos about the end times.
We can't talk about the reason she won't go to the doctor. She believes she has lymphedema from radiation torture, and that the torture follows her wherever she goes.
It supposedly started in the Twin Cities, where we're from. And then it followed her to California. Now here in Tennessee.
You can't argue with anything she believes. Jesus is coming. Jesus is always coming. Any day now. Jared Kushner could be the antichrist. Oh, how she hates AOC.
Since my mom believes her body is being heated up by radiation torture, she uses ice packs on her body every waking hour. She's got about 20 different ice packs in my freezer.
And I don't dare explain to her that ice packs are a terrible idea for long-term use. Well, I've tried to show her the facts but it's always ended in her tears and accusations. | https://medium.com/awkwardly-honest/im-drowning-beneath-the-weight-of-my-family-s-mental-illness-cf780d509e2 | ['Shannon Ashley'] | 2019-05-12 01:33:33.424000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Love', 'Family', 'Life'] |
Badassery | Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
I’m not sure how many of you may have noticed this, but it’s very simple to be a badass when you have nothing to lose. Think about it. When you don’t love anyone, when you have no home or no sense of security, when you have no assets to fret about, when you are at the bottom looking up — it’s the easiest thing to look Life square in the face, with a smirk, and say “Make my day”.
Because being attached to nothing makes you fearless. Oh, the courage you have when you are empty. Invincible behind the shields, nothing and no one can reach you.
Life is about change though. Nothing remains as it is. Eventually, prosperity may find you. Love seeps in behind the best of armor. Even a nomad may find shelter and settle in. The creak in our joints and bones reminds us time is passing.
And the having of The Good changes you. Because now you have Somethings — important Somethings in your life — which can be lost. Painful things to lose and if you are not vigilant — Fear starts to walk with you. A gentle hand on your shoulder, He keeps time with your stride.
He creeps in slowly. A story about something horrible happening to someone else’s loved one — and you feel His icy hand squeeze your heart. You think about the dow, identity theft, social security’s solvency. You ponder mortgage rates, crime rates, property tax rates. Soon you are an anxious mess, worried, and robbed of the Joy of the present moment. And Fear chuckles quietly at His handiwork.
But this is when Real Courage happens. Real Courage is staying open to The Grace in our lives without clutching and anxiety. It’s sending blessings out to our children and grandchildren when we would fret over their safety. It’s trusting in the here and now of the eyes who love us and not listening to the ghosts of our past. It’s knowing anyone who would take our worldly possessions is in charge of their own karma and it’s on them, not us. It’s taking the steps on our path with sure-footedness and Courage.
It’s looking Fear square in the face, with a smirk, and saying, “Make my day”. Because being a badass when Life is generous to you is tough as hell.
Namaste. | https://medium.com/recycled/badassery-e47252495d7c | ['Ann Litts'] | 2018-10-30 18:31:24.347000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Self-awareness', 'Courage', 'Living In The Present', 'Life Lessons'] |
The Global AI Ethics Consortium (GAIEC) on Ethics and the Use of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the Fight Against COVID-19 and other Pandemics is officially launched | The Global AI Ethics Consortium (GAIEC) on Ethics and the Use of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the Fight Against COVID-19 and other Pandemics is officially launched The GovLab Follow Apr 15 · 3 min read
“The time for analysing how AI is deployed -whom it affects, how it affects them, what are its broader social and economic impacts is now.”
The COVID-19 crisis has already changed daily life in innumerable ways, and it will continue to have a significant impact as it shifts global opinion, politics, and approaches to combating pandemics and crises of all kinds. Among the many areas, its effects are being felt is in the field of technology, and in particular society’s attitudes toward the potential -and risks- of Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for tackling COVID-19.
The various uses of AI to manage pandemics, as well as the ethical challenges related to them, require multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder engagement as well as international collaboration on developing AI governance.
To this end, The GovLab, led by its Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer Stefaan Verhulst, has joined with TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence in the creation of the Global AI Ethics Consortium (GAIEC). Together, they are working with academic institutions, research centers and distinguished members of academia worldwide in order to foster trust in data and technology, maximize the potential of AI while limiting its harms, help all the involved parties navigate current uncertainty and create ethical frameworks.
The newly founded Global AI Ethics Consortium (GAIEC) on Ethics and the Use of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the Fight Against COVID-19 and other Pandemics aims to:
Support immediate needs for expertise related to the COVID-19 crisis and the emerging ethical questions related to the use of AI in managing the pandemic. Create a repository that includes avenues of communication for sharing and disseminating current research, new research opportunities, and past research findings. Coordinate internal funding and research initiatives to allow for maximum opportunities to pursue vital research related to health crises and the ethical use of AI. Discuss research findings and opportunities for new areas of collaboration.
Read the Statement of Purpose and find out more about the Global AI Ethics Consortium and its founding members: Christoph Lütge (TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, Technical University of Munich), Jean-Gabriel Ganascia (LIP6-CNRS, Sorbonne Université), Mark Findlay (Centre for AI and Data Governance, Law School, Singapore Management University), Ken Ito and Kan Hiroshi Suzuki (The University of Tokyo), Jeannie Marie Paterson (Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, University of Melbourne), Huw Price (Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge), Stefaan G. Verhulst (The GovLab, New York University), Yi Zeng (Research Center for AI Ethics and Safety, Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence), and Adrian Weller (The Allan Turing Institute).
If you or your organization is interested in the GAIEC — Global AI Ethics Consortium please contact us at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/data-stewards-network/the-global-ai-ethics-consortium-gaiec-on-ethics-and-the-use-of-data-and-artificial-intelligence-f3dfcdee3771 | ['The Govlab'] | 2020-04-15 14:12:49.718000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Data', 'Covid 19'] |
Why the Fibonacci Point System is Terrible for Sprint Estimations | The Fibonacci Point System
We employ the following point system in our sprints to size feature complexity and estimate velocity. Each point builds upon the previous point’s complexity requirements.
1 — Small one line fixes, copy changes, or design tweaks.
2 — Small logic changes with potential regressions.
3 — Standard feature that often requires tracking and AB testing.
5 — Larger features than 3 that usually involve creating new screens and components.
8 — Very large feature that often requires significant refactoring or designing a new architecture.
13 — Epics. Projects that are too large to scope. Highly complex multi-sprint efforts that require significant planning and testing.
It’s a very common software industry standard to use Fibonacci pointing to estimate how much work we can accomplish within two-week sprints. Teams use estimations to determine sprint goals, calculate velocity and staffing needs based on burn-down charts, and plan quarterly roadmaps. Nevertheless as much as they try to estimate correctly, teams are always falling behind. From my experience, people end up not taking estimation seriously and even abandon it entirely.
It’s a common joke among developers to say,
“Oh just take whatever work you have to do and multiply it by 3.”
We laugh it off but there is some truth behind it.
Why it’s Bad for Sprint Estimation
While Fibonacci pointing is good for measuring the complexity of a project, it by itself is a poor point system for measuring the actual amount of time and work it will take to complete a feature.
Here is where the fallacy lies. Take this scenario for example:
Person A has FIVE 2 point tickets. Total points: 10
Person B has TWO 5 point tickets. Total points: 10
On paper and from management’s perspective, both person A and B have the same amount of work, 10 points each. However in reality, Person A has a relatively light sprint with work that requires little-to-no planning and minimal code review times of about 5 minutes per ticket.
Meanwhile Person B has an impossible sprint that is severely underestimated due to the number of unknown variables that typically arise with 5 point stories and above. Not to mention, it takes HOURS if not DAYS to get larger pull requests to be reviewed, updated, reviewed again, and repeat until it’s approved. Writing unit tests and QA-ing larger features also scales linearly with how complex the feature is. So in total for a 5 point feature, Person B is actually doing significantly more work to have everything done “correctly”. Otherwise they are taking “shortcuts” by writing hacky code, bypassing code review, or skipping unit testing. Either that or they are working overtime which WILL lead to developer burnout.
The problem then becomes: how do we convey this to others.
The Solution
A more accurate estimation would be that Person B has 30 points of actual work compared to Person A who has 10 points. This is calculated using the table below where the actual amount of work is the result of multiplying the story’s Fibonacci complexity by a linearly increasing scaling factor.
Framework for calculating actual work from Fibonacci complexity.
The framework: simply estimate the complexity of a feature, then multiply it by the scaling factor, and use the result to calculate the actual amount of work required to complete the feature without taking shortcuts. If the amount of work cannot fit within a sprint, break up the ticket until it does. If shortcuts can be taken and repaid later, do so but make a debt ticket to repay it. Make sure to communicate this debt ticket to management so they understand the costs of taking shortcuts.
But…points vary from person to person
One common reason why point estimations are considered inaccurate and why teams stop doing them is because every developer has a different level of experience, aptitude, and perspective. What’s often a 2 pointer could easily be a 3 pointer and vice-versa depending on the person. This is often the case for newer teams or teams switching to sprints so management finds it confusing and unpredictable. However as the team becomes more experienced and develops a rhythm, the Fibonacci complexity estimation will improve in accuracy over time.
Retrospective Hindsight
It’s no wonder why teams are always missing their sprint goals — they are doomed to fail without management truly understanding why. The developers know why: there’s so many subtle nuisances and scope creep that often arise as the feature grows in complexity — but it’s difficult to anticipate and plan for them. In retros, teams will undoubtedly end up talking about the same underlying issues over and over again rather than actually using retro to improve the agile and estimation process. The psychological impact to team’s morale becomes noticeable and detrimental. Leadership by this point may get involved — even if things are going well because deadlines have been missed and quarterly roadmaps are thrown out the window.
Generally I’ve noticed that these issues begin to arise with 3 point features and frequently occur with 5 and 8 point stories. The amount of work required to complete those larger features often requires many hidden tasks such as refactoring code, handling edge cases, discovering and addressing race conditions, and debugging issues discovered in code review and QA. Not only that but resolving these issues often involves other people who are already busy themselves and thus causing downtime from blockers. This downtime is very disruptive to flow; is mentally taxing due context switching; and requires waiting time for replies and impromptu meetings to reach a decision. These hidden costs would be accounted for during the estimation by the framework and would be much better for psychologically framing how scalable the architecture is and how well the team is doing.
Pair Programming
One solution to alleviate downtime and improve estimation is through pair programming. It is often much better to tackle problems and design solutions together where you can help catch fallacies that the other person may not realize. You’ll discover issues sooner, learn A TON from each other, spread domain and technical knowledge across the team all while building friendships along the way.
Conclusion
My takeaway to any reader is to try it out. If humans are great at one thing, it’s that we are all great at underestimating. This framework accounts for that — it accurately estimates how complex a new feature is and how much work it will take to build while conveying the hidden costs of building larger features to management. Try it out and let me know what you think. | https://medium.com/swlh/why-the-fibonacci-point-system-is-terrible-for-sprint-estimations-385d2d4dc7b2 | ['Jorge Yau'] | 2020-07-27 12:27:27.154000+00:00 | ['Scrum', 'Software Engineering', 'Agile', 'Leadership', 'Programming'] |
The Sins of Your Father | Photo by frankie cordoba on Unsplash
I’m sure you know
This point in time
You don’t have to carry them
That weight
Those crimes
Draped over your shoulders
Like jet black hair
The fist of your father
His soulless stare
What happened that night
After that cloudy day
Was not your fault
Or so they would say
Held close to your chest
The darkness you saw
It froze up your heart
Refusing to thaw
Hardened to affection
To love and be kind
Now like your father
Watch time rewind
You carry this anger
Casted in gold
Across your knuckles
The world you’ll show
What it’s like to feel hurt
Strangle others with pain
Only the strong will stand
No one else remains. | https://jeauxzephwrites.medium.com/the-sins-of-your-father-10ed5ed5e622 | ['Joseph Coco'] | 2019-05-05 22:39:25.185000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Poetry', 'Mental Health'] |
Trump, anyone? | Written by
Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too. | https://marcialiss17.medium.com/trump-anyone-36609ff90695 | [] | 2019-08-12 15:36:54.052000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Trump', 'Politics', 'Comics', 'Psychology'] |
What Makes A Table A ‘Table’? | Ontology as a Taxonomy
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
The first interpretation we’re going to discuss is an ontological interpretation. It could be rephrased to: ‘Why do you call this a table?’ or ‘What makes you think this is a table?’
This, I think, is the most literal interpretation of the question. Ontology studies how things are being categorised and given names. It’s a taxonomy. Every field of study has this. Biology is the easiest to understand. We human are called mammals, so are dogs, cats, whales, and cows. Why are we called ‘mammals’? Because the females of these animals contain mammary glands (hence, ‘mammals’) that produce milk to feed their offsprings. Come to think of it: biology is quite feminine. Our species is defined by the females.
A fellow mammal. Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash
Likewise, we can ask the same questions to literally every object in this world. ‘What makes a table a “table”?’ could be asked as ‘why do we call this thing a “table”?’. It’s like asking ‘Why do we call this animal a “mammal”?
Now, the quickest prima facie response is to say that we’ve grown up seeing enough of the same thing again and again. We were taught that ‘thing’ is called a table. So when we see another of that ‘thing’ that is similar to all the tables we've seen, we can confidently say that it is, hence, a ‘table’.
Now, philosophy begins like how a biologist would begin asking questions. When we’ve seen an animal and studied it, we propose a hypothesis: this is a mammal because, like all the other mammals, it contains mammary glands. Then we begin testing that hypothesis.
In philosophy, it’s the same. We conjecture a definition of a table. An example (and an obviously weak one) would be: ‘that’s a table because, like all the other tables, it has a flat surface supported by legs’.
When we hypothesise or conjecture a definition, we are making a universal claim. That means anything that has a flat surface supported by legs is a ‘table’. Then, we test the hypothesis by finding counterexamples. Quite quickly, we can think of a contemporary-designed table that is attached to a wall that has no legs supporting it; a ‘mounted table’. So, not all tables are supported by legs. So, we are forced into two options. Either we do not call that monstrosity of a ‘table’ a ‘table’ (maybe, we could call it a ‘plank’), or we revise our initial definition of ‘table’.
Hopefully, you’re like me and think the latter is the way to go. Or else you’d be stuck saying ‘I left my keys on that plank’ for the rest of your life. But, to be honest, people will still probably understand where you left your keys. So, after thinking through this question for some time, my best conjecture is:
A table is a surface which we use to place everyday objects on.
Thus, any surface which we can habitually use to place our stuff on can be aptly called a ‘table’. It doesn't need to be flat, nor does it need to be supported by legs.
Of course, ontological philosophy extends such an inquiry to other objects and entities as well, like ‘What is God?’, ‘What is knowledge?’, ‘What is the mind?’, ‘What makes a person?’ etc. These questions are interested in understanding the characteristics of the object of our inquiry. Conversely, we want to be able to systematically and consistently categorise things into their respective identities. It seems easy, but it never is. The world around us resists categorising and systematising. Subjects that are confident that they have this system break off from philosophy into their respective sciences. Chemistry, for example, is confident that they can answer ‘what is matter?’ or ‘what is the nature of matter?’
Now, I say ‘confident’. It’s because the foundation of these sciences aren’t as strong as we think they are. These sciences break off into their own field of study because they are usually practically good enough to stand alone. We can build strong bridges with theories of physics, and we can manufacture smartphones with computer science. They’re ‘good enough’ to go. So, they did.
Naturally, we can say that philosophy deals with the ‘leftovers’. Objects of studies that aren’t categorised into adequate identities are left for philosophers to think about. This is also why people often lament philosophy isn’t as practical as the sciences. It isn’t. And it wasn’t meant to be. | https://medium.com/illumination/what-makes-a-table-a-table-58ee96127a63 | ['Wei Xiang'] | 2020-12-22 14:33:00.404000+00:00 | ['Philosophical Questions', 'Ontology', 'Science', 'Thinking', 'Philosophy'] |
My Paper on Machine Learning got accepted at IEEE Conference | Ahmed Ahsan Khan, Abeer Alsadoon, Shatha Habeeb Jafer, P.W.C. Prasad, Oday D. Jerew, Paul Manoranjan, “A Novel Hybrid Fall Detection Technique Using Body Part Tracking and Acceleration”, IEEE International Conference on Innovative Technologies in Intelligent Systems & Industrial Application (CITISIA), Sydney, 2020. Recently Accepted
Photo by Martin Shreder on Unsplash
It took me 3 years to finally receive this good news through an email from my Professor Dr Abeer Alsadoon. It was a proud moment for me as it was one of my goal since I started writing my thesis report for my Master’s degree. It took few rejections over the years before it could finally be accepted. Being the first author of the paper makes it ten times better. The paper will be published in January 2021.
When I started my blog here on medium I mentioned how Java could be used to implement Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence. That article gained a lot of views, mostly from Google Search (87%), and it is by far my most viewed article on this platform.
I used Java for Machine Learning in my thesis as mentioned in my article above. It was a challenge for me and a brave move I must say because Java is not a popular language for ML and I had to face challenges along the way. Now that when my same thesis report is selected in my IEEE Conference I can confidently say that I implemented something which is not a common practise and I succeeded in doing so.
How did this happen?
You might have heard or seen people say that to be successful in something you should be hardworking, or in some cases they say that smart people outplay hard-workers because they know how to do their things smartly and also because they have more knowledge. I think that on top of both of these things, attitude towards work is what makes you successful.
When I started writing my thesis paper, I showed interest to my professor that I am interested in publishing my work in one of the IEEE journals or conference and I worked hard to get High Distinction grade in my thesis course. My attitude towards my work and the research which I did, made Dr Abeer so considerate that for last three years she has been trying to publish my article which finally got accepted. If I sum up how this all happened I would say that there were people more knowledgeable than me and more hardworking but attitude towards my work is what finally gave me what I had hoped for. As Dr Abeer mentioned in her email to me that she is more happier than me because she knew what it meant to me to get this work published and for the same reason she didn’t lose hope and fought for 3 years despite few rejections along the way.
What is my research about?
My research is titled “A Novel Hybrid Fall Detection Technique Using Body Part Tracking and Acceleration”. During my work I had researched 25 articles from different journals on the same topic to get insights of their work and what was actually tested. Then out of those articles I had to choose two best solutions and find a solution of my own. I found an online dataset which had data for part tracking and acceleration and therefore I used those data to implement my algorithm in Java. Specifically I used SVM (Support Vector Machine) from Java-ML library to implement my algorithm.
The best part of my thesis was that there was no limitation of what language I have to use to proof my work. This gave me independence to choose Java as my language of choice which few would have done. In my thesis I proposed a hypothesis that stated “A fall event exists when there is an abrupt change in acceleration followed by a decrease in the vertical distance between head and body centre.” This combination helped us to detect falls perfectly, and we could distinguish them from other activities of daily living such as bending down or lying on a floor. The algorithm I created worked better on the dataset on which I tested compared to the current best solution that was selected from my literature review.
Conclusion:
In the end, we have to understand that realistically speaking there is no such thing as perfect solution. Things evolve and there is always room for improvement with new technology and algorithms being invented and created on almost daily basis. As of now, with the hypothesis presented, the solution mentioned in my journal article is considered as the best.
Happy Learning!!!! | https://medium.com/dev-genius/my-paper-on-machine-learning-got-accepted-at-ieee-conference-dbf6fe281456 | ['Ahmed Ahsan Khan'] | 2020-12-13 09:44:26.064000+00:00 | ['Research', 'Machine Learning', 'Java', 'Ieee'] |
Back to Basics: Household vs. Housing Unit | Today, cities of all shapes and sizes are using data to make decisions. They are hiring experts, purchasing new tools, and are now, more than ever, focused on understanding information — anchoring the decisions they make to people and places in their communities. While paths to insight discovery may vary, the desired outcome is the same: Everyone, everywhere, wants to make better decisions — and data can help us all do that.
For those without GIS or technical backgrounds, the barriers to simply getting started are real. In the mySidewalk Back to Basics blog series, we’ll “start at the start,” focusing on the fundamentals and making it easier for everyone to talk about and do more with data.
The Decennial Census and American Community Survey (ACS) are two of the most trusted and detailed sources of information for describing neighborhoods, cities, and counties. However, when misinterpreted (an easy mistake given the format in which most data is presented), that information can be misleading. It’s important to be able to determine what data you need, where you can find it, and how to confidently interpret what you discover.
Let’s start with some simple terminology. Below you’ll find the difference between the term “Household” and “Housing Unit,” two common classifications that can be easy to confuse with one another.
The Difference Between Household & Housing Unit
A “Household” is referring to the people who are living in a housing structure and a “Housing Unit” is describing the actual structure in which residents live.
It is important to note that a household can be made up of family householders or non-family householders. The term “Family Householders” is referencing householders who are related to one another in birth, marriage, or adoption. A “Non-Family Householder” refers to someone who lives alone or is living with people who are not related to them.
“Household” data is useful when you want to learn more about the people living in a place. The following are examples of household data collected by the census:
Use “Housing Unit” datasets when you want to learn more about attributes of structures or the types of places where people are living. The following are examples of housing unit data collected by the census:
The Magic of Merging
Datasets, when combined with other datasets and visualized, can yield especially powerful, deep insight. For instance, here is an example of two housing datasets being used together to learn more about where large families (5 or more relatives) are living without complete plumbing in Chicago, Illinois. (This map is interactive — be sure to use your mouse to zoom in and utilize the data available in the toolbar.) | https://medium.com/community-pulse/back-to-basics-household-vs-housing-unit-763adcdc365c | [] | 2016-12-30 00:02:54.356000+00:00 | ['Smart Cities', 'Community Development', 'Data 101', 'Urban Planning', 'Big Data'] |
Dispelling the Myths Around Automated Machine Learning | Dispelling the Myths Around Automated Machine Learning Appier Follow Jun 26 · 5 min read
Machine learning continues to make great strides in optimizing data collection and analysis tools for use across a wide range of industries, but now a new strand is emerging: automated machine learning, or AutoML for short.
This promises to be less reliant on data scientists, who are in short supply because of their highly specialized skill set, and can be expensive to hire. However, there are a number of misconceptions about AutoML, the chief one being that it can do away with such data scientists altogether.
Machine learning is an extraordinarily powerful general purpose technology that has a staggering number of applications. It is therefore no wonder people are excited about an evolution of the technology known as auto machine learning.
To understand what AutoML can do, it is important to understand how standard machine learning works.
Machine learning involves several steps: first you need to collect the relevant data, and then clean it in order to learn what you want to learn from it. You then define the feature representation of your data, and put it into a model which is trained to optimize the accuracy in order to achieve your predefined goal. It is a complicated task that requires a lot of human involvement. And not just any human — to get the most from machine learning, you need a team of highly trained data scientists to create, apply and optimize the model, and to be involved at every stage.
The ultimate aim of AutoML is to automate every step in this process, increasing efficiency while reducing cost. If it worked perfectly, it could be used in many different applications in all sorts of industries, revolutionizing multiple sectors of society. This is why it is currently gaining so much attention.
Changing the Role of Data Scientists
However, like many emerging technologies, the reality is rather more complicated.
“How useful AutoML is really depends on the industry, the data type and the model classes involved,” says Min Sun, Chief AI Scientist at Appier. In terms of data collection and cleaning, digital marketing is one area that can benefit from AutoML, because data labels are naturally generated from customers interacting with companies’ marketing campaigns. Mature tools exist to clean those labels, to make sure they are not noisy or biased.
Other industries are less well-placed to benefit in data collection and cleaning, but suitable in automatic feature engineering. For example, self-driving cars need humans to help identify what is a pedestrian and what is a stop sign. Similarly, medical imaging tools require experienced doctors to help spot tumors. However, using neural networks to automatically construct features from raw images has already reduced many data scientists’ efforts.
However, Sun urges scientists not to naively apply AutoML. Regardless of what goal you are trying to achieve, AutoML will not replace human knowledge altogether. Rather, it will change the focus where that knowledge is applied.
“In marketing, you only automate the steps of the process that will be much more effective than if they were carried out by a human manually,” Sun says. “Typically these processes are repetitive or complicated with sufficient data support. In this way, humans can be freed from repetitive tasks and applied their knowledge in areas with less accumulated data.”
So, you cannot get rid of data scientists altogether. This approach that sees humans and machines working hand-in-hand has been termed Semi-AutoML by some. It gives a more realistic appraisal of what the process actually entails.
Weighing Up the Benefits and Costs
As long as companies are informed on what AutoML can do and how it works, they have a lot to gain by using it.
It can be more efficient, because it removes the need to have human experts in the loop, and machines can do this work much quicker than humans. Used in the right way, it can outperform humans too, as it minimizes the risk of human error.
As the processes are automated, it can also scale much more effectively than if the processes were done manually.
However, there are other factors to consider that are often overlooked. Namely, the cost.
The Holy Grail of AutoML is a neural architecture search — this will program an AI to search for the best neural network architecture to solve your given problem. Researchers have demonstrated it is possible to fully automate a neural architecture search (and outperform humans attempting the same task), but it takes an enormous amount of computational power — it could involve a dozen CPUs being trained for several days, for example, which is very expensive. So, any firm looking to leverage AutoML needs to use it smartly by weighing up the potential gain versus the financial cost and time spent.
While AutoML minimizes the risk of human error, it does not eliminate it altogether. AutoML will only optimize the metric you define, so if you define a metric in the wrong way, the model created will not solve your problem. This issue is not unique to AutoML — humans can make the same mistake with standard machine learning, but having humans in the loop can help to correct it, as they will spot that the model behavior is not correct. While removing humans from the process can have big gains in terms of efficiency, if done naively it can also cause more errors to creep in.
Putting It Into Practice
It is a tricky balance to strike. Companies need to weigh up the downsides of intense human involvement with the potential benefits, and decide what is best for their business model. Having a human in the loop at every stage of the process will mean your model will not scale, for example. But at the same time, automating the entire process while building each model will be too time-consuming. “We know that marketers cannot wait days before sending out a campaign, they need to strike in a timely fashion,” Sun says.
Often the best solution now is to leverage a data science platform that uses AutoML in certain areas (what is often called Semi-AutoML as described earlier). By automating certain steps, you can concentrate your computational power where gains in efficiency and reach are not compromised by a reduction in accuracy. This helps marketers tap into the power of AutoML but only where it is really beneficial to the business’ goals. Otherwise you are just using technology for technology’s sake.
AutoML has many benefits for enterprises, and especially for marketers, but only if used correctly. Only by taking a realistic look at how it works, what it involves and what it can do for your organization can you really leverage it to its full potential. | https://medium.com/appier-blog/dispelling-the-myths-around-automated-machine-learning-bcb2d4fe3bd7 | [] | 2020-06-26 00:31:01.366000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Thought Leadership'] |
So, What I Have Learned So Far | 🔬 Stop Comparing Yourself With Others
Photo by Coffee Geek on Unsplash
Whenever we compare ourselves with others, then two things can happen. The first one is, if you have less knowledge or opportunities, then we started feeling less worthy. The second one is if we have more opportunities than that person, then we lost a small part of ourselves, who always want to learn something.
One thing I learned is if you want to compare yourselves with others, then compare one thing, the efforts given by that person.
As I said, my programming journey started two years ago, and there was a guy in my college who began it from 8th standard. I try to compare myself with him, but last I find out that all I have to do is work on my skills instead of comparing myself with others. By doing this, all I have done is insulted myself.
Everyone is unique by their thoughts, their process of learning, by their imagination power.
So, stop comparing yourself and start working on yourself. Just think about what you have learned and achieved in recent times. Failure is not going to last, but your knowledge will be. | https://medium.com/swlh/so-what-i-have-learned-so-far-72bcd23b76f9 | ['Rajesh Kumar'] | 2020-07-04 14:13:50.722000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Startup', 'Love', 'Education', 'Life Lessons'] |
Friday Musings: I love Staying in Hotels. Do you? | Amidst an entire host of reasons that could encapsulate flexible sleep schedule, butler services, the gym, the pool, the spa — There is so much more.
1. I need an Emotional Anchor.
Staying with family can mean merging different routines, preferences and sometimes that means the biggest muscle usually wins. It doesn’t have to even have to be based on financial muscle. So long as the conversation is geared towards filial piety or the young should do this and that — I cannot escape.
The point is, I want to escape.
I try my best to play my role and I get washed out after a couple of days. No matter how big that house is, it can start to feel small. My own hotel room feels exactly the reverse. It is physically small but emotional big. It feels like a base camp where I can relax, read, exercise, channel flick, work till as late as I want as long as I want.
Most importantly, I need not sweat over the small things or made to sweat over the small things such as cleaning the table, wiping the kitchen sink dry, picking up the hair or dust.
A call to the Housekeeping does the trick.
Expensive? No, it is relative.
I am willing to pay my way out of this.
So, it is cheap.
I can be me and feels emotionally comforting to be me.
2. I need to Engage … Me.
With a hotel room, I need not hope for hope.
I am free to read and nap at the pool with water melon juice as I want to. Sometimes my schedule for swimming and running gets thrown out of the window as there are family obligations such as preparing for dinners, cleaning the house, disposing the rubbish, unwilling volunteering of time for grocery shopping and what not.
Here, there are no such distractions.
I get to go run around the vicinity first and jump straight into the pool for laps. I can then get back to the room for food via room service. All activities are geared towards my satisfaction.
There is nothing happier than that.
I can read at the balcony, in the blanket wraps and at the restaurant with a cup of coffee. There are happy hospitality agents willing to keep me happy and going so they can have a customer to sign their loyalty programs.
Most importantly, I need not worry for any drip of sweat or drop of coffee heading in any direction. I can focus on engaging me.
3. From Home Zone to JUDGMENT-FREE Zone.
My bed can be unmade.
I can throw wet towels into the bathtub.
I can leave the empty plates and glasses in my room.
I can forget to place the remote controller where the television is.
I can forget to hang my clothes.
I can leave my bag all over, my books all over.
The beautiful part?
No one bugs me about it.
Another brilliant point?
It is neat when I am back. Maybe I get cursed when I press the housekeeping button on my way to office. Maybe that is why I get sneezes perpetually when I am out for sightseeing. Maybe.
The happy thing is I get to do what I need to; avoid to do what I don’t want to and can be spared from judgment.
Utterly beautiful.
Oh, would you please iron, wash and press my clothes for me before tomorrow morning 7am?
Thank you.
(With my brightest smile, squeezing a dimple) | https://medium.com/illumination/friday-musings-i-love-staying-in-hotels-do-you-9ba36e1a436 | ['Aldric Chen'] | 2020-09-25 01:48:50.752000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Philosophy', 'Self Love', 'Me', 'Short Story'] |
An “AWS” for Blockchain, part 1/3 | Decentralized Infrastructure
Friend consists of a network of servers and clients (most of the time running in a web browser). The server side of things provide you with storage space, computing power, redundancy and services — which is “consumed” by the clients. Whilst FriendUP gives you a virtual Cloud Computer, the Friend Network of servers also gives you a virtual data center with nearly unlimited resources at your fingertips.
This virtual data center can be used for anything. For example, to run a web site. Or to offer a server backed API. Or to boost your own multiplayer game server network.
In the conventional world, Amazon Web Services(AWS) may not fully equate with the Friend Network(FN) in every aspect. It is utterly huge, well established, and we are just getting started. Still, the comparison makes sense for a number of reasons. FN has generic infrastructure on offer — decentralized and implemented using Blockchain technologies — but the infrastructure is analogous to AWS. It can be used to achieve the same things.
Amazon offers flexible infrastructure based on configurable virtual machines. You spin up your environment, install and configure any kind of software and then scale once an instance maxes out due to heavy load. The services are relatively cheap, and the costs increase fairly as you need more horsepower.
AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others are all wonderful feats of engineering. Problem is, they are centralized. They are owned by a giants growing ever larger, and as we have seen with several other Silicon Valley companies, these become politicized over time. You are never sure about where they will go after the next quarter. They may start sharing data with national intelligence agencies. They may suddenly start censoring, as a result of a law suit. They are far from neutral players. And by the end of the day, their decision making process are far removed from the people who those policies may concern. The users. And in these time of rapid disruptions, not only in technology, but in policy, users who just want to deploy and utilize tech may have their concerns.
The Friend Network will be able to offer much of what AWS do, but in a decentralized way. As a hub for other Blockchain projects, you will be able to find all the technologies in one place; databases, storage space, data services, compute power, monitoring and administration. The services will be based on shared resources and technology that is owned by the users. This is what people want. The faith in the global hegemonic technology powerhouses is failing. And we are offering an agnostic — non political infrastructure, albeit on philosophical foundations (see our five pillars). | https://medium.com/friendupcloud/an-aws-for-blockchain-part-1-3-f4d918561dd9 | ['Hogne Titlestad', 'Co-Ceo', 'Founder', 'Friend Software'] | 2018-02-22 13:45:31.867000+00:00 | ['Distributed Systems', 'Cloud Computing', 'Infrastructure', 'Blockchain'] |
4 Ways a Simple 2-Letter Word Can Improve Your Life | “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” — Warren Buffett
When I was a kid, Buffett would’ve been proud of me. If I didn’t want something, I said no — a very clear, loud, and unmistakable no. My mum once tried to make me wear a hat for a photo and since a few screamed nos didn’t do the trick, I simply ripped the string of the hat and threw it into a corner. I was a lovely kid to have.
However, Warren Buffett’s advice seems to work — all the nos have gotten me somewhere. Today, I do what I love for a living, have more money and possessions than I want, and enjoy a great relationship and awesome friends. Still, there are plenty of distractions every day I have to resist to keep my life that way. But saying no isn’t always easy.
You know you should use these two letters more often. When your boss hands you a stack of papers even though you’re already drowning in work, when your friend asks you to join a party you know you won’t enjoy, or when your mum asks if you liked the sweater she got you for Christmas so she can get you another one. You don’t say no although you know you should. But why?
Often, you’re afraid of offending someone and use a little white lie to avoid confrontation. Sometimes, your desire to be helpful overrides your other instincts. In both cases, saying no can save you time, energy, and some serious stress down the line.
No is efficient — it’s the word with the highest power per letter. Here are four reasons why it will save you stress and regret and how to draw the line without feeling bad about it. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/4-ways-a-simple-2-letter-word-can-improve-your-life-90519b143b3c | ['Moreno Zugaro'] | 2020-12-12 21:01:09.378000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Advice', 'Productivity', 'Success', 'Self Improvement'] |
The Story of Goldie: How SurveyMonkey’s Logo Became an Icon of Curiosity | I remember the first time I traveled internationally by myself for work. I was in my mid 20s, still paying off my school loans, and working for a small product design studio in San Francisco. The trip was off to a rocky start from the get-go. I started the journey by missing my flight entirely; misreading my flight time and thinking 12:31 am was the following day. When I finally arrived in Hong Kong, I was greeted with a typhoon that wanted to say hello. I remember sitting in the car with my co-worker as we drove through a veil of rain that suddenly lifted away and revealed sunny blue skies on the other end of the freeway. It was surreal.
A few days into the trip I began feeling homesick. I had just said goodbye to my co-worker after a long day, but wasn’t ready to turn in yet. I began exploring the late night market when something familiar caught my eye… glowing yellow arches. Instant emotions of comfort came my way. For a moment, I didn’t feel so far from home — and I knew a Happy Meal had my name on it. Let me clear the air: This post is not sponsored by McDonald’s.
That’s the power of a logomark — it can transcend language barriers, acting as a bridge to quickly connect you to all the experiences you’ve ever encountered with the brand.
A logomark, also known as the brandmark, is an icon-based logo that doesn’t spell out the business name. It can be an incredibly simple visual form. It has the ability to help companies communicate their identities and how they differentiate from one another with no words.
Here are three examples of instantly recognizable logomarks: | https://medium.com/curiosity-by-design/story-of-goldie-f66e4af20181 | ['Rovana Lee'] | 2019-11-13 16:01:01.448000+00:00 | ['Logo Design', 'Brand', 'Surveymonkey', 'Design', 'Curiosity'] |
Is Hustle Culture a Cop-out? | Is Hustle Culture a Cop-out?
How the trope ignores privilege, and the rest of our lives.
Photo by Milo Bauman on Unsplash
If the goal of hustle culture is to exploit every hour of one’s day to be economically viable, where is the space for health, rest, and pleasure?
Hustle culture strives to be the great equaliser. As Sarah Kessler outlines for her story on the king of hustle Gary Vaynerchuk, it’s the “idea that anyone who applies enough talent, grit, and passion can start a multibillion-dollar business — or achieve whatever their dream is — if they hunker down in their proverbial garage and put in the work”. The notion that no matter where you came from, it’s your responsibility to achieve your dream, and not complain.
But is it really worth the hustle, when you’re just sacrificing the rest of your life?
Even the internet’s favourite filmmaker Casey Neistat admitted the vlog schedule which propelled his fame sent his marriage to the brink of divorce. After 534 straight days of uploading, the pursuit of astronomical output was a direct burden on his family life. For his compounded career gain, there was a sacrifice. As there always is.
The theory of constant busyness doesn’t even stand up scientifically. Hustle culture made an enemy of being ‘idle’, but that has been entirely confused with the notion of laziness. Doing nothing for a period of time might produce the best results of all. Moreover, slowing down actually increases accuracy. Careful planning of work avoids disaster. All strategies that hustle culture has condemned.
Not to mention, not everyone should be an entrepreneur. So why the recruitment style marketing to non-founders to become one themselves?
“Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” — Elon Musk
The hustler trope is inherently tied to the self-made, rarely that of an intrapreneur. Success seemingly only praised if you fought for it, kicking and screaming. You hustled for it. Who doesn’t want to relish a self-created dynasty? It is increasingly the only socially acceptable path to celebrate. The self made hustlers radically own their behaviour and productivity, claiming everything achieved as the result of hard work. If you build it yourself, it almost becomes a weapon. A badge of honour. Especially online.
Becoming a founder is now a trend, a label, a brand, a community. Hating work became uncool. Online we live performative lives, always reworking a story to tell, an image to portray. By advertising the ‘hustle’ you buy into a narrative that provides immediate worth and respect from that community.
Hustle culture sees serial founders praised, presents failure as a good thing, the effort to start over is celebrated. But it is a privilege to access this cycle of destruction. If you can’t afford to fail, buying into hustle culture is dangerous.
Especially now, it can be tempting to throw yourself into any ‘opportunity’ this world event provides. But we have no idea what is going to happen this month, next week, or even tomorrow. The changes we’ve seen happen hourly, and they involve life, death, livelihoods, and stretch the entire world. Like everyone else, I’m sick of seeing the word ‘unprecedented’.
It presents a conundrum for most of us, who want to glide quietly through this time in history to shield our mental and physical health from duress. Yet with hustle culture perpetuating that ‘taking a break’ is seen as weak, unmotivated, or lazy — it can be easy to spend the time at home in an incessant pursuit of productivity to counterbalance.
Of course, it is a privilege to not have to hustle during the pandemic. Essential workers on the frontlines have no choice in the matter.
Anecdotally, it appears the rest of us at home are actually spending longer hours working. It can be easy to fall into the trap of a constant grind, with no physical line drawn between work and home life. Not to mention those with children managing home learning alongside a career conducted amongst 300 million Zoom calls.
Conversely, the hustle may become an alluring skill for the future. Without physical offices, and restrictions on gatherings, the employee who stays home and consistently produces tangible output is more valuable than those with soft skills.
“If your main job skill is networking, you might want to learn the art of actually working.” — Olga Khazan, The Atlantic
Tangible output should of course never come at the expense of your mental, physical, or emotional health. And it is entirely possible on 40 hours a week. It has to be. We can’t all be founders.
It’s also important to note alongside his hustle culture content, Gary Vaynerchuk advocates that we should do what we love.
Perhaps, that should be the advice most heeded. | https://medium.com/swlh/is-hustle-culture-a-cop-out-4539d538824a | ['Jess Thoms'] | 2020-11-12 00:52:46.038000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Self', 'Productivity', 'Success', 'Hustle'] |
I Live With No Regrets-Here’s How | I Live With No Regrets—Here’s How
It’s very simple.
Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash
Regret used to be my biggest fear. When I become a senior citizen, I do not want to think about what-ifs. Instead, I want to think about how I lived a life worth living.
Therefore, I created a system to mentally process and document life so that I can make the best decisions possible. Today, I will break down that system into its components.
Distinguish truths from myths.
I distinctly remember my fourth-grade teacher telling the class, “If you don’t go to college, you will be working minimum wage jobs for the rest of your life.”
As a child who unquestionably listened to teachers, I internalized this belief and took it with me as I progressed through my academic journey.
Today, I can safely say that the teacher was wrong. In 2020, college is simply one path (out of many) that you can take. The internet has revolutionized education and created valuable opportunities.
Success is not guaranteed even if you do go to college. Students now need to work harder than ever given the current environment of nearly $1.6 trillion in U.S. student loan debt and degree inflation.
As a human being, you need to recognize truths from myths.
Is something true because everyone says it’s true?
Are there exceptions?
Think for yourself and question what society tells you.
Develop a healthy level of skepticism.
Write your truths down. They will serve as your life guidebook when the sun rises every day.
Understand that you would’ve made the same decisions if you had the same knowledge.
“I wish I could go back in time and do things differently.”
I used to be so guilty of this kind of thinking, especially on restless nights where I would randomly start thinking about life.
Then, I realized that it’s not that simple. I now know things that I didn’t know before. I was at a different stage of my life back then.
If I time traveled into a younger version of myself (both physically and mentally), I would probably still make the same decisions given the past circumstances.
We cannot account for every future uncertainty.
Sometimes, we don’t even know what we don’t know.
We do not consider things that we are not aware of.
Make decisions with as much research and information as possible.
The defining moments in life involve making big decisions, two of which are choosing what college to go to and what career to pursue.
To make decisions that I will not regret, I consider the options in front of me and thoughtfully consider their pros and cons.
Let’s take picking a career for example.
Today, it’s easy to research since Google has made knowledge extremely accessible.
To consider whether I should become a software engineer,
I would Google search these three questions:
· Pros and cons of being a software engineer
· Day in the life of a software engineer
· What I wish I knew before becoming a software engineer
For each query, I would read each search result on the first two pages of Google. Doing so would give me a decent picture of what being a software engineer is like.
If possible, I would also try to talk to software engineers in real life. Watching YouTube videos created by software engineers would be a good alternative.
With all this information, I would finally make my decision of whether I should become a software engineer myself.
You can approach every life situation in this manner.
The risk of regret is mitigated when you navigate life thoughtfully and analytically.
Systematically finding the answers to good questions becomes a powerful tool when making important decisions.
Self-reflect every day.
I journal every day right before bedtime.
Initially, I used old fashioned marble notebooks and ballpoint pens. Then, I realized that it was much more efficient to just keep an updated file on my computer. It’s just a password-protected word document. Today, I prefer maintaining a digital journal over a physical journal because, with digital, you can easily embed images and videos along with your thoughts. Plus, you don’t have to worry about the journal getting lost or destroyed since you can create backup files and upload everything onto the cloud.
I journal because I enjoy the self-discovery process that comes with writing down my thoughts.
The process almost feels like I’m talking to a close friend. It’s therapeutic and helps me cool down after a long day. This was especially important in college when random thoughts from class would race through my mind. Journaling helps me de-stress and transition to that relaxing state needed for deep, undisturbed sleep.
Learn from the past. Live the present. Look forward to the future.
By journaling, I accomplish all three of these things simultaneously. Daily habits make a huge difference in the long-run since life is the summation of all days lived.
During the day, I live presently.
At night, I reflect on the day that is almost over.
I end every journal entry by making a list entitled “Things to Look Forward to.”
If I don’t have any plans for the weekend, I create some by messaging my friends.
Question the lifestyle that you want. Is that life a distorted version of reality?
My vision of professional success in college was this:
I would be answering phone calls in a suit and tie while looking out the window of a shiny skyscraper.
When I finally lived that lifestyle, I hated every minute of it.
Now, I would much rather live in the countryside somewhere and go to sleep as I listen to the trees rustling in the wind.
However, because I had that work experience, I was able to see if it was right for me.
Having many experiences is useful. This is why students pursue internships. Not only do internships look nice on resumes, but they also help confirm or question career choices.
Another way to see if something is right for you is by living vicariously through someone else. Read memoirs, biographies, and interviews. Watch YouTube videos that depict reality and not a glamorized version of reality.
Be action-oriented.
Life is hard. We all have our unique challenges and issues. Regardless of the situation, it’s so easy to become pessimistic and drown ourselves in self-pity. Let yourself be emotional for a little while because it’s healthy. The ability to feel is a huge part of being human. At the same time, take steps to overcome the problem of the day. You will look back in satisfaction knowing that you did everything that you could.
Final Thoughts
Be conscious of how you spend your days because life operates on autopilot if you don’t. Time seems to slow down if we ask good questions and reflect. We can then, if needed, steer ourselves in the right direction. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/i-live-with-no-regrets-heres-how-d2405f4d246 | ['Anton Lex'] | 2020-10-07 22:32:36.698000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Lifestyle', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement'] |
Build a REST API in 30 minutes with Django REST Framework | 3. Set up Django REST Framework
Okay, time to start thinking about our heroes API. We need to serialize the data from our database via endpoints.
To do that, we’ll need Django REST Framework, so let’s get that installed.
$ pip install djangorestframework
Now, tell Django that we installed the REST Framework in mysite/settings.py:
INSTALLED_APPS = [
# All your installed apps stay the same
...
'rest_framework',
]
That’s it!
4. Serialize the Hero model
Now we’re starting to get into some new waters. We need to tell REST Framework about our Hero model and how it should serialize the data.
Remember, serialization is the process of converting a Model to JSON . Using a serializer, we can specify what fields should be present in the JSON representation of the model.
The serializer will turn our heroes into a JSON representation so the API user can parse them, even if they’re not using Python. In turn, when a user POSTs JSON data to our API, the serializer will convert that JSON to a Hero model for us to save or validate.
To do so, let’s create a new file — myapi/serializers.py
In this file, we need to:
Import the Hero model Import the REST Framework serializer Create a new class that links the Hero with its serializer
Here’s how:
# serializers.py from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Hero
class HeroSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Hero
fields = ('name', 'alias')
5. Display the data
Now, all that’s left to do is wire up the URLs and views to display the data!
5.1 Views
Let’s start with the view. We need to render the different heroes in JSON format.
To do so, we need to:
Query the database for all heroes Pass that database queryset into the serializer we just created, so that it gets converted into JSON and rendered
In myapi/views.py:
# views.py from rest_framework import viewsets
from .serializers import HeroSerializer
from .models import Hero
class HeroViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
queryset = Hero.objects.all().order_by('name')
serializer_class = HeroSerializer
ModelViewSet is a special view that Django Rest Framework provides. It will handle GET and POST for Heroes without us having to do any more work.
5.2 Site URLs
Okay, awesome. We’re soooooo close. The last step is to point a URL at the viewset we just created.
In Django, URLs get resolved at the project level first. So there’s a file in mysite/ directory called urls.py .
Head over there. You’ll see the URL for the admin site is already in there. Now, we just need to add a URL for our API. For now, let’s just put our API at the index:
# mysite/urls.py from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include
urlpatterns = [
path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
path('', include('myapi.urls')),
]
5.3 API URLs
If you’re paying attention and not just blindly copy-pasting, you’ll notice that we included 'myapi.urls' . That’s a path to a file we haven’t edited yet. And that’s where Django is going to look next for instructions on how to route this URL.
So, let’s go there next — myapi/urls.py:
# myapi/urls.py from django.urls import include, path
from rest_framework import routers
from . import views
router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'heroes', views.HeroViewSet)
# Wire up our API using automatic URL routing.
# Additionally, we include login URLs for the browsable API.
urlpatterns = [
path('', include(router.urls)),
path('api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls', namespace='rest_framework'))
]
Notice we added something called router that we imported from rest_framework .
The REST Framework router will make sure our requests end up at the right resource dynamically. If we add or delete items from the database, the URLs will update to match. Cool right?
A router works with a viewset (see views.py above) to dynamically route requests. In order for a router to work, it needs to point to a viewset, and in most cases, if you have a viewset you’ll want a router to go with it.
So far, we’ve only added one model+serializer+viewset to the router — Heroes. But we can add more in the future repeating the same process above for different models! (Maybe create a Villains API next?)
Of course, if you only want to use standard DRF Views instead of viewsets, then urls.py will look a little different. You don’t need a router to use simple views, and you can just add them with:
path('path/to/my/view/', MySimpleView.as_view())
Test it out!
Start up the Django server again:
$ python manage.py runserver
Now go to localhost:8000 | https://medium.com/swlh/build-your-first-rest-api-with-django-rest-framework-e394e39a482c | ['Bennett Garner'] | 2020-09-17 13:56:20.645000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Web Development', 'Software Development', 'Coding', 'Django'] |
Discrete vs Continuous Probability Distributions in context of Data Science | First lets define some terms for clarity
The sample space Ω
The sample space is the set of all possible outcomes of the experiment,
usually denoted by Ω. For example, two successive coin tosses have
a sample space of {hh, tt, ht, th}, where “h” denotes “heads” and “t”
denotes “tails”.
The event space A
The event space is the space of potential results of the experiment. A
subset A of the sample space Ω is in the event space A if at the end
of the experiment we can observe whether a particular outcome ω ∈ Ω
is in A. The event space A is obtained by considering the collection of
subsets of Ω, and for discrete probability distributions (Section 6.2.1)
A is often the power set of Ω.
The probability P
With each event A ∈ A, we associate a number P (A) that measures the
probability or degree of belief that the event will occur. P (A) is called
the probability of A.
The probability of a single event must lie in the interval [0, 1], and the
total probability over all outcomes in the sample space Ω must be 1, i.e.,
P (Ω) = 1. Given a probability space (Ω, A, P ), we want to use it to model
some real-world phenomenon. In machine learning, we often avoid explic-
itly referring to the probability space, but instead refer to probabilities on
quantities of interest, which we denote by T as the target space and refer to elements of of T as states.
The term probability relates is to an event and probability distribution relates is to a random variable .
It is a convention that the term probability mass function refers to the probability distribution of a discrete random variable and the term probability density function refers to the probability function of a continuous random variable .
Understanding Probability Density
First a quick reference on PMF, PDF and CDF
In order to understand the heart of modern probability, we need to extend the concept of integration from basic calculus.
To begin, let us consider the following piecewise function
Applying the fundamental Riemann integration of Calculus we get
which has the usual interpretation as the area of the two rectangles that make up f (x).
The question is given f (x) = 1, what is the set of x values for which this is true? For our example, this is true whenever x ∈ (0, 1]. So now we have a correspondence between the values of the function (namely, 1 and 2) and the sets of x values for which this is true, namely, {(0, 1]} and {(1, 2]}, respectively. To compute the integral, we simply take the function values
(i.e., 1,2) and some way of measuring the size of the corresponding interval.
Since areas can be defined by definite integrals, we can also define the probability of an event occuring within an interval [a, b] by the definite integral
where f(x) is called the probability density function (pdf).
A function f(x) is called a probability density function if
f(x)≥0 for all x The area under the graph of f(x) over all the real line is exactly 1 The probability that x is in the interval [a, b] is
i.e. the area under the graph of f(x) from a to b.
In the problem above, the probability density function f(x) is called a uniform (flat) probability density function (pdf).
So fundamentally, what does a probability density at point 𝒙 mean? Probability density function’s value at some specific point does not give you probability; it is a measure of how dense the distribution is around that value. It means how much probability is concentrated per unit length (d𝒙) near 𝒙, or how dense the probability is near 𝒙.
For discrete random variables, we look up the value of a PMF at a single point to find its probability P(𝐗=𝒙)
For continuous random variables, we take an integral of a PDF over a certain interval to find its probability that X will fall in that interval. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/discrete-vs-continuous-probability-distributions-in-context-of-data-science-e48c7d40bc0f | ['Rohan Paul'] | 2020-12-12 20:15:43.985000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Probability', 'Python3', 'Data Science'] |
Lichen Life | “They [lichen] simply exist… testifying to the moving fact that life even at its simplest level occurs, apparently, just for its own sake.” — David Attenborough
As humans, we’re inclined to believe that we have some sort of all-encompassing purpose. That life, itself, must have some sort of point. We’re innately designed to pursue our ambitions and we’re both mentally and physically constructed to achieve remarkable things.
But, as Bill Bryson had once asked, what’s life to a lichen?
“Like most things that thrive in harsh environments, lichens are slow growing. It may take a lichen more than half a century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button… It would be hard to imagine a less fulfilling existence… … Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours — arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t…” — Bill Bryson
It can be argued that every minute bit of matter in our universe serves some sort of purpose, even if that purpose consists of filling the empty (though not really empty) voids of space around us.
“Living” organisms are naturally given more credence than, say, inanimate objects. We can see that they, like us, grow or reproduce or consume energy. Underlaying all of this are the numerous laws of the natural world which seem to infuse everything, inanimate or not, with some kind of mysterious effervescence, one that prompts us to realize that there is much more at play so long as we zoom in close enough.
Many thinkers, today and throughout history, have held firm in their proposition that something more exists within the spaces that hold together each individual atom; that, whatever it is that binds together the assembly of atoms and molecules which constitute an object or a living being, it is something woven into the fabric of overall meaning and purpose.
Now, what does any of this have to do with lichen?
It can be argued that even the most primal and seemingly one-dimensional of life forms contain some sort of inexorable sense of vitality. An irrefutable and intoxicating sense of existence that we share in common with all of matter.
This is where things get more interesting. | https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/lichen-life-caf87ad49b5d | ['Michael Woronko'] | 2020-10-29 19:07:53.636000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Life', 'Science', 'Nature', 'Life Lessons'] |
How To Stay Relevant As A Machine Learning Engineer In 2021 | Have A Consistent Learning Routine
Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come — Dwayne Johnson
One of the main lessons I learned in 2020 is that nothing beats consistency, not talent and not even luck.
Writing over 150+ Medium articles in 2020, and publishing at least 3 AI/ML/DS articles a week over the year made me realise that if you stay consistent, it is possible to accumulate invaluable experience that produces results that can’t be replicated through luck.
In past articles, I’ve alluded to some of the reasons I write on Medium and also the benefits realised as a Machine Learning Practitioner. Through the creation of a regular writing and learning routine, I’ve been able to deliver content on the Medium platform continuously.
This brings us to the first strategy I’ll be incorporating in 2021 to stay relevant within the ML industry. My plan for staying relevant is to transfer the notion of consistency and regime to my accumulation of ML related knowledge.
As a Machine Learning professional, you come across novel algorithms, models and techniques every day.
Most times, to leverage these new algorithms and techniques, you are forced to learn how they operate and function. So, you could argue that ML practitioners are continually learning. However, in 2021, I am making it a habit.
One notable method which I’m using to educate myself and enrich my knowledge in machine learning is to set a measurable goal.
The goal is to read and understand at least 30 deep learning research papers in 2021.
For me, this means reading and understanding the content of a new research paper every two weeks. My approach is to spend at least an hour a day on a research paper. I’m not sure if reading 30 research paper is considered a lot or not, especially for someone more concerned with the engineering of deep learning models as opposed to the study or research.
What I’m sure of is the papers I aim to read are centred around deep learning solutions to computer vision tasks, such as Object Detection, Pose Estimation, Semantic segmentation and more.
Staying Relevant
How will reading research papers help me stay relevant within the ML industry?
In 2020 most of us found ourselves with more time in our hands, typically as a result of the lockdown measures imposed in major cities around the globe. With my time, I explored some of the earliest major convolutional neural networks released by pioneers within the deep learning field.
My exploration of these CNN architectures involved reading research papers, understanding the algorithms and techniques presented and in some cases implementing the CNN architectures using TensorFlow.
Some of the architectures I explored were AlexNet, LeNet, GoogLeNet, PoseNet etc. Transfer learning within machine learning removes the complexity involved in implementing, training and developing conventional CNN architectures.
To gain a deeper understanding of deep learning network architectures, it’s beneficial to visit original research papers and make an attempt to understand the reasoning behind techniques.
Going as far as to implement algorithms and network architecture from scratch will provide any ML practitioner with a more profound understanding of the deep learning domain.
ML practitioners that can read research papers and extract the necessary information to develop an algorithm or neural network architecture are highly sought after across the ML industry.
And this isn't going to change in 2021. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-stay-relevant-as-a-machine-learning-engineer-in-2021-41b5feaa4771 | ['Richmond Alake'] | 2020-12-10 01:04:43.814000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Careers', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Overview of feature selection methods | Overview of feature selection methods
Common strategies for choosing the most relevant features in your data set
The importance of feature selection
Selecting the right set of features to be used for data modelling has been shown to improve the performance of supervised and unsupervised learning, to reduce computational costs such as training time or required resources, in the case of high-dimensional input data to mitigate the curse of dimensionality. Computing and using feature importance scores is also an important step towards model interpret-ability.
Overview of this post
This post shares the overview of supervised and unsupervised methods for performing feature selection I have acquired after researching the topic for a few days. For all depicted methods I also provide references to open-source python implementations I used in order to allow you to quickly test out the presented algorithms. However, this research domain is very abundant in terms of methods which have been proposed during the last 2 decades and as such this post only attempts to present my current limited view without any pretense for completeness. For a more comprehensive study, you can check the following review.
Supervised/ Unsupervised models
There are supervised feature selection algorithms which identify the relevant features for best achieving the goal of the supervised model (e.g. a classification or a regression problem)and they rely on the availability of labelled data. However, for unlabeled data, a number of unsupervised feature selection methods have been developed which score all data dimensions based on various criteria, such as their variance, their entropy, their ability to preserve local similarity, etc. Relevant features identified using unsupervised heuristics can also be used in supervised models as they may discover other patterns in the data additional to the correlation of features with the target variable.
From a taxonomic point of view, feature selection methods usually fall into one of the following 4 categories detailed below: filter, wrapper, embedded and hybrid classes.
Wrapper methods
This approach evaluates the performance of a subset of features based on the resulting performance of the applied learning algorithm (e.g. what is the gain in accuracy for a classification problem). Any learning algorithm can be used in this combination of search strategy and modelling.
Image from Analytics Vidhya
Forward selection : this approach starts with an empty set of features and then the dimensions providing the best performance are being iteratively added to the result set
: this approach starts with an empty set of features and then the dimensions providing the best performance are being iteratively added to the result set Backward selection: this approach starts from the set of all features and at each iteration the worst dimension is being removed
Implementation: these algorithms are implemented in the mlxtend package, find here an example of usage.
RFE (Recursive feature elimination): greedy search which selects features by recursively considering smaller and smaller sets of features. It ranks features based on the order of their elimination.
Implementation: scikit-learn
Embedded methods
This approach consists in algorithms which simultaneously perform model fitting and feature selection. This is typically implemented by using a sparsity regularizer or constraint which makes the weight of some features become zero.
SMLR (Sparse Multinomial Logistic Regression): this algorithm implements a sparse regularization by ARD prior (Automatic relevance determination) for the classical multinational logistic regression. This regularization estimated the importance of each feature and prunes the dimensions which are not useful for the prediction.
Implementation: SMLR
ARD (Automatic Relevance Determination Regression): based on a Bayesian Ridge Regression, this model will shift the coefficient weights towards zero more than methods like OLS for instance.
ARD sparsity constraint makes the weights of some features 0 and thus helps identify the relevant dimensions
Implementation: scikit-learn
Other examples of regularization algorithms: Lasso (implementing l1 regularization), Ridge Regression (implementing l2 regularization), Elastic Net (implementing l1 and l2 regularization). An intuitive depiction of these different regularization types shows that Lasso regression constrains the coefficients to a square shape, ridge creates a circle and elastic net is in between:
A comprehensive description of these algorithms can be found here.
Filter methods
This approach evaluates the importance of features based only on their inherent characteristics, without incorporating any learning algorithm. These methods tend to be faster and less computationally expensive than wrapper methods. If there is not enough data to model the statistical correlation between features, filter methods may provide worse results than wrapper methods. Unlike wrapper methods they are not subject to overfitting. They are extensively used on high dimensional data where wrapper methods have a prohibitive computational cost.
Supervised methods
Relief : This method samples randomly instances from the dataset and updates the relevance of each feature based on the difference between the selected instance and the two nearest instances of the same and opposite classes. If a feature difference is observed in the neighboring instances of the same class ( a ‘hit’), the feature score decreases, alternatively if the feature value difference is observed with a different score (a ‘miss’) then the feature score increases.
Feature weight decreases if it differs from that feature in nearby instances of the same class more than nearby instances of the other class and increases in the reverse case
The extended algorithm, ReliefF applies feature weighting and searches for more nearest neighbors.
Implementations: scikit-rebate, ReliefF
Fisher score: Typically used in binary classification problems, the Fisher ration (FiR) is defined as the distance between the sample means for each class per feature divided by their variances:
Implementations : scikit-feature, usage example.
Chi-squared score:tests if there is a significant difference between the observed and the expected frequencies of 2 categorical variables. Thus the Null hypothesis states that there is no association between both variables.
Chi square test of independence
In order to correctly apply the chi-squared in order to test the relation between various features in the dataset and the target variable, the following conditions have to be met: the variables have to be categorical, sampled independently and values should have an expected frequency greater than 5. The last condition ensures that the CDF of the test statistic can be closely approximated by the chi-square distribution, more details can be found here.
Implementation: sklearn, scipy
CFS (Correlation-based feature selection): The rationale of this method can be summarized as:
“ Features are relevant if their values vary systematically with category membership.”
Thus, good feature subsets contain features highly correlated with the classification and uncorrelated to each other. The method calculates the merit of a subset of k features as:
Implementations : scikit-feature, usage example.
FCBF (Fast correlation-based filter): this method is faster and more efficient than both ReliefF and CFS and thus, more adapted for high dimensional input. In a nutshell, it follows a typical relevance-redundancy approach by computing first the Symmetrical Uncertainty (the information gain of x | y divided by the sum of their entropies) for all features, sorts them by this criteria and then removes the redundant features.
Implementations: skfeature, https://github.com/shiralkarprashant/FCBF
Unsupervised methods
Variance: has been shown to be an effective way to select relevant features which tend to have a higher variance score
Implementation: Variance Threshold
Mean absolute difference: computes the mean absolute difference from the mean value (implementation).
Higher values tend to have more discriminative power
Dispersion ratio: the arithmetic mean divided by the geometric mean. Higher dispersion corresponds to more relevant features (implementation)
Laplacian Score: is based on the observation that data from the same class is often close to each other and thus we can evaluate the importance of a feature by its power of locality preserving. The method consists in embedding the data on a nearest neighbor graph by using an arbitrary distance measure and then calculating a weight matrix. A laplacian score is then calculated for each feature and will have the property that smallest values correspond to the most important dimensions. However, in order to select a subset of features another clustering algorithm (e.g. k-means) is typically applied a-posteriori in order to select the best performing group
Implementations : scikit-feature
Laplacian Score combined with distance-based entropy : this algorithm builds on top of the Laplacian score and uses distance-based entropy to replace the typical k-means clustering and shows better stability in high-dimensional datasets (implementation)
: this algorithm builds on top of the Laplacian score and uses distance-based entropy to replace the typical k-means clustering and shows better stability in high-dimensional datasets (implementation) MCFS (Multi-Cluster Feature selection): a spectral analysis is performed to measure the correlation between different features. The top eigenvectors of the graph Laplacian are used to cluster the data and a feature score is being computed as explained in the original paper.
Implementation : https://github.com/danilkolikov/fsfc
LFSBSS (Localised feature selection), weighted k-means, SPEC and Apriori algorithms have been described in this review paper and are implemented in this package
Hybrid methods
Another option of implementing feature selection consists in a hybrid approach of combining filter and wrapper methods into a 2 phase process: an initial filtering of features based on statistical properties (filter phase) followed by a second selection based wrapper methods.
Other resources
There is a very abundant literature tackling feature selection problem and this post only scratches the surface of the research work which has been done. I will provide links to other resources that exist and that I haven’t yet tried.
A comprehensive list of other feature selection algorithms that I haven’t mentioned in this post have been implemented in scikit-feature package.
Other ways to identify relevant features is by using PLS (Partial least squares) as exemplified in this post or by performing linear dimensionality reduction techniques as presented here. | https://towardsdatascience.com/overview-of-feature-selection-methods-a2d115c7a8f7 | ['Madalina Ciortan'] | 2019-07-26 17:44:35.219000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Feature Selection'] |
Russ Roberts and Tyler on COVID-19 (Ep. 90 — BONUS) | Russ Roberts and Tyler on COVID-19 (Ep. 90 — BONUS)
Tyler and Russ Roberts joined forces for a special livestreamed conversation on COVID-19, including how both are adjusting to social isolation, private versus public responses to the pandemic, the challenge of reforming scrambled organization capital, the implications for Trump’s reelection, appropriate fiscal and monetary responses, bailouts, innovation prizes, and more.
Listen to the full conversation
Read the full transcript
Note: This transcript has not been thoroughly checked for accuracy. If you notice an error, please email the team.
RUSS ROBERTS: Okay. Welcome, everybody. Today is March 18th, 2020 this is a special edition of EconTalk to be released more or less simultaneously with Conversations with Tyler. And that’s because my guest or co-conspirator in this conversation is long time EconTalk guest, Tyler Cowen of George Mason University. We’re streaming this live on the YouTube channel of the Mercatus Center, George Mason. In general, I try not to do timely episodes but somehow something felt different this week. For one, I felt an urge to connect with my audience as we all are hunkering down, sheltering in place, self quarantining, self isolating.
I’m releasing EconTalk episodes every Monday and they were recorded weeks and weeks ago, which is the way I like to do it because there’s nothing particularly timely usually and what I release, but this seemed that there was a lot to talk and think about. Tyler, you are a self-described infovore, you’re such a creative thinker. I want to try to learn from you about where we are and to share my thoughts when possible about where I think we are and to try to learn from each other and hope that that’s of some value to those of you listening out there.
I want to start with on a personal note, my father passed away on March 2nd of this month. March 2nd of this year, a little over two weeks ago. The last eight days of his life he was on a ventilator and we removed him from that contraption and he lived for about an hour with his family in the room. It was a very powerful moment. But I think that probably colored some of my reaction to this crisis when it started to ramp up. My dad had pneumonia, he had MERS at that point, he had a bad lung.
I’m starting to look at his, at the data as they come out. I’m looking at the China data and it says if you’re 60 to 69 and I’m 65 you got a 5% chance of dying in that early data if you get the virus. That’s a pretty high … because I don’t think there’s anything that I do that has a 5% chance of death in my daily life or if there is, I need to find out and stop doing it.
So I think my original reaction, plus the melancholy mood I was in and the natural tendency for media to over-hype things on Sunday, when I reached out to Tyler, I was in a pretty anxious state. Felt an urge to encourage people to self isolate. I got back on Twitter at that point. I’d been back on Twitter for a little bit after my father passed away and just was in a very bleak and crisis oriented mood. I’m in a much more relaxed mood now. We’ll talk about that, but I want to just mention that because I think a lot of our reactions to this are colored by our own personal experience. So tell me where you’re at.
TYLER COWEN: Well, first of all Russ, my condolences for your father. I know he was very important to you and a very sad event. So we’re all with you and your family at this moment.
ROBERTS: Thank you. Thank you.
COWEN: I have been hunkered down at home every day with some quick trips outside typically to use the printer at work or maybe to refresh some grocery supplies as quickly as I can. But I wake up, I move to my sofa, I get into information absorption mode and just let it rip until it’s time to go to bed at night. I’ve been blogging and writing about this the whole time and really not doing very much else. Although, I am spending more time cooking. So what I see as the data come in is we ought to have greater concern as to the possible risks here for this being a very large scale negative event. I’m not sure my personal mood has changed that much, but I am taking this more and more seriously. Does that make sense to you?
ROBERTS: Yeah, and I want to confess another personal matter which is that I work from home every day. The only difference really in my life right now is that I have my two sons home from college and my wife who teaches high school math will be, after our session is done, Tyler, she’s going to take our broadband and use it to teach online to her class.
COWEN: That’s what I’m doing with my Law class, yes.
ROBERTS: When I encourage people to self isolate, which I did in the early beginning as a response to what I felt was not much of a governmental response initially, I felt there’s a lot we could do to reduce risk individually and voluntarily. So I was encouraging people to do that. Being aware of the fact that for me, it’s not much of a burden. I mean the whole crisis for me right now other than anxiety and worries about the future of the country and death of my loved ones who are even older than I am and other people’s loved ones, they main effect is that on Friday I impulsively went to Costco, which was better than Sunday I think. Spent an hour waiting to check out. It was really a fascinating cultural experience.
The lines went to the back of the store and then snaked around a little bit. There was plenty of stuff on the shelves except for maybe toilet paper. I think everything else was pretty much in stock, but it’s not a hard burden for me. I think it’s just important to say that up front. It’s not hard for me to work from home. I have no financial worries in this crisis. I think it’s important to try to remember that other people are not like us. That’s a good rule generally, but it’s especially important I think right now.
COWEN: I agree with that, but I think it will become hard for you most likely and hard for virtually everyone. So imagine keeping on doing what you’re doing through a some greater number of months, imposing similar restrictions on your family, having to make some number of fairly stressful decisions along the way. Let’s talk again in June how hard or easy this is, right? So we’re used to going outside and interacting with people face to face and-
ROBERTS: Not so much though.
COWEN: Mostly we’re being cut off from that.
ROBERTS: Yeah. I’m instituting, I think Skype coffee is a really good thing. I recommend that to everybody. People you might normally have coffee with, get a cup of coffee and sit on Skype or Zoom and chat with them, and that way it’s not so bad. It’s not great, but it’s not so bad.
COWEN: What are you doing to get into that quarantine state of mind, if I may ask?
ROBERTS: What do you mean by that?
COWEN: The understanding that it may be really some period of time before you are able to resume normal movements and interactions. Any given day it may seem fine, but what mental readjustment are you making?
ROBERTS: For me, the things that I’m anxious about, I usually spend the summer in California. I wonder if that’s going to be possible. My son’s getting married in August in Australia. That seems uncertain. A good friend of mine’s son was scheduled to be married. They’ve just postpone the wedding. So those kinds of things they weigh on me a little bit. The way I try to deal with that for me is it’s just an adventure. I don’t to minimize it, it’s just part of the incredible experience. A life that we have this experience together with my … The two sons are home with my wife. This is just something that we get to experience. I try to look at it that way. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
It’s obviously going to have cultural, social, economic and political implications, which I hope we’ll talk about. I’m just trying to … Here’s the hardest part. I was talking to somebody yesterday about this who’s worried about her aging parents. I’m worried about my 87 year old mom who just lost her husband and isn’t as worried about this as I am for a lot of reasons. But I think the challenge is you’re not in charge. Most of my life, I’m in charge and I love that feeling and the acceptance of the idea that you can’t control your mom’s safety and you can’t control when your son’s wedding will actually be, it’s just hard to deal with. I’m not used to that. Don’t like that feeling. So for me, it’s trying to cope with that. How about you?
COWEN: With that in mind, I’ve tried to stay as busy as possible and in fact I don’t think I’ve ever, ever been busier in my entire life. Reading materials, writing, passing along advice, just processing information every day feels like an enormous sort of rush of things I have to do. Even though in the sense of my physical surroundings, it’s quite static. So I think that’s given me maybe an illusory sense of control, but it’s made it bearable for me. And again, I don’t think my personal mood has changed that much other than just feeling much, much busier.
ROBERTS: Well, about a week ago, my wife was a little concerned with how focused I was on it, I was on the whole issue. And I realized this. That’s just the way I deal with it. That’s part of my anxiety control mechanism. It’s just, I think my human reaction to it and it sounds like it’s yours too.
COWEN: One striking fact about all of these events is I think it really drives home the difficulty for people of thinking in exponential terms. So you and I have both been talking today about the importance of economic growth, compounding returns over time. Having an economy growing at 3% is much, much better over time than having an economy growing at 1%. How hard it is for people to grasp that. That’s old news to the two of us.
And here we have a totally new event where, by some estimates, the number of actual cases is doubling say every five to seven days in many parts of the country or world. It right now doesn’t actually quote unquote “look that terrible.” And there are many people who have coronavirus but no symptoms and they’ll probably just be fine.
But nonetheless, if something is doubling every five to seven days, some very bad events are not so far away. But because they’re not vivid people, including a lot of economists I know, they’re not able to make that mental leap. I think my background with thinking about economic growth is a significant reason why I think I’ve seen some of the dangers here coming.
ROBERTS: Well, I’m going to think about that a different way. I, like you, I spend a lot of time thinking about uncertainty and risk and growth, linear versus exponential. And I’ve been struck by how hard it is for me to get my head around this. I was alluding to that earlier that I have relatives who watch Fox News and they were telling me a week ago, this is just like the flu. Maybe eight days ago, 10 days ago. I lost it. I said, “1.5 million people dying in America is not like the flu.” And I was looking at these numbers, 40% to 70% of Americans will likely get coronavirus. Let’s say that’s half. So that gets you to about 150 160 million. And that “1% will die,” that gets you to 1.6 million, presumably extra deaths.
So that concentrated the mind wonderfully or whatever the opposite is, right? I started to think, oh, we’ve got to act right now. We got to spread the word. People are under appreciating it and I think they did for a while. I feel like they’ve kind of gone back the other way now. I think we have to be very careful right now. I think it’s really appropriate most of the things that everyone’s doing. Staying at home as much as possible, wash your hands, not touching your face, staying six feet away from people. Those are all crucial over the next two weeks and maybe the next month, maybe longer. We don’t know.
But I do think there is an apocalyptic reaction to this that that is also very natural. That is the opposite of what you’re talking about. That people just, they see the curve going like this. They say, “ We’re 10 days behind Italy.” I don’t think we are. I mean I don’t want to be eight days behind Italy or 12 or whatever the right way to think about that is. But I think it’s really hard to think about this. I’m not so good at it and I think about it a lot.
COWEN: Keep in mind this affects the world as a whole. Most countries do not have a public health system as good as ours. Ours is far from the best we’re seeing, by the way. We’ll get to that. But also I think it’s now becoming fairly clear there’s quite a good chance that soon we will have say 20% unemployment in financial markets. People are hoarding cash. Our real interest rates are rising.
Even if the Fed supplies as much liquidity as possible, there’s a danger that either the liquidity is not deployed or the only way to get it deployed is to have centralized government as a truly major allocator of resources. Far beyond anything we’ve seen so far. Almost as if we were on a wartime footing. And the chance of those events happening seems to be rising. So of course we should take the deaths very seriously. Even many younger people might have some kind of permanent damage to their lungs. We’re not sure yet.
COWEN: There seem to be many open questions, but the risks do seem to be rising and I would include the global front, the economic front. Tensions between the United States and China are much worse than they had been. China is calling it a virus from America. Trump is calling it the Chinese virus. It’s even possible, that’s the single worst outcome of all of these events. So there are many different angles here. I think too many for any person to really take in and follow or grasp. But again, to me the risks do seem to be rising.
ROBERTS: Yeah, well those other parts I think are very relevant. The economic and social pieces, political pieces. Let’s focus for a few more minutes on the medical epidemiological side of this before we move on. What are your views? Do you have anything to say about this accusation, which is true, that we’ve been very slow to roll out testing? A lot of people are arguing, South Korea figured this out, solved it. They’re basically almost done with this problem. We’ve been slow to test and as a result it’s we’ve opened up a huge Pandora’s box that we can’t fix.
COWEN: It’s very true that we have been slow to test. Some of that is because of FDA restrictions. Some of that is the administration simply not responding quickly enough. Some of it is reasons that still seems somewhat mysterious as to why we didn’t have better tests handy. There’s a very good article in Wired a few days ago on this. We don’t know the full extent of what happened, but I would not be so quick to assume that South Korea or any of the East Asian nations have it under control. There’s some very recent data suggesting that the number of cases may be rising in those countries.
A downside of controlling it quickly is that you have a very large pool of people who have in essence no immunity. So which countries exactly will do how well? I would say we don’t know yet. I do think Taiwan and Singapore most of all, and then South Korea probably have had the best responses, but they are by no means in the clear. The question is how many waves there will be, what kind of immunities are built up, for how long does this stretch? What I am seeing from informed opinions is just a high degree of uncertainty and I find that worrying. We’re in a position where we need really quite a number of particular things to go well for any country to be in the clear.
ROBERTS: It’s just hard to know. I think what people seem to have missed in this testing conversation is that there appears to be an enormous number of false positives. So I’m encouraging people not to focus as closely on the caseload as more perhaps on the death count, unfortunately. I assume there’s false negatives too, but this idea that people are walking around who are asymptomatic, I’m sure there are some. But I wouldn’t be confident it’s all the people who have tested positive.
My thought, it’s hard to have a Libertarian moment or a classical liberal moment in these times. But it seemed to me that when the administration and Trump underestimated the seriousness of the problem and they downplayed it, which I thought was a terrible mistake. But when they did, people like you and me and others said, “Hey, this is a real problem.”
And the private voluntary reaction to the crisis was quite strong. The NBA shut down very quickly. The NCAA shut down very quickly. Baseball shut down very quickly. Nobody had to order folks around. I think what’s been underestimated in this, in the demand for this sort of top down, fix it, solve it, make everybody hold. Don’t let anything bad ever happen. We’ve missed the role that we can play individually. It’s going to be very imperfect. Of course, people cheat on self quarantining. I know that. But the idea that we can test perfectly as if that could solve it is unrealistic in a country of 330 million people in our number of square miles.
It just seems that the advantage of this bottom up voluntary response to the crisis is it allows for nuance. The top down says everything’s closed and that means that there’s going to be enormous economic and human results from that, that we’re just sort of ignoring. The advantage of the private response is it allows for people to be more flexible, to take into account when they can and should, when things are more dangerous to some than others. And I just think that that’s been lost in this maelstrom.
COWEN: Maybe I have a different point of view on a number of those points. I’m not sure the rate of false positives is very high. I see papers arguing it both ways. If you look at the cruise ship testing-
ROBERTS: 50%. 50% in the one I saw.
COWEN: Well, there may be 50% who don’t have symptoms and who are just fine. But I don’t think there’s anything close to 50% false positives for tests well done. So if you look at say testing in Singapore, I don’t think they have anything close to a 50% rate of false positives. Might the drive through tests in South Korea have a much higher false positives rate. Certainly, I would expect that. Even there, we don’t know. But I think it’s very important to be shutting down as much as we can right now.
ROBERTS: Agree. Agree.
COWEN: With the number of cases rising exponentially, if you’re going to apply testing and isolation and giving people ICU care and hospital beds and ventilators, you need for that problem to be manageable in size relative to your healthcare infrastructure or you do end up being like Lombardy in North Italy. So we could end up in that position say two weeks from now.
I’m not sure we have to, but I think the single biggest thing we can do to stop being there given that the tests are not in our labs at the moment is just for people to interact with others as little as possible. And it’s as if we’re trying to put the economy in a coma, to cite an analogy Larry Summers gave. So I think we should be trying to put the economy in a coma. I’m okay with government doing that, but I think personally we need to be doing that quicker than what the government is up to.
ROBERTS: Yeah, I mean a lot of things got put in, I would call it a deep freeze very quickly. Sports being the obvious one. Broadway I think followed shortly after that. I think the place where the biggest hole was bars and restaurants and the government did that. Most of our restaurant owners and goers I don’t think particularly were excited about self regulating there. But certainly, churches, synagogues, mosques all just very quickly shut down, which is pretty amazing.
COWEN: Plenty have not, right? Plenty of religious ceremonies are still up and running. You can walk around different parts of Virginia and see people intermingling at a large scale. We’re not really quite there yet in my view. If 30% of Americans, if you poll them, they say they’re not even worried. So there’s been a huge failure of communications. Some of that comes from our President, but it’s really not just that there are so many businesses, institutions in the nonprofit world that just have been very, very slow to respond.
ROBERTS: Yeah, fair enough. I do think staying home is the single biggest thing we can do right now and obviously, closing some things through regulation and government is going to make it more likely than not.
COWEN: I know one of my proposals is we should have things that make it more fun for people to be at home. So some of the entertainment companies are having free streaming on cable of some of their back catalog. Maybe that’s a marginal effect — but if it saves a few lives? So whatever we can do so that people are willing or indeed maybe even in some cases eager to stay home, making childcare issues easier. If you just think through all the different logistical issues with staying home, it’s actually quite complex. I would like to see our nonprofit sector get on the ball very quickly with delivering supplies to people who need it and who shouldn’t be going out or can’t get out. We’re starting to solve on this, but on almost all fronts, we’re starting way too late. Ideally, we should have been doing this at some point earlier in February.
ROBERTS: Let’s move to the more economic side of things. I’m not sure how important those things. I mean, I really liked that … Again, I have Amazon Prime, so I have lots of stuff to watch. I have Netflix, I have lots of stuff to watch. But if you don’t have those, YouTube has oh what, only about a trillion hours of entertainment. I think the stir crazy aspect of this … Now you’re right, you suggested earlier that after six weeks, this might feel differently than it does now. I think the financial side of this for people who are not being able to get to work, can’t go to work as is the much bigger issue obviously.
COWEN: Of course.
ROBERTS: Let’s turn to that. You said unemployment might be 20%, of course, it’s higher than that right now in a real sense, in an unmeasured non-quantified sense. A lot of people “aren’t working” and I would as I’m sure you would, I’d encourage you to look at employment as opposed to unemployment in the coming weeks and months. But if the economy took a break, if government had announced, irrespective of this virus, that everybody has a forced two week vacation. Everybody goes home for two weeks, stays home, it’s good. We’re going to have more family time. You know GDP would go down in those two weeks if we could measure it in a two week period. We don’t. Some of that would be made up for in the two weeks after because people would be buying or creating things that weren’t made during those two weeks.
Some things are not replaceable. The meal out versus the meal in, right? Eating out versus cooking yourself. You don’t make that up or you could a little bit. But in general, what are your thoughts on, on that sort of extreme version of this, right? That would be a stylized way of thinking about what we’re going through now. Well, what would be the con the impact of that, if everybody just stopped making stuff for sale, that commercial life stopped for two weeks or four weeks?
COWEN: Well, two to four weeks, those are easy cases. If you think of many service sectors as having to shut down say until August, which is quite a possible scenario in some cases even later. That to me is greatly concerning and it may vary across sectors. So if you think about the NBA, whenever the NBA is ready to play games again, I mean the players will show up the next day and there’ll be ready, right? That will come back very quickly. But if you think of small businesses, say restaurants, the big chains aside, they’re typically thinly capitalized.
Let’s say a significant portion of those are gone forever. And then when things are somewhat normal again, how does the economy re-scramble and re-constitute the organizational capital that was in those ongoing enterprises? That to me is a hugely difficult problem and whatever you think the government should or should not do, just spending a lot on fiscal stimulus will not ease that problem. That’s the actual destruction going on is the relationships, the organizational capital, the intangibles that will decay. Not over two weeks, probably not over four weeks but over four or five months or longer. Then I think that’s a matter really of great concern.
ROBERTS: Well, I’ll make a bet with you right now, Tyler, that this four or five months from now, it won’t look like it does now. In terms of the expectations of sub quarantining and self isolation and things being closed. I think we’re going to get to see Tom Brady in a Tampa Bay Buccaneer uniform. For example-
COWEN: On TV, but not with a crowd. Yes. It’ll be on TV. They’re playing basketball games to be televised and people watch them. But even in China where the number of new cases is really in most parts of the country, genuinely very low, they are not returning with live sporting events. Keep in mind we will have a pool of never infected people, which will be fairly large in absolute numbers and what risks we will be willing to take. Insurance companies would allow, our liability system and corporate lawyers would be willing to allow. When you think through all of that stickiness, I think we’re really not so close to resuming many of these shutdown activities.
ROBERTS: Yeah, I’m a little more optimistic than you, but if you said to me, “How do you know?” I’d say, “It’s probably just empty optimism.”
COWEN: But you agree there’s far too much litigation in American society, right? Far too easy to sue people for random reasons. Why won’t that-
ROBERTS: Yeah. I assume that’s part of the reason. I say that’s part of the reason businesses are overly aggressive about shutting down. Disneyland, my understanding was Disneyland got a special exemption. They could stay open and then they shut down anyway because that’s a litigation nightmare I assume.
COWEN: So I think the reopening decisions, especially in more bureaucratic corporations, it will be very hard for everyone to sign off and agree. Yes, we’re going to go ahead. There’s going to be an open Disneyland again. We’re going to have spectators at NBA games. The risk of bad publicity, social media storms against companies whether true or not, someone might have died as a result of going to a game. Over some time horizon social norms may shift and a lot of people might just say, “Look, we’re just going to take these chances and deal with it.” But I don’t think we’re close to that. And certainly, our legal system is not close to that. And human resources departments are not close to that.
ROBERTS: I guess I disagree a little bit. I mean, I saw an earlier interview you did on this where you suggested some larger cultural changes and I think are likely. I base that partly on the idea that right now, people under the age of 25 were having trouble self isolating. Part of it’s because they think they’re not at risk. Part of it is maybe they don’t worry so much. They don’t have as much of a forward looking thought process. Part of it is, hey, I want to have a good time. I think the human impulse of that is going to be strong, but the legal part is huge. I agree with you there.
I’m going to talk about organizational capital because I don’t fully understand that. You used the word destruction. I think it’s important to make a distinction between what we would call wartime destruction and economic, quote, destruction, Schumpeterian destruction. The way I think about it is this real estate developer said to me, very successful… He said this to me 10 days ago. That’s when I started to started thinking, “This is troubling.” He said, “I’m going to lose all my buildings.” I said, “Why are you going to lose all your buildings?” He said, “Well, the people who live in them aren’t going to be able to get work. They’re not going to be able to work.
They’re not going to have a paycheck, some of them, not all of them. Some of them are going to keep receiving a paycheck anyway, but some of them aren’t going to be able to get a paycheck. I’m not going to be able to pay my loans off. The bank’s going to foreclose. I’m going to lose my buildings.”
Now, that’s a personal tragedy for everybody involved, but buildings are not going to be destroyed though. Right? Someone else is going to buy them up at some point in the future, maybe the same person eventually, but the buildings aren’t destroyed. Who owns them is destroyed. The stream of revenue that they provided for that person might be reduced or end. That restaurant that goes out of business, there’s going to be a restaurant there again. It just might not be the same person. They might not have the opportunity to do that. When you talk about the organizational capital being destroyed, what do you have in mind?
COWEN: Well, think of the labor market as being a very complex matching problem. Right? After the financial crisis of 2008, 2009, unemployment was much higher. It took really a very, very long time for labor markets to come back. That was work over a decade, and that was not 20% unemployment. It was not with any kind of public health crisis going on. Some workers will want to be laid off to collect unemployment insurance or collected it more quickly. Revenues for many businesses will go down. The ties between employers and workers will end up weakened. People will go off and do other things.
Reconstituting an enterprise, think of it as putting together a great sports team, like those old San Antonio Spurs teams. That took them quite a few years of drafting and training and playing together as a squad, having the right coach in place. Our economy had been doing a fairly good job of that, but there’s a big reset button being pressed on all those activities. That’s what I mean by the organizational capital going down. In some ways, it will spur efficiency, so firms having to get rid of their less-productive workers. Right? But in the short run, I think it will be fairly dire and our bounce-back could be slower than many people are expecting.
ROBERTS: Okay. I guess I’m not sure. So much of the economy is going to continue humming along in the background, like we’re doing right now. Here we are producing this podcast. Whether universities can successfully teach classes online, of course, is a struggle, but I think a lot of things are going to stay in place. I’m not sure how important is the organizational capital of a restaurant. They’re going to put a sign out for waiters, and people are going to go work there who used to work there before.
COWEN: I think restaurants-
ROBERTS: Let me say it differently. The 2008 crisis was that part of it, a lot of pieces to it, obviously, but the labor market part was that we had two sectors of the economy, construction particularly, and then manufacturing that took a massive hit. Those workers had to figure out what they should do next. A lot of them sat on the sidelines. They couldn’t find anything that was attractive to them. It was a huge matching problem. You’re sitting in Las Vegas, and you’re not sure whether you’re going to have a job in a week, a month, six months, or a year, and you kind of hope it’ll be a week, so you wait. You don’t relocate. You don’t move. You don’t retrain. You don’t imagine realistically that this entire industry that you’ve spent your life in is never going to come back for a long time, at least to the level it was before. You don’t adjust, and that’s a huge problem. This seems a little different, or do you not think so?
COWEN: Well, now it’s face-to-face services taking a big hit, which in America is significant.
ROBERTS: True.
COWEN: I think an advantage the American economy has… We have more big business than just about any other economy, or close to it, and big businesses will be much more stable than smaller ones, say, as you might find in Italy, but you mentioned universities. Let’s say come fall semester universities are still online. What percentage of the students will still sign up and pay tuition or at what rate? I don’t think anyone knows.
ROBERTS: Good point.
COWEN: Universities don’t have a lot of control over their labor costs. When you apply these possible revenue hits to fairly bureaucratized segments of our society, again, I think you’re going to see serious problems, much bigger than during the financial crisis. Again, that was only about 10% to 11% unemployment. Probably now we’re talking something much higher.
The uncertainty of future waves of the virus, which may or may not happen, but I think it’s unlikely that by July or August we will know for sure that they won’t happen, that will be a significant damper on economic activity in a way that… There was some point in 2009… Maybe things were quite dire, but no one felt anymore that another Lehman Brothers event was around the corner. Eurozone aside, that was its own story, but there was a point where we could all breathe a sigh of relief and then just wonder how well the recovery would go.
ROBERTS: How long should it take? Yeah.
COWEN: This may not be that. There’s not a clear end date in a way that you usually see with financial crises. I don’t mean to be the downer guy here, but…
ROBERTS: But you are.
COWEN: Our goal is to talk these through honestly. There are people I know more pessimistic than I am. Those are some of the factors that worry me. As you know, our own economy, labor markets are so over-regulated, that will hinder our adjustment.
ROBERTS: Yeah, I think that’s true. It’s fascinating how many calls there have been in the last couple of days for relaxing various kinds of regulations, the most obvious being FDA approval for testing for the virus, relaxing HIPAA regulations, privacy regulations on telemedicine so that older people can get medical care without having to go out into public. Some of these things, of course, you’re going to have longer-term consequences. We may decide some of these regulations weren’t so productive to start with. I don’t know, but you are painting a much more dire picture than I expected. I would say that if you are right, Donald Trump will not be reelected. You’re suggesting he’s going to be in the middle of a major recession. Accusations that he bungled the opening of this and unemployment in the 20% range, he’s cooked.
COWEN: I’m not sure that’s true about Trump. If you think of this as analogous to a wartime event, clearly FDR did not manage Pearl Harbor very well, but he certainly was reelected. Some electorates, possibly still ours, have a tendency to stick with the incumbent in situations that feel like war time. I don’t know if that’s still true, but I wouldn’t leap to the conclusion that it’s not.
ROBERTS: Interesting.
COWEN: That’s very tricky. Again, I think we need to think through other parts of the global economy. Economic growth in China right now almost certainly is negative. They are bouncing back, but the Chinese economy has been sustained by momentum. They’re kind of off-balance sheet — municipal debts are very, very high. That’s a major problem for them. I know our economy is not so closely tied to the Chinese economy, but European economies are. Many European governments seem to be managing this worse than the United States, certainly worse than East Asia.
This is likely more of a correlated global event than, in fact, 2008, 2009 was, though that had a fairly high degree of correlation. Now that too is a concern, and there’s much less, what you might call, organizational or cooperative capital internationally now than there was in 2008, 2009. Right? Far more nationalism, countries not being nice to each other. The European Union has been, in my opinion, highly ineffective in doing much. Everything has happened at the national level, for better or worse. Leadership in the United States, again, I view that as not having been high quality as of late. I think there are many things to be concerned about, but I think that the view it’s all Trump’s fault, that’s very dangerous, and it’s important to combat that. Trump was very late to the party showing up to do anything, but if you look at Western European governments, if you look at a lot of governors, a lot of private businesses…
ROBERTS: At China.
COWEN: Yes, China, there’s been a systemic failure on this, and Trump is certainly part of it, but sort of just getting rid of Trump or criticizing Trump, I think that’s very much the wrong way to go here. We need to have accountability more generally.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Well, I’m just going to make this observation. You can comment if you want, but I find it… I love Twitter. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it, as my listeners know, because it can be a ugly sinkhole of attention, of acrimony, and other things, but I think for me, and I think for you as well, based on our pre-recording conversation, it’s a huge source of information. It’s where I go to find out what’s going on right now. That’s the positive side. The negative side is the number of people who are using the crisis to advance their ideological or political agenda.
COWEN: Of course.
ROBERTS: There are things to learn from this about the proper role of government, the relative level of responsibility of, say, a Republican or a Democrat, but the zeal and ease with which people paint this situation as the result of problem X or Y that conforms with their preexisting worldview, and I include myself in this guilty party, that’s very depressing to me. Does that get to you at all?
COWEN: Yes. I try to follow better people on Twitter, but even following better people, one sees quite a bit of this. But that said, I think we will have to make significant adjustments in a post-coronavirus world. I think the upside is to believe that at least biomedicine will be far swifter and better funded and less regulated, in the good sense of that word, and our response capabilities, when all this is over, for the next event will be far, far greater. We may overreact in some 9/11 kind of ways like we’ve done arguably with airport procedures, but if there’s one part of the economy that will get a huge, beneficial boost, I think it is our biomedical capabilities and our public health infrastructure.
You might think we’re going to make big policy mistakes in many other areas. I do expect that. But in that one area, I think we will end up in a much better place. If you see that as a major sector going forward, in any case, completely aside from the issue of pandemics, that’s one of the major positives likely to come from this, that the next time something like this happens, you won’t have the FDA banning states from doing or approving their own tests. It’ll just happen.
ROBERTS: That’s true. Let talk for a second about a possible upside of the story, a cheerier story. Is it irresponsible to have this conversation, Tyler? Are we risking that people will misunderstand this? I think not. I’m going to take a chance here and talk about what I think is a cheerier story. Is it possible that we’ve overestimated the death rate based on Italy and Seattle, Washington because they’re older populations that got infected? Is it possible that one of the things being tested right now for treatment will turn out to be fairly effective, that a vaccine will be here in not 18 months, but more like something shorter, but that the treatment will carry us over until that happens and that some of these more depressing or a cataclysmic economic changes will be much smaller than you’re worrying about?
COWEN: I think those are very good questions. I think any conversation about these matters has an irresponsible element, no matter how carefully you do it, and I take that very seriously. I think ultimately you have to compare what you are saying or writing to what you think the discourse will be like without you, but I don’t think it’s possible to have a completely responsible conversation. A number of the specific points you raised, a vaccine… Given that most people are not at all harmed by coronavirus, the safety of the vaccine has to really be very high. Right?
ROBERTS: Good point.
COWEN: That will take a while. To the best of my knowledge, we’ve never developed an effective vaccine for any other coronavirus. Now, I do think, from what I read and hear, it is possible to do it now, but it is not a trivial procedure. It is doing something for the first time. It’s doing it in an environment that is highly regulated and bureaucratized, where institutions are slow to respond. Simple issues like scaling up ventilator production and distribution, we are still far behind the curve, even though we are really quite sure that is an urgent matter. Even if you’re relatively optimistic about this crisis, we are to this day performing poorly on that matter. Will we get the vaccine right?
There’s a lot of optimism out there, but I don’t think it’s a likely scenario that simply four or five months from now everyone is getting the vaccine and in essence the problem is vanishing. That seems quite unlikely from what I read in here. It’s maybe more like 12 to 18 months. If we’re extremely lucky, it could be a bit less than that. Then in terms of treatments that work, I think there’s a lot of uncertainty. Many treatments are being tried right now. There’s a lot of experimentation. Hard for me as a non-biomedicine person to judge. We’ll just have to see. But again, there’s still liability issues. There are scaling issues. There’s distribution issues, possibility of secondary harms. Given that most people are not killed or even harmed by coronavirus, it’s very complicated.
ROBERTS: Fair enough. We’ll see, I guess. I spent most of my life as an optimist. Most of that optimism ended or I think around… It’s slowly starting to decline through the 2000s as events… maybe more, and I got older. I think when you get older, you get crankier.
COWEN: I think the 2000s were not nearly as bad as people think, by the way. It’s a separate matter, but they did not dent my optimism maybe as much as yours.
ROBERTS: Yeah. In the face of your gloominess, I found my natural optimism re-arising. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. I guess we’ll see what actually happens. It’s kind of foolish to talk about it or to forecast it. I do think there’s an interesting dynamic going on now between… It reminds them a little bit of other social issues, climate change, you name it, where people argue that we should be more worried than we might otherwise be because that otherwise will encourage people to be less worried. I don’t know. I find that hard to be sensitive to. There was a big dustup yesterday on Twitter because John Ioannidis suggested that were in the dark here. We might be overreacting. We don’t have much data. Us and Taleb and others responded back, “That’s why you have to be extra careful.”
COWEN: Yes, I agree with Taleb on that. I would say I’ve become much more pessimistic about our ability to respond to climate change, because what we’re seeing with coronavirus is how unwilling so many people are to act until the very last moment, if even that.
ROBERTS: To make a sacrifice.
COWEN: Right.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Sacrifices are hard. It’s not easy. A big free-rider problem there, obviously, socially, it’s in both of those situations, climate change and this, right? The idea that I’m going to make a sacrifice of lifestyle for some promise of reduced external harm is hard for people to… It’s just hard to motivate people that way.
COWEN: I think the thing I’m recommending for a lot of people now is to find a sphere of activity, no matter how small or how local, that you feel you can control and you can do at home and you can contribute to. This feeling of powerlessness may set in, that will cause people to panic more or become too depressed or just make them much less productive, or spread to their families, or maybe cause them to go out and want to get drunk and become a spreader in some manner, so really to think long and hard. I’m not really counseling stoicism. I’m counseling a kind of action, something you can do. Even if it ends up only being a placebo, you will feel more in control. Of course, there’s a chance that will pay off and have some benefits. I think that’s an important idea to promote at this point.
ROBERTS: Well, I like the idea that while you’re home, if you’re not usually at home, to try to have a project that you’re… You’re alluding to that effectively, which is teach yourself a language, an instrument, learn how to draw. There’s just so many wonderful things you can do online now without having to go out of your house. You can make yourself get better at something. That’s your niche idea, right?
COWEN: Yes.
ROBERTS: Work at something. I’m doing a plank every day. I’m getting down on the ground, trying to improve my core. I’m taking a walk every day, which I didn’t otherwise do. I think it’s great to try to create those habits for yourself in this a window of enforced unusual behavior.
COWEN: In terms of policy, what do you expect on the fiscal and monetary fronts moving forward?
ROBERTS: Well, great minds think alike, Tyler. That’s what I wanted to talk about next. Well, I think there’s some confusion between the abatement of suffering and what we would normally call fiscal stimulus. A lot of what people are proposing is fiscal stimulus isn’t going to stimulate anything. People aren’t making things because they can’t come to work or go out of their house. Putting money in people’s hands has no impact on the overall economy. It will help them pay their rent, which will reduce that cascading worry that I mentioned earlier from the real estate developer I had talked to. That’s going to be, I think, extremely important in reducing the set of economic readjustments that you were more focused on than I was in the earlier part of the conversation. But the idea that somehow we’re going to solve the economic disruption through traditional means, either monetary or fiscal, seems to me to be very unlikely.
You can make a case they’re giving people cash right now. I like when people say, “Quickly,” as if we know how to do that. The last time I think we did this, it took two months. It didn’t do much for the economy. The Bush Administration did that… whatever it was called, tax rebate or whatever it was a long time ago. We’re back in, I think, 2001. I’m not sure we have a lot of weapons for this kind of… To come back to my earlier metaphor, everybody go home for a month, maybe six weeks, maybe two months, and when you come back your business might not exist anymore, so find something else. The idea that we’re going to fix that with monetary or fiscal policy seems to be unlikely. The idea that we’re going to, quote, bail everyone out, make everyone whole is going to be really hard to implement. We can say it. You can talk about it like it’s a policy, but I’m not sure how you’d implement it. What are your thoughts on it?
COWEN: I worry that we don’t know how many businesses are bouncing back and how many cannot be kept on life support. Again, if it’s a month or two, I think almost all of them can be kept on life support, and we could throw money at the problem, and then in two months just pick up the pieces and be the America we once knew. But if it’s becoming five or six months or longer, then the amount of money you have to send, and people just being kept in unproductive activities… You actually want some of those restaurant owners maybe to end up as UPS drivers. Right? We don’t know how many. The degree of optimism or pessimism, it really seems to matter for economic stimulus. If you’re a relative optimist about the progression of the virus, I think you should be relatively pro-stimulus, like, “Just keep it running for now. Things will be back.”
To the extent you have a more dire forecast, you even worry a bit about the government’s own budget constraint, and you also start asking, “How many of these people,” it’s like a new world, “need to be doing something else?” Maybe you don’t want to hasten that at the fastest possible speed, but you’re not aiming to just keep every business going, say, with loans from the Fed either. I see people making different arguments, and I get very uncomfortable. I think we should be more agnostic than what I’m seeing. Agnostic doesn’t mean you do nothing, but that to me is one of the biggest uncertainties in this debate that’s hardly ever being acknowledged.
ROBERTS: Now, you have a document you put out, and we’ll link to it, with a whole long list of policy ideas that might make things better. I want to focus on one for a minute that comes to mind as we talk about some of the worst-case scenarios, and that’s maybe of prizes. I know you’re a big fan of prizes. I’m a big fan of prizes too. Let’s put it in this context. I know that the pharmaceutical company Gilead has a drug that’s under possible consideration that might… They’re testing it now to see how it’s going to do. I think they created it for Ebola, and it seems to have some mitigating effect. We’re going to find out. Let’s say it doesn’t. Or no, so let’s say it does. Is Gilead then going to be able to charge whatever they want for that? Very unlikely. Right?
COWEN: Right. Especially globally. Right?
ROBERTS: Right. I’ve talked endlessly now on EconTalk, I’ve an episode coming up soon on this question of this challenge we have of the semi-free market, this weird market we have in pharmaceuticals that I think is poorly constructed. The incentives are wrong. We’re encouraging innovation that adds a couple of months of life at enormous costs of both research and then Medicare payments. It seems like it’s just a mistake. It’s a bad system. At the same time, I don’t want to take the profitability out of the pharmaceutical business, and I want Gilead and other companies to have… and Roche and others who develop this new test that’s relatively quick… I want them to have a big incentive to really solve this problem. The number on way we do that is to day, “Well, you’re going to be able to charge a lot for it,” and I think that’s not going to happen either culturally or legally for legal or cultural reasons.
COWEN: With the externality of infectiousness, you don’t want the price to be high. Right?
ROBERTS: Correct. Right. Well, you could solve that by letting them charge a high price and the government funding it, but I think the…
COWEN: Yeah, at the consumer side, the price should be low, and it’s not going to happen.
ROBERTS: Right. Not going to happen.
COWEN: Buy the patent rights at auction, give them a huge prize, tens of billions of dollars, if they deserve it, I’m all for this. Even if you think it has no impact this time, this is not our last pandemic. It will matter for the next time around. I think those prizes should be large and credibly promised, and I would like to see us get on this.
ROBERTS: That would seem to me to be, given our earlier conversation about the risk of a permanent disruption of social life because of the recurring challenges that we might be facing, that might be the one thing you’d want us to really kind of focus on, is to get a lot of really smart people trying a lot of different ways to mitigate the medical impact of this. You agree?
COWEN: Yes. I do think you have to be a little careful in how you structure the prize. A poorly-specified prize will encourage people to work in small groups and not share information, right? “I want all the money for myself.” Some amount of discretion is required, and you want to favor, when you hand out the prize, institutions that have been cooperating and sharing information. If you simply set up a very credible board of a half-dozen people with real expertise to decide how to hand out, say, $50 billion, and you make sure there are people willing to write a check, like to a big, unpopular corporation, if that’s who’s done the good work, I think that’s what we should do. But simply saying, “Well, there’s going to be a prize for the company that solves this,” you might get a hoarding of information when sharing is appropriate.
ROBERTS: Yeah. I’m thinking about Jonas Salk, the man who cured polio and, I think, created the polio vaccine. I have read, I don’t know if it’s true, that he gave it away when he discovered it. People pointed out that, “Yeah, that was at a time when there wasn’t FDA testing that costs…” People debate what it costs to get a drug approved, whether it’s a mere 500 million, or is it more like 2 billion? But obviously, we live in a world where it’s very expensive to get a drug approved. Is there other things you would do to make a prize more effective? I guess I was trying to say two things. One is that these other pieces of the regulatory puzzle might be part of the challenge. The other is that in the old days, the non-monetary aspects are also pretty important. Jonas Salk is immortal. Maybe we should just say, “Whoever comes up with it, we’re going to have a set of baseball playing cards that we give away to every American child to worship this person who was saved their grandparent’s life.” I don’t know.
COWEN: No, absolutely. I’ve written in the past, “We don’t respect scientists enough,” and that may be hurting us now. One possible silver lining of this cloud is we will respect scientists a lot more if they come through with some pretty big and significant development. I think that’s likely at some point, but just to pre-commit as a culture to honoring those people is something we all can do.
Respect your scientists and prizes. What else should we do?
ROBERTS: Well, I was going to ask you if you were, quote, in charge, if you were the coronavirus czar today or President of the United States, besides creating potential a very large prize, the other ideas that are being bandied about are bailouts of various kinds for certain industries that are particularly hard hit by this.
Do you think there’s a moral industries that are particularly hard hit by this. Do you think there’s a moral hazard issue there in some of those cases? Obviously in a lot of those cases there’s not much of a moral hazard issue. Somebody pointed out, I don’t think you expect the Thai restaurant on the corner to prepare for a pandemic and act accordingly in advance so that, worrying about the impact of a bailout there is probably not the biggest worry. What are your thoughts on these moral hazard issues? Do you think the airline should get a bailout? I think that’s a good thing?
COWEN: One has to be very careful with that word bailout. People mean so many different things by it. I don’t think our government should let all of the major corporations fail, which are likely to fail if we do nothing. That said, at this point, I remain agnostic as to exactly what we should do. On one hand you don’t want to be in a position of picking winners and losers. But on the other hand, I think one needs to realize maybe cruise ships are not really coming back in a big way and maybe they shouldn’t. There is something to be said for some sectoral targeting here, but I think the political economy consequences of just letting all of those jobs go away are too dire and we would end up with much more government. We’d have like a New Deal Squared and I think some BandAid has to be applied.
I’ve yet to see a plan that I find very convincing and they’re all plans based on the premise of, these businesses just need some loans to tide them over. That might be true. It might be the bet we end up having to take because maybe there’s not any other bet, but I don’t feel as good about it as the other people out there pushing these ideas. They seem a little hasty to me.
Like they’re taking tools out of the toolbox from the last crisis. Things they thought should have been done and weren’t and saying now is the time to see I was right all along. It makes me very nervous. I’m seeing high levels of epistemic non-rationality. But that said, I really am not here trying to argue for doing nothing. I don’t think we can let all the cards fall to the ground. What’s your view on that?
ROBERTS: Well, I’m not sure what, I’m like you, I want to minimize what we do particularly if it’s likely to be permanent, makes me really uneasy. We’re at risk that this becomes a watershed moment. I think actually, it’s probably too late. Everyone just expects the government to quote, solve this. Again, they neglect the things that we’ve done on our own. I understand the things that we can’t do on our own to fix macroeconomic cascades.
I’m not suggesting that we’re going to avoid all the problems if we just leave things alone. I know that’s not true. But I know there are a lot of things happening. People are buying gift certificates from their rest favorite restaurants and other things to keep them going. They’re doing takeout. Obviously that’s not going to be enough. If people aren’t flying, there’s going to be airlines going bankrupt.
But the idea that somehow we can make everyone whole. I really don’t like the idea of big business as whole. I’d much rather make individuals whole and I think that’s just really hard to do. This idea of giving everybody $1,000, I don’t need $1,000. Presumably you don’t need $1,000 and do we want to allow every American, you know, is it to make it easy? Should we do that? But it’s clear there’s going to be terrible hardship on individuals who can’t get in to work or shouldn’t go to work. There’s no quote free market solution to that that’s obvious.
There may be some of those things that are necessary to reduce the spread of the virus, but they’re so blunt and it discourages me tremendously to think about the consequences of how that will be going forward. Both in how it affects behavior that everyone thinks, “Oh, I don’t have to worry about fill in the blank because eventually I’ll get a check from the government.
COWEN: Here’s one of the tricks when it comes to bailouts. It’s a common line to say, well we want to keep services up and running, but we don’t want to bailout shareholders. You and I probably share that intuition in a very significant majority of cases. But look, think about the airlines. Why do you feel safe flying? To a modest degree it’s because of government regulations, but mainly it’s because there’s equity capital in those companies and the shareholders want to keep the flight safe because they don’t want to lose their capital.
If you have major or for that matter, minor airlines all operating at margins where that equity capital essentially has been wiped out. I think that’s a world where flying is no longer very safe. The old recipe of we’ll just have the equity holders eat as much of these losses as they possibly can. I don’t know if that works for the airlines.
COWEN: You mentioned a check to each individual for $1,000. That is one thing I would do if only to help people pay their rent or stock up on groceries. I think some of that is just symbolic. There will be other things we will need to do. Maybe we’re not sure what, but if you haven’t sent some aid to every American, you will be damned for doing those other things for all eternity and that will be harder next time around. I do think that $1,000 will genuinely help people, but I think it has to be viewed as part of a broader package and that is what makes the entire broader package palatable to most voters. I would do that.
ROBERTS: Well, as I suggested earlier. I think it’s palliative more than stimulative. I mean I think it’s…
COWEN: It’s defensive I would say. It’s not really going to stimulate-
ROBERTS: It can reduce hardship.
COWEN: If you want to have forbearance on rents, some amount of forbearance on debt, forbearance on enforcing bank capital standards. These are all risky things, but ultimately you need to recapitalize the economy. The traditional recipe of let all the equity be destroyed can slow down the rate at which you recapitalize, given that once the virus is more or less taken care of, the equity values of many things will bounce back. So just how much we want equity to take a hit. What we have in mind is a recapitalization process. To me that’s like the big question about the bailouts not really very well answered as of yet.
ROBERTS: I don’t see that capitalization issue is an equity issue the way you do. I don’t think American airlines, United Airlines, Delta, et cetera want to take risks with their customers going forward because most of their equity isn’t crashing that plane. It’s their brand name, which can be destroyed.
COWEN: Well then the share value would be high. But if we really let the equity value be wiped out by this recession or depression, it would be very easy for the share values of United, Delta and American to go to a dollar a share. Even that would be kind of an option on the bailout. Right? There’s a lot of corporate debt in America right now. Corporate debt levels were pretty high. It worked fine under the previous level of economic activity where people actually went outdoors. I was not panicked over that.
But corporate debt levels that high in a world with 20% unemployment and we’re all intentionally trying to shrink output and maybe have a quarter where output shrinks by say negative 13%, that makes me very nervous and I start thinking the capitalization of those enterprises is really important. For sure, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the debates I’m hearing are not sophisticated enough on this issue.
ROBERTS: Oh, that’s for sure. I think the biggest problem that pundits, and I’ll put myself in that class on this level of conversation, I mean we just use words like bailout as if we know what we’re talking about or if it’s well specified. As you’re pointing out, it’s not well specified. What that means in practice, what strings are going to be attached to it. I think there will be strings attached this time that weren’t attached in 2008 which probably is, it might be a good thing. I think it was some of those things were not good in 2008 and I think it discouraged people’s faith in democracy and capitalism, which has been I guess part of our problem going forward. But a lot of this, it’s hard to imagine. Let’s turn it, we’ve got about 20 minutes left.
Let’s turn to two issues that we’ve started to talk about a little bit, which are whether this is going to have a longer run impact on the way Americans expect government to solve problems versus individuals. Obviously that trend has been going on for about 70 years or maybe a 100 years. You could argue that government should be doing more. It seems to be this is going to accelerate that trend potentially.
COWEN: Yes.
ROBERTS: Then culturally, where people like you and I who wish it were going, at least in some sense in the other direction are going to be increasingly irrelevant. The second question would be what kind of cultural changes do you think this will lead to in the short run version versus the longer version? The shorter run version, we get some palliative effective of say medicine and treatment and vaccine and this becomes a moment that we talk about with laughter that for many of us that’s the time we had to stay inside.
It’s when the lines were long at the grocery, it’s when people were obsessed with toilet paper. It’s when people didn’t shake hands, they did some other weird little gesture with their elbow or whatever. But at the other extreme you’re suggesting a radical realignment of social life. Let’s talk about those two things in the last 20 minutes we have left.
COWEN: I think schools-
ROBERTS: Facing any of them.
COWEN: Yes. I’ll give you my take then you can give me yours. I think some schools will do online education well for a subset of classes and we’ll end up in a world where 20% of what is now done face to face will be done online and that will be cheaper and better. I fully get, you cannot do a face to face discussion humanities class that way, but I think we’ll see much more online education. We will see permanently fewer meetings, Zoom and Skype and how to use them.
We’re doing now, we’ll get much better. This will be a permanent change going forward. I think in general, pandemics make people more nationalistic, more what you call, what you might call right-wing in the cranky sense, not in the classical liberal sense. I think the progressive left in essence will die out as an intellectual force and actually already has as of this week and will never really come back though it will have its adherence that when people feel-
ROBERTS: What does that, when you say the progressive left, what do you mean? Who are those people? What viewpoint are you talking about and why is it dying out?
COWEN: People who support Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, which is a pretty significant chunk of this country’s intellectuals. Arguing for that kind of redistribution or splitting up big tech or whatever it’s going to be, that is a kind of luxury made possible by people living on the coast in comfortable circumstances who are well educated. But when those people themselves feel threatened and America’s middle-class feels threatened, whether correctly they feel that way or it’s a kind of paranoid overreaction, but I do think that is coming and already here.
Going around and talking about redistributing the wealth, letting in so many more immigrants, whatever you think of those points of view, I think they will have much, much less social impact and we will be more inward looking, more nationalistic, less cosmopolitan. I think you’ll see this already. I think that is a semi-permanent shift that will last for at least a decade, probably longer and that is already the case. You really think Joe Biden is going to get up in the debate against Donald Trump and go on and on about immigration? Of course he won’t, now.
ROBERTS: You don’t think he’s going to be a lot more eager to … Tell me… you just said we should give everybody $1,000.
COWEN: We will have much more government intervention. It will be with right-wing toppings and flavor. I’m not saying this is a good thing. There will be much more intervention in the healthcare system, but it will be a kind of triage and treating healthcare as scarce. Not giving it away to everyone for free and it will be brutal and we’ll feel bad about it and it will make the debates again more right-wing. I don’t mean more libertarian. I don’t mean more liberty-oriented. I mean right-wing in a very particular direction, but those are my takes. You give me yours.
ROBERTS: Well I don’t see that, but I want you to keep going. Let’s talk about the cultural changes. I’m going to go a different direction I think. I think people have a great thirst for face to face and I don’t think Zoom is, I love Zoom. I love Skype. Big fan of them, love the internet, loved talking to tens of thousands of people through my EconTalk once a week.
At the same time, as you know, when you do a live event, people don’t say, “Oh, why would I go?” Like right now I don’t know how many people are watching this, but this is a crummy version of face to face, right? It’s a screen version, but there are people who are watching this live because they rather do that than listen later when it’s not live.
If we were doing this in an auditorium, if it were safe to do it in an auditorium, we’d get a bigger crowd, not a bigger crowd excuse me, we’d get an enthusiastic crowd. The scaling problem would keep it small, but I think there’s still a tremendous thirst for that. I would much rather sit and have coffee with you than talk over Skype with you about this problem. I-
COWEN: Think how much more productive this is. Right? Much bigger viewership than our coffee klatch.
ROBERTS: But you’re the guy who taught me, that’s true. But you’re the guy that taught me that I thought you were going to say it’s more productive because I don’t have to go to the coffee shop. But I think we underestimate, I think I learned this from you that the value of those kinds of time spent-
COWEN: Oh, sure, the process.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Just doing nothing is very valuable. If we underestimate what it allows us to do, but all I’m saying is that I think people like to hug and that’s not going to change. They like to shake hands. If anything, I think we’ve become more physical. We’ve become more European.
COWEN: I think there’ll be a huge wave of promiscuous sex once there’s the first break in the virus for instance.
ROBERTS: There goes my G rating on EconTalk.
COWEN: I’m sorry.
ROBERTS: That’s okay. I think there’s a pendulum here of people who will react to this. When I say this, I mean the digitalization, the virtualization of daily life. People don’t like it. I mean, we like a lot of it. I love a lot of it. I know you do too, but for a lot of people, I think there’s going to be a pushback. I see it among young people already, in my kids and their friends. They have problems dealing with the obsessiveness and addictiveness of online life, but they’re also eager to stay away from it if they can. I just think a lot of that’s going to happen with this as well. Here’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think that extra months of self isolation is going to change our habits. It’s not going to change our nature…
COWEN: The revenue constraint will change us. Right. So, say you’re running a university and your revenue is down 15% and you have a chance to buy a class online or try to create your own class, which are you going to do? That’s what I think will drive it is revenue constraints.
ROBERTS: Well, I think six years ago, maybe whenever it was, when the early MOOCs were coming out, online classes, I was all excited that there’d be a revolution. That hasn’t happened. Now this is going to give it another chance. Maybe it’ll spur it along. I think it’s equally likely they’ll say, “That was incredibly ineffective. We’ve got to go back to face to face.” I don’t know. I’m very agnostic on this.
I think the idea that you don’t need a coronavirus to discourage people from going to sporting events, right? The number of people who watch sporting events live is a very, very small number. It’s a unique experience. A concert is the same way, a concert, live theater, those are all there. They’re extraordinary. There are substitutes for them that aren’t nearly as good, but they’re a lot cheaper and easier to access. We access them. But I can’t see those dying out at all. In fact, they may bounce back stronger than ever.
COWEN: I think we’ll see a kind of polarization. Things will be either very face to face and very exciting and very extreme or things will be very online. The kind of average degree of online-ness may not change, but you’ll demand more from your face to face encounters and I won’t use my previous point again. Then you’ll be doing more on Zoom and Skype and other services. I think we’ll compensate for that by having our face to face be all the more huggy or whatever you think it might be.
ROBERTS: Well, I liked the idea that that norms are evolving now that will encourage face to face to be higher quality. I do think the idea that in the middle of a conversation you can look at your phone or glance at your … increasingly going to be seen as unattractive. The etiquette of that’s going to evolve, but I don’t know how it’ll be. But I think increasingly people will put away their phones because they don’t want to be connected 24/7. But we’ll see. It’s a bit of romance maybe on my part that when we are face to face, we’re going to do it with more focus, intention, presence. So nice idea. I like this.
COWEN: I agree completely.
ROBERTS: This might be true, might be true, right? It’s hard. It’s not really the way we’re hardwired. To suggest that we can interact with each other without distraction is a beautiful idea. But in a way, all that the digital revolution has done is to make it more obvious how hard that is for us.
COWEN: Yes.
ROBERTS: It’s not simply that here’s new things to distract us. It’s that we were already very distractable. Now we’re more aware of how distractable we are. Maybe that’ll help us.
We’re almost out of time. Do you want to say anything about more narrow fiscal monetary stuff that we didn’t talk about that you think is either going to happen that you’re horrified at or that you think is not going to happen that we should do? Things that aren’t on the table. I mean, I think the prize idea is huge, undervalued.
I think we ought to be promoting that with great enthusiasm and we don’t need the government to do it. The beauty of having some really rich people who created these foundations is they can offer that prize right now and maybe they already have. I haven’t been paying close attention, but that’s really a really, really important thing.
COWEN: I’m running my own prizes through Emergent Ventures.
ROBERTS: Oh yeah, talk about that.
COWEN: The money I’ve raised, it is now at about $1.4 million with some other pledges on the way and other interest expressed. I’m not sure-
ROBERTS: Describe it, describe what it is for people who don’t know.
COWEN: People who do meritorious things to contribute to the end of corona virus problems, whether it be coming up with a cure or online blogging or creating a website that tracks information, something that is otherwise under rewarded. This is not a prize that will go to Gilead. This sum of money is not big enough to change their incentives. But for individuals who have done important things, they will receive this as an additional reward…
ROBERTS: Like a live YouTube? A live streaming YouTube with a really important thinker about where we’re headed? Is that-
COWEN: Exactly. Whatever is effective. These are not yet publicly announced, but as of now there were four prizes awarded already and I’m very proud of them. I hope by Friday the information will be out and these are people who have done amazing things and I’m pretty sure they haven’t been paid a dime for it. And I-
ROBERTS: Can you give one example? Is this public?
COWEN: Not public yet, so some of these you’ve you’ve heard of probably, but in any case I think the prizes will encourage more people and just generate attention for those who have done the right thing I think encourage them to do more because this is a marathon, not a sprint, and the people who have already done wonderful things or maybe some of the people more likely to continue doing wonderful things.
ROBERTS: Let’s finish with what advice you give people both personally and ethically for going forward. We talked a little bit at the beginning about niche behavior, trying to get better at things or talk about what information people might access, where you encourage people to go or what you encourage people to do to deal with this going forward?
COWEN: Well, on my own blog, Marginal Revolution, I’m trying to collect the information that I consider to be either reliable or at least interesting or worth reading or thinking about. Whatever I know I’m putting up there and the volume of blog posting is much higher. Sort of by definition, that’s what I think is important.
Clearly it’s not all true and I try to indicate when something is speculative. I can’t not recommend my own efforts, but I think the important thing is for people to be as safe as they possibly can and to develop that regimen in a way that is psychologically sustainable, not just to say it and then a week later be off gallivanting in the St Patrick’s Day Parade or whatever. That’s very hard. The remedies differ by person.
Don’t trust everything you read out there. The degree of misinformation is very high. The degree of uncertainty from the best and most reputable sources is very high. There’s no magic bullet on how to figure out what’s going on. I can’t quite say, “Oh, trust the authorities.” It’s not exactly how it’s gone, but there’s not any single way to really know what’s happening. That’s very frustrating. I would say do your best and keep in mind that’s a highly imperfect endeavor. There’s a lot you won’t know and some of the things you think you know are probably wrong. For you, what do you say?
ROBERTS: Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about the so-called death of expertise. I was really going to ask you about that. Whether you know a lot of people who’ve been crowing this week about how, see you do need these experts. Obviously epidemiology and understanding the science of this is incredibly valuable and important. I’m a big fan of science and not such a big fan of experts. That would include you and me, Tyler. I do think the internet has helped influential people influence people’s behavior to be more worried about this, which I think is probably going to be a lifesaver for, I think, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. I think that’s been a very, very good thing. I don’t know what’s going to happen if the death toll is enormously high or enormously low.
I think that’s going to have a lot of ramifications. I think people are paying attention to this in a way that they don’t pay attention to other things obviously. They’re going to have judgments based on the outcomes that are probably not going to be, not so healthy. I’m very interested in what that’s like going forward. I’m thinking a lot, we’ve talked about this before when we talked this last summer, I’m thinking a lot about how we’re influenced by data and numbers. We’re so focused right now on cases or deaths. There’s so many other aspects of life, we have to focus on cases of death. I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but I find it fascinating how that’s almost all we’re focusing on. What this is going to do to the fabric of American life going forward, we’ve spent the last hour and a half trying to get some idea of what that might be. That is going to be kind of important too.
COWEN: I agree.
ROBERTS: We’re not so focused on that because you can’t measure it.
COWEN: I think the internet and the scientific community will both come out of this looking very, very good political leaders, not so much, and I’m fine with saying, go to the experts, but who are the experts? It’s a bit tautological. Should you just turn on the evening news and listen to your president and prime minister and say, “Oh, they’re channeling and the experts.” On that, I don’t know with the records not being so great so far. The true experts, of course, by definition, those are the people you should listen to, but this is an unprecedented event and who the true experts turn out to be is still a bit up for grabs, I would say.
ROBERTS: My guest today, to the extent he’s been a guest, has been Tyler Cowen. Tyler, always great to talk to you.
COWEN: My guest today, to the extent he’s been a guest is Russ Roberts. Russ, always great to talk to you again, my condolences with your family.
ROBERTS: Thank you.
COWEN: We should stay in close touch and wishing you the very, very best and you take care as well.
ROBERTS: Thank you, Tyler.
COWEN: Thank you, Russ. | https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/russ-roberts-tyler-cowen-covid-19-coronavirus-2a2dfcd1fd64 | ['Mercatus Center'] | 2020-07-02 19:05:56.990000+00:00 | ['Podcast', 'Coronavirus', 'Stock Market', 'Economics', 'Covid 19'] |
Boost the flexibility of your Microservice architecture with Spring Cloud | Inevitably when your application configuration is written directly into the code, every time you need to apply a change, the application must be recompiled or/and redeployed, for the client’s well-being or even for the folk that does that work, avoid it. Most engineers separate the configuration information from the original application source due to the lack of efficiency and flexibility.
Five usual solutions to this problem take place. In this article, I propose one of those solutions, mainly the most straightforward, Spring Cloud Configuration Server.
What is Spring Cloud Configuration Server
Looking at the official Spring.io documentation:
Spring Cloud Config provides server-side and client-side support for externalized configuration in a distributed system. With the Config Server, you have a central place to manage external properties for applications across all environments.
With this server, whenever you apply a simple configuration change, the microservice instances will automatically update themselves, with the new properties settled. Some of its features:
It supports multiple backends for storing configuration data (Etcd, Eureka, Consul, ZooKeeper, and the one we are currently explaining);
Can be integrated with GIT source control;
With simple annotations, you can have the configuration server up and running;
Multiple profiles environments for each microservice (usually dev/QA/Prod);
How microservices interact with this central repository
Every time one service instance starts, it will fetch all the properties data from the configuration server, through a service endpoint exposed by the repository. When some changes occur, the services are notified to refresh their copy of the application data.
Conceptual Architecture
Creating our Spring Cloud Configuration Server
Create a new spring project,(You can easily do it through the Spring Initializer). Make sure the following dependencies are added:
spring-cloud-starter-config
spring-cloud-config-server
Spring Cloud is a massive collection of independent projects, many third-party libraries and dependencies are used, you need to specify the version number of the current spring cloud project you are currently depending on, in this case, Hoxton.SR8. All this code is pushed into a GIT repository, you can easily go there and check if all dependencies match with the ones inserted on your pom.xml or gradle.build.
3. Edit the application.yml, this file will tell your Spring cloud configuration service what port to listen to and where to locate the backend that will serve up the configuration data. To maintain the easy setup and understanding of the concepts/steps, I decided to store these configurations properties in the filesystem, however as you probably know, in a distributed environment, this may become a bit overwhelming and make the architecture unnecessarily complex, you should probably consider storing this data in a database.
Configuration Server (application.yml)
The search-locations property will have the location of your service configuration files (dev/QA/Prod), just by inserting the minus after the service name and then the file context, like:
client1.yml -> default
client1-dev.yml
client1-qa.yml
client1-prod.yml
Spring Cloud can easily map the services to each environment automatically if they follow this name convention.
4. About the service configuration itself, it’s pretty much the same content as you would insert on the original application.yml of the service, in this case, we set up an in-memory database like:
Client1 (client1.yml)
5. The only step missing is inserting the configuration annotation at the main application class, @EnableConfigServer, we place it so Spring can know which context should be running:
Configuration Server Main Class
6. Now the only thing missing is to build the project and start it:
mvn clean install
java -jar <project-path>target/configuration-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
Configuration Server Startup logs
And Boom, you got yourself a spring cloud configuration server, you can test it just by requesting the following endpoint: | https://rafael-as-martins.medium.com/boost-the-flexibility-of-your-microservice-architecture-with-spring-cloud-729ded91e221 | ['Rafael Martins'] | 2020-11-02 11:42:28.954000+00:00 | ['Code', 'Spring Boot', 'Programming', 'Java', 'Spring'] |
How to Determine the Optimal K for K-Means? | Introduction
The K-Means algorithm needs no introduction. It is simple and perhaps the most commonly used algorithm for clustering.
The basic idea behind k-means consists of defining k clusters such that total within-cluster variation (or error) is minimum.
I encourage you to check out the below articles for an in-depth explanation of different methods of clustering before proceeding further:
A cluster center is the representative of its cluster. The squared distance between each point and its cluster center is the required variation. The aim of k-means clustering is to find these k clusters and their centers while reducing the total error.
Quite an elegant algorithm. But there is a catch. How do you decide the number of clusters?
In this article, I will explain in detail two methods that can be useful to find this mysterious k in k-Means.
These methods are:
The Elbow Method The Silhouette Method
We will use our own dataset generated by the code below for an illustration of the two methods:
This is how the data looks graphically:
Clearly, the dataset has 3 clusters. We will validate both our methods on this dataset.
The Elbow Method
This is probably the most well-known method for determining the optimal number of clusters. It is also a bit naive in its approach.
Calculate the Within-Cluster-Sum of Squared Errors (WSS) for different values of k, and choose the k for which WSS becomes first starts to diminish. In the plot of WSS-versus-k, this is visible as an elbow.
Within-Cluster-Sum of Squared Errors sounds a bit complex. Let’s break it down:
The Squared Error for each point is the square of the distance of the point from its representation i.e. its predicted cluster center.
The WSS score is the sum of these Squared Errors for all the points.
Any distance metric like the Euclidean Distance or the Manhattan Distance can be used.
Let us implement this in Python using the sklearn library and our own function for calculating WSS for a range of values for k.
We obtain the following plot for WSS-vs-k for our dataset.
As expected, the plot looks like an arm with a clear elbow at k = 3.
Unfortunately, we do not always have such clearly clustered data. This means that the elbow may not be clear and sharp.
Source: bl.ocks.org/
For Dataset A, the elbow is clear at k = 3. However, this choice is ambiguous for Dataset B. We could choose k to be either 3 or 4.
In such an ambiguous case, we may use the Silhouette Method.
The Silhouette Method
The silhouette value measures how similar a point is to its own cluster (cohesion) compared to other clusters (separation). Source: Wikipedia
The range of the Silhouette value is between +1 and -1. A high value is desirable and indicates that the point is placed in the correct cluster. If many points have a negative Silhouette value, it may indicate that we have created too many or too few clusters.
The Silhouette Value s(i) for each data point i is defined as follows:
Source: Wikipedia
Note: s(i) is defined to be equal to zero if i is the only point in the cluster. This is to prevent the number of clusters from increasing significantly with many single-point clusters.
Here, a(i) is the measure of similarity of the point i to its own cluster. It is measured as the average distance of i from other points in the cluster.
Source: Wikipedia
Similarly, b(i) is the measure of dissimilarity of i from points in other clusters.
Source: Wikipedia
d(i, j) is the distance between points i and j. Generally, Euclidean Distance is used as the distance metric.
The Silhouette score can be easily calculated in Python using the metrics module of the sklearn library.
I mentioned before that a high Silhouette Score is desirable. The Silhouette Score reaches its global maximum at the optimal k. This should ideally appear as a peak in the Silhouette Value-versus-k plot.
Here is the plot for our own dataset:
There is a clear peak at k = 3. Hence, it is optimal.
Finally, the data can be optimally clustered into 3 clusters as shown below.
End Notes
The Elbow Method is more of a decision rule, while the Silhouette is a metric used for validation while clustering. Thus, it can be used in combination with the Elbow Method.
Therefore, the Elbow Method and the Silhouette Method are not alternatives to each other for finding the optimal K. Rather they are tools to be used together for a more confident decision. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/how-to-determine-the-optimal-k-for-k-means-708505d204eb | ['Khyati Mahendru'] | 2019-06-17 12:51:35.163000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Clustering', 'Analytics Vidhya'] |
How to Write About Current Events | How many times have you heard about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s marriage problems in the last week?
How many times have you seen the same headline over and over and over? With a body of text that just looks like it was copy and pasted widely?
Writing about current events is an art. It’s something you have to do just right or you end up sounding like a million different people who are talking about the same subject.
The key is finding your own take on the subject.
Read Between the Lines
What’s not being said?
Back to the current hot example of the Kardashian-West fiasco: what haven’t you seen covered but its connection is glaringly obvious to you? For instance, I find that every article I’ve read that’s talking about Kanye West’s current bipolar episode is lacking a critical look at how his string of unfiltered tweets is a little too reminiscent of our current president’s twitter habit.
The best way to be able to read between the lines is to stay updated on current events. For instance, just a few weeks ago Kanye West announced his presidential candidacy. How can you connect that to the current story that’s being spread like wildfire?
I would question how the presidential candidacy is only brought up as the backdrop for what’s happening when it really should be posed as a larger consideration within the story.
By staying up to date on current events you’ll soon find yourself connecting stories and that’s where you’ll truly be able to see what isn’t being said.
Ask yourself these questions: What has the media seem to have forgotten about? Where can you see carefully crafted language? What did you have to look up after you read the piece? All of these are great deep reading questions.
Develop Your Angle
You’ve read between the lines, now you need to develop your angle.
In my current example, I’ve found that it’s weird that the media is blazing past Kanye West’s attempt to run for President. To me, a connection between his current predicament and his last brush with the press is so obvious. Much too obvious and interesting to just be used as a backdrop for the current situation.
If I were to write a piece about this scandal it would focus on how West’s decision to run for president was the starting point of his downward spiral. I would also point out that this action should be 100% more concerning to the public than a possible divorce.
To develop your angle, think about connections. Where does this piece fit amongst everything else that’s going on?
Why does it interest you?
This is a personal favorite of mine. It’s definitely something that’s not necessarily needed, but will only add to your piece and help set it apart.
Think about your own life and your own qualifications. Write about analyzing the story from your own unique perspective based on your background, morals, etc.
I would love to see how someone in the mental illness profession would write about Kanye West’s situation.
If I were to write about this story from my own unique angle, I would use my academic background in critical theory and personal interest in current events and pop culture history to write a piece about why Kanye West’s mental health is a danger to the public and why we should be paying attention to it.
How should your reader read this piece?
At the end of writing your current events piece always ask your self how the reader should read it.
Direction is key in setting your story apart from all the others. The others are just sharing the information as it comes in, but you are presenting it with clear questions to be asked.
To finish off my example, I would end my Kanye West piece by addressing a question that asks the reader to make the same connections between past and current events as I did. I would also be clear in stating that I think the media is focusing on the wrong angle in this story to really drive the point home.
Current events are too important to just be a copy and pasted post.
It requires and encourages critical thinking, and while the media continues to drive full speed past important details, it needs you to slow down and smell the controversy. | https://medium.com/ninja-writers/how-to-write-about-current-events-437c4f00d8ef | ['Adrienne Grimes'] | 2020-07-31 00:16:42.633000+00:00 | ['Current', 'Writing', 'Pop Culture', 'Education', 'News'] |
3 Ways You Can Master The Content Marketing Mindset | 3 PRINCIPLES FOR CONTENT MARKETING SUCCESS
Educate
These are the principles I follow when creating a content marketing strategy for our clients. These principles are back by scientific research on human behavior. I learned about this when reading a book called “Why Things Catch On” by Jonah Berger. He provided research as to why things go viral.
So we mimicked the principles into our content strategies with our clients and the results have proven themselves to be successful again and again.
“Education” gets shared mostly because of the practical value it provides and the social status people gain from sharing this information with others. It gets massive amounts of engagement because of the relevance it has in your audiences life.
Let’s take the fitness example, you’re an entrepreneur in the fitness clothing industry. You created a Facebook and Instagram to reach out to your audience but you don’t know exactly how to make the “connection” between your product and audience. This is where content becomes most beneficial. If you can provide FREE value in their life before asking for the sale, the conversion rate greatly increases.
If you created content giving people tips about how they can optimize there workout performance or show them how they can get the best sleep for muscle regrowth, you would be providing that value and making that connection.
In this strategy you’re creating a CUSTOMER, not a SALE.
Whats the likelihood of getting a repeat customer if you provide tremendous value in their lives on a DAILY BASIS? Very high.
Customers now want to build a personal relationship with the companies they cherish. They want to feel special and appreciated. This goes beyond the scope of advertising. This is a method to create long term marketing success.
Entertain
This is the most obvious and common of our principles because we see it everyday. People share funny videos and memes all the time. We adore humor and stop at nothing to get it. This principles crosses with Encouragement due to the natural effect of emotions at play. People laugh and want to share the same emotions with their friends so they tag them in the post or picture. It also makes the “sharer” seem funnier to their group which can also inspire the action of sharing.
I agree, being humorous is not easy if you don’t have that quality naturally. If you don’t find yourself funny, try being light-hearted or casual. If this doesn’t click for you, I would advise you hire those funny guys, Steller Creative, to come take the load off your back.
See what I did there? Funny. Maybe not Knee Slapper Of The Year but it converts.
Look at it this way, celebrities are the most viral people on the planet because they ENTERTAIN.
Encourage
Encouragement inspires people to MOVE. To take action towards a desired goal or result. Its an emotional stimulus that’s been driving sales for centuries. Most people don’t act unless you tell them. Similar to “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” or “If you don’t ask, you won’t receive”.
You have to get your audience excited about what you have to offer. This is communicated in the subtlety of your marketing message. How many smiling faces does your customer see before checking out?
Is there way for you to generate excitement on your website or social media pages?
“MOTION CREATES E-MOTION!”
One of my favorite quotes ever was from the man, the myth, the legend, Tony Robbins. This quote has taught me about motivation and what gets people (even me) moving!
I even went so far off the deep end with this, I created a ritual for generating the kinds of emotions in my body that gets me moving. Not just physically but mentally.
How often do you wake up and not want to go to work? For most of America, that’s everyday. Nothing wrong with a little morning slug but when you lack the ability to influence your emotions, your performance can suffer.
I created this ritual based on knowing who I was and the type of work that I do. I’m not a morning person at all and often find myself extremely stifled and in my head. I also do a lot of networking and consulting throughout the day so being stifled is not an option when I leave my home. So in the morning, I do deep bellows and laugh as much as I can. Bellowing allows me to stretch my vocal cords which leaves me feeling relaxed and socially ready to engage. The laughing unstifles me and floods my brain with dopamine so I can think sharply and with clarity.
This is how I encourage myself to take action toward a result or goal for the day. It’s effective even though it was a little weird at first.
Learning how to encourage myself spark a catalyst in understanding how to encourage consumers. We’re all humans and share more in common than we do differences. Everyone needs the right kind of emotion to get them going. The challenge is in figuring out how to implement this science on your website and social media.
Share this with an entrepreneur who needs better content!
You obviously like this article, follow me to get more articles highlighting everything social media, marketing, and success. I dish out awesome content weekly!
This article was originally posted here | https://medium.com/steller-media-marketing/3-ways-you-can-master-the-content-marketing-mindset-341a9449c146 | ['Darrell Tyler'] | 2017-08-08 20:25:00.261000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Startup', 'Content', 'Content Strategy', 'Social Media Marketing'] |
How to Use Google Cloud and GPU Build Simple Deep Learning Environment | How to Use Google Cloud and GPU Build Simple Deep Learning Environment
Create a Deep learning VM instance in Google Cloud Platform, install and set up Jupyter Notebook, and the Nvidia CUDA toolkit.
Photo by Infralist.com on Unsplash
Google Cloud Platform provides us with a wealth of resources to support data science, deep learning, and AI projects. Now all we need to care about is how to design and train models, and the platform manages the rest tasks.
In current pandemic environment, the entire process of an AI project from design, coding to deployment, can be done remotely on the Cloud Platform.
I will demonstrate how to use Google Cloud Platform with GPU to build a deep learning environment from below four steps:
Create a VM instance with GPU Set up Networking Install Juypter Notebook Install Nvidia CUDA
Step 1: Create and Starting a VM instance
Increase GPUs Quota
IMPORTANT: If you get the following notification when you create a VM that contains GPUs. You need to increase your GPU quota.
From top left menu, select IAM & Admin -> Quotas
In filter table, select Limit name and GPUs(all regions)
GPUs Quota Page
It will list your GPUs quota information, click ALL QUOTAS into Quota metric details page.
Checked Global option and click EDIT QUOTAS.
Enter the number of GPU quotas you need in New limit, I entered 2 here. Finally, click SUBMIT REQUEST.
Edit GPUs Quota Limits
Quota increase requests typically take two business days to process. Google will update progress information via email.
Create a VM instance
In the Google Cloud Platform Console, go to the Home ->Computer Engine -> VM instances page Select your project and click Continue. Click the Create button. Specify a Name for your instance. Change the Region and Zone for this instance. I choose us-west1(oregon) and us-west1-b . Select a Machine configuration for your instance. In Series section, we choose N1 machine types that power by Intel Skylake CPU platform. There’s another N2 machine type, and while it uses the higher performance Intel Cascade Lake CPU palreform, the N2 do not support GPUs now, so we choose to use N1 . In Machine type section, we choose n2-standard-8(8vCPU, 32GB memory) . Expand the CPU platform and GPU at the bottom of the Machine configuration and add the GPU for your VM. Click Add GPU, Choose GPU type and Number of GPUs. To demonstrate I have chosen 2 pieces of NVIDIA Tesla K80 here.
IMPORTANT: If you get the error Quota 'GPUS_ALL_REGIONS' exceed. Limit: 0.0 globally when creating a VM, you need to request a quota increase for your GPUs. Please see the previous section Increase GPUs Quota. In the Boot disk section, click Change to configure your boot disk.
For Deep learning project, I choose Deep Learning on Linux in Operating System section.
In Version section, we chose GPU Optimized Debian m32 (with CUDA 10.0) which is A Debian 9 based image with CUDA/CuDNN/NCCL pre-installed.
In Size section, we need to choose at least 300 GB. In Access scopes section, we check Allow full access to all Cloud APIs , because we need access to Google Bucket and other Cloud APIs. In Firewall section, we check both Allow HTTP traffic and All HTTPS traffic so that we can access the Jupyter Notebook from external network. Click on Management,security,disks,networking,sole tenancy and chose the Disks tab. In Deletion rule, unchecked Delete boot disk when instance is deleted . When you accidentally delete the VM instance, it will not delete the boot disk. Other sections can use the default value. Click CREATE, after waiting a few minutes, your VM is available.
Add GPU
Choose GPUs
Boot disk Section
Firewall Setting
A VM instance created
STEP 2: Set up Networking
In order to be able to access your Jupyter Note from the external network, you need to set up a static IP and a firewall rule in your new VM.
External IP addresses
Go to Navigation menu -> NETWORKING -> VPC network -> External IP addresses Change your VM External address’s Type from Ephemeral to Static, and add Name for the new static IP address.
Firewall
Go to VPC network -> Firewall, Click CREATE FIREWALL to create a firewall rule for your Jupyte Note. In Create a firewall rule page, input Name of the rule, change Targets to All instances in the network . In Source IP ranges, input 0.0.0.0/0 . In Protocols and ports, checked Specified protocols and ports and set tcp port to 5000 or other port number. Leave others as default and click CREATE.
Create a firewall rule for Jupyter note
A jupyernote rule created
STEP 3: Install Jupyter Notebook
Back to your VM instances page and Activate Cloud Shell on the top right.
Install Jupyter Notebook using pip
pip install jupyter
If you get an error message about permission denied , use the command below.
pip install jupyter --user
Generate a configuration file:
$ jupyter notebook --generate-config
Go to Jupyter installation directory
$ cd ~/.jupyter/ $ vim jupyter_notebook_config.py
Open jupyter_notebook_config.py , and add the following to the end of the file. Make sure you replace the port number with the one you allowed firewall access to above.
c = get_config()
c.NotebookApp.ip = '*'
c.NotebookApp.open_browser = False
c.NotebookApp.port = 5000
Launching Jupyter Notebook.Using the following command in your VM SSH window:
$ jupyter notebook
As shown below, your Jupyter Notebook is already running.
Open your browser and input the following address:
http://<External Static IP Addrsss>:<Port NUmber>
Sometimes you need to enter a token, copy the token given in the command line as shown above.
Once everything is set up, your Jupyter Notebook looks like this.
STEP 4: Install NVIDIA CUDA
If you use Deep Learning On Linux public images like me, then Google cloud will pre-installed PyTorch, Tensorflow, CUDA etc.
Sometimes, to avoid unknown errors, I recommend you manually install CUDA.
Download CUDA
Tensorflow and PyTorch only support CUDA 10, we need to download CUDA Toolkit 10.1.
Choose the right target platform based on your Machine information.
IMPORTANT: In Installer Type section, we choose runfile(local) .
Copy the installation command.
IMPORTANT: To avoid GUI errors, we should add the --no-opengl-libs option to prevent the openGL libraries from being installed.
Run the command below. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-use-google-cloud-and-gpu-build-simple-deep-learning-environment-c6eadff2a569 | ['Jason Zhang'] | 2020-11-20 10:02:16.149000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
6 Brutal Truths About Productivity No One Wants to Talk About | Humans are prolific procrastinators. People have struggled with habitual hesitation going back to ancient civilizations. It’s easy to make plans and throw dates on your calendar, and yet it’s practically inevitable that you’ll let some deadlines fly whilst you still have some tasks unfinished.
Every one strives to do better every day. But the harsh reality is that until you are 100% committed to doing actual work, nothing else matters. Your fancy goals and weekly to-do lists won’t help you if you can’t commit to doing them.
People have the mental capacities to make ambitious plans, yet almost no time at all to put them into practice. It’s easier to plan but a lot more difficult to do something about those plans. No webinar, no online course, no ebook, no mentorship will help you if you do not go all in and get things done and actually check them off your to-do list.
Confused, lost and uncertain? You are not alone. Feeling under pressure to deliver? It’s the same old problems for everyone. Sometimes you lose control. There are many occasions when you feel uncomfortable and unfulfilled because of your inactions.
Many people who hear or read what productivity hacks and strategies won’t do anything with the information. They go back to their lives, don’t change anything and get the same results they were getting before: not getting stuff done.
Your actions define you, not your thoughts
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” –Pablo Picasso
Don’t spend all your time thinking about everything you can make better or do. Conceptualizing a better world won’t help you make progress. Until you start doing what needs to be done, you’re not actually making a difference.
Good intention is a great thing but it counts for nothing if you don’t take action. Action begets results. Results is what you want not ideas. You are judged by your outputs, not your thoughts. It pays to take real action in the direction of your goals.
Getting started is the biggest hurdle!
“To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.” — Johann Wolfgang Von Goeth
The biggest hurdle for many of us is simply getting started. Making that important decision to take a step. You can be as big and successful as you can possibly imagine if you build that mindset you need to push yourself to make that all important decision to just start.
You have everything you need to make an impact in the world if you can get past the many reasons why should postpone that task. Don’t think too far into the future.
Use what you have right now at where you are and witness the magic of getting things done. In Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World, Peter H. Diamandis says:
“Right now, and for the first time ever, a passionate and committed individual has access to the technology, minds, and capital required to take on any challenge.”
You will never be able to do it all
Success demands a singleness of purpose. — Vince Lombardi
Do one thing well, not three things badly! Many people want do well at work. And make the most of their skills. It’s incredible what you risk and do to progress. But sometimes you will have nothing to show for it. What you choose to do may be good use of your time but you probably won’t be able to show real results.
You won’t be able to do everything this week or this month. And that’s okay. As long as you are consistent and stick to the process. Sometimes priorities change. That’s part of the journey. It’s better to be clear about what you want to get done at any moment in time than combining multiple tasks.
It’s so easy to get seduced into the importance of a task, project or job and drive yourself insane to over deliver or impress. But it’s always important to take time out and ask: What am I risking or taking for granted? What could I have done different to achieve the same results? At the end of the day, is that the best use of my time?
Distraction is the enemy!
“If you see distraction externally, you end up creating an internally distracted state.” — Tim Ferriss
Demand for our time is increasingly exceeding our capacity — draining us of the energy we need to bring our skill and talent fully to life.
We are currently exposed to an unprecedented flood of information and requests than ever before. And we feel compelled to read and respond at all hours of the day and night. Being selective, doing less, is the path of the productive. It pays to focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
“The net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention,” Nicholas Carr explains in his book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” “We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.”
There is no perfect time!
“Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.” — Napoleon Hill
Stop looking for a perfect time to start work. Are you waiting for a perfect time to do that task or start that project? There can never be a best time to do anything. The perfect time is now. You may have convinced yourself that now is not the best time because of X, Y, Z reasons.
But come tomorrow, you will still give yourself another excuse. Just get on with it. Re-clarify your goals (get rid of your fuzzy goals). What exactly do you want to achieve? What should you do to get there? What are the steps to take? Does your current work align with that? If not, what can you do about it?
Sometimes the best thing to do is: nothing
“Reflect on what you do in a day. You may have never realised how some simple harmless activities rob you of precious time.” — Vivek Naik
Life is a challenge. Sometimes it’s common to feel like you’re constantly working against the clock every day, and moving plans and tasks around to meet deadlines. And guess what, when you do take time to relax … you feel guilty. But you shouldn’t.
Many productivity resources are focused on what you can do MORE of in order to achieve your goals. But MORE is hard to achieve. Many people can’t get a lot done. And they get anxious and stressed even more.
Doing nothing refreshes your mind. Taking breaks in our mental work is equally helpful. Brief diversions improve focus, according to research. Taking a break allows you to come back to your task with renewed energy and sense of purpose.
The next time you feel guilty about doing nothing, consider how much more effective it may make you in the long run.
Before you go…
If you enjoyed this post, you will love Postanly Weekly. It’s my FREE weekly digest of the best posts about life, productivity, creativity, and my best post of the week. Subscribe here. Join 17,000+ readers. | https://medium.com/the-mission/the-brutal-truth-about-productivity-that-no-one-wants-to-talk-about-6e54a4111af | ['Thomas Oppong'] | 2017-05-12 16:06:08.641000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Productivity', 'Mindfulness', 'Life'] |
Interior to let industry kill baby owls, as long as it’s “accidental” | Interior to let industry kill baby owls, as long as it’s “accidental”
The energy industry gets the ultimate “Get Out of Jail Free” card for killing millions of birds each year
(photo by: Kat Lovasi; license: CC BY 2.0)
Imagine you’re a wildlife ranger who’s uncovered a cold-blooded case of avian murder.
The perp has confessed to all the grisly details. He burned down his barn, despite knowing that some baby owls were nesting inside. He needed the space to put up a new oil rig, he explained. While it was too bad about the owls, it was his property and he was free to do whatever he wanted with it.
Now imagine taking the evidence to the prosecutor. “It’s a slam dunk case,” you say. “Big fines, maybe even some jail time.”
“Not so fast,” the attorney responds. “Was the perp’s main objective to knock off the birds?”
“No.”
“Were they under any special legal protection, like bald eagles?”
“Not that I know of. They were pretty ordinary, just looking for some shelter on their way through.”
“Well, then,” he explains. “I’m sure it was just an accident. Drop the case and tell the guy I hope he gets a gusher.”
* * * * *
That scenario may seem far-fetched. But it’s all too real, thanks to a directive from the Interior Department’s legal department in 2017, which the Trump administration recently announced it intends to turn into a formal regulation.
As a result, federal officials have already virtually stopped investigating bird deaths. Internal emails obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting magazine reveal the consequences:
A citizen dropped off two coolers at the Fish and Wildlife office in Boise, Idaho, full of birds who had been killed after an oil pipeline burst and dumped diesel oil into a tributary of the Snake River. When the office staff asked how to follow up, they got an email from their superiors saying “due to the new solicitor’s opinion …… if these were mortalities incidental to an oil spill, there may be no need to hold the carcasses as there would be no need for an enforcement response.”
The “new solicitor’s opinion” reads:
“The take [killing] of birds resulting from an activity is not prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act when the underlying purpose of that activity is not to take birds,”
Grimly illustrating the rule, the guideline explains that a person who destroys a structure such as a barn, knowing that it is full of baby owls in nests, is not liable for their deaths. “All that is relevant is that the landowner undertook an action that did not have the killing of barn owls as its purpose.”
It used to be that, if someone killed a migrating bird, they could be prosecuted for negligence. As 17 former top officials in federal wildlife agencies, who served every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, wrote to then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, “take” has long meant “kill,” no ifs, ands, or buts.
For example, when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed hundreds of thousands of birds in 2010, BP paid $100 million for criminal violations of the act.
But, if a similar oil spill happened today, the Trump Administration would say, “that’s OK, since BP’s main objective wasn’t bird-killing.”
Talk about your get out-of-jail-free cards!
One of the main beneficiaries of the new rule is the energy industry.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that 500,000 to 1 million birds are killed annually in the United States after landing on fluid-filled waste pits at oil and gas production operations. Many more die by running into transmission lines.
Most of these deaths are preventable. For example, drillers can use closed containment systems, put nets over open pits, or eliminate pits entirely.
Some companies are doing the right thing. But preventative measures cost money that, all things being equal, many don’t want to pay.
Right now, there isn’t much hope that the Trump Administration will change course. The guideline from the Interior Department was a poke-in-the-eye to its former leaders and the tens of thousands of citizens who urged Secretary Zinke to oppose the proposal.
Our best bet now is to support the bipartisan Migratory Bird Protection Act (H.R.5222), which just passed the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee by a 20–14 margin. The bill would restore the previous interpretation of the law.
But that’s just a first step.
What’s needed in the long run is a solution to a conundrum worthy of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Skewed Priorities.
Right now, too many politicians and corporate leaders, regardless of their partisan persuasion, are getting away with blithely dismissing the mass killing of geese, robins and cormorants — and all other wildlife and wild places — as necessary collateral damage in a struggle to produce stuff we humans often don’t really need.
You and I can crack that case by giving a hand to the hamstrung cops on the environmental beat:
Send a public comment to the Fish & Wildlife Service, opposing turning its legal opinion into a formal regulation. (The deadline is March 19.)
Write to your member of Congress, urging support of H.R.5222, the Migratory Bird Protection Act.
A lot of baby owls will be eternally grateful for your help. | https://medium.com/the-public-interest-network/interior-to-baby-owls-we-really-dont-care-do-u-3d9319abbd0e | ['Kirk Weinert'] | 2020-02-20 18:32:53.114000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Oil And Gas Industry', 'Owls', 'Birds', 'Interior Department'] |
How Lina Bo Bardi Shaped Brazilian Modernism | How Lina Bo Bardi Shaped Brazilian Modernism gestalten Follow Dec 4 · 6 min read
The story of an Italian rationalist that broke gender traditions and helped design a new Latin American style
Legendary Italian-born architect Lina Bo Bardi rose to prominence in São Paulo, a place that she later called home and spent many years living in. She established herself as one of the eminent female players in the male-dominated modern architecture movement-an unparalleled accomplishment for the time. Throughout Brazil, amongst endless city skylines, her seminal building projects are still some of its most beloved.
Bo Bardi was born on December 5, 1914, in Rome to a Genoese family of humble means. At the time, few women attended school, and fewer still attempted to break the gendered glass ceiling of this field. Undeterred, she excelled at the Liceo Artistico. She relocated to Milan in 1940 due to concerns over the political stability of Rome during and the rise of Benito Mussolini’s fascism. There she collaborated with Giò Ponti on the publication Stile and contributed to numerous magazines on design topics. She returned to Rome with her partner Pietro Maria Bardi in 1946.
Lina Bo Bardi considered every detail. The design of her own bed or a national museum was approached with the same unwavering intensity. Her style evolved over time, moving away from modernism into the realm of the organic later in her career. (Photo: Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi, The Tale of Tomorrow)
After the couple married, they took their fateful trip to Rio de Janeiro and never looked back. Bo Bardi became a Brazilian citizen in 1951, the same year that she completed her famous São Paulo residence, Casa de Vidro. She was appointed director of the Museum of Modern Art in Bahia in a 1959-an unprecedented appointment for a woman at the time. With her practice taking off, she returned to São Paulo in 1966 and began work on a string of prominent cultural landmarks across the city.
She completed the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art in 1968. The monolithic structural wonder quickly became one of the most iconic buildings in Brazilian architecture. Her magnum opus, the SESC Pompéia, took nearly a decade to complete and would be her final project before her death in 1992. From her former residence, the Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi keeps her vision alive as it supports a new generation of young talent. The Italo-Brazilian architect translated radical views into the visual language of a facade, she presented an alternative path to Modernism and became iconic from it. To celebrate what would have been her birthday, we reflect on two masterpieces featured in The Tale of Tomorrow.
The museum’s elevated position grants views over the Paulista neighborhood. The two conspicuous beams were painted crimson red in 1990 in celebration of the museum’s 40th anniversary. (Photo: Nelson Kon, The Tale of Tomorrow)
The São Paulo Museum, completed 1968
This floating monument dedicated to Brazilian art demands reverence. The cultural institution sits at the top of a hill in the Paulista neighborhood. Founded in 1947, the institution required a new structure to house its growing art collection. There was one requirement for the commission, that was: “All views of the city center had to be preserved.” This requirement directly influenced the bisected final design, with one half of the building lifting off the ground to form a lively, column-free plaza and the other half-sunken below grade. Twelve years in the making, the monolithic museum opened its doors in 1968 and has remained one of the most noteworthy structures in the dizzying metropolis ever since.
Two massive, pre-stressed concrete beams span the breadth of the 74-meter-long museum and hoist the rectangular volume of galleries and offices into the air. An engineering triumph, the beams-some of the largest in the world function as the key structural elements and most iconic features of the project. These giant beams dive into the ground on either side of the plaza, secured by equally immense foundations. The sheer size and placement of the beams evoke a surrealist quality, as they seem to rise out of the reflecting pools flanking either side of the massing.
The museum hovers off the ground, supported by two massive bright red beams. The monolithic columns terminate in a reflecting pool. (Photo: Nelson Kon, The Tale of Tomorrow)
Despite its colossal size and the bulk of the museum hovering just overhead, this terrace level has become a beloved and exhilarating addition to the city, hosting numerous cultural gatherings, performances, and outdoor concerts. The building skillfully mixes the modernist language of the elevated museum with its brutalist structural elements. This engaging interplay of styles was enhanced further by Bo Bardi’s decision to paint the two beams a celebratory bright red in honor of its 40th anniversary. Breaking down conceptions of how to display art and promote civic engagement, the museum maintains a populist approach through its bold yet welcoming formal language.
The industrial creative complex of SESC Pompeia doubles as both pedestrian thoroughfare and cultural nexus. The trio of buildings integrates organic and manmade elements. Bo Bardi labored over the project for nearly a decade. (Photo: Nelson Kon, The Tale of Tomorrow)
SESC Pompeia, completed 1986
One of Lina Bo Bardi’s final projects would also be her most ambitious. Now a São Paulo mecca for all things cultural, the mixed-use complex took nearly a decade to complete. Bo Bardi repurposed an extant but abandoned factory complex, gradually rehabbing each structure for a variety of new uses. She also erected two prominent towers on the site to house the countless sports amenities, ranging from Olympic-sized pools to basketball courts. A network of outdoor walkways bridges the gap between these two striking concrete structures. Irregular but evenly spaced cutouts in the concrete façades reveal a bright red underbelly of sliding partitions that open up or close off the apertures as needed. These flexible windows, playfully referred to as “Spanish Civil War holes,” introduce a contemporary graphical language to the brutalist masses. A third narrow, cylindrical tower reaches a height of 70 meters and boldly concludes the brand new sections of the master plan.
Layers of outdoor walkways connect the two buildings across their multiple levels (top). Mustard-colored seats inside a concrete performance space spill out from the stage (bottom). (Photos: Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre & Nelson Kon, The Tale of Tomorrow)
The sports center’s inviting, bright, and pragmatic interiors reiterate the cherry red accent throughout circulation elements and recreational spaces, uniting the independent facilities through the use of vibrant shared color. Libraries, reading rooms, ceramic studios, and other creative workshops occupy the handsomely renovated original factory buildings. These creative spaces embrace their industrial heritage, leaving raw structural elements intact and adding rough cinder blocks to partition the vast open spaces.
Pre-existing clerestory windows provide even, indirect lighting for the work areas. Bo Bardi succeeded at creating a multitude of unique spatial experiences throughout the complex. The architect combined manmade materials with nature, redirecting the Rio São Francisco through one of the main sections of the factory. This unexpected stream carves a sinuous path through the concrete for impromptu indoor fishing and social gatherings. From sunbathers to street fairs and avid sports enthusiasts, the popular landmark attracts people from all walks of life.
Radical ideas, rediscovered photos, and visionary structures-The Tale of Tomorrow is a spectacular presentation of the masters that shaped the design of today.
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Originally published at https://gestalten.com. | https://medium.com/gestalten/how-lina-bo-bardi-shaped-brazilian-modernism-a2ab2ca746f2 | [] | 2020-12-04 16:36:50.377000+00:00 | ['Modernism', 'Design', 'Brazil', 'Lina Bo Bardi', 'Architecture'] |
How to Close the Gaps Between Where You Are and Where You Want to be | I’m slightly obsessed with gaps.
I always want to know exactly where I am so that I can judge where it is I want to be — and the distance between the two. I need two fixed points.
So, I’m constantly evaluating myself. Or my life. Different aspects of my life. What’s my money situation right now? How’s my business? My house? My relationship with my husband? My personal style? When was the last time I talked to my each of my brothers and sisters? How happy am I? How do I feel? How’s my time management? My sleep?
And on and on.
I am drawn like a moth to the flame to self-evaluation tools. I dislike labels in general, but anything that helps me to figure myself out? I’m there.
Because I know where I want to be. I have a very clear vision of what I want. I always have. Where I am now is murkier. It’s harder to judge. Part of that is because treading water is so much work, it sure feels like swimming, even if you don’t make any progress at all.
I’m confident in my ability to close the gaps, though, if I can just figure out what and where they are. I’ve done it before. Even massive gaps.
Like the gap between poverty and not being poor anymore. Or the gap between having a job I hate and owning a business that I absolutely love. The gap between really wanting to be a writer and being a full-time working writer who’s published by major publishers. The gap between sleep apnea and loss of mobility and losing 120 pounds so that those resolved.
The key is remembering that getting anywhere successfully requires two fixed points. In this case — where you are and where you want to be.
Start with an honest evaluation of where you are right now.
The good news is that you already know these answers. The harder news is that it can be difficult to face what you know.
I made some massive, sweeping changes in my life in 2015 and 2016. They started with deep self-evaluation that happened while I was sitting in the hospital for hours and hours, days and weeks on end, with my mother-in-law.
She was hospitalized with severely high blood pressure and delirium that was caused by an infection. She was also in the early stages of dementia. She couldn’t be left alone in the hospital without being restrained to her bed, so I sat with her sixteen hours a day.
Her problems stemmed from a lifetime of heavy smoking. It occurred to me that if she’d just quit when she was in my age, in her forties, she could have had a healthy old age.
And then I caught a marathon of My 600 Pound Life on her little TV one day. At the time my own weight was creeping up on 400 pounds. And all of a sudden I could very, very clearly see the path between 400 and 600 and I knew that I was on it.
And that I could do something then, in my 40s, to disrupt the path I was on so that my own kids were sitting with me in the hospital if I did manage to make it to 70.
By the end of the year I’d lost more than 100 pounds. Once I felt better, the gap between the work I wanted to do and the work became harder to ignore and I had the energy to put toward trying to close it.
Self-evaluation is about figuring out the gaps that are causing you the most problems — that are holding you back the hardest. Once you start to close those, the next steps will be easier to see.
Here are some ideas for finding your gaps.
It might be easy. Is there some part of your life that sucks so bad right now that you know, for sure, it has to change?
Where are you struggling? What keeps you up at night?
Is there something nagging at you? Something, maybe, that just doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe some part of your life is a squeaky wheel or like a rock in your shoe.
Take a look at your book shelf. Do you find yourself picking up books about a certain subject over and over? Sometimes the thing you’re trying to learn about is the gap you’re already trying to close.
Is there something you want in your life that just feels too big or hard or scary to even think about right now? If it feels impossible, it might be a gap.
Is there some aspect of your life that you find yourself constantly having to convince yourself that you’re just fine with?
Imagine you run into a friend five years from now — someone you haven’t seen in a long time — and your life is fabulous. Why is your life fabulous? What’s fabulous about it? The things that make it fabulous that you don’t already have going on are probably gaps.
What’s going on in your life right now that you’ll regret — either because you’re doing it or because you’re not — when you’re 80.
Once you know your gap, make a plan.
Here’s my best advice — just make the plan. Don’t worry right now about how you’re going to make it happen or whether you even can. Just plan with wild abandon for now.
I don’t particularly believe in the Law of Attraction. I don’t believe that the universe is just waiting to give you what you want if you ask properly. But I do believe that if you articulate the things you need and want, it’s far easier to actually get them because you’re far more aware of them.
Once you know, for instance, that you really want to finish your college degree or write a book or get out of debt or get a new job (and you really understand your starting point)— opportunities seem to just pop up because you’re looking for them. And asking for them.
So make your plan. Be audacious. You might as well, right? Go big. What do you really want?
But make sure you really do want it. For instance, when I think about money, I realize there’s a limit to how much I want. I want to have enough. But I don’t have any real desire to be filthy rich. I don’t need millions. I don’t want millions, because I don’t want to do the work that it takes to get that much money.
I want to have enough money to be comfortable and financially independent — but that’s where my desire for money ends.
But don’t limit yourself to what you think you can have. Back to the money thing, ‘financial independence’ for me personally means never having to work for someone else again. It also means being debt free, including a house that I really love, and having enough money to weather any storms that might come. I’d also like to be able to retire when I’m old.
I also want enough money to be able to travel and have nice things. I don’t have particularly expensive tastes — I’m not a luxury travel type person, for example. I’d like to fly first class, though. And I want to not have to always think about money and the cost and buying the cheapest thing when I buy something.
That being said, I also know that I’ll never be someone who wants an $80,000 car or a $300 pair of jeans. I just won’t.
The more you refine your plan, the more you’ll understand yourself and what you really want. And a path will present itself.
All you do, then, is take the first step.
Here’s a secret for you: If you can’t take the first step for some reason — then it’s not the first step. You’ve probably got some work to do to get to that step. And that’s okay. This isn’t a race.
I think you’ll be surprised though by how how quickly things move once you finally start closing those gaps. It’s addictive.
So, to find that first step, keep looking until you find something you actually can do right now. Today. And then just do that thing. And tomorrow, do the next thing. Don’t worry about anything beyond that.
Do the next thing and the next — it’s a little like crossing a bridge. If you keep taking steps forward, it would be impossible not to eventually get to the other side no matter how long it takes.
You’ve already determined the end point. You can stop thinking about it now. And you know where you’re starting. You can stop worrying about that, too. Just focus on your work.
The work will get you where you want to be. (Even, by the way, if that’s not quite where you thought it that might be when you started.) | https://medium.com/the-write-brain/how-close-the-gaps-between-where-you-are-and-where-you-want-to-be-67b0b2951a2d | ['Shaunta Grimes'] | 2020-01-05 00:47:38.271000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Goals', 'Life'] |
Party of Three | “Stay inside, please, Arthéme!”
“But why, Maman? The battle is a long way away. Listen!”
And there was no doubt about it. The sounds of battle were loud enough, but they were a distant loud. A thunderstorm on the horizon. The roar of waves crashing on a beach over the hill.
“Yes, listen! You hear that?”
Something landed on the roof of the old farmhouse and clunked over the slates. Like a hailstone, but heavier, more solid. Something that might not kill you outright, but could certainly ruin your day.
“But, cher Maman! What about the animals? They are outside. You heard Père Olivier. Véronique is distressed. Her milk will be sour.”
Her mother looked at her. “Véronique is a cow, Arthéme! She will have to take her chance. She will come back to the barn for milking in the evening. Or not.”
“And Henri?”
Her mother opened the kitchen door. “Henri!”
The dog appeared, wagging his tail. A summons to the door meant food.
Arthéme beckoned him inside, and he hesitated. He was not allowed in the house.
“Quick, foolish dog, this will not happen again!”
Henri was not stupid. He came through the door and trotted over to his old position by the hearth.
The two women laughed. “He remembers when he was a puppy, Maman!”
They smiled at each other. Arthéme remembered that time well. Her father had been home then. Her cousin Paul would ride his bicycle over and together they would go over their lessons. Later, they would sneak morsels to Henri under the table, and her parents would pretend not to notice the thump of an appreciative doggy tail on the floor.
“The war will be over soon. The Amis will kill all the Germans, Papa will come home from Africa, and, and all will be well once more.”
Paul will be home too, she thought, and this time I will not let him get away again.
“Your father has been having a holiday. He will bring home four skinny Arab brothers for you, and I will have to feed them up and tell the priest that they were orphans who by divine coincidence look like my husband.”
“Oh, Maman! Papa will have four years of love saved up for you. You will have quadruplets: two boys, and two girls, and we will have such fun with them!”
Now it was the mother’s turn to roll her eyes. “We shall see. Don’t go choosing names just yet.”
There was a noise at the door, and the two women looked at each other with alarm.
But it was only Feldwebel Bock. He hung his helmet by the door, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the table. Henri growled at him and quietened when the soldier glared back.
“Oh, M’sieur Bock! What is the news?”
“Die Amerikaner sind alle tot. Sie schwimmen nach England. Zeit für eine Party!” The Americans are all dead. We pushed them into the sea. Party time!
Arthéme theatrically cocked her ear. “Sehr laut für les morts.” Noisy for dead men, eh?
“A few. They just don’t know it yet.”
He thumped a chubby fist onto the table. “Today is the last day I dine with you two ladies. We must celebrate the glorious victory before I leave. Wine!”
“You have wine in your room, M’sieur. Shall I fetch a bottle?”
“Pah. I keep it to clean my gun.” Bock pulled out a pistol and set it on the table. “You have some good wine hidden away for special days. Bring it out. We can drink to this special day.”
“We have it in the cellar. Arthéme, come help me move the boxes.”
Arthéme followed her mother down the old stone steps. “He is up to no good, Maman.”
“I was not born yesterday, child. The Americans must be winning, and he wants to save his skin. And my mother’s necklace to put in his little box with the Russian coins and the gold teeth. Look, here is a bottle of the good red wine. While he is drinking his glass, you must slip outside and find the priest. He will send some men to do what needs to be done.”
Arthéme looked at the bottle. “Oh, Maman, the Christmas wine! I did not know we had any left.”
“I was keeping it for this day. For the Amis to come save us. They will be here soon enough once the filthy German pigs have gone.”
They mounted the stairs and entered the kitchen. Bock was gone.
“He is upstairs in my room, Maman. Hear him.”
“All the better. Go now. Find Père Olivier.”
Arthéme went to the rack beside the door, took her headscarf from beside the ugly German helmet, and tied it over her dark hair.
“Go quickly, Arthéme!”
But it was too late. Bock came down the stairs in a clatter, his pack over his shoulder and a little metal box in his hand.
“Where are you going, girl? You must stay and drink with me!”
“There is a bottle of champagne in the milk room where it is cool. You would like a glass of champagne, yes?”
“Your mother may fetch it. Pour me some wine. Three glasses, we will drink a toast to the Reich!”
Arthéme got down three of the fine crystal glasses, while her mother uncorked the bottle. The wine was deep and red, and Bock held it up to the light, sniffing it approvingly.
“If I had known you had such good wine, I would have insisted we celebrate the Fuhrer’s birthday in April. And May.”
He waited until three glasses had been poured, then raised his. “To the German Reich, may it bring wealth and happiness to all. Heil Hitler!”
He drank his wine in a gulp and motioned that the women should do the same.
Arthéme drank a mouthful and coughed. It was strong, and she was not used to alcohol. Her mother drank hers deliberately, a sour look on her face.
Bock seized the bottle and poured himself a second glass. “This is good! Come, woman, where is that champagne? Let’s make this a real party to remember!”
Arthéme watched as her mother carefully set her glass down and went outside. There was the sound of hasty footsteps on the gravel of the yard.
“Take that scarf off, girl. You are not going anywhere. And finish your wine.”
She took another mouthful, beginning to enjoy the rich taste of it, then untied her scarf and went to hang it on the peg.
“Good. Now the blouse. Let me see what you have been hiding.”
Arthéme stared in outrage. “I will do no such thing!”
“There are two ways we can do this. The easy way or the hard. You will not like the hard way. But I will.”
He picked up his pistol, and clicked the safety off.
“Hurry. We do not have much time.”
“You would not dare!”
Henri growled from the hearth.
“Do what I say. Now!”
Arthéme backed away.
Bock aimed his pistol.
Not at Arthéme, she realised, watching the muzzle as it swung around.
“No!”
But the noise of the shot and the strangled yelp of the dog came together on her ears. There was another shockingly loud noise, and the dog was quiet and still.
The pistol swung around again until she was looking along the length of it to Bock’s stare. It moved slightly, a gesture to one side.
“Off, girl, if you want to see another minute of life.”
She should stand and die for France. Like Joan of Arc. But her fingers betrayed her, moving to the buttons, and undoing them one by one.
“And that.”
She tugged on the chemise, and slowly brought it over her head, trying to think of a way out.
“Very nice. I should have had you warm my bed each night, instead of your mother’s. Now the rest of it.” The pistol indicated downwards.
The kitchen door opened, and Arthéme’s heart bounded.
But Feldwebel Bock’s sneering voice chilled it.
“Good. Now it is easy. You hold her down for me, soldat, and then you may have second prize.” | https://medium.com/grab-a-slice/party-of-three-172f4820951f | ['Britni Pepper'] | 2020-06-27 14:11:17.834000+00:00 | ['D Day', 'War', 'Fiction', 'Normandy', 'Writing'] |
3 ways to improve your visual design skills | Practice establishing visual hierarchy by creating many variations of a design using different component styles, and use the black-and-white technique when you feel stuck. A few tips on components:
Fonts — Larger and bolder fonts capture attention and should be used sparingly for headers.
Larger and bolder fonts capture attention and should be used sparingly for headers. Lines — Lines help separate groups of information, serve as layout grids, and can fill awkward white space.
— Lines help separate groups of information, serve as layout grids, and can fill awkward white space. Color — Darker and more saturated colors draw more attention.
— Darker and more saturated colors draw more attention. Shapes —Simply shapes (circle, triangles, squares) are generally more aesthetically pleasing.
—Simply shapes (circle, triangles, squares) are generally more aesthetically pleasing. Images — Images can be enticing, but try to stay away from stock photography.
— Images can be enticing, but try to stay away from stock photography. Space — Space is your best friend. Use it to separate groups of information or to isolate (highlight) important things.
If you need help understanding the fundamentals of visual design components, Steven Bradley wrote some amazing posts on lines, color, shapes, and space.
2 — Use Gestalt principles
All designers should understand Gestalt Theory and the principles of visual perception. Gestalt Theory was developed in the early 1900s by German psychologists, who theorized ways in which humans organize visual experiences. Designers nowadays use Gestalt principles as a framework for more effective visual communication.
“By matching a target audience with selected high impact gestalt images we can shorten the distance to effective communications” — Gregg Berryman
Smashing Magazine already explains the fundamentals of Gestalt Theory, so I’ll focus on showing examples instead.
Figure/Ground
Typically the ground is the background in which the figure (object) exists upon. The goal is to maintain focus on the figure and clearly differentiate it from the ground. Designs with high-contrast colors will establish a stronger figure/ground relationship, while designs with low-contrast colors will have a weaker relationship. Newbies should keep backgrounds simple (light colors or subtle textures) and limit the number of colors for figures.
Proximity
Objects in proximity will visually unite into groups. Proximity can be combined with color to make groups even more apparent. The opposite of proximity — space — can reinforce groupings or isolate unrelated objects.
Similarity
Similar looking objects are perceived to be related. Similarity in objects share the same color, shape, size, or direction. Use similarity to visually tie related objects together.
Photo submitted on r/crappydesign by UglyDuce
Continuity
The human eye continues to follow lines, curves, or objects placed in sequence. When objects in continuity intersect with other objects, our eyes naturally perceive these objects as distinct entities (not grouped). Use color to further reinforce continuity and flow.
We are naturally able to distinguish objects with continuity from other objects.
Closure
Incomplete objects, or space that is not completely enclosed, are perceived to be whole because our brain fills in the missing gaps. Designers can use the principle of closure to create visually compelling graphics.
3 —Check your fonts!
Designers should make sure that words are both legible and readable. The older I get, the less patience I have for deciphering tiny, ultra-thin, or lightly colored words. With typography there are a few best practices to follow:
Start with 2 fonts
A font is a typeface (aka font family) set at a specific size and weight. Jon Tan explains:
“Using the Georgia typeface example, the “Georgia Regular”, “Georgia Italic”, “Georgia Bold”, and “Georgia Bold Italic” in my library are all fonts of the Georgia typeface.”
Rule of thumb is to start with 1 header font and 1 body font of different typefaces, and to use no more than 2–3 typefaces per layout. The more headers or styles you have (quotes, links, etc), the more fonts you’ll need. This Medium post uses 2 typefaces (Lucida Grande and Cambria) and 7 fonts.
Check out Hongkiat’s font tools to find good font pairings. Many designers use Google fonts because it has 818(!) free typefaces to choose from. Other designers subscribe to paid services such as MyFonts or Fonts.com.
14px minimum body font size
I was once part of the ‘tiny words are cooler’ camp. After watching dozens of users struggle to read my designs with 12px font, I killed this mentality and found 14px to be the minimum size for readability. Web trend nowadays are to go even bigger, as evidenced by this 21px body font Medium post. The exception is when you want to deemphasize things like disclaimer text. Check out Christian Miller’s piece on Why your body text is too small.
Line height = 1.5–2x font size
Line height refers to the amount of space between sentences in a paragraph. Too small of a line height makes text feel crammed, and too big of a line height makes sentences feel disconnected.
“Many people with cognitive disabilities have trouble tracking lines of text when a block of text is single spaced. Providing spacing between 1.5 to 2 allows them to start a new line more easily once they have finished the previous one .” — w3c.org
In addition to line height, paragraph height is the amount of space between paragraphs. According to W3c’s web content accessibility guidelines, you should set paragraph height to >1.5x the line-height.
Optimal line character count— 66 characters
The number of characters per line is key to ensuring readability. Lines that are too long are hard to follow, while lines that are too short breaks reading rhythm. Many designers regard The Elements of Typographic Style as industry standard for optimal character count:
“Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely-regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal.” — Robert Bringhurst
W3c’s web content accessibility guidelines reinforces this standard, asserting that lines should contain “…no more than 80 characters or glyphs.”
Other visual design tips | https://uxdesign.cc/3-ways-to-improve-your-visual-design-skills-fa9dc8e583ff | ['Jules Cheung'] | 2017-12-17 03:24:38.309000+00:00 | ['UI', 'User Experience', 'Typography', 'Design', 'UX'] |
Feminist to a Fault | Feminist to a Fault
How I used my feminism as an excuse to avoid personal change
Image of me, Summer 2020
As a social worker, my feminism has helped me help people. But I have also let my feminism get in the way of helping myself.
In feminism, the story we have about individual suffering is that it often relates to the person’s social environment and trauma history. It’s usually not a problem with behaviour or choices or brains, but a problem with social inequity. We analyze the pressure of gender roles, the gendered violence women and trans people experience across their lifespan, and the ways that sexism creates barriers to health, career growth, and equity in heterosexual relationships. We also look at how race, class, ability, sexual orientation and other social locations interact with gender to create additional burdens in oppressive contexts.
As a social worker, if a client relapsed, I would express concern about her stressors rather than blaming her for her “failure” to self-care. If a young person became aggressive, I would ask what had happened to them leading up to the challenging behaviour. When I was working in a shelter, a young woman struggled to get up in the morning and was rude to the staff trying to wake her. My colleagues said she’s just a teenager, that she was choosing not to follow the rules. They were fed up and ready to kick her out. I asked if anyone had actually asked her what the issue was, knowing that abused women often have a hard time sleeping. No one had asked. When they did, sure enough, not only did she have flashbacks, but she was sex working at night.
I don’t know how many times in my career I have had to remind folks to ask what’s going on for someone rather than going straight to controlling and punishing the behaviour. I wouldn’t take back any of that. The problem is that I worked so hard to get people to move their lens from the individual to the social context, that I ended up using the social context as an excuse not to look at myself as an individual. I ended up ignoring the things I was doing to contribute to my own suffering. I was so hypervigilant to oppression that resistance and opposition became embodied habits.
I wasn’t pathologically depressed, I told myself, I was just unhappy with my situation. I had wonderful support and strong self insight and no problems, really. It was just a hard job. If I just got a new job, then I would have energy for all the rest — I would start working out more and eating better and go on dates and pick up a hobby and socialize more. If I did all that, I would be fine. Totally fine. I’m a strong woman living in patriarchy, I thought — that’s the real problem.
I didn’t do therapy for a long time because of that story.
Because of that story, once I started searching for a therapist, I clicked past any therapist’s bio that didn’t mention feminism or social justice. I thought, “If they’re only looking at me and not my situation, I will feel pathologized.” I thought a non-feminist therapist wouldn’t get me, as if my feminism was the only thing to know about me.
I didn’t take medication for a long time. Rather than quitting, I hurtled through each week to get to the weekend, when all I did was sleep and mainline Netflix. I kept applying to jobs I didn’t even really want. There were years that I could have been doing different things to foster my growth and well-being. But I didn’t.
I prolonged my own suffering because of that story.
I also allowed my feminist identity to create resistance to anything I labelled as either “mainstream” or “woo-woo.” For a long time, I realize now, I judged things at my own expense. I judged Cognitive Behaviour Therapy because it didn’t seem right to “logic” myself out of feelings that were perfectly valid. (CBT teaches people to control their thoughts in order to manage feelings and change behaviour.) I needed to leave the reality I was in, not adjust to it via mind tricks, I thought. I resisted “radical acceptance” because what I was experiencing in a toxic workplace was unacceptable. I resisted meditative therapies such as tapping because they felt like trying to access some sort of magic when what I wanted was justice for myself.
I’ve learned that to get well, I had to be open-minded to things that are unfamiliar or that don’t fit into some rigid idea of what kind of person I am. I had to re-examine my cognitive distortions about how feminism should translate into how I live my life. Instead of constantly critiquing the world around me, I needed to tap into my creative energy.
To be clear, I am not criticizing feminism. People who are afraid of change will use any GD excuse not to change, even feminism. We hunker down in an identity and become very difficult to move.
Turns out I like tapping. I know now that I don’t need my therapist to be some smarter version of me to be helpful. I wasn’t as self-compassionate as I thought I was (whoops). I’ve discovered that CBT can be really frickin’ useful. I’ve ended up self-coaching myself with CBT, which has been repackaged as “thoughtwork” in the coaching world. I landed on podcasts from feminist coaches Victoria Albina and Kara Loewentheil and applied their lessons into my own life. I even like podcasts that aren’t about social justice!
It’s not so much that my perspective was entirely wrong. I was right that I’m a strong woman with a lot of insight. I was right that CBT has some limitations. I do need to feel my feelings. I did need to leave my workplace. I do resonate better with coaching and therapy techniques that are integrated with a feminist or social justice lens. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/the-individual-versus-context-in-feminism-174425ac9ee6 | ['Audrey Batterham'] | 2020-07-30 19:23:37.707000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'Social Change', 'Mental Health', 'Feminism', 'Self Improvement'] |
Two Nighttime Activities to 10X Your Productivity Tomorrow | Two Nighttime Activities to 10X Your Productivity Tomorrow
How a night routine can set you up for a better day
Photo by Tamar Waskey on Unsplash
I never thought that doing something at night could improve my tomorrow. I always thrived on a morning routine that got me out the door on time and still left some room for writing before work. It was my way of incorporating a personal goal into each day. But now that I’m writing and working from home every day, I needed a new method to help me stay focused and get my work done. Without these activities, I’d be working from the minute I sat down at the computer to the minute I went to bed, wasting time and only getting about half the things done that I needed to accomplish.
Now, I’m on track to hit half a million words from June until the end of December. I’ve just published my tenth book (nine this year), will have five more released by December, and will have written another three (at least) before the end of 2020.
The secret lies in my night routine. It’s simple — two activities that make my next day insanely productive. Depending on how much fiction versus nonfiction I write, I can average between 3K and 8K words a day and still get other administrative stuff done and take a full hour for lunch, all before my husband gets home at 6PM.
Here’s how I make it happen with my nighttime routine.
Plan
It’s as simple and as complicated as that. Every evening, before I head upstairs to bed, I sit down with my Passion Planner (affl) and plan out my next day. I take into account the writing I’ve done that day, determine what needs to be done next, and schedule it in my planner.
The first thing is to write down my top three most important tasks with as much detail as possible. I take out all decisions for what needs to get done. Instead of saying that I need to write one chapter of my next book, I detail exactly what chapter I’ll be writing. If I need to have an article written, I know the title and the subpoints so there’s no wasting time researching what to write the next day. If it’s administrative, I know exactly what goes where and when it needs to be done. No more wasting time trying to decide what to do next.
Next, I transfer all my word counts or any goals/tasks that I didn’t get done the day before. Obviously this is more of my personal touch, but I like to start my day knowing where I’m at and even give myself a goal to hit. I’m getting close to 300K words written so I’ll take one day and try to stretch my word count to hit that number. It’s also useful to fill in any time blocks I know I won’t be working in. I always schedule lunch, because if I don’t I’ll be tempted to write through it, and I have a few virtual evening events throughout the week. One of them is writing group, so often I’ll leave myself some space during the day so I’m not exhausted by the time that rolls around.
Planning is also great if you have habits or other things you like to do. Making time and protecting time to get done what you need to do is critical for success. Scheduling it out improves the chances you’ll do them. It also means you’ll waste less time around those activities.
Journal
After I’ve settled into bed, I love pulling out my journal and recapping my day. Morning pages are not possible with the things I have to do in the morning so I save mine for the end of the day. It adds to my hour or so of no screens before bed. I shut off all distractions and just sit with my pen and paper.
As someone with ADHD and an anxious mind, decompressing after a day of work is extremely useful. And since my mind is always spinning, it can be nearly impossible to settle down before sleep. Journaling is my kind of meditation because I use it to write out my thoughts. If I know they exist on paper, I don’t have to worry about forgetting a really good idea. I can also use it as a second planner and sort through my ideas. Often, I’ll plot out my next few scenes, in brief form, and use that as a way to relax. If I forget what direction I wanted to go, I can always check my journal.
It’s also a great resource for writing out thoughts and recapping my day. Often I’ll talk about the successes I had or where I found struggles throughout my day. It will usually lead to me coming up with new ideas for how to handle distractions or plans for trying out something different. Once I get everything out (or my hand starts to cramp), I’ll set it aside and feel so much better about closing my eyes. A calm mind means I can fall asleep faster and don’t feel like a zombie in the morning. A good night’s sleep means a more productive day. | https://medium.com/the-winter-writer/two-nighttime-activities-to-10x-your-productivity-tomorrow-402ab2943ce3 | ['Laura Winter'] | 2020-09-24 20:12:56.073000+00:00 | ['Routine', 'Habits', 'Productivity', 'Lifestyle', 'Self Improvement'] |
Newsbreak: Transparent Feedback After 10 Days | Newsbreak: Transparent Feedback After 10 Days
I’m losing faith in humanity, but my wallet is fine.
Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash
I’ve been experimenting on Newsbreak for exactly 10 days. It’s not much to give feedback, but some things deserve to be said. Everything seems to go at the speed of light on this one.
To make a long story short, I don’t know yet if Newsbreak will be a sustainable source of income for me. It will certainly not replace Medium, whose content quality and friendly community I appreciate. I like the way the writing is magnified here, which is something I don’t find on Newsbreak.
If I had to sum up my experience in one sentence, it would be this: I’m losing faith in humanity, but my wallet is fine. | https://medium.com/honest-creative/transparent-feedback-after-10-days-on-newsbreak-df27c6b0c567 | ['Auriane Alix'] | 2020-12-28 22:41:14.655000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Writing', 'Money', 'Writer', 'Newsbreak'] |
Creating a Human that Never Existed | What would you do with a humanoid robot? Get it to go to work for you? Create the next trillion-dollar company? Or take over the world?
(Un)Fortunately, our technology isn’t advanced enough to create those robots. But we can definitely make progress toward it! One start is the physical appearance of the robot — and with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) we can create hyper-realistic faces.
Take, for example, the image below. There are 3 humans and 1 generated human. Which one is it? (Scroll slowly)
Which one is the fake human?
So which one is it?
Are you confident?
I lied. All of them are fakes! The images were so realistic that you couldn’t even tell! That is the power of GANs!
Whoa there — Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What even are these Generative Adversarial Networks? | https://medium.com/swlh/creating-a-human-that-never-existed-65d046fe8cb3 | ['Dickson Wu'] | 2020-11-14 06:01:42.731000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Gans', 'Programming', 'Neural Networks'] |
A Human Tale of Two Women | Pearl inside of an oyster shell
In the movie “Juno” there is this great moment when the titular character’s stepmother, after finding out about her stepdaughter’s pregnancy, asks “is that the kind of girl you are?”. In response to that question, the usually (at least on the outside) cocksure Juno quietly and softly and vulnerably replies, “I don’t really know what kind of girl I am.”. That moment has stayed with me nearly fifteen years since that movie came out and it is, still, a question I find myself pondering. Even as a 40 year old woman, I still sometimes wonder what kind of girl I am.
Whenever I think upon that “Juno” question now though I don’t ask what kind of girl I am but, rather, what kind of woman I am. While I understand that to just be a question of semantics, as words without the meanings we ascribe to them are pretty useless, it extends far beyond semantics. It extends to the voice I now observe. A voice I recognize more clearly as my own. A voice that is quieter, softer, lower in tone; more sure and less sure, but more comfortable with said uncertainty, all at the same time. The screaming, fearful, deranged banshee voice still emerges but the observer of the inner voice, the God spark, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it-that-works-for-you, is the one, more often than not, that is giving the directions to the driver. It is interesting to live longer and longer and to look back on iterations of yourself and feel the traces of those iterations and hear the reverberations of those old voices, all the while observing how far you have come.
Unfortunately, Jennifer Farber Dulos never really got that chance to look too far back. The chance to continue to grow. The chance to work out what kind of girl she had been and what kind of woman she would be. She did not because Jennifer, based on all available evidence, was murdered by her husband Fotis Dulos with whom she was in the midst of a contentious divorce and custody fight. Ms. Dulos checked every single ‘having it all’ box. She was wealthy, beautiful, learned; a writer and a regular fixture in New York’s literary and arts scene. She married a handsome, European ex-patriate who gave the hint of wealth, money, privilege, and, certainly, of ambition.
Fotis Dulos, the man who would become Jennifer Farber’s husband, father to her children and, eventually, her alleged killer, was certainly ambitious. Driven by an unyielding drive for status, money, power and control. Fotis Dulos was determined to control every aspect of life, and, the lives of his wife and their five children. This apparently took its toll on Jennifer and, after more than a decade, she had determined that she had enough and began taking the steps to end her marriage. The story then unfolded in its usual ways: the male protagonist turns villainous and violent, unwilling to let go of that which he determined to be his. Love becomes obsessive, there are betrayals and, ultimately, murder (Jennifer) followed by suicide (Fotis).
Fotis may have lived up to his heritage, scripting a perfect Greek tragedy and, yet, he did not write the story alone. In fact, Jennifer was a co-writer and while she in no way deserves what happened to her, her life can serve as a cautionary tale of what happens when women (or men) let anyone else define the kind of woman (or man) that they are. In a recently published article in Vanity Fair, Jennifer Farber is quoted as writing the following: “I am the kind of person who looks at other people’s lives and wonders if I could have what they have. The question of whether or not I want it usually comes second.”. According to the article, Faber continued by writing, “[a]nd later I would try on a series of men, figuring out how their lives looked on me, sometimes having to alter my contours to force this appealing new entity to fit like a trace over my own self.”.
While the Vanity Fair piece refers to the story of the Dulos’ as a suburban tragedy, it most certainly is not. On the contrary, it is a human tragedy that could befall any one of us who cede control to a voice other than our own and governance of our minds, bodies and spirits to another. A good friend of mine and I were discussing the Betty Broderick case one day. We were because my friend had watched a recent documentary on Betty’s story and had been both stunned, and horrified by, how thin the line is between what we believe we are capable of doing and what we actually may do.
Like Jennifer Farber, Betty Broderick appeared to have everything. A thriving marriage and children, a gorgeous California home and a social standing among her wealthy peers that was of a great importance to her. Early in her marriage, it was Betty who had supported, financially and otherwise, her husbands goals and ambitions supporting him as he went to both medical and law school. Well over twenty years into their marriage, Betty Broderick’s husband, Daniel Broderick, decided he wanted out. He was moving on and taking Betty’s home, wealth, social status — everything she had built her life around — with him. Betty, like Jennifer, had tried the life of another on and placed it over her own. She decided she liked what she was and would forfeit everything for it, including and especially, herself. Betty never thought any of it would end, until and like everything, it did end.
When any of us worship anything we end up, as David Foster Wallace noted in his Kenyon College address, with less. If we don’t actually end up with less, we certainly end up feeling like we do, as Betty felt and as Jennifer Farber felt. When we give over our inner treasures to another, to an idea, to another’s idealized version of life, we give up that which makes us sacred and unique. The observer of our inner voice, the God spark, the diamond inside, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it-that-works-for-you. A very dear friend of mine texted me the other week about how their life has fallen short of where they want it to be. They have lost the direction, the true North, that only our own voices and selves can steer us toward. Life is complicated though and things happen, plans get changed; we get bumped and bruised and thrown off of course. But, we only ever live in our own skins and when we put the lives of others over our own we feel hollow and empty, like an imposter, because we have occupied all of our time figuring out the contours of another’s life rather than our own wild and precious life.
I was at my Mom’s the other day and saw the box of my father’s ashes she keeps on her headboard and was struck by one thought reminiscent of an old song: is that all there is? We just disappear into a pile of ashes at the end of it all? I thought about our bones, our tissues, our teeth, in one form or another, being reduced to ash, as my father’s were. And, yes, that’s where we all end up but that’s not all there is. There is a whole middle. A beginning, a middle and an end and none of us ought to miss our middles and we must certainly not forfeit them to anyone else. Our middles are the height of the play, the crescendo of the music and the moments in which we get to decide, moment by moment, what we’ll each do with our wild and precious lives. The only way we can decide truly though, how we want to live, with whom and where we will spread the fairy dust of our ashes while we are still alive and in an ongoing state of evolution and becoming, is by heeding our own voice as no one can direct us to a place they’ve never been.
My Father, I know, felt that he had a great life, but, also, a life that fell short. He was disappointed in plenty of respects and that will happen to each of us and that’s okay. It’s called life. As I texted back to my friend: “everyone’s life falls short in different ways. I think about what Glennon [Doyle] says a lot that life isn’t hard because people are doing it wrong it’s hard because they’re doing it right…I think the most any of us can hope for is a life that feels good because it actually is good and whatever we need to do to get there is what we need to do. Our stories are specific but the feelings and experiences are pretty global and human.”. So, while our tissues, bones and teeth are intact, and before we return to ash, we must live it all fully; even when it all falls short and it will.
Our lives will fall short and that can’t be avoided. What can be avoided though, is our lives being cut short. As Jennifer’s was. As Betty’s was. Their lives would have fallen short, and, maybe, even been cut short, as no one really knows what will happen. What they likely would not have been though is truncated by their own hands. These were two women full of their own ideas, their own promise and they turned over the authorship of their stories to those who would not, ultimately, value them, their inner voice, their God spark, their diamond inside, their whatever-you-want-to-call-it-that-works-for-you.
My life has fallen short in countless ways and will continue to do so. My writing, for example, I did not write daily until this year. That is countless years lost but those were my years to lose. My choices; not agency I ceded to another. My writing now, on Medium alone, reaches thirty three followers. Those thirty three people, I assume, look forward to hearing what I have to say when I have to say it. In publishing terms, thirty three readers would…..not be considered a success. In my life, it is a resounding success because I create for those thirty three incredibly important people. Actually, I create for thirty four incredibly important people as I create for me too.
I’m learning that there is a giving over of ourselves to those that will amplify us and our truest voice. They will help us become known to our truest selves and honour us and wherever we need to go. They will not only love us but they will understand us and, in doing so, bring us that much closer to knowing unconditional love. They will be the grains of sand in our shells that allow our pearls to emerge. There is that giving over and then there is a giving over that is not a giving over, but, rather, a surrendering of ourselves that allows for everything to be taken away from us; as it was for Jennifer and as it was for Betty.
I am lucky to be surrounded by, loved by and understood by those who want me to become the exact and perfectly made pearl that I am supposed to be. At the end of the day though, I will write my own story, according to my own inner voice, as I hope you will write yours. It will be imperfect and it will fall short, but, it will be true. We can only write our truest stories though when we keep ourselves as intact as we can, and, when we ask ourselves: what kind of woman/man/person am I and, then, we gently, quietly, individually and patiently wait for the answers and live into our own knowing. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/a-human-tale-of-two-women-52f1259c4247 | ['Christine Quaglia'] | 2020-11-24 11:03:32.997000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self', 'Growth', 'Self Love', 'Self Improvement'] |
Explaining the Medium Partner Program | Call this a one-year performance review, if you like.
I’m guessing it’s cool to put their logo here, given, you know, it’s also at the top of the page and all
I never expected to make a dime on Medium, and I’m thankful for any dimes I can scrape together from it. I’ve been fortunate enough to be featured once, and I never thought I’d get that, given my content is not infrequently critical of blue tribe narratives. But now that I’ve been doing this for a year, and accumulated a third of a million hits in the process, I figured I’d share what I’ve learned. Perhaps other writers can use this knowledge to best utilize the system, regardless of their tribal affiliation.
Basics
Medium provides statistics on the back end which are very different from what you see as a reader. As the reader you see a clap count, which is basically like a Reddit upvote or a Facebook like, except readers can clap as much as they like. Additional claps don’t necessarily earn the writer more money, because each reader only has a certain amount of their subscription parceled off to pay writers. The money is divided up by clap, so if you clap nine times for one article, and once for another, the nine-clap article rakes in 90% of the payout, and the one clap article rakes 10%.
How much of the monthly subscription is paid out exactly?
$2.50
(ish)
Half the money from everyone’s Medium subscription goes to writers, the other half goes to Medium. I’m almost certain this is the number, give or take a dime or two depending on how many weeks are in the pay cycle, by looking at my Medium Partner statistical histories. In prior months, I’ve had duplicate earnings for articles of $2.35 each, of $2.46 each, and of $2.85 each, and the statistical likelihood of those duplicate entries would be astronomical. Each of those duplicate payouts represent one person engaging with my article, and no other articles, over the amortization period. They aren’t exactly $2.50, though, because math:
Medium charges its readers by the month, and there are different numbers of days in the month. Medium pays out by the week, but does so in bundles of weeks which approximate a month, so sometimes the number of weeks in a Medium pay cycle will vary. This makes it confusing to nail down exactly, but after combing all the data, two and a half bucks seems correct. It also seems like the sort of number the guys who cooked up Medium would have put in their business plan. Nice round number off that five dollar subscription.
Now we know Medium keeps half the cash, and pays out half the cash. Don’t hate. That’s way better than Facebook, who pays you nothing and farms your life out to advertisers and the NSA and whomever. I dig it. We also know that clap count is a bad way of looking at it, which is okay for the writers because Medium gives us three metrics on the back end to look at — views, reads, and “fans.” Fans are unique engagements — “some dude or dudette clapped some number of times.” It counts heads.
Outside Traffic is Meaningless
You get paid nothing for views, and either nothing or next to nothing for reads. Proof inbound.
This article:
..has 37,000 views and 6,000 reads since it’s been published. It is by all objective standards a pretty popular article, but has only earned $37 total on the Partner Program as of today. That’s a tenth of a penny per view, and a little over half a penny per read, but 67 cents per unique engagement. Where does it get its traffic? Google searches, apparently.
Only 3% of its total traffic comes from sources within Medium, which would be targeted to Medium subscribers. The external views, reads, and such, don’t turn into unique engagements, (claps) so they don’t turn into money.
This article:
…was distributed by curators in both Religion and Politics, so it found its way to the front of many feeds of Medium subscribers. It only has 11,000 views, and only 2,400 reads, but 111 unique engagements, and made $89. That’s eight times more per view and seven times more per read than the racism article, but on balance it’s around 80 cents per unique engagement. The “per engagement” number is the only consistent one so far. Where did its traffic come from?
31% from Medium, owing to the curation.
This article:
…was distributed by curators in Gun Control, but was also featured on the main page, given free copy edit services by Medium staff, tweeted out by Medium, email blasted, the whole nine yards. (and for all that I am of course infinitely thankful) It also got some traffic from a Kurt Schlicter Angry Culture War Piece referencing it over on Townhall, and did well on Facebook and Twitter. 184,000 views, 72,000 reads, 858 unique engagements. That’s four tenths of a penny per view, a penny a read, and 95 cents per engagement. Again, engagement is the only statistic that’s remotely consistent. Posting the screenshot because humblebrag.
This 184k click beast could have made the same amount of money only receiving 47k clicks, were those clicks delivered by the same Medium traffic ratio as the second article.
Following the Blue Tribe Narrative is Helpful to Curation, but Not Necessary
Here are the Medium Curation Standards:
Quality: It (almost) goes without saying, but the most important factor is that your stories are insightful, considered, and interesting. They should tell a narrative, convey useful information, or thoughtfully share a point of view. The writing should be polished and free of errors. We recommend spending more time on stories of depth and meaning, rather than simply publishing as often as you can. Headlines: Write a clear and descriptive title and subtitle for your story. Headlines should accurately reflect what your story is about — please avoid profanity, misleading “clickbait” phrasing, and using all capital letters. (And if you really want to get into it: Standard headline styling is title case for the headline and sentence case for the subtitle. This isn’t required but is ideal.) Images: Include a featured image with your story. It appears when we preview your story for readers on our homepage or your profile. It should be an image that you have the rights to use. Free resources like Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash are great for sourcing Creative Commons-licensed images. Citations: Link facts (especially in the areas of science, medicine, health, statistics, etc.), quotations, and excerpts to their sources. Profile: Your profile on Medium helps readers know more about you and your expertise, so they can understand the perspective of your story even better. Edit your profile to include a clear picture of yourself, your full name, and a bio that describes your credentials. Proofreading: Avoid major typos, errors, or formatting quirks in your story so readers can focus on the piece itself.
What they don’t say here, is that the “Quality” bullet includes some ideological bias, and the relative amount of bias seems to have shifted midway through 2018. And that’s fine, I’m not complaining, I’m here as a guest of Medium just like everybody else. But as the only writer to ever make it to the number three spot on the Medium “Top Writers in Politics” list without ever saying the word “Trump,” a record that would have stood forever if I hadn’t just typed it there (doh!), I think I have a unique perspective on this.
Half my material is gun related, and can generally be described as “mathematically pro-gun.” I’m probably the leading writer on guns or gun control on Medium in terms of traffic, if not damn close, in the past year. That gives me a data pool of similarly themed articles to analyze, to see what does get curated, and what doesn’t. Let’s run down the list as a test case.
Distributed by curators in Politics and Gun Control:
These were both critical of blue tribe narratives, but they were also both published before May of 2018.
Distributed by curators in Gun Control:
Five curated articles, total. Only two after April of 2018. From May on, all curated articles were critical of red tribe narratives. The “lane” article was critical of the NRA. The “anatomy” article was probably the worst article I’ve written on Medium, but it was slinging mud at Townhall. It wasn’t even an article about gun control, really.
Not curated:
The article on buyback math was one of the best articles I’ve written. The “lying again” article was one of the funniest. The “solutions” article was the most deeply researched. These were not curated.
I’ve had several discussions with other Medium writers recently who have also noticed this ideological shift, especially in the run up to, and wake of, Kavanaugh. My Kavanaugh article was about using sociobiology to analyze the freakoutery, and although it got about 4,000 hits, it wasn’t curated. Which is fine, the number of Kavanaugh articles the poor curators had to chew through was probably in the thousands. But the ones they did pick were monolithically blue tribe, on an issue that the country was basically divided in half. I expect the writers on Medium break more blue than red, but I highly doubt that every single article worth curating, or featuring, was blue.
And that’s fine as well. It’s their business, and I’m happy they let me publish here, and they do occasionally curate blue narrative divergent articles. (SJCSR above) I do think it’s a strange business decision to curate in this way, because it opens a business opportunity for someone to build a Red Tribe Medium Clone, given Medium has chosen to only chase half the available market share. But the most important takeaway for you, the Medium Writer whose still surprisingly reading this article, is this. If you want to earn money, don the Blue Backpack. I bet umair haque makes bank.
This article won’t get curated, nor should it. It’s quite honestly only really useful for Medium writers anyway.
Summary:
I’m not actually worried about making money here, because I have a real job. But if you are, here are your tips:
1) Count fans, not hits or reads.
2) Get curated, because curation puts you in front of the people who pay you with their engagement. External traffic is fun, but it doesn’t matter. There’s some chatter that being in a publication is important.
3) If you’re going to write culture war stuff, Go Blue Tribe.
Hope this helps. | https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/explaining-the-medium-partner-program-ecbe84019569 | ['Bj Campbell'] | 2019-03-07 04:51:14.498000+00:00 | ['Guns', 'Random', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing', '“Top Writers in Politics” list'] |
What Happened When Versa Gave Employees Every Wednesday Off | What Happened When Versa Gave Employees Every Wednesday Off
Profits doubled, revenue grew by 46%, and staff retention went from 77% to 88%
Photo by Ethan Brooke from Pexels
Since 2018, digital marketing agency Versa has locked its doors every Wednesday.
The initiative was the idea of Versa’s chief executive and founder, Kath Blackham, who was looking for a way to give people greater flexibility in an industry notorious for a long-hours culture.
When Kath first heard of the four-day work week, she pitched the idea to the rest of her leadership team. She was met with a resounding no, as her partners were scared it would negatively affect revenues.
Even though the pitch was unsuccessful, she still believed in the idea enough to trial it with a handpicked group from her own team.
Over three months, this group of experimenters worked four days a week, while getting paid for five. On Wednesdays, they had the day off. After a successful first three months, the experiment was expanded to the other employees. A year later the results were in.
“Profits have doubled, revenue has grown by 46%, and staff retention has gone from 77% to 88%. Plus, people are healthier, happier, and less likely to take sick days.” (Kath Blackham)
Clients were happier too. As the four-day week increased staff retention, clients tended to work with the same people for longer.
Research explains why Wednesdays are the key day
Versa only found success by giving employees a day off in the middle of the week. Initially, staff were given Fridays off, but Kath quickly found her staff thought of this as a long weekend. They also experimented with letting staff choose their own days off; but found this to be unproductive, as it was unclear to clients when each staff member was available.
Creating two short weeks meant that Versa’s staff continued to treat Friday as a proper working day, and scheduled personal appointments for Wednesday. And because Versa’s staff wanted it to work, they became more efficient, spending more time preparing for their week and figuring out how to work smarter to fit their work into four days.
The benefits of having a mid-week break over taking Fridays off are reinforced by Jarrod Haar, a Human Resource Professor at Auckland University of Technology (UAT). Harr analyzed what happened when companies gave staff Wednesdays off, while still being paid for a full-time week.
His findings concluded that teams were just as productive working four days, despite having fewer hours available to dedicate to work. What’s more, managers reported that teams were more creative, demonstrated increased levels of problem-solving, and individual employees were happier.
Harr also investigated what employees used the extra day for. Examples included spending time with family, studying, and completing housework on Wednesday so that the weekend was free. But interestingly, as the experiment progressed a new trend emerged. People began reporting using the day off to join community groups, support charities, and volunteer at their children’s school.
Clearly, having a day off in the middle of the week has benefits beyond an organization and its employees — allowing individuals to actively contribute to their local community.
Has the time come for the four-day work week?
People all over the world are working longer hours, taking less holiday, and are no longer adhering to an eight-hour workday.
Technological advancement and the prevalence of flexible working have created an ‘always on’ work culture, where we are constantly available via email, skype, zoom, teams, and text. Working in this way makes you feel like you need to work more hours to get more done.
We know working long hours is bad for people. It’s associated with hypertension, heart disease, stress anxiety, and depression. But it’s more evident than ever that it’s detrimental to companies too.
Contrary to popular belief, working long hours does not correlate with increased productivity. A recent Stanford study found that productivity per hour declines sharply when someone works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours is pointless.
Put simply, working long hours is unproductive for companies and bad for employees. While a shorter work week may not be suitable for all companies, numerous studies have shown that working less can increase productivity, staff retention, and employee happiness.
The challenge companies now face is understanding how to balance the benefits that come with technological innovation against people’s desire to live a life outside of work.
No work Wednesdays might just be the answer. | https://medium.com/work-today/what-happened-when-versa-gave-employees-every-wednesday-off-d02cee8b6b62 | ['Jack Turner'] | 2020-12-27 10:58:06.428000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Remote Working', 'Workplace', 'Work Life Balance', 'Productivity'] |
Perfect is the enemy of done and get out of your own way | Two of the four principles by which I best work, having come up as a designer and leading as a design director — one of two articles
When I first started writing this article, I thought I would start with the idea that we all have a reptilian brain and get into how we make bad choices because we’re unduly motivated by instincts of survival — flight or fight, reflexive behaviors, reproduction, and other methods of regulating our bodies. And then I found out it wasn’t true. Well, not exactly.
A selection of search results for “lizard brain”
I began by searching for “lizard brain”. I found some interesting images, some disturbing photos, and a variety of message board threads. And then, I learned that this concept of a brain with three parts was developed in the 1960s and eventually appeared in American physician/neuroscientist Paul MacLean’s book, The Triune Brain in Evolution in 1990. But this notion of a brain having three parts gained traction in 1977 with a wide audience through Carl Sagan’s book, The Dragon of Eden. It won a Pulitizer Prize the following year. But this specific idea of the human brain being a triune brain — the distinct parts being reptilian, old mammal, and new mammal — is no longer espoused by most comparative neurologists these days. This means there is no reptilian brain, not in the way that there are separate and discreet parts of the brain. So, there’s that. No lizard brain.
Through this, I discovered more about the limbic system. Sometimes referred to as our emotional brain, this is absolutely the reactive part of us that initiates the “fight or flight” response to danger among others. These functions are generally mapped to the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus — although many other parts of the brain lend a hand.
And so I spent a few hours a week ago last Sunday trying to decipher a number of dense scientific papers and texts to understand these concepts as a way to set the context for how designers let their inner perfectionist and critic simultaneously stand in the way of getting work done.
Finally, I gave up and I went on a short run. And that’s when I remembered Steven Pressfield. | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/perfect-is-the-enemy-of-done-and-get-out-of-your-own-way-aea5427ca67e | ['Skipper Chong Warson'] | 2020-12-18 00:55:16.157000+00:00 | ['Principles', 'UI', 'Design', 'Product Design', 'Careers'] |
Cómo entender el Big Data | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/eivos/c%C3%B3mo-entender-el-big-data-9bf516cbc22a | ['Gabriela Nova'] | 2017-01-31 15:29:52.497000+00:00 | ['Español', 'Tecnología', 'Medios', 'Redes Sociales', 'Big Data'] |
Cleaner Monte Carlo Simulation graphs | A quick guide on presenting the outcome of a 1000 simulations
A while ago, I was running some Monte Carlo simulations on portfolio allocations and trying to figure out how to make the graphs look better. Now, I’m not some graph expert of visualization master but I did figure out ways to make it look better and this will just be a short article to share that with you!
As mentioned, I ran a number of Monte Carlo simulations in order to figure out what my portfolio could look like in 30 years. If you’re interested, this is a snippet of the code (but the full code can be found on my github). I essentially had three different funds that I simulated over the next 30 years (using their mean and standard deviation). I weighted these funds differently and then ran 1000 simulations on them.
As you can see from the initial plot, it was not useful in the slightest. All 1000 outcomes had been plotted in full colour and there was really no useful information that could be gleaned from this. I could tell the rough range of outcomes but other than that, it wasn’t really particularly useful.
I decided that the most important portfolios to visualize would be (a) the 75th Percentile, (b) the Median, (c) the 25th Percentile, and (d) the base portfolio (i.e. pure savings without investing in the market)
In order to get the position of the 25th, 50th, and 75th Percentile portfolios, I combined the quantile and index function, converting them to strings so that I could use their column names later when plotting
When drawing the plot, I set all the plots to color grey. This would make them fade into the background and would allow me to highlight important portfolio outcomes (as per the aforementioned important ones)
Obviously nothing to write home about but now at least we have an empty canvas to work on!
The list of quantiles were all strings. This allowed me to easily call the particular portfolio with .loc and refer to the exact portfolio. I also created a list of colors to use as well as labels. I also added a legend to show the labels. With that, this was the final product!
Compared with the initial plot, the final result looked so much better. It gave the same background information (the rough range of possible outcomes) but also highlighted the important portfolios. What could perhaps have been even better would have been to remove the outlier outcomes. However, for the purposes of my study, I wanted to show the full range of outcomes and hence left it in there.
Data visualization is such an important part of the data story. While we can have the coolest results and findings, a good graph that sends a clear message is also vital especially in today’s graphic-intensive culture. | https://towardsdatascience.com/cleaner-monte-carlo-simulation-graphs-145b5be7f6ab | ['Zachary Lim'] | 2020-11-08 04:52:11.736000+00:00 | ['Matplotlib', 'Portfolio Management', 'Monte Carlo Simulation', 'Data Visualization', 'Graph'] |
Text-to-Speech Synthesis: an Overview | In my childhood, one of the funniest interactions with a computer was to make it read a fairy tale. You could copy a text into a window and soon listen to a colorless metallic voice stumble through commas and stops weaving a weirdly accented story. At those times it was a miracle.
Nowadays the goal of TTS — the Text-to-Speech conversion technology — is not to simply have machines talk, but to make them sound like humans of different ages and gender. In perspective, we’ll be able to listen to machine-voiced audiobooks and news on TV or to communicate with assistants without noticing the difference.
How it can be achieved and what are the main competitors in the field — read in our post.
Quality measurements
As a rule the quality of TTS system synthesizers is evaluated from different aspects, including intelligibility, naturalness, and preference of the synthetic speech [4], as well as human perception factors, such as comprehensibility [3].
Intelligibility: the quality of the audio generated, or the degree of each word being produced in a sentence.
Naturalness: the quality of the speech generated in terms of its timing structure, pronunciation and rendering emotions.
Preference: the listeners’ choice of the better TTS; preference and naturalness are influenced by TTS system, signal quality and voice, in isolation and in combination.
Comprehensibility: the degree of received messages being understood.
Approaches of TTS Conversion Compared
Developments in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence influence the approaches to speech synthesis that was evolving through years in response to the recent trends and new possibilities in data collection and processing. While for a long time the two main methods of Text-to-Speech conversion are concatenative TTS and parametric TTS, the Deep Learning revolution has added a new perspective to the problem of speech synthesis, shifting the focus from human-developed speech features to fully machine-obtained parameters [1,2].
Concatenative TTS
Concatenative TTS relies on high-quality audio clips recordings, which are combined together to form the speech. At the first step voice actors are recorded saying a range of speech units, from whole sentences to syllables that are further labeled and segmented by linguistic units from phones to phrases and sentences forming a huge database. During speech synthesis, a Text-to-Speech engine searches such database for speech units that match the input text, concatenates them together and produces an audio file.
Pros
- High quality of audio in terms of intelligibility;
- Possibility to preserve the original actor’s voice;
Cons
- Such systems are very time consuming because they require huge databases, and hard-coding the combination to form these words;
- The resulting speech may sound less natural and emotionless, because it is nearly impossible to get the audio recordings of all possible words spoken in all possible combinations of emotions, prosody, stress, etc.
Examples:
Singing Voice Synthesis is the type of speech synthesis that fits the best opportunities of concatenative TTS. With the possibility to record a specific singer, such systems are able to preserve the heritage by restoring records of stars of the past days, as in Acapella Group, as well as to make your favorite singer perform another song according to your liking, as in Vocaloid.
Formant Synthesis
Formant synthesis technique is a rule-based TTS technique. It produces speech segments by generating artificial signals based on a set of specified rules mimicking the formant structure and other spectral properties of natural speech. The synthesized speech is produced using an additive synthesis and an acoustic model. The acoustic model uses parameters like, voicing, fundamental frequency, noise levels, etc that varied over time. Formant-based systems can control all aspects of the output speech, producing a wide variety of emotions and different tone voices with the help of some prosodic and intonation modeling techniques.
Pros
- Highly intelligible synthesized speech, even at high speeds, avoiding the acoustic glitches;
- Less dependant on a speech corpus to produce the output speech;
- Well-suited for embedded systems, where memory and microprocessor power are limited.
Cons
- Low naturalness: the technique produces artificial, robotic-sounding speech that is far from the natural speech spoken by a human.
- Difficult to design rules that specify the timing of the source and the dynamic values of all filter parameters for even simple words
Examples
Formant synthesis technique is widely used for mimicking the voice features that takes speech as input and find the respective input parameters that produces speech, mimicking the target speech. One of the most famous examples is espeak-ng, an open-source multilingual speech synthesis system based on the Klatt synthesizer. This system is included as the default speech synthesizer in the NVDA open source screen reader for Windows, Android, Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. Moreover, its predecessor eSpeak was used by Google Translate for 27 languages in 2010.
Parametric TTS
To address the limitations of concatenative TTS, a more statistical method was developed. The idea lying behind it is that if we can make approximations of the parameters that make the speech, we can train a model to generate all kinds of speech. The parametric method combines parameters, including fundamental frequency, magnitude spectrum etc. and processes them to generate speech. At the first step, the text is processed to extract linguistic features, such as phonemes or duration. The second step requires extraction of vocoder features, such as cepstra, spectrogram, fundamental frequency, etc., that represent some inherent characteristic of human speech, and are used in audio processing. These features are hand engineered and, along with the linguistic features are fed into a mathematical model called a Vocoder. While generating a waveform, the vocoder transforms the features and estimates parameters of speech like phase, speech rate, intonation, and others. The technique uses Hidden Semi-Markov models — transitions between states still exist, and the model is Markov at that level, but the explicit model of duration within each state is not Markov.
Pros:
- Increased naturalness of the audio. Unfortunately, though, the technology to create emotional voices is not yet perfected, but this is something that parametric TTS is capable of. Besides the emotional voices, is has much potential in such areas as speaker adaptation and speaker interpolation;
- Flexibility: it is easier to modify pitch for emotional change, or use MLLR adaptation to change voice characteristics;
- Lower development cost: it requires merely 2–3 hours of voice actor recording time which entangles less records, a smaller database and less data processing.
Cons:
- Lower audio quality in terms of intelligibility: there are many artifacts resulting in muffled speech, with buzzing sound ever present, noisy audio;
- The voice can sound robotic: in the TTS based on a statistical model, the muffled sound makes the voice sound stable but unnatural and robotic.
Examples:
Though first introduced in the 1990ies, parametric TTS engine became popular around 2007, with Festival Speech Synthesis System from the University of Edinburgh and Carnegie Mellon University’s Festvox being examples of such engines lying in the heart of speech synthesis systems, such as FreeTTS.
Hybrid (Deep Learning) approaches
The DNN (Deep Neural Network) based approach is another variation of the statistical synthesis approaches that is used to overcome the inefficiency of decision trees used in HMMs to model complex context dependencies. A step forward and an eventual breakthrough was letting machines design features without human intervention. The features designed by humans are based on our understanding of speech, but it is not necessarily correct. In DNN techniques, the relationship between input texts and their acoustic realizations is modeled by a DNN. The acoustic features are created using maximum likelihood parameter generation trajectory smoothing. Features obtained with the help of Deep Learning, are not human readable, but they are computer-readable, and they represent data required for a model.
Pros
- A huge improvement both in terms of intelligibility and naturalness;
- Do not require extensive human preprocessing and development of features
Cons
- As a recent development, Deep Learning speech synthesis techniques still require research.
Examples:
It is the deep learning technique that dominates the field now, being in the core of practically all successful TTS systems, such as WaveNet, Nuance TTS or SampleRNN.
Nuance TTS and Sample RNN are two systems that rely on recurrent neural networks. SampleRNN, for instance, uses a hierarchy of Recurrent Layers that have different clock-rates to process the audio. Multiple RNNs forma hierarchy, where the top level takes large chunks of inputs, process it and pass it to the lower level that processes smaller chunks and so on through the bottom level that generates a single sample. The techniques renders far less intelligible results, but work fast.
WaveNet, being the core of Google Could Text-to-Speech, is a fully convolutional neural network, which takes digitized raw audio waveform as input, which then flows through these convolution layers and outputs a waveform sample. Though close-to-perfect in its intelligibility and naturalness, WaveNet is unacceptably slow (team reported that it takes around 4 minutes to generate 1 second of audio).
Finally, the new wave of end-to-end training brought Google’s Tacotron model that learns to synthesize speech directly from (text, audio) pairs. It takes characters of the text as inputs, and passes them through different neural network submodules and generates the spectrogram of the audio. | https://medium.com/sciforce/text-to-speech-synthesis-an-overview-641c18fcd35f | [] | 2020-02-13 16:05:59.062000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Speech'] |
4 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Start With Quantum Computing | 4 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Start With Quantum Computing
A field that’s very welcoming for newcomers
Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash.
Today's major companies (IBM, Google, Microsoft) are racing towards building a fully functioning quantum computer. Quantum technology has gained so much attention in recent years, even though quantum computing’s origins go back to the early 1980s.
This major attention has led companies and universities to build and develop resources for those curious to get into the quantum realm. Moreover, those curious souls have formed groups on different platforms to share knowledge and support each other in their learning journey.
As a person who recently joined the field (about two years ago), I can assure you that now — despite everything else — is the absolute best time for you to join this exciting, rapidly developed field.
In this article, I will give the four reasons why I think that now is the best time to jump in and start your quantum journey.
Let’s get right to it. | https://medium.com/better-programming/4-reasons-why-now-is-the-best-time-to-start-with-quantum-computing-753437487ef4 | ['Sara A. Metwalli'] | 2020-10-09 17:37:27.508000+00:00 | ['Quantum Computers', 'Technology', 'Science', 'Computer Science', 'Programming'] |
Kate Christensen’s Blue Plate Special; Or, “Another Fucking Food Book” | by Jen Doll
Six-time novelist Kate Christensen has written another beautiful book, and this one’s a memoir, out now from Random House. It’s called Blue Plate Special, after the home-cooked, simple but sustaining meals her mother used to make. As I read Kate’s “autobiography of appetites” — some food-based but others not; this is a story of life told through food in the venerable tradition of M.F.K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin, and Ruth Reichl, and its scope is much greater than what’s on a plate — I laughed and cried, and sometimes I snacked. As Kate writes in her prologue, “to taste fully is to live fully. And to live fully is to be awake and responsive to complexities and truths — good and terrible, overwhelming and minuscule. To eat passionately is to allow the world in; there can be no hiding or sublimation when you’re chewing a mouthful of food so good it makes you swoon.”
I said the book was beautiful, right? It’s also good with cheese and crackers.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Kate just before Blue Plate Special’s release, and in that conversation, she very generously provided some of her recipes for food, and also life.
Jen: Let’s talk about appetites, particularly the appetites we have as women. How do you think these correlate with food?
Kate: The primary hunger of my life has been loneliness and the starvation for true connection. My book is a testament to feeling these appetites, how in control of them I’ve been, how fully acknowledged they’ve been, and how much I’ve let my true passions emerge in my life. Appetites can be a danger, but I feel like I’ve most been in danger when I haven’t acknowledged what I want and when I sublimate my appetites.
Stuffed PortobellosInto a Cuisinart, put 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, 1/2 cup fresh minced basil, 1 cup chopped parsley, 4–6 large cloves of garlic, and 1/4 cup moist sundried tomatoes. Pulverize into a rich pesto. Pull the stems from 24 medium-sized portobello mushrooms and set them aside for something else. Clean the caps with a dry paper towel and place them on an oiled cookie sheet. Stuff the cavity of each with a generous spoonful of pesto and bake at 400 degrees for 20–25 minutes.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot in the writing of my own book. Confessing to ourselves what we want to hide or deny is often the hardest part of figuring out and getting what we want. I felt this message so strongly in your book. And then, when you write a memoir, you’re confessing not just to yourself but to everyone. What does that feel like?
When you try to hide, you’re so lonely. I thought, here I am, the reader can take or leave me, but I’m not trying to be someone I’m not. It’s a pretty typical American life portrayed. I worked really hard and long, and you get where you are by doing a lot of hard work. If the book works, it offers a kind of comfort to people like me who go in and out of feeling connected with their life. I trust there are readers who feel the same way. When I can’t sleep at night and am feeling out of sorts, I love memoirs, reading about others like me who’ve been through it.
Me too.
I really did not want to come off as self-pitying, a victim, or full of myself. I worked really hard to treat everything that happened to me with equal weight. The creepy guy who molested me in high school, I gave that the same weight as working for the creepy countess. That all happened to me, I’m OK now.
How did it feel as a novelist to address your life in this way? Was it terrifying?
It was so strange to write about my life that way. It felt dangerous. I’m exposing not only myself but also other people. I started it with this scene at the breakfast table [in which her mother is abused by her father], writing straight into the heart of appetite, writing into me, my mother, and in terms of women and men, how complex and powerful it is being with the wrong kind of guy. My working title was Another Fucking Food Book. I mean, Blue Plate Special was always the title, but I couldn’t admit it at first. It’s funny, with this idea ofAnother Fucking Food Book, I was trying to distance myself from the idea that I was doing it, as I was doing it.
How did that work?
Well, the first draft was terrible. It was an undigestible mass, this enormous bunch of food. It crammed in 300 pages with barely a break. I hand it in and am like, Here’s the whole story. My editor says, “You have to shape it now.” I had a total panic attack. I thought, I can’t do this. I had sailed through the chronology only to realize that the hard part wasn’t writing the book, it was shaping the story. I almost gave up, thinking I can only write novels. But what turned out — and this is really interesting — is that I had to make myself into a fictional first-person narrator, and I could rely on that strength from writing so many first-person novels. I started seeing it more as a novel than a memoir. I had to forget that all these people were real.
As you were writing, how present in your mind were the greats who’ve written about food and life? M.F.K. Fisher, I love her so much…
I was trying not to think about them! But Julia Child, Nicolas Freeling, Ruth Reichl, there are the authors of the books I’ve loved so much and found so comforting and beautiful and exciting. As with writing a novel, you feel the great grounding of these books that have inspired you. It’s scary, but it’s possible because these other people have done it before you.
M.F.K. Fisher crystallized it in a female way, making her work about sex and family and writing and ambition, and later motherhood and widowhood, and all of this she tied into food. But she did a dance of the seven veils; she was very elliptical and sophisticated. My editor said, “I want you to tell it straight and true.” He’s always right. I beat against it for a while, but I realized that’s the only way. I could see it with my first scene. The story I had to tell was not the sophisticated, beautifully poised seductive dance with the reader. It was going to be the blue plate special, what you see is what you get. It goes along with what I’m saying in the book, that connection occurs when you’re not hiding things. There are ways in which I wish it were fancier and more brilliant, more like M.F.K. Fisher and less like me, but this is the book I set out to write.
How long has the book been, er, marinating?
I wanted to write this for a decade, but I don’t think I could while I was in the grip of all these emotions. Also, I was feeling my 50th birthday coming and that’s what inspired me. I think I was ready to look back and lay it out. I can now move beyond it. The happy ending is having fulfilled what I wanted.
How does the arc of your food life pair with the arc of your personal life?
The plot is about the tension between inner and outer, a conflict I’ve been wrestling with much of my life. We feel so much pride and pressure to be independent and autonomous and make the best of what we’ve got… and to not complain. As a kid, I was not going to be vulnerable, a victim, and I was not going to have needs, either. But hiding the truth is a way of staying safely stuck. With my marriage, I spent years not admitting I was unhappy, and once I did, I had to leave. That was the hardest part of the book to write, and it’s just my side; as hard as I tried to be fair, it’s still just my side.
Roast Glazed Eggplant
Slice 1 firm, glossy large eggplant into 1-inch rounds. Place on an oiled cookie sheet. In a saucepan, simmer 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 3 tablespoons of honey, stirring until it reduces to a thick syrup. Spoon the glaze over the eggplant rounds. Dust generously with minced fresh rosemary and lemon zest. Bake at 400 degrees for 20–25 minutes, turning them over halfway through.
I could see through the book that my relationship with food has changed. In the process, it’s been so tumultuous, gluttony or asceticism. I eventually learned to eat, learned to cook, even though in my late 20s I didn’t dare go into a restaurant.
Let’s talk about food and emotions. The food moments you write about are so vivid. How does food evoke memory for you?
It was my way in, a conduit to the rest of my life. The senses of taste and smell are so locked into memory. I wanted to write about food, and I ended up writing my life story. My next book, a food book, will be hopefully less autobiographical.
I think it’s important that a life has a shape by the time you sit down to write it, and my life is so shaped by food. There’s an intersection of food and language, and the appetite part of my brain and I perk up when there’s food in a book. I put food in all my novels.
I’ve heard you’re a great cook.
Ha! I’m a really cozy cook. I love to feed people. I love the social aspects of cooking. I’m by no means a great chef.What are your favorite foods?
Whatever I’ve just eaten. I just had this amazing lentil salad. My mom hates the word “vegan” but she doesn’t eat animal products, so we had lentil salad, pesto-stuffed mushrooms, and roasted eggplant.
Why does your mom hate the word “vegan”?
All the implications. She doesn’t want to be seen as someone who lives according to dogma. She does love a lamb chop. She’s about to turn 77 and I think she’s been doing this for two years; she did it so she can live as long as possible. Since she went vegan she’s been perfectly healthy.
Let’s talk about food and love, which you address in various ways throughout the book.
Food is incredibly seductive. Eating together in the throes of new love is possibly more sexual than having sex. This shared swoon! Pastas drenched in olive oil and garlic, fresh produce…
And when you fall out of love… when my marriage ended, we’d sit and cry together. During my marriage, though, I was learning to cook and coming into myself, using food as a prism as I was coming of age as a writer in a parallel way. I didn’t really start writing until I met my husband. It was the first time I’d experienced this stability and safety and support. As I wrote in the intro, food doesn’t change anything. It’s a conduit. Eating and tasting and loving food opens you up so much.
Do you have any advice or, let’s say, a recipe, for living fully and well?
Italian Lentil Salad
Simmer 1 3/4 cups black lentils in 4 cups of a good vegetable stock or broth, for about 20 minutes, until just tender but still toothsome. Drain and toss with 1/3 cup good olive oil, 1/4 cup red wine (not balsamic) vinegar, kosher salt and black pepper to taste. Add the following, chopped: 1 red onion, 2 ripe tomatoes, 1 red pepper, and a large handful of fresh basil. Mix well and chill.
Admitting we can have needs without fear of being weak is such an important thing. When one says it, it’s so profound. It goes to the heart of my whole path: I’m not a fortress, I’m not able to do it all. It’s really ironic because I spent so much of my life floundering and falling apart and telling people I didn’t need anything. Once I opened myself to loving deeply — and I didn’t have kids, didn’t experience motherhood, this was all between me and myself — I feel that was the source of my own power that I was denying. We have to give ourselves permission to express it. It’s like emotional anorexia. Let yourself eat and love and be loved and need and all will be well.
My mother just left after visiting me for five days, and she reminded me, when you are feeling stuck or unhappy and there’s something you need to decide, the only way to get there is to risk everything. Risk losing everything you can’t lose. Some change will happen, and it’s probably better than what’s going on right now. She was so right in every way.
Jen Doll is a regular contributor to The Hairpin. | https://medium.com/the-hairpin/kate-christensens-blue-plate-special-or-another-fucking-food-book-cc3804a72a5 | ['The Hairpin'] | 2016-06-02 02:30:28.889000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Another Fucking Food Book', 'Autobiography'] |
Connectivity | Connectivity
Email Refrigerator :: 16
Hi Friend!
Yeesh.
What is there to write about and talk about other than what’s going on in the world right now? How are you doing? (I actually want to know.)
Coronavirus has spread so quickly because we are in constant contact with others.
So we are all practicing some level of self-isolation to save the world from an even bigger disaster. That brings its own challenges. Managing childcare and logistics. Newfound temptations getting in the way of new goals. Working from home. Cooking. Always with an eye on the news. “Will there be enough food?” “Is my family safe and healthy?” “How do I stay occupied? and productive? and connected to my people?”
In order to maintain any level of normalcy (or sanity), we need to keep ourselves in contact with others. Physical distancing, not social distancing.
This month, I’ve seen people organize virtual double dates, online happy hours, remote St Patrick’s Day ragers, group video therapy. Passover Seders on Zoom and Easter brunches over Skype. Caveday is now running 13 remote coworking sessions every week. I’m grateful to live in a time where people are finding new ways to share their lives.
We need people. To live enriched full lives, we need to connect with each other.
This month, I’m thinking about our connectivity and the things that bring us together. Let’s go.
Social Immune Systems
While we’re thinking about viruses, let’s talk about immune systems.
Our body’s immune system is an army of cells that is constantly at war. It is currently fighting battles we have no awareness of.
As we’re working from home and gathering in new ways, I’ve come to see that our companies and teams have similar immune systems.
We have habits in place to prevent team systems and structures to “get sick.” Weekly calls, daily check-ins, status messages. Company immune systems protect the group from outside threats like distractions, mistrust, and toxic hires. A healthy immune system uses challenging times to grow stronger. Finding resilience through sharing rewards and recognition, and making time to reflect.
We have ways to boost our team immunity. An offsite. A project or challenge whose purpose is to build trust and interdependence. Structured time off together to more deeply get to know one another. Resting!
And we should be aware of an overactive or dysfunctional system–rejecting a new “organ” that might help the system work better. This could look like turning down a great new hire because they don’t “fit in.” Or being stuck in old, poorly working systems or resisting a new video platform because changing is a pain.
As someone who works on a few different teams, I’ve noticed that our companies and teams are a little sick right now. We’re struggling to figure out how to normalize and get back to our normal, healthy, working selves. We should know that when we’re feeling sick we shouldn’t push ourselves. But instead, be sure to rest, find time as a team to put work down and just check in with each other. Trust and empathy are vitamin C for company immune systems.
To all the teams and companies feeling a little under the weather right now, remember that getting sick doesn’t mean we’re going to die. It can mean we’re getting stronger. Get well soon.
(Hint: This metaphor applies to families, marriages, and friendships, too.)
We Are The Keeper of the Fire
In the hearth of our hearts
glows hundreds of embers.
Each one, a person we know.
At the center, the embers glow white.
Along the outside,
embers once burning brightly have lost their glow
(Can we rekindle these fires gone cold?)
(Can we breathe new life into ash?)
We stoke the fire with a stick
To watch the coals spark.
We throw a new stone in
And watch as it goes grey to orange
to pure light.
Every ember has an energy all its own.
Sometimes the fire burns bright and then burns out.
Some of the longest-lasting ones
Burn warm forever without much of a show.
As we rake them together, spreading the heat among the coals,
new fires emerge.
Sitting in its warmth, we are mesmerized.
And with our breath, we keep the fire going.
The Four Circles
The original concept for this article was intended to explore the differences between community and tribe. I’m fascinated by the changing dynamics of groups and how people form their circles, especially in increasingly non-geographic-dependent ways. But the more I did research on the topic and started outlining the idea, the more that I felt like the idea had expanded. There weren’t just the two circles of connection. I found that there are four.
The first circle we experience in our life is our clan.
We are born into this group. It’s our family, our blood. Our clan is defined by our name, and with that, we carry its history and legacy. Where we came from, what our ancestors did for work, what class they were. Historically, cultures have defined this with a name, crest, coat of arms, flag, or symbol. While usually biological, there are exceptions. It also encompasses extremely close-knit people or several families who are often exogamous (cannot marry within the group). In cases of adoption and also abandonment or crisis, individuals band together to form new clans or join existing ones.
As we expand beyond our home, we get to our village.
Villages are interdependent people that are bound together by geography. Our apartment building or block or neighborhood. People we see on the street, the bartender, barista, and shop owner. It’s also our office-mates and coworkers. Our village is filled with people we interact with regularly but don’t have all that much in common biologically, working together for the benefit of the group. A group of families that shared resources and divided the labor. Today, we often don’t feel as loyal to this group as in generations past, if we even know these people at all.
Outside of our village, we start to form community.
A group of independent people that gather to share a set of shared interests and practices. There is a sense of accountability to the group and membership requires taking action, not just putting our name on a list or being born into it. Think: college clubs or high school sports. Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers or any Meetup. Communities gather both locally and remotely and are formed either by intention or by circumstance (as in times of protest, crisis, political change, etc).
Finally, we are connected to our tribe.
This group helps define how we live our daily lives and our values. We may be born into this tribe, but as we get older, it becomes more of a choice to associate with the people that shape our worldview. Tribes gather around a shared identity and support each other in perpetuating that identity. It’s typically found in religion. But I find the definition equally applies to a friend group, clique, or vocation (writers, artists, nurses, developers, etc).
From the comfort of our own bed, our technology allows us to keep at least 3 of the 4 strong. Which one (or two or three) is most helpful to you during times of crisis?
These are the times we need to make a little extra effort to connect with our circles. To check in and call for no reason. To use audio messages instead of text to keep communication more human. FaceTime your clan. Video chat your coffee meetings or lunch. Schedule remote book clubs and movie nights and language meetups. Skype your tribe.
We’re all facing the same fear and stress right now. We’re all isolated at home. And we all still need connection. As we continue social distancing, we can still find ways to share, gather connect, and belong.
With You Right Now
At the time I’m writing this, there are just over 550,000 cases of Coronavirus. It’s affecting 196 countries (even though Google just told me there are only 195 countries… ah I see now. They’re counting the Diamond Princess cruise ship).
At some point in our future this will all be a memory of a bizarre time that changed everything. My hope is that after this, we’ve learned something new. That each of us can see our interconnectedness a little more clearly. That we may all emerge from this a little less polarized in our beliefs. That we think a little more open-mindedly about “radical” ideas like socialized medicine or universal basic income. That we become a little more empathetic to others and more welcoming to refugees escaping war or oppression.
I’m not going to share statistics about deaths or new cases or the growth patterns. The Email Refrigerator is a place for optimism and questioning, looking for patterns or outliers and to create meaning. It’s a place to see something in a new way.
Here’s my invitation to see this in a new way:
Whatever you’re feeling. Whatever you’re experiencing. Whatever you’re thinking.
The entire world is experiencing it, too.
With you.
Right now.
Thank you for spending your time with me. I’m grateful for your attention and your reactions to anything I’ve written. Please respond with your thoughts if you feel driven to, or share if you think someone in your life would benefit from these ideas.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay connected.
See you next month,
-Jake | https://medium.com/email-refrigerator/connectivity-ee461beecf15 | ['Jake Kahana'] | 2020-12-28 01:00:20.457000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Connection', 'Togetherness', 'Coronavirus', 'Connectivity'] |
What got GROUT thinking this week… March 16, 2018 Contributors: Erin Fairbanks, Matt McFarlane… | Holding Beautiful Things Together — At GROUT, we assemble resources to develop action plans for social impact that might otherwise be rejected as impossible.
Follow | https://medium.com/grout-projects/what-got-grout-thinking-this-week-march-16-2018-contributors-erin-fairbanks-matt-mcfarlane-bce92159cb7f | ['Grout Projects'] | 2018-03-16 19:37:17.478000+00:00 | ['Science Fiction', 'Podcast', 'Sustainability', 'Cooperatives', 'Bitcoin'] |
Why I Love Running — it’s My Moving Meditation | I was at it again this morning — running — well trying too anyway.
It’s only five kilometers I tell myself.
By the time I finish, I’m a big sweaty mess. As I perspire, it runs into my eyes, blurring the door before me. With the key in hand, I try desperately to stop shaking, the deep rapid breaths making it mission for me to open the door. Once inside I down a cold glass of water instantly slowing my breathing. I remove my woolly hat; sodden from the fluids I’ve lost.
I know I’m going to feel the pain from this run for the rest of the day. No doubt I’ll be hobbling to bed later sore from my exertions.
So, why do I do it?
It is a question I ask myself as I stagger down the road this morning.
The wind was blowing hard in my face stealing every breath I tried to take. The continuous force doing everything it could to push me back. Every step was a real effort such was the relentless power of the wind.
I kept going though convinced the wind would ease eventually.
It didn’t.
I gasped for breath again slowing to walk in the hope my air intake would improve. It was bitterly cold as well despite my running kit, leggings, hat and gloves. They were no defensive to the northwesterly wind whipping around me.
To be honest with you, none of it mattered to me. Because I was in my headspace. I was doing my moving meditation as Tony Fadell titled it. | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/why-i-love-running-its-my-moving-meditation-2ed03de39405 | ['Darren Matthews'] | 2020-02-16 21:53:20.721000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Mental Health', 'Meditation', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement'] |
Gazetelerin Hikaye Merkezli Dünya Görüşünü Değiştirmesi Gerekiyor — (Çeviri) | Yazar: Adrian Holovaty
Çeviren: Sadettin Demirel
Asıl yazı: http://www.holovaty.com/writing/fundamental-change/
*Bu çeviri için yazının sahibi Adrian Holovaty’den izin alınmıştır
Yazıyı referanslayan kaynaklar:
Bounegru, L. (2012) ‘Data Journalism in Perspective’, in Gray, J., Bounegru, L., and Chambers, L. (eds) The data journalism handbook: How journalists can use data to improve the news. O’Reilly Media, Inc, pp. 17–21.
Cairo, A. (2017) Nerd journalism: How data and digital technology transformed news graphics, TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa). Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3). Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10609/66768 (Accessed: 3 April 2018).
Howard, A. (2014) ‘The Art and Science of Data-Driven Journalism’, Tow Centre for Digital Journalism — a Tow/Knight Report. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004. | https://medium.com/verijurnali/haber-sitelerinin-de%C4%9Fi%C5%9Fmesi-gereken-temel-bir-yol-%C3%A7eviri-62518009964f | ['Sadettin Demirel'] | 2019-05-14 14:48:16.546000+00:00 | ['Veri Gazeteciliği', 'Journalism', 'Data Journalism', 'Gazetecilik', 'Haber'] |
Remoticon2020: Bluecore’s First Remote Hackathon | Every six months at Bluecore, we host a hackathon so that Research & Development (R&D), Product, and Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) can come together to work on creative ideas. This is an opportunity where our engineers can collaborate with colleagues outside of their respective teams and experiment with new technical solutions, designs, and implementations that lend to new ways of doing things at Bluecore.
It was a hackathon of many firsts! In 24 hours, we solidified 42 ideas into 16 projects, including a SQL parser and visualization tool, a campaign template browser extension, a Bluecore Site™ campaign debugger, designs for Bluecore Mobile, an Envoy HMAC Signature Verifier, and a motivational chat-bot personified as one of our beloved engineering managers — just to name a few. This was our first remote hackathon, which posed its own set of new challenges (blog on how to run a remote hackathon coming soon!). It was also our first dual-themed hackathon: Remoticon2020!
Our Themes
Remoticon2020 = Remoticon + 2020
The first theme, Remoticon, posed as a series of questions: “Given the new remote nature of the company, how can we improve our remote experience? How can we increase engagement and communication? How do we encourage remote collaboration or find new ways to provide feedback?” The second theme, 2020, a play on vision and insight, asked our hackers: “How can we increase visibility into our systems, architecture, and cost?”
But why dual-themed? The point was not to create a project that addressed both themes. Instead, we wanted our teams to have options and the flexibility to do something impactful and creative — to pick either theme or no theme at all!
The Results!
Not so quick — we’ll get to the results in a bit. First, it’s important to highlight how we judge our teams to understand how we chose our winners. We wanted our participants to create projects that reflect our motto, “as simple as possible, as powerful as necessary,” and to reward teams that maximize impact. Teams were judged on flexible themes and rigid categories such as: Highest Impact, Best Overall Project, Remoticon, 2020, and People’s Choice. These categories allowed teams to make better decisions when facing trade-offs associated with delivering a project while judges have a defined rubric to judge against.
Highest Impact Award
Winners: Shortly Team
Description: “A new URL shortening service. We use short URLs in emails because long URLs are truncated after exceeding a certain size, and we often need URLs to direct the user to a company’s website or product. Storing short URLs at scale is quite expensive — one email can contain >30 unique URLs. We created a scalable service that uses memcache and Google Bigtable to cut down on cost and complexity .”
Technology Used: Go, Memorystore, BigTable
Team Members: Mike, Glenn, Alexa, Selam, Marcel
RPC Request to Shortly Service
Diagram of Shortly Data Pipeline
Best Overall Hackathon Award
Winners: Account Health Team
Description: “We built the Account Health Dashboard with the purpose of helping our customer-facing team get a better overview of performance as well as quantify interactions with our Product Support team. Our goal was to empower the team to have more informed discussions with our clients and help them achieve their goals. We built the dashboard by uploading our Zendesk data and importing our Jira ticket data from BigQuery into Looker. Once the data was in Looker, we were able to build different charts according to feedback provided by our customer-facing team.”
Technology Used: BigQuery, Looker, Jira, Zendesk
Team Members: Matt, Jarno, Cesar
The account health dashboard (before)
The account health dashboard part 1 (after)
The account health dashboard part 2(after)
Remoticon Theme Award & People’s Choice Award
Winners: BaharBot Team
Description: “We knew from the get-go that we wanted to build something fun. We started with a bot that could post a question daily for our water cooler channel. Question of the day was something we had been doing for a while culturally and it has been a great way for many of us to bond in this remote world. Through the process, we added new features like “tell me a joke” and “break the ice” and even allow users to generate their own memes. We named our service BaharBot after one of our beloved engineers.”
Technology Used: node.js, slack API, imgflip API
Team Members: Trish, Jason D, James Lee
BaharBot Slack App
Slack channel conversation with BaharBot
2020 Theme Award
Winners: In-site Team
Description: “In-Site is a tool to help understand why a Bluecore Site™ campaign is not rendering on a target page within a website. It provides this capability on a customer’s website itself so customers can quickly solve the issue without needing to escalate this to the Bluecore Product Support Team. This can also help developers to quickly debug issues while developing and testing these campaigns.”
Technology Used: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and JS
Team Members: Vansh, Shivam, Ankit K, Abhyam
In-site debugging tooling for Bluecore Onsite
Some thoughts on Remoticon2020
Alexa: “I really enjoyed that my team all got together on a zoom call and started working. Being remote sometimes makes me feel a bit disconnected, so I thought this was a fun way to connect with the team as we worked on different parts of the project.”
James: “I liked the cross collaboration of it — a lot of Customer Support, Product, and Forward Deployed Engineers got involved.”
Ankit: “It was a fun, engaging, and creative activity to bring in some excitement in the otherwise predictable schedules. Had fun brainstorming on zoom calls for hours at stretch. A bit weird to speak in front of an invisible audience though.”
Conclusion
The work that comes out of Bluecore hackathons often turns into productionalized parts of our system and this hackathon is no different — a group of the Remoticon2020 projects have impacted discussions of where we should invest engineering efforts in the coming year and a handful have become planned features in the current quarter. In the Spring of 2021, we will have another remote hackathon where we will continue to explore themes of remote work and visibility into our systems — as well as draw inspiration from any insights we develop from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, our busiest time of year. Congratulations again to all the winners! Until the next hackathon! | https://medium.com/bluecore-engineering/remoticon2020-bluecores-first-remote-hackathon-e85a3644aafe | ['Rod De Coelho'] | 2020-11-03 04:53:38.677000+00:00 | ['Bluecore', 'Hackathons', 'Software Development', 'WFH', 'Engineering'] |
First Thoughts on Kaggle | About two weeks ago, I registered for my first Kaggle competition, the Mercedes-Benz Greener Manufacturing contest. My code can be found here, and a log of what I attempted can be found here. Here’s my first impression of Kaggle:
The Learning Curve
Entering the contest, my only knowledge in machine learning came from MIT’s introductory class (6.036). So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Kaggle contests are perfectly accessible to those with minimal prior experience. This is largely due to Kaggle’s kernels, which allow the more experienced Kaggle users to publicly share their code with others. Kernels allow even those completely new to machine learning to be competitive in the rankings — by simply copying code, anyone can achieve results at par with Kaggle veterans.
I found that from my attempts to improve code from kernels, I received a brief introduction to multiple concepts in machine learning, many of which I hope to write about more thoroughly in the future:
Gradient Boosted Trees
Hyperparameter Tuning
Dimensionality Reduction: PCA, ICA, tSNE, Logistic PCA, TSVD, GRP, SRP
Overfitting, K-fold cross validation, Out-of-fold predictions
Ensembling, Stacking, and Averaging
Sklearn Models: LassoLars, ElasticNet, etc.
Basic Feature Selection and Feature Engineering
Likelihood encoding (post-contest)
This contest seemed to me like a great way to quickly ‘learn by doing’. It would be hard to find any other resource online which facilitates learning concepts in data science as well as Kaggle does.
Unpredictability of the Leaderboard
As evidenced by the massive shakeup from the final rankings, the public leaderboard was entirely unreliable for predicting the private leaderboard: almost everyone in the lead throughout the contest dropped hundreds of ranks at the end. However, even cross-validation proved to be useless: my final model, evaluated with 5-fold CV, performed no better than my heavily-overfitted XGBoost model made on my 4th day.
Public and Private LB scores for my 36 submissions — a few past models made it over the bronze cutoff!
In the end, it turned out that there were reliable ways to test a model — for the most part, though, contestants (including me) weren’t thorough enough with evaluating their model’s performance.
Kaggle’s Contest Community
I have nothing but positive things to say about Kaggle’s community. User-submitted Kernels and threads about the competition do a lot to encourage collaboration between the contestants. During the contest, many users worked together in open forums, improving each others’ models and discussing properties of the dataset. This competition, one of the many results of the contestants’ combined efforts was the discovery of 32 y-values from the test dataset, obtained through leaderboard probing.
Conclusion
I found participating in this contest to be very enjoyable! While my final ranking (~1400th place) was a bit disappointing, the competition was extremely fun and allowed me to learn a lot, and I plan on becoming more active on Kaggle in the future. Please let me know if you have any feedback — perhaps more Kaggle write-ups will be coming soon. :) | https://towardsdatascience.com/first-thoughts-on-kaggle-326a6c4dc005 | ['Alex Yang'] | 2017-07-12 21:28:23.296000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Kaggle'] |
Review: RoR — ResNet of ResNet / Multilevel ResNet (Image Classification) | 1. Concept of RoR (Residual Networks of Residual Networks)
Original ResNet (Left), RoR (Right)
Original ResNet is shown at the left above, numerous Residual Blocks are cascaded together and form a very deep network.
Within a Residual Block, there are two paths:
Convolution path which perform convolution to extract the features
which perform convolution to extract the features Shortcut Connection path to directly transmit the input signal to the next layer.
With Shortcut Connection paths, gradient vanishing problem can be reduced because error signal can be propagated to early layers easier during back propagation.
RoR shown at the right above, proposes that we can also have shortcut connection across a group of Residual Blocks. On top of this, we can also have another level of shortcut connection across a group of “groups of Residual Blocks”.
Authors argue that: | https://towardsdatascience.com/review-ror-resnet-of-resnet-multilevel-resnet-image-classification-cd3b0fcc19bb | ['Sik-Ho Tsang'] | 2019-03-20 16:00:13.768000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Image Classification', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
5 Project Management Fundamentals for Visual Content | In particular, clients who are working with a creative agency should have open lines of communication with as much of their vendor’s team as possible. A kickoff meeting places the full team executing on the client’s creative project all in the same room (real or virtual) with the client to ideate, learn, and reach a shared understanding.
The kickoff is an irreplaceable step that will help to:
Avoid misunderstandings
Generate buy-in
Gain assurances that both sides of the project team — client and vendor — are working toward the same goal
In essence, a creative project is driven by human producers, for human clients to share with their human audiences. Ignoring that element by treating your creative partner or client as just a business transaction can cause roadblocks early and often. You’ll see examples of what those roadblocks might look like in other fundamentals later in this post.
2. Frank Conversations about Project Management Process and Schedule
Your organization has routines and processes in place for a reason. In the early days of a company, most people are still trying to figure out the best way to complete everything from everyday tasks to complex initiatives. All that exploration takes time, but it’s a worthwhile investment that should help inform best practices for your team for the future.
Working with a vendor on a creative project is no different. To some degree, you’ll need to learn to work together. To do that most effectively, you should know as much as possible about each others’ organizations and processes.
The client must be fully transparent about deadlines, and the vendor must inform the client about the lengths of production cycles and other scheduling requirements. As Tom Roach put it, “…[y]ou need a clear sense of what work you have, how much time it will take, and why you’re doing it.” Be clear about your needs and everyone will benefit.
3. Timely Finalization of Background Materials and Content
Let’s say you don’t have all of your background materials collected by the time the kickoff meeting happens. That’s okay! Having the foresight to plan a project well ahead of your deadline is what will make the kickoff meeting successful.
With that said, to make the best use of your time and your budget, your vendor should receive that content from you before production starts. It simply reduces the risk of backtracking when new information comes to light that changes the plan.
Think of it this way. Someone asks you to bake a cake for their birthday party tonight, and they say, “I’d love a bundt cake; other than that, whatever you choose will be great.” You buy ingredients, prep your kitchen, preheat the oven, and start mixing. Then the phone rings. It’s the lucky cake recipient.
“I’m pretty sure I mentioned this, but I’m allergic to eggs. Oh, and to be honest, I can’t stand chocolate. I think that’s it … can’t wait for the cake!”
You look down at the eggs half-mixed into your chocolate cake batter, then up at the clock. Better hurry back to the store!
When a vendor starts work without all the information they need to make informed choices, they’re in the same situation. They can’t take the eggs or the chocolate out of the batter, so they may need to start over on the content phase of your project when they’re given new information midway through. And once your project moves into design, the impact of these changes is even greater.
Let’s say you approve the content for your project, and your vendor begins designing. You can equate that to tasting the batter and putting your cake in the oven.
As design moves ahead, you decide to change a few key concepts in the script. In our cake metaphor, whether those changes are as minor as trimming the edges into a different shape or as major as mixing more ingredients in, you’ve gotten pretty far at this point and it’s tough to change the plan.
When it comes to creative projects, strong paperwork is everyone’s best friend.
Either of these scenarios could impact timeline and budget. No one likes to face adjustments to a project plan, but a strong project management process will at least ensure that a client knows when and why changes like that could occur. Thankfully, timeline and budget can usually both stay intact if your vendor has all the details before they start “baking.”
4. A Creative Brief and Other Project Paperwork
Paperwork can seem like a lot of obscure language and unnecessary clauses best left to your legal team. Yet when it comes to creative projects, strong paperwork is everyone’s best friend. That’s because it’s proof that everyone’s actively listening to each other.
In any creative engagement, both the client and the vendor might have their own sets of required paperwork. What you should expect from a creative vendor’s paperwork is a reflection of the key details you discussed across initial calls and kickoff.
A creative brief should describe your goals and key messaging. The rest of the paperwork should include any mandatories for the project (like dimensions or brand guidelines), and deadlines.
By reviewing and signing your vendor’s descriptive paperwork, you see evidence that your vendor understands your intentions for this project. You also have an opportunity to go back to the vendor and correct any misunderstandings before signing.
As a client, you can avoid starting your visual content project over by getting buy-in from all of your stakeholders at each stage in the process.
That peace of mind is the reason why, even if you’re used to presenting a brief and your own paperwork to vendors, you should take care to review the same from your vendor.
5. Full Stakeholder Input
Your boss is busy. Really busy. That’s why they’ve entrusted you to find a vendor and get this new visual campaign moving. And maybe they said something like, “I don’t need to see it until it’s in final proof.”
Your vendor understands all of this — they have bosses too, after all! But you might get some pushback if you explain that your boss, who has the final say on this project, doesn’t want to see the visual content you’re producing until the final draft. Why? Let’s go back to our birthday cake metaphor. | https://medium.com/the-visual-marketer/https-medium-com-lucy-todd-5-project-management-fundamentals-for-visual-content-6d3400ef0a7f | ['Lucy Todd'] | 2019-10-22 19:47:11.294000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Content Marketing', 'Project Management', 'Visual Communication', 'Agency'] |
Cats vs Dogs —Your second end-to-end CNN Classifier in 5 minutes | Model 1 — Basic Model
Result: ~74% Accuracy
This is exactly similar to our previous classification model. There are some changes based on the nature of the problem though. Lets briefly discuss the same.
Data Preprocessing
You have images, but models work on matrices! Right! So, this a step that will be needed in almost all CNN-based models. Most of these things were discussed in the last article, so not covering them again. So:
1. Load the images
2. Decode the JPEG content to an RGB grid of pixels.
3. Resize the image to 150*150 pixels (to reduce the size of it).
4. Rescale the pixel values (between 0 to 255) to the interval (0, 1] interval
Keras ImageDataGenerator
Usually, I don't go into implementation logic, but this one needs a special mention. The above section might look like a lot of work, right?! But, this beautiful construct of Keras really helps you in getting your work done.
It works on Python generators. If you arent familiar with it would highly recommend doing so. In simpler words, the Generator is a special kind of iterator that works lazily. Unlike lists, these do not store their content in memory but yields them when needed. So, these are iterators that don’t block your memory but use it when needed. Amazing stuff, right?
Convolutional Layer++
Someone might say — no the model is not the same as earlier. It has 3 more layers of convolution. Guilty as charged! Yes, can you think of a reason?
Our handwritten classifier had [28 * 28] matrix size, whereas here we are dealing with [150 * 150] matrix size. So, since we dealing with much larger images and a much more complex problem, we tend to add more layers. This is primarily done to reduce the size of input while it reaches the Flatten layer.
Also, as you move more into the convolutional layers, the model can detect much more complex patterns. So, this augments the capacity of the network as well. | https://towardsdatascience.com/cats-vs-dogs-your-second-end-to-end-cnn-classifier-in-5-minutes-9adfbde08a09 | ['Vidisha Jitani'] | 2020-10-01 05:20:34.270000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Neural Networks', 'Deep Learning'] |
Baseline | I was digging through my library and found four issues of Baseline. I’d forgotten how good it was! The issues are from 1999, 2004 and 2 from 2005 (# 27, 44, 46, 48) and all have ‘poster’ cover wraps which make them feel oh-so-special.
Looking back on them there’s so much to love (which I think I missed back then). The larger format gives the designers lots of space to play with, and they aren’t afraid of white space either! It’s also way quirkier than I remembered. | https://medium.com/paper-posts/baseline-63792b2d9e32 | [] | 2019-12-07 19:55:15.479000+00:00 | ['Typography', 'Design', 'Paperposts'] |
Why I Write | Why I Write
I write to know I’m alive
Photo by Dustan Woodhouse on Unsplash
I write to know I live. To affix certainty to that concept, by way of color, light, or detail.
When I write, I’m forced to visit the blood and guts of a situation. The core, the meat. The uncomfortable bits. The annoying bits. The pain.
The beauty as well.
I notice that when I stop writing, I begin slipping away from my self and my life. The days begin to pile up like lint in the dryer screen. One scrum layered over the next, in varied shades of gray.
Sometimes months go by like this.
I don’t know what’s happening during that time. I can’t remember on Mondays what I did over the weekend. I have a vague sense of loss. If it’s shortly after I’ve stopped writing again, the loss is sharp. With each passing week, however, the blow is lesser, until I’m more or less drifting about in a fog.
I’m not sure anyone else notices this.
I go through the motions of my life. I show up. For my daughter, for my friends, for my unwell ex, for my son. For my job. For my house, for my dog. I grocery-shop, cook the dinner, water the plants, and pay the bills.
Life gallops along faster and faster.
When I rouse myself and remember myself, I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and begin to birth myself anew. When I write, I am forced to reflect, to remember, to try to make sense of my life. Usually, that’s the afternoon, or the morning’s events, something that managed to wiggle through the fuzzy blanket around me. Something arrests me, something catches my attention.
I’m roused.
When I’m writing regularly, daily, that is, I am more awake and alive. I notice the funniest little things. The tufts of fur springing from between the toes of the little black dog traipsing by. The 80s grunge rock playing in the bakery. The graffiti everywhere, the yellow leaves hanging like stars in the liquid amber trees on this November day.
The way B.’s eyes widen in fear when the court-ordered psychologist takes him away for testing, in preparation for his disability court date in December.
I write to affix myself to the page and to my own life. It’s the only way I know to wake up.
And when I’m awake, I’m so much happier. I feel appreciative. Moments of grace and gratitude are more frequent.
Most important, however, is the way writing forces meaning, pattern, and connection into my life. When I’m writing regularly, my life begins to take on a form. Themes emerge. Memories emerge. Seemingly disjointed bits coalesce.
What seemed all for naught begins to seem important, worthy. Worthy of attention and examination, in the same way all minutiae is. A world in a grain of sand, indeed.
It’s true. When I telescope my life out from the details, it’s easy to see how the littlest thing is a key cog in the machinery of life. How everything fits together to form a whole. Colorful, conflicted, imperfect, perhaps, but a whole nonetheless.
What have I learned about myself through writing? I’ve learned that I’m sensitive to details. That almost anything can move me, can get through, can signify something important, something universal, if I’m receptive.
Being receptive in that way only occurs through writing. I know no other way to find it.
I write to live. When I don’t write, I am a kind of dead. I am unconscious. Going through the motions. It’s quite dramatic. It’s scary and depressing. It triggers depression. The longer I go without writing, the more buried I become.
When I’m writing, I have glints of realization that it’s all good stuff. It’s all grist for the mill. It’s all straw that can be turned to gold. It’s life. In all its humility and confusion.
When I’m writing, I’m reminded that we’re all in this together. That we’re all blinking and bleary-eyed on a daily basis, struggling up for the sunshine spilling in from the corner window, unsure of how to proceed.
I write because it triggers immense compassion in me, for others and for myself.
I write for life, for breath, for permission to linger in the sublime, quotidian, extraordinary yet ever so ordinary details of life.
The taste of a sesame seed on my tongue. Hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd pour from a car passing by and remembering Tom, the marine who came home for Christmas my sophomore year in high school and wound up in my house, where I let him stroke me with his hands until I drooled.
Windows and prisms. The way the little pools in the wetlands catch the steely sky in reflection and remind me of Hundertwasser’s paintings and my first trip to Germany and my boyfriend when I was 19 and seeing the pile of shoes at Dachau.
The gifts of life litter my shores like so much detritus. It’s up to me to stop stumbling over them. To instead, kneel down, turn the item over, take a look. Be present, be aware, and wait for the gift of realization.
I guess I write for wholeness, for integrity, for grace, for gratitude, in hopes of being blessed by insight that can only come from the great beyond. I write to remain awake to the magic of life and the world.
I write to live, to survive, to make sense of my life. | https://medium.com/swlh/why-i-write-ae1bfc3a6539 | ['Christiana White'] | 2019-11-26 18:54:06.638000+00:00 | ['Publishous', 'Writing'] |
Python Dictionary: access values without knowing key names | Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash
A python dictionary is an unordered set of key:value pairs, in which the elements (values) are indexed by the keys — that have to be unique within a given dictionary. Accessing values of a Python dictionary when knowing the name of the matching keys is quite straightforward (example below). However, how do you do it without knowing the structure of the dictionary or/and not knowing the key names (e.g. incoming API messages)?
# access dict value with known key names
# (keys are the ones in brackets: a, b, c, d. Matching values after # the ':') my_dict = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'd': 5}
print(my_dict['a']) ---
output:
1
If you are used to working with lists you might think about accessing the first element of the dictionary with my_dict[0]. However, this will not return the first element (it will return an error).
If we do not know the exact key names we can first get these as a list and then use the list elements to access the values of the dictionary. Here an example:
# imagine that 'dict' is an incoming dictionary which's key names we do not know # get key names as list:
keys = list(dict.keys()) # now we can access the elements of the list 'keys' containing all the keys of 'dict'. Example: first_value = dict[keys[0]]
Attention! Do not to forget to convert the output of dict.keys() to the data type ‘list’! Otherwise it remains a ‘dict_keys’ object, which is not subscriptable and hence you will not be able to access the values stored in the variable ‘keys’ by indexing.
It is also possible to directly access the values with a similar method. Instead of the function ‘.keys()’ we can use the function ‘.values()’. This stores all the values of a dictionary in a list.
values = list(dict.vaues()) first_value = values[0]
Hope this short article helped and allows you to write more flexible code in which you do not have to change key names or get confused while using them! | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/python-dictionary-access-values-without-knowing-key-names-e6f53d321e97 | ['Fabio Motta'] | 2020-11-09 22:44:48.857000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Technology', 'Optimization', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Have an awesome journey | 2. Make your own grass greener
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.’ It basically means that you always think others have it better. Well, forget this saying; get it out of your head! It’s time to make things better for yourself.
The new saying is: Make the grass greener on your side of the fence! That’s what Mehdi would tell you.
“As I contemplated joining Djezzy, I thought about all I could accomplish here,” notes Mehdi. “The sheer amount of data we have brings so much potential to make magic.”
Now, Mehdi gets to own a digital marketing strategy that reaches over 17 million customers in Algeria. And he’s hard at work to make a successful connection with all those people.
Mehdi started by reviewing marketing processes and figuring out how to go more digital. Thinking digitally about the marketing strategy meant a shift in focus to things like social media and content creation, and a greater focus on the brand’s voice. It also meant more technical analysis of things like traffic generation and conversion rates.
“As I began strategizing, I realized I had to first get my team in a digital mindset,” states Mehdi. “This meant transforming our practices and constantly embracing new tech and ideas. We’ve become quite agile, and we’re making new discoveries on how to improve all the time.”
For Djezzy’s digital marketing to succeed, Mehdi has realized he needs to not only establish the right strategy, but also get his team in the proper mindset. He’s taken the initiative to make that happen. And the grass is looking greener for him, the team, and the company.
3. According to an Algerian proverb, one hand can’t applaud!
This Algerian proverb is quite insightful: One hand can’t applaud. After all, it’s important to make connections and work with others. Because you need more hands when it comes time to clap.
“As a digital marketer, I try to remember that digital is not just B2B or B2C. It’s H2H — or human-to-human,” posits Mehdi. “Technology is the tool to bring people closer to each other.”
That’s precisely why Mehdi centers his marketing strategy around not just improving the customer journey, but also making connections. Here’s how he does it:
“We have three main pillars: food, entertainment, specifically games and music, and football. We’re focusing a lot on content right now. For instance, we’ve sponsored MasterChef Algeria, and while the show airs, we do live tweets and online games to increase engagement. We’re doing lots with local musicians and social media to reach customers and be involved in their life experiences.”
In order to make those connections even more successful, Mehdi and the team understand that they can’t do it all alone (they need help from the hands of customers). So, they’re doing data analysis, performing A/B testing, examining social media feedback, fixing problem points, and more.
“We’ve also made a lot of progress on market segmentation,” says Mehdi. “For our tech-oriented crowd, we create online games and branded content, like our show CLYC. For others, we have educational content. For money-minded people, we have content about offers.”
For Mehdi, digital marketing is about reaching customers — or extending a hand. The same goes internally for Mehdi’s team. Nobody’s an island.
“When I look for folks to join my team, I look for team spirit,” attests Mehdi. “Because we do better when all our hands and heads are working together.”
4. Stop and listen to the music
No journey is worth the travel if you don’t stop and enjoy the music, scenery, or whatever else you please. In short, have a hobby.
For Mehdi, it’s playing the guitar and photography. He especially enjoys mobile and street photography. Check out some of his shots:
“The world’s moving fast. It’s crazy to think things like chatbots are already here!” exclaims Mehdi. “So, one piece of advice I always tell myself is to enjoy life — because life is beautiful.”
Enjoy the ride to the top
Now you know all about Mehdi and how he’s enjoying his journey. Follow his advice and you’ll not just unleash your full potential, you’ll have an amazing journey, too. | https://medium.com/djezzy-careers/have-an-awesome-journey-5d07f2819f6 | ['Veon Careers'] | 2018-06-19 10:34:50.983000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Digital Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Content Marketing'] |
Flashback Christmas Eve, 1998; The Day I Lost My Science Career Due to My Credit Score | The day America murdered my faith in humanity.
I was on a two-week high going into that Christmas. A few months prior I was laid off after six years. Early that December I got a new job. I was to start in the new year. I was hopeful and looking forward to the new beginning, the security, and to the challenge the work would provide me.
I felt free. I felt valued. I felt respected. But only for a moment.
I would be able to put the micromanaging of my last boss who timed my bathroom breaks out of my mind. I would regain my dignity and my self-confidence. I would be able to catch up on my bills again and be a real productive member of society.
It was sometime that afternoon on Christmas Eve 1998 that I received a phone call from the Human Resources department of my new employer. As my phone rang, I felt the black cloud and panic overtake me. My previous life experiences had conditioned me to expect the worst for no reason.
Even though I was still under 30, people had already found a way to torture my psyche. They seemed to get some sick pleasure out of it.
I told myself not to panic as I answered the phone. I had no reason to believe that anything could possibly be wrong. The Human Resources harpy who would have thrived as an assassin or even just a common serial killer informed me that “the company” had to renege my job offer.
The shoddy reason she gave was that my credit score wasn’t high enough for the position. It was not a position handing money. It wasn’t in finance or accounting. It was in science. I just wasn’t born into the right class.
After being laid off because I was human and needed to urinate on occasion, I was unable to keep up on all my bills and had damaged my credit. I would never have thought that an employer would take back a job offer due to recent bad credit. Did they think they would be helping me to improve my credit score by denying me the ability to make a living? Did they think that not having a salary would improve my credit score? It was madness.
What kind of sick, stupid, punitive society takes away someone’s ability to pay their bills because they have been unable to pay their bills due to unemployment? What kind of fucked up twisted mindset does someone have to accept to do this to a decent person? | https://medium.com/illumination/flashback-christmas-eve-1998-the-day-i-lost-my-science-career-due-to-my-credit-score-d0ae82e3fe4a | ['Markus Scorelius'] | 2020-12-25 06:46:26.718000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Credit Score', 'Science', 'This Happened To Me', 'Covid 19'] |
To the little girl who ruined my ‘me time’ walk | To the little girl who ruined my ‘me time’ walk
Social isolation is helping kids pick out the cool adults
Photo credit: Create Her Stock
I strutted down the street, mouthing the lyrics to the best I-understand-women-completely rap song that wasn’t created by Drake. (It’s “Foldin’ Clothes” by J. Cole, and he deserves a Grammy for it. It’s been my ringtone for so long I have no idea what it was before 2019.)
I wore snug black capris (that surprisingly still fit after all the sundae cones I’ve demolished during social isolation), a pink wraparound sleeveless top, a color-coordinated face mask and my “Hollywood” sunglasses that my mother makes fun of. In my opinion, I looked pretty decent for someone whose attire is yoga pants and sports bras six days out of the week. I’m dressed for the public and feeling myself.
After the building inspector emergency, I’m diving back into social isolation and my antisocial extrovert ways: Stay away from family and friends, especially older ones, for both of our safety. Talk via email more than in person. Stay six feet away from everyone. Make excuses to stay off Zoom and UberConference so I don’t have to wear a shirt. (They’re overrated.) Wear a mask when a random condo owner knocks on my door throughout the day. (Reluctantly put on a shirt over the sports bra.) And try to get in a little Kukuwa dance in between working on my couch. I’m trying to be productive and enjoy life in my own little cocoon. But sometimes I just need to enjoy my 10,000 steps with the public. So off I walked today.
Then here she came, staring at me in the middle of the sidewalk. I saw her sizing me up as I walked closer, with her mother’s back to me. But I was too busy rapping along to “I never thought I’d see the day I’m drinking almond milk” to really pay attention.
She pointed right at me and yelled out, “Where are your friends?!”
I paused my Spotify playlist and looked down, laughing.
I told her, “I’m rolling solo today.”
Her response, “You don’t have any friends?”
I laughed again, and turned to her mother, who looked mortified.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s been asking that every single time she seems somebody walking alone.”
I smiled and said, “Man, if I didn’t have any friends, I’d feel really bad about myself right now.”
Her mother nodded. “I know, right!”
I strolled on, with the little girl’s eyebrow still raised at me. Kids say the darnedest things indeed. The next time I walk down this block, I’m going to find one of these people who keep knocking on my door, ringing my bell and emailing me at all hours of the day. I’ve been out of high school for 19 years. I never thought I would have to prove how cool I am to people under three feet, but here we are.
Tomorrow I’m dodging that block. She won’t catch me slipping. I can just hear her now, “You still don’t have any friends with you, huh? Mmph, mmph, mmph.” | https://medium.com/tickled/to-the-little-girl-who-ruined-my-me-time-walk-3e9a0493af1 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-07-07 18:49:38.212000+00:00 | ['Extrovert', 'Storytelling', 'Funny Story', 'Antisocial', 'Children'] |
Coworking as a design style (or Why that beanbag is not just for comfort) | Written by Filipa Pajević and Dragana Panić
Photo credit: iStock/Getty Images
The benefits of coworking as a style of work are the subject of ongoing inquiry and debate. These benefits arguably include (and are not limited to) all the usual suspects: productivity, creativity, and innovation. Digital and digitally mediated work (either routine tasks that have been digitized, or idiosyncratic tasks that are digitally supported) are especially poised to gain by adopting this style of working. On the one hand, coworking is an antidote to the boredom of constricting, highly regimented jobs. On the other, it is an alternative to the isolation of freelance and remote workers, who spend less time (or no time at all) at their employer’s place of work. Employees, employers and self-made entrepreneurs anticipate positive results: individual workers will perform better — better, together — and share their resources to come up with innovative solutions to help their businesses.
However, coworking as a style of work has also become a style of space. The coworking space, with its exposed brick or concrete walls and metallic substructures, long desks, bar chairs and designer coffee, is nowadays a recognizable style, or rather a popular design plan. What is more, the combination of these coworking styles — the work and the space — help transform the workplace into a service that caters to both the bored full-time and the isolated part-time employee. Certainly, if their proliferation across cities is any indication, coworking spaces are a rather successful business model.
Indeed, coworking seems to be growing into a splintering market, with “new” types of coworking spaces satisfying varying demands (coworking spaces for women, coworking spaces for social justice warriors, coworking spaces for hackers and coders… the list goes on). What is more, they are spreading like wildfire, occupying spaces of various shapes and sizes, and undoubtedly contributing to gentrifying forces as a result. WeWork, for example, is now the largest private office tenant in London and NYC, and Spaces (Regus’s answer to WeWork) is adding new locations across Eastern Europe and the Americas as we speak. The number of coworking spaces worldwide in 2015 was 7,805 — last year it was 16,599[1]. Coworking spaces spread because they promote themselves as accessible, communal and easily replicable. In other words, they are true to coworking as a style of work and cater to the coworking type of worker. Seeing as both are embedded in the design of coworking spaces, coworking as a design style is worth interrogating.
So what can coworking as a design style tell us about the changing nature of work, working, and workplaces? What is more, what can it tell us about who consumes these coworking spaces and why? Finally, can it offer clues as to how coworking has become a resource for corporate exploitation?
The changing nature of work
The fundamental characteristic and differentia specifica of the coworking space is its break from tradition — the fragmented and defined, in favour of the communal — the functionally integrated. Coworking spaces are “hybrid spaces” that cater to multiple needs — work, rest, antihierarchical socialization — in other words, they blur the lines that separate the personal from the professional and the employer from the employee. Workers can perform their work at long coworking desks or bar tables; they can sit on bar stools, stability balls, beanbags, you name it. They can make confidential calls in phonebooths and get comfortable at one of the diner booths if their work requires prolonged concentration. Meeting spaces are glass aquariums with moveable walls to accommodate a party of any size. Coworking spaces are transparent and accessible — and they have the relaxed, optimistic atmosphere of a café. Working here is not a chore. It is creative and it is fun.
Digital work has less need for a designated, purpose-built facility. Spaces no longer have to be tailor-made to suit a digitally-supported sector; rather, spaces need to be adequately equipped to temporarily support a work-related activity. This means that any architectural form (irrespective of its original function) can be put to use with minimal changes to its basic infrastructure. The objective is to make spaces amenable to a variety of uses (and users) by making them as flexible and as cost-efficient as possible. This is why coworking spaces can be found in former factories, warehouses, train stations, in exhibition halls, cinemas… What is more, they occupy any space whose principal function (be it production, distribution or entertainment) has been “switched off” by modern technologies. This also feeds nicely into the “breaking free from tradition” thesis: by transforming mono-functional spaces into multi-functional ones, coworking spaces inject novelty and rebellion into spaces of rigidity and limitation. In other words, coworking celebrates the integrated, communal vibe that most organizational structures lack. But herein lies the tension: as a temporary antidote to boredom and as an alternative to isolation, to what extent do coworking spaces indeed produce an integrated, communal workplace? A recent study out of the Harvard Business School shows an inverse relationship between open, coworking spaces and collaboration between colleagues. Not only is there less face-to-face interaction (by 70%), but a rise in digitally-mediated communication (by 50%)[2]. In other words, coworkers would rather use FaceTime than actually engage face-to-face. If this is indeed the case, why do coworking spaces remain so popular?
The changing nature of working
Coworking spaces are often promoted as the meeting places for digital nomads — the hyper-connected, mobile and flexible workers, whose work can be performed from anywhere and at any time. These workers operate across multiple geographical and virtual scales — they are, to use Paul Virilio’s term, “temporarily omnipresent”. Everything is in constant flux, and space — as a result — becomes temporary and transitory so as to reflect and support an increasingly fluid set of values and practices. Coworking spaces are the spatial expression of this fluidity.
To achieve this effect, coworking spaces need to be stripped of a function and/or identity — they must become what Marc Augé’s called “non-places”. Each design element must involve, or be shared by, anyone and everyone — coworking spaces must be universal. What is more, they must not be binding: the digital nomad works flexibly, both spatially and temporally. Workers must be able to use the space whenever and however they want. This is why when it comes to coworking as a design choice, the aesthetic is often a jumble, an odd combination of the rigid and the playful — the sandbox in a warehouse.
Spaces favored by coworking providers are usually derelict, industrial sites — symbols of the Fordist style of work. At the time of the crisis of manufacturing, these spaces were often appropriated for culture and shelter — artists and squatters. This appropriation has been perceived as innovative and inspiring, and therefore has been subjected to re-appropriation by wealthier entrepreneurs ever since. Indeed, turning traditional office spaces into cool, lofty workplaces is an expensive affair. Commercial property developers go through great lengths to expose the brick walls, the pipework and the air-ducts that traditional offices tried hard to conceal. But why are these spaces so alluring? Why claim and replicate them? Because in addition to being inspiring and cool, these spaces have traditionally been occupied by temporary visitors. The artist and the squatter — both nomadic, both flexible. However, unlike the digital nomad, this was not by choice but by necessity. The playful décor would have been an attempt to humanize spaces that were never meant to serve as creative spaces, let alone homes. To the digital nomad, this playfulness is an incentive to enjoy work — enjoy being productive.
Indeed, everything from the furniture (beanbags, bar tables, foosball tables…) to the motivational slogans in neon (“Get sh*t done!”, “Do what you love!”, “Get connected!”), is meant to make work seem less stern and more playful. However, what happens when a professional environment is transformed into an arcade? The worker works to be entertained. It is both an attraction and a retention strategy. Why would anyone ever want to leave?
Design, in this case, is a tool — a means by which the coworking space provider can visually stimulate a desirable, accessible and recognizable universal culture. It is important to remember that designers follow a directive, so even if the end result is meant to be relaxed, accessible and organic, the process is anything but.
The Coworking Culture
Coworking enjoys its popularity because it benefits from and feeds into a culture that expands on the basis of a visual style that speaks to a particular brand (i.e. Google, Facebook, Apple…). In other words, it speaks to trends or what is currently en vogue, and promotes the values of its apostles through social media. For this reason, coworking spaces often mimic the Google aesthetic, but also make it accessible to the general public. While Google workplaces remain exclusive to their employees, the coworking space is an accessible experience. (Read: Instagram worthy.)
By remaining accessible, the coworking space promotes itself as the ultimate mainstream #goal.
Because of their transitory, temporary, and universal character, coworking spaces are also a popular real estate play — an effective means of extracting rent from vacated sites until a more permanent tenant is found and secured. This is why coworking spaces can also be found in more traditional office buildings. Developers and companies alike are introducing coworking as a tool to balance rising real estate costs. Ergo, coworking spaces are not only a good choice for the bored, isolated worker — but also a reasonable cost-effective strategy for a budget-minded employer.
At the same time, coworking spaces have started to occupy prestigious heritage sites. Spaces is unveiling 100,000 square feet of coworking space at the Chrysler Building this summer. How can we interpret that move? Is it about injecting novelty into tradition, or is it about establishing coworking as a prestigious style of working —and coworking spaces as a lucrative business model?
To conclude, a beanbag is not just for comfort. It is also a symbol of spontaneity, flexibility and playfulness that signals a profound change in how we view and experience work and workplaces. However, coworking as a design style shows that contrary to popular belief, there is nothing spontaneous about these choices — coworking is a planned, premeditated work experience that is carefully curated so as to extract the most of out its user and the space that it occupies.
Filipa Pajević is a PhD Candidate at the School of Urban Planning, McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She studies changes in ways of working and their spatiality.
Dragana Panić is an interior designer. She was a professor of design at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Belgrade, Serbia.
[1] https://www.coworkingresources.org/blog/key-figures-coworking-growth
[2] https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54899 | https://medium.com/swlh/coworking-as-a-design-style-or-why-that-beanbag-is-not-just-for-comfort-4104f814143e | ['Filipa Pajević'] | 2019-08-21 07:47:10.675000+00:00 | ['Coworking', 'Work', 'Workplace', 'Design', 'Culture'] |
How to Accelerate Your Learning by Taking Better Notes | Handwrite your notes
So, there has been this long-lasting debate about what medium fosters effective note-taking. Should you go techy style or remain old fashioned pen and paper?
Scientists, entrepreneurs, and professors have been evaluating various methods of note-taking. Therefore, the straight answer is old school Pen and paper.
Ditch the laptop
Though taking your notes using a laptop might seem accurate to the eyes, it doesn’t to the brain. To speed up the learning process ditch the laptop and take your notes the old school way — pen and paper.
An experiment tested both groups of note-takers (pen and laptop users) exactly half an hour after the lecture, which left them without the opportunity to review. The psychological scientists decided to explore this concept further and conducted a second experiment in which these students would be given a week to review for the exam.
Even after a week of review, the students who took notes in longhand were found to do significantly better than the other students in the experiment, including the fleet typists — those who transcribed the lectures.
Overall, it seems those who type their notes may potentially be at risk for “mindless processing.” The old-fashioned note-taking method of pen and paper boosts memory and the ability to understand concepts and facts.
As research has proven, handwriting is better for retaining what you write, but first, you need the right tools.
While taking notes with your hand, paraphrase them into your own style, make them easy for you to grasp and understand under short periods.
Draw your notes and make them colorful
Now I know you might be thinking that drawing on paper is for little kids. But it might sound silly but research shows if you draw something you’re more likely to remember it later.
During a study, partakers were given a series of words that were easy to draw (for example, “apple”) and were either asked to draw the word or write it down. To guarantee partakers consumed the same amount of time either writing or drawing, they were given 40 seconds for each word and asked to fill the entire period. So they could write or draw the item over and over.
When partakers were later tested on how many words they remembered, drawing helped them to remember twice as many as writing.
Designer Mike Rohde popularized “sketchnotes” with his books The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook. Rohde uses the term sketchnotes to describe the way he draws shapes and pictures among his notes to help him better take in the main ideas from conference talks, rather than trying to note down every little point.
To improve attentive listening and effective retention, make use of different bright colored inks for headings, and subheadings when taking notes. Purple is always aligned with the left margin line, a yellow highlighted box is always used for summaries and important equations or quotes, etc. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-to-accelerate-your-learning-by-taking-better-notes-2f792be0b014 | ['Benjamin Ebuka'] | 2020-12-23 14:00:06.361000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Books', 'Learning', 'Reading', 'Personal Development'] |
Using a Directed Acyclic Graph in a React-Redux Application | In the diagram above, we can see that ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ is only calculated from one parent, ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’. However, it is common for a node to influence many others in our DAG. A child node can act as a parent node as the number of levels grow:
A small portion of the DAG from one of our applications
Defining the DAG in Our Application
Our React application contains a static definition for the DAG. We use a JavaScript object to store details about every node used in our application. We can assign this to a variable called nodeDefinitions.
In nodeDefinitions:
Each key is the name of a node.
The value for each key is an object containing the node’s properties, such as its parents.
A definition for every node of our application’s DAG is stored in an object called nodeDefinitions.
‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ (string): The name we gave to a particular node. The node defined in the code snippet above corresponds to the purple box in the previous discussion about Sev1/Sev2/Sev3 incidents.
(string): The name we gave to a particular node. The node defined in the code snippet above corresponds to the purple box in the previous discussion about Sev1/Sev2/Sev3 incidents. ‘is_input’ (boolean): Boolean value indicating if the node’s value comes from user input or from a calculation involving values of other nodes.
(boolean): Boolean value indicating if the node’s value comes from user input or from a calculation involving values of other nodes. ‘parents’ (array): Array of strings detailing the names of immediate parent nodes.
(array): Array of strings detailing the names of immediate parent nodes. ‘calc’ (function): A function definition for how to calculate the node’s value. This property is only present for nodes which are calculated from at least one input field.
(function): A function definition for how to calculate the node’s value. This property is only present for nodes which are calculated from at least one input field. ‘type’ (string): This property tells us more about how the value is calculated and should be displayed on our UI. The node in this example is “numeric”, which gives a hint to the presentation layer of how to display this data. Other possible types could be “percent” or “currency”.
More about the ‘calc’ property:
If the user changes the value of an input field, the ‘calc’ function is called for every child node of the input field that was modified.
The function takes part of the Redux state called valuesOfAllNodes as an argument and returns the new value for the node based on new value(s) of its parent(s) (more on this later). In order to calculate the next value of a child node, we need to know:
1. The new value(s) of its parent(s)
2. Its ‘calc’ property, which is a JavaScript function that returns the new value of the node
You might see the node definition above and ask: “If you include the names of parent nodes, what about a property for the node’s children?”
Good question!
As a developer-friendly optimization, we do not hard-code the ‘children’ array for each key in nodeDefinitions. It would be an unnecessary manual step that naturally increases chances of errors due to typos or accidental omission. Instead, we statically define nodeDefinitions such that every node has a property for its parents. At application startup time, we have a function loop through each key in nodeDefinitions and add a ‘children’ property if the node currently being parsed influences any other node(s).
Consider that we know ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’ is a parent of ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ given the definition of ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ above. As a result, ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ must be a child of ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’.
After defining nodeDefinitions, we call a function which iterates through each key of the object (every node of the DAG) and does the following steps:
1. Check if the key has parents.
'yearly.sev1.incidents': {
'is_input': false,
'parents': ['monthly.sev1.incidents'], //this node has one parent, since it has one key name in its 'parents' array
'calc': function(valuesOfAllNodes) {
return valuesOfAllNodes['monthly.sev1.incidents'] * 12;
},
'type': 'numeric'
}
Suppose we are on the iteration for ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’. We can see from its definition that it has one parent, ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’.
2. For each parent found in (1), initialize its ‘children’ property to an empty array.
nodeDefinitions['monthly.sev1.incidents'].children = [];
As a result, the node definition for ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’ would look like:
'monthly.sev1.incidents': {
'is_input': true,
'parents': [], //no parents, since it is an input field not influenced by anything other than user input
'children': [], //empty 'children' array initialized
'type': 'numeric'
}
3. Add the name of the child node into the ‘children’ array for each parent found in (2):
nodeDefinitions['monthly.sev1.incidents'].children.push('yearly.sev1.incidents');
//Parent: 'monthly.sev1.incidents'
//Child: 'yearly.sev1.incidents'
As a result, the node definition for ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’ would be updated to:
'monthly.sev1.incidents': {
'is_input': true,
'parents': [], //no parents, since it is an input field not influenced by anything other than user input
'children': ['yearly.sev1.incidents'], //child node added since 'yearly.sev1.incidents' is a child of 'monthly.sev1.incidents'
'type': 'numeric'
}
If a node does not influence the calculations of any other node(s), it should have an empty array for its ‘children’ property in nodeDefinitions. In a visual sense, this implies that there are no directed edges from the node leading to any other ones in our DAG.
Definitions for the ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’ and ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’ nodes after populating the ‘children’ property for ‘monthly.sev1.incidents’
Maintaining the Values of Our DAG’s Nodes in the Redux State
Redux is a library which can be used to manage the state of any JavaScript application. By adding Redux to our React application, we are able to maintain the values of our DAG’s nodes in an organized and predictable manner. We utilize the Redux state to have a single source of truth for storing and updating the value of every node. Almost every React component in our application needs to display some variety of values from our DAG and several of our components need to be able to update the values in our DAG as well. By using Redux, we can easily map these values into our React components to display them on our UI. We can also dispatch actions from our React components to the Redux store if we need to change the value of a node in the Redux state.
We store the value of every node in a JavaScript object within our Redux state. We can name this portion of our state as valuesOfAllNodes.
Each key in valuesOfAllNodes is the name of a node, such as ‘yearly.sev1.incidents’. The value of each key is either the user input (if the node corresponds to an input field) or calculated value (if the node is a child node).
let reduxState = {
//other properties of the Redux state
valuesOfAllNodes: {
//other key-value pairs in the format of node_name: value
'monthly.sev1.incidents': 3, //user input
'yearly.sev1.incidents': 36, //calculated value
'monthly.sev2.incidents': 6, //user input
'yearly.sev2.incidents': 72, //calculated value
//more key-value pairs in the format of node_name: value
},
//more properties in the Redux state
};
In general, a change to the value of a parent node should cascade through relevant parts of the directed acyclic graph, recalculating the values of child nodes.
Any modification to the value of an input field will cause the React component to dispatch an action to the Redux store. Here is a brief summary of the steps which would take place after a React component dispatches the action:
1. The action:
Creates a local copy of valuesOfAllNodes.
Updates the key of the input node in this copy with the new value the user inputted.
Breadth-first search (BFS) is subsequently used to traverse our DAG and call the ‘calc’ function on all child nodes of the input field. Each child’s ‘calc’ function is called with the local copy of valuesOfAllNodes. As a result, the calculation for each child node uses the updated value of the parent input node and will be up-to-date.
2. The action passes its local copy of valuesOfAllNodes in its payload to the Redux store.
3. The store calls the appropriate reducing function for the action just dispatched.
4. The reducer returns the payload of valuesOfAllNodes passed from the action.
5. The store saves valuesOfAllNodes returned from the reducer in step 4 in the Redux state.
6. React components which are connected to the Redux store via mapStateToProps would re-render as a response to the change in Redux state. They would receive the newly updated Redux state and pass it down to other components as necessary. | https://medium.com/splunk-engineering/using-a-directed-acyclic-graph-in-a-react-redux-application-d3fa51d92e00 | ['Natasha Chitnis'] | 2019-11-20 18:22:05.777000+00:00 | ['React Redux', 'React', 'Graph Theory', 'Redux'] |
Config Eslint and Prettier in Visual Studio Code for React js development | Config Eslint and Prettier in Visual Studio Code for React js development Manish Mandal Follow Nov 9 · 4 min read
I have come with a tutorial that covers the configuration of Eslint and Prettier in visual studio code for React js development. Errors are a major problem in our usual react js development. This frustrates users while writing code.
When I started using react for my projects I never used eslint or prettier for the development. I still regret that because linting is important for development as it reduces error and improves the overall quality of the code and prettier helps us formatting our code. So let us see how to configure that for your next react js project.
Open the terminal in your project root folder and install eslint as a dev dependency. We also need to enable the eslint and prettier extension for the VSCode. So visit the extensions section of VSCode (ctrl + shift + x) and search for Eslint and Prettier — Code formatter and install it.
npm install eslint --save-dev or yarn add eslint --dev
2. After that we will generate our .eslintrc.json file through the terminal so run this command to generate your eslint configuration file.
npx eslint --init or yarn run eslint --init
This will prompt multiple options so, first select To check syntax and find problems after that select JavaScript modules (import/export) then select React Now it will ask Does your project use TypeScript No/Yes In my case, I am not using TypeScript so I will select No option. Now select Browser and then JSON option. It will then prompt you to install eslint-plugin-react so click on yes .
This is how your .eslintrc.json file will look.
I am currently using React 17.0.1 and It’s currently the latest version of React. In this update, the React Team has made importing React to the file optional. So our eslint is giving an error that "React" must be in scope when using JSX . To fix this we will add a rule to our eslint file. So open your .eslint file and add this line "react/react-in-jsx-scope": "off" inside the rules.
Now if you open your App.test.js file you will find that eslint is giving us an error that test or expect is not defined . To fix this we need to add "jest": true inside env.
It’s time to add prettier and configure it with our Visual Studio Code so whenever we save our code it will automatically format our code.
3. Run the below command to install the required plugins for the prettier setup.
npm install eslint-config-prettier eslint-plugin-prettier prettier --save-dev or yarn add eslint-config-prettier eslint-plugin-prettier prettier --dev
4. After installing all the above modules it’s time to add some prettier configuration to our .eslintrc.json file. So add this line "plugin:prettier/recommended" inside extends.
5. Now if you open your App.js file and add some extra spaces, the eslint will show you some errors. To fix this we need to click over those errors and press ctrl+. and select fix all auto-fixable problems . This will fix all prettier linting issues automatically.
4. Now we need to configure our VSCode settings for prettier to work on autosave. Follow the below-mentioned steps to configure your VScode Setting
Go to File > Preferences> Settings
On your right-hand side, there is an icon to Open Settings in JSON format. Click on that icon.
format. Click on that icon. Add below JSON code there
So now whenever you save your code or change the focus from the code, VSCode will automatically fix the format of your code.
Note: you can also create local settings for VScode. All you need is to create a .vscode directory inside your root project and create a file with the name settings.json and inside that directory and put the above JSON code inside that file as an object {}.
Here is the full code for .eslintrc.json file.
Below I have also shared the GitHub repository and live code for reference. | https://medium.com/how-to-react/config-eslint-and-prettier-in-visual-studio-code-for-react-js-development-97bb2236b31a | ['Manish Mandal'] | 2020-11-09 18:23:56.024000+00:00 | ['Reactjs', 'Eslint', 'React', 'Prettier', 'Vscode'] |
Join the BitGreen Ecosystem v0.1 Beta Program! | The BitGreen community was created in 2017 with the intention of making good on the potential Blockchain has for global amelioration.
With the launch of our V0.1 ecosystem, a closed beta for members of the community, we’re taking a proud step forward on this path of laying the foundations for BitGreen as a global impact currency. And we’re extending the invitation for you to join us!
As covered in the updated Whitepaper, BITG is a currency backed by the goodwill and actions of our community. Our ecosystem offers members opportunities to earn BITG for everyday impactful actions, such as: recycling, volunteering computing power, changing to renewable energy sources, and more. Not only are members able to earn for doing good, but can also spend their earnings in a way that is no less impactful, by purchasing goods and services from participating vendors, donating to participating charities, and offsetting with participating partners — all of whom both accept and reward customer loyalty with BITG.
The entire ecosystem, along with all the basic wallet functions you would expect, will be made available in the BitGreen mobile app. But we didn’t want to wait. Members of the BitGreen community are already earning on their impactful work with our Folding@Home Initiative. Partnering with leading volunteering platform Golden, the core team is hard at work onboarding new earning opportunities, as well as both vendors and charities to spend with, and we’re excited to begin testing the waters with a pilot program.
So we invite you to sign up as a beta-user of the v0.1 BitGreen Ecosystem, where you’ll get to explore our impact opportunities and our ecosystem partners, earn and spend good, and perhaps drop us notes on how to improve and whom to partner with. Just follow the directions below, and please don’t forget to invite any other change heroes in your community to sign up and earn BITG for their impactful actions.
If you do not yet have a BITG Address, make one here: https://webwallet.bitg.org
Golden Signup Steps | https://medium.com/bitgreen/join-the-bitgreen-ecosystem-v0-1-beta-program-1aaa221f29ee | [] | 2020-07-30 13:09:43.040000+00:00 | ['Social Good', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Sustainability', 'Impact'] |
The 4 types of people who comment on Facebook Ads | I’ve been writing a lot of Facebook ads recently for my clients.
And although I normally focus on email copy… it’s been really cool to be able to test out over 100 different ads with multiple clients who have each a five figure per day ad budget
Anyway, one of the ads I wrote really hit a nerve in the marketplace.
It got hundreds of likes, over 100 shares, and a ton of comments — both positive and negative. And that, to me, is a good thing.
This ad is bringing a LOT of leads into our funnel for a high ticket course we sell… and it’s been working incredibly well from what I understand. And even though there’s been some negative comments on the ad, that makes me ECSTATIC.
I have to say…
I absolutely LOVE reading these negative comments people leave on Facebook ads.
It’s one of my favorite things to do every day.
Tell you the truth… I think I’m actually addicted to it.
And the reason why it’s so much fun is because WOW… some people get sooooo pissed off when an ad shows up in their newsfeed.
Over time, I’ve noticed that there are usually four subgroups of Facebook ad commenters.
There are usually two positive subgroups and two butthurt subgroups.
If you’ve been running FB ads for a while… you’ve definitely run into these people before. And if you’re new to writing Facebook ads, here’s the kinds of people you can expect to see leaving comments on your ads VERY soon.
1) The Supportive Sally
Supportive Sally loves you.
She follows all your activity on social media. She’s very supportive of your business. And she always lets you know how much your programs, courses, products and content means to her.
Facebook ads with an emotional appeal will cause Sally to leave loving comments that make you feel great.
She’ll like your ads. She’ll leave comments. And she might even share them with her friends/followers. Sally is usually a good buyer and a loyal fan.
You always want more Sallys.
2) The Tagging Tommy
Tagging Tommy doesn’t like to talk much. But his minimalist approach to commenting actually has a HUGE impact for your business.
Every time Tommy tags his mate in a comment on your ad, that means the person he is tagging should be a HOT lead.
Otherwise, Tagging Tommy wouldn’t take the time to tell his friend about it.
You’ll know you have a great ad when a lot of Tagging Tommys start to come out of the woodwork and tag all their friends who they think would be perfect for your offer.
3) The Offended Oscar
Oscar has a hair trigger temper.
The mere sight of an ad in his newsfeed will set him off right.
Not only is Oscar offended that there is an ad showing up in his newsfeed… he’s also offended that you are actually selling something.
Oscar doesn’t grasp the concept of how business… capitalism… or reality actually work.
If you’re offering a lead magnet, he’ll warn others “THEY’RE JUST TRYING TO GET YOUR EMAIL… THIS IS BS… I’M NOT GIVING YOU SHIT!”
If you’re sending someone to a sales page or a webinar he’ll be pissed off that you’re trying to sell something.
Offended Oscar doesn’t understand that the only reasons ads exist are to persuade you to buy something. Oscar also doesn’t understand that ads cost money.
It’s amazing how all the Offended Oscars of the world can’t figure out how to simply keep thumbing their way down the page if they don’t like the ad in front of them.
The funny thing is… Oscar usually owns a business himself.
It often doesn’t make any money. And it shows in the rage he displays when he lashes out on the Facebook ads of people who are way more successful than him.
4) The Cognitive Dissonance Danny
I’ve saved the best for last.
The Cognitive Dissonance Danny’s are my favorite subgroup of Facebook ad commenters.
When Cognitive Dissonance Danny logs onto Facebook and sees an ad, something happens in his brain.
He reads the benefits in the ad and then immediately gets defensive.
He KNOWS there’s no way that could be possible. And he’ll leave a fiery explanation in comment form ‘warning others’ that your ad is clearly a scam.
He’ll tell people whatever your promising is not possible.
He might even poo-poo you because you’re just running this ad so you can make money. (Um… no shit?)
You see… what happens in Cognitive Dissonance Danny’s brain is that his eyes see one message… but his previously held thoughts and beliefs don’t align with that new information.
Chaos erupts in his brain.
And he lashes out in an attempt to soothe the confusion. He reaches for whatever explanation he can muster to try and make sense of the words or video he is seeing in front of him.
The funny thing is… there’s a very thin line between love and hate.
And sometimes… once the cognitive dissonance subsides… CD Danny might go from your sworn enemy to your biggest fan.
There’s a lesson in all of this.
I personally believe that any type of engagement, be it positive or negative is GREAT for your business. Especially on your ads.
Positive comments give you a morale boost and help spread your ad to new audiences. They also help lower your ad cost and expand your reach.
Negative comments are a great thing too though.
People who agree with the negative commenters, due to their own preconceived notions, will not click your ad… saving you a boatload of headaches in the future.
And people who LIKE you already will see these negative comments will laugh… they’ll think that person is a moron… and then they’ll click your ad anyway and get into your funnel.
At the end of the day the important thing to remember is this:
You want to make your Facebook ads as emotionally compelling as possible.
When you arouse emotions in the market place, you’re going to get a mix of good reactions and bad reactions.
You want people going wild. You never want to be lukewarm.
Never fear the negative feedback… instead… embrace the chaos of primal human emotions and use them to your advantage. | https://medium.com/copywriting/the-4-types-of-people-who-comment-on-facebook-ads-59c5566b5903 | ['Chris Orzechowski'] | 2017-09-07 13:01:48.149000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Freelance', 'Facebook Ads', 'Copywriting', 'Advertising'] |
Animation principles for UX and UI designers | The 12 principles of animation
In 1981 two Disney animators, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas proposed that all animation consists of twelve basic principles. These principles adhere to the laws of physics mentioned earlier and serve as guidelines to create realistic movement.
These principles are not just applicable to Frozen but have excellent value when applied to user experiences and design as long as we keep the physics in mind.
I've listed these principles along with of Dribbble’s best examples below (in no particular order).
1. Squash and stretch
In nature objects are malleable — their shapes change as they interact with their world. They are able to squash and stretch depending on their composition. Similarly, our interfaces can squash and stretch when they are interacted with. The weight and center of gravity of the component do not change but is merely displaced.
Accordions are a classic example of squash and stretch in interfaces. Credit Scott Brookshire
Squash and stretch is also a useful way to do animations for scale that are less awkward.
In this example by Stan Yakusevich, the character is transitioned through a squash and stretch animation.
2. Anticipation
Anticipation refers to the small actions that lead up to a much larger action. In the wild, a cat might lower its back and pull back its ears in anticipation of pouncing its prey. Anticipation could also be the complete lack of an action such as the dramatic pause before the cat pounces. This anticipation could serve as a warning, be used to entice or create excitement.
In a very similar way, we can use small animations to create anticipation with our users. Hover effects are a great example of this as it indicates to the user that this object (for example a button) can perform a larger action.
I really wish I knew where these clicked to, the anticipation is killing me. Credit Yancy Min.
3. Staging
Staging (or the old adage of setting the stage) involves setting up a scene in order to emphasize characters, objects or events. This could be done in several ways such as lighting, music or camera movement. Staging could also be used to build anticipation.
A classic example of the staging principle in interface design is a loading icon. Not only does this solve a technical problem, but it also lets the user know that the “stage” is literally being set. Furthermore, the actual design of the loader could be used for staging as well; giving the user a glimpse into the type of content they could expect.
This loader by Su is both functional and descriptive for loading an eBook.
Skeleton loading, an extension of the loader icon, is considered a much better loading experience. A “skeleton” of the content to be loaded is shown to the user and then gets filled in as the content loads.
Example of skeleton loading by UI8.
4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose
This principle refers to the way animation is drawn. With straight ahead, you start at frame 1 and draw each subsequent frame. This often results in much better realism and smoothness as you are in control of each subsequent action.
With pose to pose, you might draw the first frame, then the end frame, and only then would you fill in the frames in between.
Most animation in UI today would be pose to pose. As developers, we generally write a static component with CSS, then write the CSS for the animated state and we then toggle this animation with a class or key frames.
5. Follow through and overlapping action
Objects in the real world often consist of multiple moving parts. Cars, people, animals, plants — all good examples. These multiple parts are all affected differently by forces like gravity due to their weight and size. As a result, the same object can have parts that move at different speeds or rotate at different angles. They might also have different levels of resistance due to their size which impacts how long they take to accelerate or decelerate.
In a similar fashion, UI components consist of multiple parts, whether it’s typography, color, shape or spacing. If you are animating multiple parts of the same component it’s important to consider the weight and size each has as well as their relationship to one another. Components that are part of the same group should always animate together, but it’s the subtle differences in speed and acceleration that will make it a good experience.
These fluid animations by Anton Skvortsov tell a story and hardly ever start, move or stop at the same time.
Perhaps the most notorious example of overlapping action is age-old parallax animation.
This second Dribbble shot by Anton Skvortsov is a great example of using follow through and overlapping action in unison.
6. Slow in and out (Easing)
Slow in and out is really just Disney’s term for easing. Objects in life rarely come to an instant halt — they tend to gradually lose momentum and slow down.
Most designers and developers implement easing in their animation already. But do we sometimes go overboard? It’s very easy to mess up an easing curve and this will leave users feeling a bit uneasy. There are great resources for grabbing pre-built easing curves — my favorite being Animista.
The easing on these scroll animations feel natural. Credit Anton Skvortsov.
7. Arcs
In nature things are very rarely animated in a straight line, simply because no one can throw a ball in an exact straight line. Objects in nature often move in what are called arcs. Arcs are essentially the curved path on which a ball would move if you were to throw it.
Generally, interfaces are aligned to some sort of grid system so we tend not to animate components in arcs. In a way easing is the arc that we use as it makes our animations feel as if they are animating on an arc. That said, there is real value in implementing some sort of arc in these animations as they add a sense of natural fluidity. It’s just a case of finding the right opportunities.
The small arc in the initial animation is not necessarily functional, but it does add a smoothness to the animation that brings it back to the real world. Credit Divan Raj.
8. Secondary action
Secondary actions is any action that happens in addition to the main action. These actions are generally used to support the main action. A real world example would be the turning of a wheel as a bicycle moves.
Secondary actions are excellent for giving the user additional information about their actions. Icons in buttons are a pretty common example of this.
This little switch by Oleg Frolov uses a little donut to strip animation to add to the on/off concept.
9. Timing
We've already looked at timing in terms of physics but there is another, much more literal application. Timing could also refer to how multiple animations play out in sequence. Google refers to this quite aptly as an interface’s choreography.
Transition choreography is a coordinated sequence of motion that maintains user focus as the interface adapts.
- Google Material Design
The order in which components animate is a great way to lead a user through a journey. Our eyes react to movement, even on a micro scale.
In this example by Anton Tkachev the user is guided through their journey with subtle animations. The illustration of the human figure animates first, leading your eye into the next section, followed by the additional information and category tags.
10. Exaggeration
Exaggeration (along with solid drawing and appeal) is where animators get to be a bit more creative. The size, shape or movement of an object is exaggerated beyond realism to add emphasis or interest to an object.
This example of 3D touch almost feels like a bursting bubble once it reaches the resistance threshold. This burst is exaggerated by the shapes flying from it. Credit to Voicu Apostol.
11 & 12. Solid drawing & appeal
Both of these, quite simply, refers to how appealing your component or experience is to your user. This comes down to good design, good UI, great experiences and refined animation. | https://uxplanet.org/animation-that-matters-adding-value-to-your-interface-65496fe4c182 | ['Vernon Joyce'] | 2019-07-16 18:49:28.991000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'UX', 'Design'] |
Use Python’s Built-In Module Glob to Simplify File search | So, What’s the Use Case?
Ok, we have an idea about the module now but what about the use case? Where might you be able to use this and potentially avoid using a blob of code and instead use glob’s built-in functions to achieve the same task in possibly a single line of code? Let’s take a look.
Use Case: Finding files with a certain extension inside a directory on a filesystem
This is a very common task that can find its use in almost every Python program out there. Let’s say we want to find files with extension .jpeg inside a directory for an image processing task. Let's try doing that without using glob and then with using glob and see if it's any better.
Without using glob
It’s too much work to create a simple list of file paths. First, create an empty list then iterate over the paths and find the jpegs.
Using glob
It’s really as simple as that. One line of code! | https://medium.com/better-programming/use-pythons-built-in-module-glob-to-simplify-file-search-75e82cf928f7 | ['Imran Ali'] | 2020-07-08 03:14:50.167000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Python3', 'DevOps', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
5 global news consumption trends in charts | For anyone interested in understanding the attitudes and habits of news audiences, the annual Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University is a must-read.
This year’s study, of course, plays out against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis, a development that the report says is “almost certain to be a catalyst for more cost-cutting, consolidation, and even faster changes in business models.”
Nonetheless, despite the uncertainty that COVID-19 has produced, many of the trends shared in the report pre-date the pandemic. And their repercussions will continue to be felt when we come out on the other side, too. As a result, these trends are too big for journalists and news outlets to ignore.
Here are five essential trends — based on a survey of more than 80,000 digital news consumers in 40 markets — that you need to know.
(1) Norway is the global leader for digital news payments
Data captured in January 2020 shows that more people are paying for online news, and Norway is the poster-child. More than four out of every 10 (42%) respondents in the country paid for online news at some point in the past year. Other markets, including parts of Europe, Latin America, Asia and the United States have also seen an increase in this space.
At the same time, as the report authors remind us, “It is important to note that across all countries most people are still not paying for online news, even if some publishers have since reported a ‘coronavirus bump.’”
Q7a. Have you paid for ONLINE news content, or accessed a paid for ONLINE news service in the last year? Base: Total sample in each market = 2000.
(2) Trust in the news media is lowest in France and South Korea
“As the coronavirus hit, we observed overall levels of trust in the news at their lowest point since we started to track these data,” says the report.
Globally, fewer than four in 10 (38%) news consumers said they trust “most news [providers] most of the time.”
The figure is slightly higher when asking about specific news channels that consumers themselves use- rather than the wider news ecosystem. Nevertheless, less than half (46%) of digital news consumers said they trust the news they use themselves.
Although trust in search (32%) and social media (22%) is even lower, this conclusion should give journalists and news producers pause for thought.
Only six countries — Finland (56%), Portugal (56%), Turkey (55), Netherlands (52%), Brazil (51%) and Kenya (50%) — enjoy trust levels above 50%. Trust levels are lowest in Taiwan (24%), France (23%) and South Korea (21%).
(3) Social media is the leading source of concern for misinformation
Even though trust levels in news media are low (especially given the fact that survey respondents are news consumers, rather than the general public), the study found users are much more concerned about social networks being sources of misinformation than they are about news outlets.
Across the sample, 40% expressed concern about false or misleading information being found on social media, versus 20% expressing concern for news sites and apps.
Reflecting different news media habits around the world, across all countries Facebook (29%), followed by YouTube (6%) and Twitter (5%), were the leading sources of concern for false or misleading information.
However, in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Malaysia and Singapore, where the adoption of WhatsApp tends to be higher, the messaging service led the way in levels of concern.
As the study reminds us, “This is a particular worry because false information tends to be less visible and can be harder to counter in these private and encrypted networks.”
Which of the following, if any, are you most concerned about online? Please select one. False or misleading information from…Base: Total sample in each market = 2000; Taiwan = 1027.
(4) YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram are the fastest growing social news sources
Across the more than 80,000 sample of digital news consumers across the globe, Facebook (63%) and YouTube (61%) remain the most used social networks on a weekly basis, with WhatsApp (33%) in third place. Twitter (23%) ranks sixth, behind Facebook Messenger (28%) and Instagram (36%). The data is a useful reminder that journalists’ social media habits do not necessarily mirror those of the wider population.
This sentiment is even more applicable when examining how consumers use social networks for news.
Across 12 major markets, Facebook takes the lead (36%) but YouTube (21%) is in second place, five percentage points ahead of WhatsApp. This suggests, perhaps, that some news organizations need to make the video channel a greater priority in the distribution of their work.
The “Stories” format may be a further driver for the use of social networks like Instagram for news. In Brazil, Instagram is already considerably more popular (30%) for news than Twitter (17%). Chile (28%) also has a high adoption of Instagram for news.
Q: Which, if any, of the following have you used for any purpose in the last week? Please select all that apply. Base: ‘Main’ 12 market average: UK, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Australia, Brazil & Japan (10 market average for 2014 exl Australia & Ireland)
(5) Few consumers come to a news brand directly
News brands, and the journalists who work for them, need to continue to deploy a range of tactics to get their content in front of audiences. This is particularly true for younger audiences.
Reuters’ sample revealed that just 16% of Gen Z news consumers said going directly to a news brand was their primary way of accessing online news. Instead, other channels such as social media and search were more popular.
Collectively, push notifications, mobile alerts, aggregators and email also accounted for how more than one in five (21%) young consumers find the news.
With 72% of all news consumers saying they discover news via means other than a specific news website or app, this reiterates the importance of distributing your content across a variety of different channels, as audiences increasingly become brand agnostic.
The 2020 Digital News Report comes at a precipitous time for journalists and the news industry. We know that COVID-19 is having a huge impact on business models, the practice of journalism, and our wider media habits.
However, if anything, the coronavirus makes it even more important that changing news habits — including “changes in how people access news, low trust, and rising concern[s] about misinformation” — are addressed.
Understanding audience behaviors and habits, on a market-by-market basis, is more important than ever. Click here to find out more. | https://medium.com/damian-radcliffe/5-global-news-consumption-trends-in-charts-1800a96920b9 | ['Damian Radcliffe'] | 2020-12-28 07:16:00.173000+00:00 | ['Trends', 'Journalism', 'Digital News Report', 'Digital Transformation', 'Media Criticism'] |
Hadoop Performance Benchmark Results Comparing On-Premise S3 vs. HDFS | Introduction
A challenge for Hadoop deployments is to scale storage in sync with the compute requirements because the storage and compute are co-located on the same hardware nodes. A more flexible and cost-effective solution is to scale storage independently of the compute by separating the storage nodes from the compute nodes. Implementing the storage layer using S3 storage software (in this case, Cloudian HyperStore software) and using an S3 connector instead of HDFS, we can achieve the separation of storage and compute layers. But what is the performance impact of using S3 across a network instead of using HDFS?
This work done by Tatsuya Kawano (@tatsuya6502) aims to answer that question by examining the performance of different combinations of query type and storage type:
Hive+HDFS Hive+S3 (Cloudian HyperStore) Presto+HDFS Presto+S3 (Cloudian HyperStore)
We used HiBench’s SQL (Hive-QL) workloads with ~11 million records (~1.8GB) and TPC-H benchmark with ~866 million records (~100GB).
CDH5 (Cloudera Distribution Hadoop v5.14.4) was used for the Hadoop and HDFS implementation.
For S3 storage, we used Cloudian HyperStore v7.1 that implements the Amazon S3 API in a software package that can be deployed on Linux.
Based on the aggregate of the benchmark results, the relative performance from best to worst was
Presto+HDFS (BEST) Presto+S3 Hive+HDFS Hive+S3 (WORST)
Both Presto configurations substantially outperformed the two Hive configurations (roughly by a factor of 10). And the Presto+S3 combination showed very similar performance results to the best Presto+HDFS combination.
Infrastructure Setup
We created separate CDH5 and HyperStore 7.1 clusters on Amazon EC2. We deployed them in the same Amazon VPC subnet.
CDH5 Cluster (6 + 1 nodes) | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/hadoop-performance-benchmark-results-comparing-on-premise-s3-vs-hdfs-cf7a9ea3baa3 | ['Gary Ogasawara'] | 2019-09-21 11:50:20.656000+00:00 | ['S3', 'Hdfs', 'Prestodb', 'Hadoop', 'Big Data'] |
Why Does “Ugly Design” Sometimes Work Better? | Designers like to make beautiful things. Whether it’s posters, logos, websites, or apps, designers want to make things they’re proud of. Beautiful design lets a designer brag to their peers, “Hey! I did that!” Also, consumers like to buy pretty products, so it’s great when things are pretty. But is there a time in which an “ugly” design might be the better deliberate choice?
There’s a lot of ugly out there. Not all websites are beautiful; not every mobile application is gorgeous. Look at the the shelves of your grocery store. Not every product’s packaging is amazing. By default, we might assume that the creative director for those brands didn’t know what they were doing. It’s almost as if the designer doesn’t have a clue as to what works well in the real world. Maybe the company heads couldn’t tell good design from bad or maybe they didn’t have the budget for good designers?
In some examples of “ugly” design, that might very well be the case. It’s not always true though. Why? Frankly, sometimes an ugly product just sells extremely well. For example, a garish, inelegant (ugly) website might have more traffic, better sales, and more lead conversions than a beautiful competitor. What gives?
It’s because design is about communication.
At its core, design is about communicating a specific idea to a specific audience. Sometimes, design deemed ugly by an audience, is actually what works better. Here’s an example…
A Case Study About Case Studies
Years ago, we had cool, little banners on our Rocksauce website that showcased our case studies of work. When you moused over the banner, there were some minor animation and color changes. We thought they were pretty cool. We also felt like they clearly indicated to the user that their job was to click on the case studies.
When I looked at what was happening with our traction, people weren’t going to those pages. I had no idea why! We reviewed screen recordings and discovered something interesting. While people were interacting with the mouse-over (sometimes obsessively mousing over just to wiggle the animation back and forth), they simply weren’t going in any deeper.
Frustrated (and motivated in part out of spite), I took a “ well, I’ll show you!” approach to what happened next. I changed the more elegant banner to a large, inelegant “CLICK HERE” button. “Let’s see what happens now,” I thought as I tossed out the old design in favor of ugly.
What happened was a 75% increase in traffic on our case studies pages.
What Are You Communicating?
The user knew they could interact with that spot on the page, but they didn’t know why they should. I was failing them as a designer. My job was to communicate that they should go further and deeper, and I didn’t do that. Instead, I gave them something “fun” to interact with.
Being a designer for as long as I have, I’ve seen artists come up with really slick design concepts — the smallest fonts on the most negative space with navigation dictated by obtuse numbers or icons instead of language. They’ll post that work to their fellow designers on Dribbble or Behance and get a lot of thumbs up. They’re getting that “hey, good job” affirmation from fellow designers.
When those designs are rolled out to users, they don’t get any traction. Why is that the case? They’re not communicating effectively what the user needs to do. Users burn too much brain power trying to figure out what the hell is even going on with the design. Few users want to mouseover a menu multiple times just to remember where the “Contact Us” page is. Just revealing “Contact Us” in an obvious way is easier for the user and produces the desired results. It may not be slick, fun, or sexy, but it works.
A Tale of Two Sunblocks
A perfect example of this can be seen on the shelves of your favorite “big box” retailers, like Wal-Mart or Target. Go to the sunblock aisle. There are a lot of different products, but there’s probably something in a fancier, dark box with silver letter-pressed font calling itself “B L O Q” or something clever like that. It’ll look really sexy compared to the rest, and pricier than the norm, even if it’s not entirely clear what the product actually does.
Sitting right beside it is a garish plastic orange bottle with a squirt top and a logo that practically yells a brand name that states plainly what it does (something like “No Burnz!”). If you looked at sunblock sales figures, the brands like No Burnz are the sales leaders over the boutique, uniquely-designed competition. The “ugly” products communicate exactly to the user what they do, how they’re used, and what the benefits are. They’re looking for execution, not sophistication.
As is the theme in many of my videos, you have to know your box. Know your audience, and when you design, makes sure it works for that user. Never obfuscate a message just because it looks cool. Sometime saying “Call Now!” is the right thing to do (even when it feels “ugly”).
And speaking of “Call Now!,” Give Rocksauce Studios a call at 866–981–6847 or send us a message. We help our customers design and launch solutions that people will actually use. | https://medium.com/rocksauce/why-does-ugly-design-sometimes-work-better-28020e00137f | ['Rocksauce Studios'] | 2019-12-12 17:32:07.663000+00:00 | ['Pretty Products', 'Pretty Design', 'Case Studies', 'Design', 'Ugly Design'] |
Interview with Russ Maschmeyer | In the run up to Clearleft’s Leading Design conference in London this October, the team caught up with Facebook’s Russ Maschmeyer to discuss his background, experience and thoughts on the subject of Design Leadership.
How did you make the jump into leadership?
I wish I could say it involved pulling some kind of magic laptop out of a stone or being handed a mystical iPhone by a lady in a lake. Simply put, I had the honor of being the lone designer on a team that suddenly needed to get bigger, fast. We had just finished shipping a new product after a long push and folks seemed to think I had handled the pressure well and therefore might be the right person to grow the team. They asked and I accepted. Thus began my career in design management.
Tell us about your typical day. Is it all meetings?
I’m back to being a designer again actually, but up until recently my typical day as a manager was truly wall-to-wall meetings. Internal product reviews, external product reviews, 1:1s with my designers, 1:1s with various product partners, critiques, meetings with other design managers, leadership roundtables, meeting with other teams we partnered with, project brainstorms… The list goes on. Lunch was often whatever protein bar I could grab in a mini-kitchen on the way to my next meeting!
What was the last thing you “designed”?
I’m currently designing tools to help elected representatives connect with their constituents. Even when I was managing I never stopped designing. I was always working on something, whether it was a personal to-do-list app or a dining-room table (I caught a powerful woodworking bug).
What makes a great design leader?
I want to draw a distinction between leadership and management. What makes a great design manager is care for the people you manage. Full stop. You’ve got to spend a great deal of time thinking about where the designers on your team are at in their skill and career progression and figure out how to help them grow and stretch themselves so that they can do their best work and have impactful careers. All the best managers I’ve known really connect with their reports and form lasting bonds. What makes a great leader is different. A great design leader inspires you to fall in love with a big problem that needs solving, and pushes you further than you thought you could go toward an elegant solution. To find someone who is both a great leader and a great manager is an exceptionally rare thing.
What do most new leaders get wrong?
Too many new leaders don’t seek out enough help and guidance on how to lead. There’s this cognitive dissonance that comes with being anointed a leader. It’s so counterintuitive to seek guidance when you’re supposed to be leading. After all, you’re the leader, you’re supposed to have all the answers. But that’s exactly what all new leaders need: a lot of advice, training, and support.
How would you describe your own leadership style?
I spend a lot of my energy trying to frame complex problem spaces in approachable ways. If you can make it clear to everyone on the team what the big problem is and how it breaks down into smaller, more incremental problems to solve, then you can empower everyone to bring their best ideas to the table and coordinate efforts organically.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced managing people?
Changing the culture of a team is hard, but changing the perceived culture of a team is even harder. Once there’s a perception out there, people will self-select in or out of that culture, thereby reinforcing it and making it even more difficult to change. This is why team culture is such an important thing to stay on top of. Once it veers off track, it’s a Herculean task to put it back on course.
What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t wing it. Ask a design manager you respect to mentor you. Take every management training course your company offers. Read at least one great tactical book on design management. The few hours/days it takes to accomplish these relatively simple tasks will pay enormous dividends.
—
Join Russ, the Clearleft team and a host of other fantastic speakers at Leading Design, 25–27 October 2017 — book your tickets athttps://2017.leadingdesignconf.com/tickets | https://medium.com/leading-design/interview-with-russ-maschmeyer-e3057f39df48 | ['Rowena Price'] | 2017-09-19 16:35:43.764000+00:00 | ['Design Leadership', 'Leadership Development', 'Leadership', 'Design', 'Interview'] |
How to Generate Random Text CAPTCHAs Using Python | Creating the Canvas
First, we need to import the ImageFont , ImageDraw , and Image modules from PIL:
from PIL import ImageFont, ImageDraw, Image
Now, we have to create a blank image object. For this, we first need to create a three-dimensional (for the three color channels) numpy zeros array:
import numpy as np
img = np.zeros(shape=(25, 60, 3), dtype=np.uint8)
This gives us an array where each element represents a pixel of the image, the size of the image being 60x25 pixels:
To create an image from this array, we call Image ’s fromarray() method:
The image is black because each pixel has a value of (0, 0, 0) , which corresponds to the brightness of the red, green, and blue pixels. Brightness has a value between 0 (darkest) and 255 (brightest). To get a white image, just add 255 to the image array:
Since we need a white background, we’ll use the last canvas. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-generate-random-text-captchas-using-python-e734dd2d7a51 | ['Siddhant Sadangi'] | 2020-05-30 17:54:16.505000+00:00 | ['Code', 'Python', 'Programming', 'Security', 'Cybersecurity'] |
Plastic Pollution, From The Ocean To The Sea | Take your pick: 822,000 times the Eiffel Tower, 25,000 the Empire State Building, or 80 million Blue Whales. These examples provide an idea of the total amount of small plastic fragments floating at the surface of the Ocean. Plastic pollution is pervasive in world oceans and has gained large attention from the media, the public and the governments. The urgency of this issue was recognized by nearly 200 countries that signed jointly the UN draft Resolution on Marine Litter and Microplastics.
Actually, there is a lot of uncertainty about the distribution and the fate of plastic once it enters the ocean. A first global assessment of the total amount of small plastic fragments floating indicates that the total weight ranges between 93 and 236 million metric tons. It has been estimated that 8.3 billion metric tons of virgin plastic have been produced. With no action that volume is projected to be 1 kg of plastic for every 3 kg of fish and more plastic than fish by 2050.
About 30% of these 1 billion elephants worth of plastic weighting equivalent material is still in use, 10% has been incinerated and the remaining 60% has been discarded and is now landfilled or lost in the natural environment, including the ocean.
Among the large quantity of information available, it is difficult to differentiate exaggerated alarms from miracle solutions, while taking into account unknown but potential risks of plastic pollution. Scientific evidence shows a complex reality.
Upon entering the ocean, plastic goes through several processes of degradation that break up large items into microplastics (they are not visible to the eye). At the global level, most of the data on the abundance and mass of plastic particles in the ocean have been collected with fine trawled nets that do not efficiently sample smaller fragments. It is like pouring sand with a beach sieve that is not able to separate the smallest shells. This estimated amount of microplastics at the surface of the ocean represents approximately 1% of the 8 million metric tons of plastic waste that are estimated to enter the ocean from land-based inputs each year. Abusing the elephant metaphor, we can see 1 single elephant’s fur and not all the 1 billion elephants.
In terms of where this plastic ends up, data are currently missing on plastic concentration in the water column and in sediments. It is unknown where more than 95% of ocean plastic debris ends up. The future challenge is, therefore, to quantify how much is in there. Estimates of the amount of plastic that enters in each ocean compartment are necessary in order to be able to estimate the potential impacts of plastic pollution.
Looking at a smaller case, that of the Mediterranean Sea, more details emerge.
A total of 247 billion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating in the Mediterranean Sea weighing 23,150 tons or the equivalent of 115 Blue Whales, with the surface plastic load estimated between 1,000 and 3,000 tons.
How does plastic pollution affect the Mediterranean Sea?
In the context of the global-scale distribution, the Mediterranean has some of the highest concentrations of floating plastics and microplastics in the world and is even proposed as the sixth great accumulation zone for marine litter in addition to the five main ocean gyres. A total of 247 billion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating in the Mediterranean Sea weighing 23,150 tons or the equivalent of 115 Blue Whales, with the surface plastic load estimated between 1,000 and 3,000 tons. The problem stems from the human pressure associated with the high concentration of people and economic activities along the coasts, combined with the hydrodynamics of the semi-enclosed basin, which together contributes to the accumulation of plastic in the Sea.
Where is it coming from?
Bordered by Europe to the north, Asia to the east, and Africa to the south, the Mediterranean Sea has marine litter entering from land-based sources on twenty-one countries on three separate continents. Land sources constitute the majority of pollution and typically include tourism and recreational use of the coast, local industry and businesses, general public litter, illegal dumping, ports and harbours, and unprotected landfills. Ocean-based sources of marine litter, on the other hand, include merchant shipping, ferries and cruise liners, commercial and recreational fishing vessels, military fleets, research vessels, pleasure crafts, and offshore installations, like oil and gas platforms, drilling rigs, and aquaculture sites.
Of all marine litter, the total annual input of plastic into the Mediterranean Sea is currently estimated to be 100,000 tons per year: total coastal population inputs account for 50%, river-borne plastic 30%, and inputs distributed along shipping lanes 20%.
In Europe, there is a fairly good understanding of the lifecycle of plastic. Plastics production, demand, and waste data provide insight on what plastics are made and used for, and where they end up at the end of their useful life. The highest share of the 2016 European plastic market was represented by packaging (39.9%), followed by building and construction (19.7%); the automotive industry (10%); electrical and electronics (6.2%); household, leisure, and sport (4.2%); agriculture (3.3%); and other uses such as appliances, mechanical engineering, furniture, and medical, to name a few (16.7%).
More plastic waste was recycled than landfilled in Europe for the first time in 2016 when over 8.4 million tons of plastic waste were collected to be recycled, including 27.1 million tons of post-consumer plastic waste — up 79% from 2006. Of the post-consumer plastic waste, 41.6% was used in energy recovery, 3.31% was recycled, and 27.3% was sent to landfills. Plastic waste recycling increased by almost 80% over the same 10-year period; energy recovery also increased by 61% and landfilling decreased by 43%. The geographic trend is not uniform across Europe, and generally, countries with more landfill restrictions on recyclable and recoverable waste see higher recycling rates of post-consumer plastic waste.
Where is it going?
In contrast to the ocean, any long-term accumulation of plastics at the sea surface in the Mediterranean would be unlikely. Research modeling the distribution of plastic finds substantial accumulation on the coastlines and to a lesser extent the sea bottom, noting that the plastic pollution of almost every country’s coastline is mainly caused by its own terrestrial sources of plastics. In the majority of Mediterranean countries, more than 50% of plastics come from their own terrestrial inputs; especially high percentages are seen in Italy (almost 80%), Turkey, Morocco, Israel, Spain, France, Syria, Egypt, Albania, and Tunisia. Only Malta receives more maritime plastics (78%) than plastics from its own terrestrial sources.
In the Adriatic Sea — the northern branch of the Mediterranean Sea, modeling shows that floating debris distributions correspond to the spatial distributions of plastic debris inputs from rivers, cities, and shipping lanes over the long term, and indicates a strong connection with the general circulation patterns of the Adriatic Sea, following the Western Adriatic Coastal Current. Seasonally, plastics move to the basin’s interior in winter, to the northern Adriatic in spring, moving out of the middle and southern Adriatic in summer, and spread to the southeastern Adriatic in autumn. The shoreline of the Adriatic Sea is the main sink of floating debris; for example, the coastline of the Po Delta in Italy receives a plastic flux of approximately 70 kg/km/day.
How can we monitor and reduce marine litter?
Researchers continue to define and explore the problem and potential solutions associated with marine litter and plastic pollution. In the Adriatic Sea, the first assessment of marine litter and strategy for reducing marine litter pollution were completed under DeFishGear, a project which also improved knowledge on microplastic pollution and a developed a regional network of experts. CMCC participated, focusing on the definition of optimal methodologies for monitoring marine litter. The overall project aim was to address the problem of marine litter and the economic impact on coastal communities. This included monitoring the quantity of microplastics and their effects on marine organisms, as well as setting up a system for collecting and recycling derelict fishing gear, and collecting floating litter and litter from the sea bottom caught in nets while fishing. A coordinated and integrated international approach was developed to measure and monitor marine litter and microplastics on the coasts as well as in the sea and on the seabed.
Can we clean up the plastic already in the ocean?
Numerous ideas and projects propose to recover plastic from the ocean, yet none have been proven. Some of the initiatives include ocean clean up arrays, various types of plastic-eating drones, and vessels that propose to remove plastic litter from the surface of the ocean. These methods only target surface floating plastic fragments and generally are not able to collect plastic particles smaller than 1 cm. This means that they leave out more than 99% of plastic estimated to be in the ocean. Therefore the amount of plastic that could be removed by these innovations is infinitesimal when considered against the plastic already in the ocean and that continues to enter the ocean every day.
What’s the outlook?
According to UNEP, the most urgent short-term solution to reducing plastic inputs into the ocean is the improvement of wastewater and solid waste collection and management. Reducing mismanaged plastic waste mainly requires implementing adequate infrastructure and waste management practices as well as educating the behaviours of consumers. On the longer term, a more sustainable solution will be moving towards a more circular economy, in which waste is designed out of the production and use cycle, and society adopts more sustainable consumption patterns. For example: reduce the use of single-use plastic items, and phase out microbeads in cosmetics and other products where it can be substituted with non-harmful alternatives.
As reducing, reusing, and recycling are the best ways to limit the amount of plastics that end up as marine litter, it appears that Europe is making progress to decrease the amount of plastic that could potentially enter the Mediterranean Sea as pollution. In terms of the policy, improving resource efficiency is a large part of Europe’s work towards achieving a circular economy, and addressing the lifecycle of plastics is a critical step along the way. Particularly, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive obliges European member states to monitor and reduce their marine litter. Yet, the problem of plastic pollution is great, and much work is needed to eliminate plastic pollution as a component of marine litter at the source. | https://cmccclimate.medium.com/plastic-pollution-from-the-ocean-to-the-sea-a2b206e8c435 | [] | 2019-07-26 10:04:18.401000+00:00 | ['Mediterranean Sea', 'Environment', 'Plastic Pollution', 'Ocean Conservation', 'Marine Litter'] |
Getting Tactical With Pierre Leclerc, Creator of Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark | SUPERJUMP
You used Kickstarter to help fund the game, where you were very specific in saying that the game would get made no matter how much money was raised through that campaign. Was that your way of addressing the perception that a lot of projects on that platform don’t ever get made or don’t deliver on their promises, and do you think it helped your campaign be more successful?
PIERRE LeCLERC
Our policy is always to be as transparent as possible, so we try to make things as direct as we can. Kickstarter is a great platform and it helps a lot with visibility and credibility, amongst other things. As I mentioned before, we spent many years preparing for Fell Seal by building up our savings so we always felt confident we would get the game finished one way or another, even if our Kickstarter didn’t pan out. But a successful Kickstarter helped us make sure we could get all the art we wanted and gave us a solid visibility boost and gave us a presence with many sites that otherwise wouldn’t have covered our project. The bottom line is that we mainly wanted to be upfront with backers: their contribution was very important and would help us a lot, but at the same time, the project was going to finish regardless.
I can’t say if it helped or not with our Kickstarter being successful: it’s a complex environment with a lot of variables. I can say we learned a lot from it though and we think our next Kickstarter should be even more successful! 😊
SUPERJUMP
As a follow-up to that, now that you’ve gone through a Kickstarter campaign, would you recommend it to small game studios looking to fund their projects, and are there any pitfalls a first-timer might watch out for?
PIERRE LeCLERC
That’s a good question that I think anyone wanted to make a project on Kickstarter should actually ask themselves. A serious Kickstarter is a lot of work. You have to create the page, create a ton of assets for it, videos, GIFs, screenshots, texts, tiers, etc. But that’s just the start. Once the KS is live, you have to stay active in the comments, prepare cross promotions, advertise it in reddit threads, forums, etc, and all these places require you to be very active in those threads, otherwise they will die out quickly. The bottom line is: it’s very close to full-time work for a month for a single person.
Regardless of the size/amount of the KS, I’d say you’ll need to put in that month of work if you’re serious about it, so you have to make sure the amount of money you’re hoping to get makes sense for the amount of time spent on the KS.
I’m not sure about pitfalls specifically. It’s mostly about making sure you do all you can to get your project out there. One tip I can mention is to not be shy about contacting other indie devs and even big studios. Our Kickstarter got some visibility by the very awesome folks at inXile and Obsidian Studio for example.
From my experience, small indie devs are usually very happy to help other indie devs and large studios with an indie style (or that use crowdfunding themselves) are also very friendly. Conversely, other large studios and very successful indie devs are extremely unlikely to ever respond to you. Still, you never know until you ask. 😊
SUPERJUMP
One of the hot topics among our readers is the various game engines and design platforms available to devs, and how each one fits certain game styles. Could you share which game engine you used to create Fell Seal, and why you chose it?
PIERRE LeCLERC
Before Fell Seal, my own background was mostly in C, CPP and ASM (author’s note: ASM is Assembly language) and while I absolutely love making all my own libraries from scratch, I had done so in Black Sigil and the project ended up taking a very long time. For Fell Seal, I wanted to make sure the project would be much faster, so a “ready engine” was wanted from the start.
We used Unity for Fell Seal. Mainly, I had used Unity in previous jobs and they released their new “2D Sprite system” roughly when we were planning Fell Seal, so I picked it up to “run some tests”. My tests quickly became some tools for our artist and then an engine for Fell Seal, so we went from there.
There are pros and cons to Unity, but from what I know of alternatives and what I’ve seen of Unity, I’m happy with our choice and I wouldn’t change it. As a personal suggestion though: if you’re a programmer, you should probably use Unity as a programmer would, rather than as a designer/artist would. Unity’s recommended ways of things and all of their framework is very targeted to designers/artists rather than programmers. Doing things that way makes for code that is less reusable and less robust than regular C# code would be (in my opinion, at least).
SUPERJUMP
One of the things that has been lauded by reviewers is the plethora of difficulty settings you built into the game. Why was it important for you to offer such a granular set of options and sliders? Did it have a major impact on development in terms of time and resources?
PIERRE LeCLERC
When we were designing the difficulty system, we quickly ended up with many granular settings that we wanted to be able to tune. You can see the whole game is designed that way, especially if you get into modding and want to change the game’s behavior. We have that large option text file where you can change hundreds of values one by one if you want to.
Under the hood, all the difficulty settings were going to be granular anyways, so we decided to give the player the option to change them “1 by 1”, as well as with a global predefined way for ease of use. Adding the difficulty settings in itself took time and resources for sure, but I don’t think making them more granular impacted that in any meaningful way. | https://medium.com/super-jump/getting-tactical-with-pierre-leclerc-creator-of-fell-seal-arbiters-mark-57a6178a2aa8 | ['Bryan Finck'] | 2020-07-25 13:32:23.271000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Product Management', 'Interview', 'Startup', 'Videogames'] |
Redux vs. Storeon: An App to App Comparison | Actions & Reducers (Redux)
As we saw at the folder level earlier, with Redux we split up our reducers into separate files, then combined them in an index.js file under /reducers , and exported the result to be used by our store.
Let’s take a closer look at how our reducer for counting is setup in Redux:
count.js (Redux reducer for our counting state)
To give you some context, all we basically have are a few actions to increment and decrement the counter, as well as an action to let the UI know when the counter is “loading”.
What does the reducer for Storeon look like?
Well… if I show you, it will spoil everything, so bear with me while I show you the Redux action creators for updating the counter:
async action creators (Redux)
If you are familiar with Thunk middleware, this is nothing special.
We dispatch our “loading” actions called INCREASING and DECREASING . Then we call our fake api (passing in # of seconds to wait), and dispatch our INCREMENT or DECREMENT actions when the promise resolves. Then we call an action called LOG_HISTORY , which we’ll take a look at soon.
If you are use to Redux, this may seem like a simple enough process.
Events & Modules (Storeon)
Storeon will be new for many of you, so I’m going to break it down into bite sized pieces. We will start by creating a module to handle our counter state.
basic module and state initialization
When working with Storeon, you work with events and modules. Modules are how we organize different pieces of state logic, and the events we setup inside of those modules define how we interact with that state from the outside world.
We begin by creating and exporting our module called countModule . Storeon will pass the store object to each of the modules we pass to createStore , as I showed earlier. The store object is how we setup events, and dispatch actions. Storeon has a few built in events, such as @init , which is where we setup our initial state. See the docs to read about the other built in events.
Okay, so there isn’t enough here yet to make a good comparison between Redux and Storeon. Let’s add a couple of events that will act as “reducers” in Redux terms:
Our first action events!
Right below our initialization event, we create two new events named count/increasing and count/increase . Basically, this is like our “loading vs. loaded” actions. We use a path naming convention [module-name]/[event-name] to avoid name clashing, since storeon references events by a unique string (like Redux reducers).
You might have noticed that there aren’t any “reducers” and “actions” in the exact same sense as Redux. Well, with Storeon, there isn’t a strict separation of the two in the way we use them in Redux.
In our UI, if we called store.dispatch('count/increase') , our event would be triggered, and the state would be updated.
This is great, because now we have both our “action” and “reducer” in one place, making it much easier to follow!
Events vs. Action Creators
Let’s make an event that calls these “reducer” like events we just created, then calls an api, and finally updates our counter. Here’s a screenshot with our Storeon event on the left, and our Redux action creator equivalent to the right: | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/redux-vs-storeon-an-app-to-app-comparison-8066c63ad97f | ['Kris Guzman'] | 2020-03-27 17:36:02.290000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'Software Development', 'React', 'Programming'] |
“It’s getting dark” — A Short Story | “It’s getting dark” — A Short Story
They didn’t know if they would get out of there.
Photo by Simon Wijers on Unsplash
She was cautiously looking outside the window. Something wasn’t right. They had arrived at the vacation house two days ago for a quick weekend getaway. But something had happened. By the sound of it, it seemed that all the animals had gone crazy. All you could hear was constant growling and howling. Julie was afraid to even go outside by herself. A couple of times she had even seen some wolves lurking around.
When she was little, she spent most of her summers there, playing with toys outside. Back then they were always hoping to see some animals as it was a rare thing to happen. Today it was different.
“Jake! Come take a look!” She shouted out. “They are here all over again.” He dashed down the stairs. “What’s going on?” The wolves were dragging plants from the ground, clawing at trees and the shed. Some were even climbing on their car.
“What the hell is happening? What are we going to do, Jake?” she asked nervously.
“This is not right. Something has happened to them. We need to get back to the city,” Jake answered.
“How are we supposed to do that?”
“Check your phone. Do you have service?”
“No.. P…Po… Power is also out.”
“That’s not good. We need to get to the car before they scrap it.”
It had gotten very dark already. It was hard to see anything outside. Some blurry silhouettes of creatures were the only thing their eyes could separate. The sounds were getting worse.
“There must be a lot of them,” she uttered.
“I’m gonna get the flashlight. We must hurry or we’ll be here forever, “ mentioned Jake.
“They are scraping the door already. I’m scared to go outside. “
“I understand. I’m also not so thrilled about it. But it’s the only way to get out,” Jake answered. “But we must use the back door.”
Suddenly they heard glass shattering. “That can’t be good.” It was a modestly small house. They could hear the animals moving around the house. Some steps sounded way too heavy.
“For sure, these aren’t only wolves, ” mentioned Jake. “But let’s move. Let’s take the back door.”
They ran through the living room until they reached the small lobby at the back. “It seems quiet.” Jake pushed the door open a little and peeked outside. “I can’t see anybody. But it’s really dark. Do you have the keys?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s go. Carefully.”
They heard a loud roar extremely close.
“Something’s moving there,” said Julie.
“It’s coming closer! Quick, inside!”
They managed to jump inside, while the monster was left behind clawing the door. They dropped to the ground breathing heavily. “What was that?”
“No idea. It can’t be good. There’s no way we are going back out there. Maybe it’s better to wait for the morning.” | https://medium.com/collective-unconscious/its-getting-dark-a-short-story-84e028987f5 | ['Erios De Kir'] | 2019-11-20 17:12:55.381000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Short Story', 'Flash Fiction', 'Horror', 'Writing'] |
‘Transitioning’ Out of The American Dream | ‘Transitioning’ Out of The American Dream
Taking the leap of faith as a middle age, middle class parent to embrace a transgender identity and life journey
Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
… I sat on the edge of our bed, shivering in fear of what I was about to do. With a few short words, I was going to destroy a dream and a family I had worked an entire life to be a part of. It was dark in our room; my wife had just returned from putting our 6-year-old son and 5-month-old daughter to bed. As she came into the room, she noticed me there, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” She asked in a concerned voice.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I was paralyzed with fear, and all I could do was stare at my wife with a dumbfounded expression. My wife must have sensed it because the urgency of her tone increased, and she began to yell frantically
“<Full Dead Name>! I demand you tell me what’s going on right now; you are really scaring me!”
Something happened at that moment, and all of a sudden, it felt like I was outside my body and observing myself in the 3rd person. I felt a strange numbness wash over me and I began to speak, but it felt as though the words coming from my mouth did not originate from me…
The American Dream overall has been rejected by younger people today. The Norman Rockwell picture of America and the nuclear family no longer applies to their vision of the future, or the evolution of the human race as a whole. Personally, I am glad to see it go.
Many of us older Millennials and Gen X, however, were brainwashed at a young age into the importance of the suburban home and the nuclear family. This philosophy was paired with the significance of high-earning corporate jobs that pay for all of it.
As a kid who grew up in a welfare home, I wanted it all the more because my parents couldn’t provide me that “perfect life.” I was determined I was going to grow up and be a “better man.” This meant dedicating my life to this idealistic future and the family values model at all costs. This was impressed on me at a young age and ingrained in my psyche.
Something else also began stirring in my head around the same time. Something both incompatible and ultimately destructive to these goals.
A child of 5
A child of 5 years doesn’t typically comprehend gender beyond basic observations of clothing, toys, and body parts, although they can begin to feel as though something is wrong. I was no different. I had no revelations at 4-years-old that I should be a girl or that my penis was wrong for my body. What I can point out are some distinct early memories that began to shape the feeling that something about me was different:
I distinctly remember a day where I was in my bedroom talking to my imaginary friend. I was lying on the bed with my feet propped up against the wall staring at the ceiling. I must have been 4 or 5, and I told him (my imaginary friend) “I wonder what it’s like to be a girl.”
This thought wasn’t just a passing musing, and it weighed on my heart heavy, like it was a question that needed an immediate answer. I recall at one point that I brought the matter to my mom, but I don’t remember the conversation or her response. All I remember is the initial question, and how it never really went away and continued to surface for the rest of my life.
This thought wasn’t just a passing musing, and it weighed on my heart heavy, like it was a question that needed an immediate answer. I recall at one point that I brought the matter to my mom, but I don’t remember the conversation or her response. All I remember is the initial question, and how it never really went away and continued to surface for the rest of my life. I was six years old, and I crawled into the laundry basket and found my mom’s nylons. I remember pulling them out and feeling the strange material. I liked the way they felt, and I was curious. I put them on and came out into the living room. I remember my dad getting angry with me, but my mom just laughed and told me to stay put. I felt weird but also felt comfortable at the same time. I was in the living room playing when my mom came back from her bedroom with her old Minolta SLR and snapped some pictures. To this day, I still have them in the family scrapbook. I don’t remember anything else from that year or the year after in my childhood, yet this memory is still very vivid to this day.
A 15-year-old boy
A 15-year-old boy’s sexuality comes alive as testosterone floods their body and brain. Everything is new and awkward, and both their chemistry and societal pressure encourages the exploration of physical attraction. This time, I WAS different than other kids of my age.
I was attracted to girls, but the manner in which I was attracted was different. It was not that I didn’t desire to be close to them; because I did. The difference was that I wished to BE them, not just with them. Whenever I experienced intimacy with a female, I always pictured myself from their point of view.
It was around this time in my life that I once again came in possession of female attire. I was in a freshman Shakespeare performance, and I was given a few pairs of women’s tights as I was to play Baptista in “The Taming of the Shrew.” Like the other boys, I felt silly putting them on and being seen on stage in them. But it did not take long for that feeling to turn into comfort and enjoyment.
A few days after the performance, the items were sitting in the corner of my room. I put them on, and figured I might as well try to make a full outfit… you know… to experiment. I cut an old pair of jeans down to booty shorts, put on a t-shirt and tied up the bottom to make it more of a midriff shirt, and I put on some calf-length sox and bunched them up like the cheerleaders at school. I also had long hair at the time, so I brushed it out as much as I could, and I went and stood in front of my full-length mirror.
“There was no denying anymore that I was no typical teenage boy, but at that moment, I didn’t care, nor the moments like it that came in the future.”
As I stared at myself in the mirror, I smiled at the aesthetic I had created. But the joy suddenly drained from my face as I mentally began to grapple with the reality of what I was doing. I felt this intense guilt because after all, this was not “right or normal.” I also had this intense fear that my dad could walk in on me at any moment.
Despite all that, I couldn’t get over the profound satisfaction the figure in the mirror brought to me. I closed my eyes and imagined myself as one of the cheerleaders, and I hummed our pep rally chant a while in my head. There was no denying anymore that I was no typical teenage boy, but at that moment, I didn’t care, nor the moments like it that came in the future.
Over the next couple of years, I played around with my gender expressions in secret, dreamed about how much my life would be better as a female. There were so many experiences during this time, so many things that brought me pleasure, confusion, and shame, often all at once.
Despite all that, however, it all came to an end at 18 years. Old. A girl I liked brought me to her church, and the trajectory of the rest of my life changed forever, but that is another story. All you need to know here is that my dysphoria took a backseat to attempt to build a life in church ministry, failing miserably, and then falling back on my old standby… following the American Dream.
A man of 35 years old
A man of 35 years old opens the closet in the master bedroom. I had spent the last 20 years trying to forget what I did as a teenager. I had built myself a castle, and wanted to fill it with love, a family, material possessions… in other words… the American Dream. But I was empty inside and devoid of emotion.
I blamed my obesity, a previous failed marriage and divorce, the failure of my business, the death of my mom, the suicide of a cousin, and multiple other deaths in my family. But it was all just excuses I used to hide the truth from others; the fact that I hated being a man.
I hated pretending to have male interests for the sole purpose of trying to bond with and make male friends. I was always better friends with women and rarely made or kept male friends. The ones I did make were typically beta males who shared my affinity for all things nerdy.
I did glance at women, but when I looked, I didn’t say to myself, “I want to sleep with her.” I said to myself, “that outfit makes her look amazing. I wish I looked like that.” I had lived with this for so long, and I was numb to what I was doing. I never even questioned it anymore; I just accepted that it was a part of me.
All that brings me to this milestone, standing in an open closet. My wife and kids were out shopping, and I glanced over at her dresses. My wife and I are both larger people, but I had been losing weight, so I said to myself,
“it’s been a long time since I’ve even touched women’s clothes; I wonder how it would feel. We are both about the same size… why not see what I look like, can’t hurt anything, right?”
I grabbed a short length red dress off a hanger and slid awkwardly into it. It was a bit tight, but I was able to get into it. I dug through the drawers and found a black pair of tights and some Spanx and got them on.
“I locked eyes with my reflection, and it was as though there was another person there, a woman, trapped in the mirror.”
Finally, I found some heels in the closet; and was surprisingly able to squeeze my feet into them. Also, I found some makeup in a drawer and figured, “might as well,” so I hurriedly threw that on as well.
I wobbled over to the full-length mirror to have a look. I wasn’t winning any beauty contest, but something happened as I stared into the mirror: I locked eyes with my reflection, and it was as though there was another person there, a woman, trapped in the mirror. Constance! Her name was Constance. Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me where the name came from. But she was Constance from that day on. She smiled at me, and I knew I had opened the door to Pandora’s Box, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in fear and excitement. | https://medium.com/gender-from-the-trenches/transitioning-out-of-the-american-dream-734be48e468b | ['Constance Rowan'] | 2019-11-14 00:35:07.091000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'LGBTQ', 'Short Story', 'Transgender', 'This Happened To Me'] |
dApp Builder at community meetup in Seoul on May 17 | The dApp Builder team in Korea has presented the Platform at its meetup in Seoul on May 17
The has spoken on a topic “dApp Builder: Blockchain App Store and Smart Contracts Marketplace” at the meetup. They also explored how dApp Builder plans to establish a community reviewed smart contract marketplace and make it in a way where anyone can make an Etherium dApp.
What is dApp Builder
dApp Builder is a platform to create Ethereum dApps from prebuilt smart contracts (no coding) and instantly deploy them to blockchain.
dApp Builder establishes a community reviewed smart contract marketplace.
dApp Builder exists to make it so that anyone can start an Etherium dApp.
dApp Marketplace will enable anyone to create, customize, and deploy their decentralized applications.
If you are interested in trying the released functionality please go here https://dappbuilder.io/ and sign up.
Stay in touch for updates via | https://medium.com/ethereum-dapp-builder/dapp-builder-at-blockchain-summit-in-seoul-on-may-17-9870d7ac7ed4 | ['Dapp Builder Team'] | 2018-05-22 17:15:20.178000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Forget APIs Do Python Scraping Using Beautiful Soup, Import Data File from the web: Part 2 | Beautiful Soup is the best Library to scrap the data from a particular website or the Internet. And it is most comfortable to work on also. It parses and extracts structured data from HTML. Beautiful Soup automatically transforms incoming texts to Unicode and outgoing versions to UTF-8. You don’t have to remember about encodings except the document doesn’t define an encoding, and Beautiful Soup can’t catch one. Then you have to mention the original encoding.
Rules: To run your program, please use Jupyter python environment to run your program. Instead of running the whole program at once. We are just taking precaution, so your program doesn’t break the website. Please check out the website term and conditions before you start pulling out data from there. Be sure you read the statement about the legal use of data.
Basic-Getting Familiar with HTML
HTML code plays an essential role in extracting data from the website. So, before we processed, let us jump to the basic of the HTML tags. If you have got a tiny bit of knowledge of HTML tags, you can move ahead to the next level.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<h1> Learning about Data</h1>
<p> Beautiful Soup</p>
<body>
</html>
This is the basic syntax of an HTML webpage. Every <tag> serves a block inside the webpage:
1. <!DOCTYPE html>: HTML documents must start with a type declaration.
2. The HTML document is contained between <html> and </html>.
3. The meta and script declaration of the HTML document is between <head> and </head>.
4. The visible portion of the HTML document is between <body> and </body> tags.
5. Title headings are defined with the <h1> through <h6> tags.
6. Paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag.
Other useful tags include <a> for hyperlinks, <table> for tables, <tr> for table rows, and <td> for table columns.
Let’s Check your HTML page
Let us take a Wikipedia page to do the scrapping. If you have google chrome, then go to the page, first right-click on it and open your browser inspector to inspect the webpage.
Inspect Wikipedia Page
From the result you can see the table is inside the wiki table sortable and if you inspect it more you can find all of your table information there, it’s fantastic yeah!!!. It’s going to be more amazing to see what you can do with beautiful soup.
Wikitable Sortanble
Let’s Start Your DIY project
Now we know about our data and where it is located. So, we are going to start scrapping our data.
Before we process, You need to install or import some libraries.
#Import Libraries
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
if you face any trouble in your installation, you can use sudo in front of every line.
Requests
It is meant to be used by humans to communicate with the language. This suggests you don’t have to manually join query strings to URLs, or form-encode your POST data. Requests will enable you to send HTTP/1.1 requests utilizing Python. In it, you can combine content like headers, form data, multipart files, and parameters by through simple Python libraries. It also enables you to obtain the response data of Python in the same way.
BS4 — BeautifulSoup
Beautiful Soup is a Python library for extracting data out of HTML and XML files. It works with your favourite parser to produce natural ways of operating, examining and transforming the parse tree. It usually saves programmers hours or days of work.
url = requests.get(‘ # Specify with which URL/web page we are going to be scrapingurl = requests.get(‘ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_countries_by_area ’).text
We begin by studying the source code for a given web page and building a BeautifulSoup (soup)object with the BeautifulSoup function.Now, we need to use Beautiful Soap function which will help us parse and apply with the HTML we fetched from our Wikipedia page:
# import the BeautifulSoup library so we can parse HTML and XML documents from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
Then we are going to use Beautiful Soup to parse the HTML data that we have collected in our ‘URL’ variable, and we assign a different variable to store the data in Beautiful Soup format called ‘Soup.’
#Parse the HTML from our URL into the BeautifulSoup parse tree format soup = BeautifulSoup(url, "lxml")
To get a concept of the structure of the underlying HTML in our web page, use Beautiful Soup’s prettify function and check it.
#To look at the HTML underlying to the web
print(soup.prettify())
This is what we get from the prettify() function :
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="client-nojs" dir="ltr" lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<title>
List of Asian countries by area - Wikipedia
</title>
<script>
If you visit this link and have a look to our Wikipedia page for the Asian countries, we can see there is little bit more information about the country areas. The wikipedia table already setup-which make our work more easy.
Let’s have a look for it in our prettify HTML:
And there it is,Beginning with an HTML <table> tag with a class identifier of “wikitable sortable.” We will remember this class for future use. If you go down in your program, you will see how the table is made up, and you will have a look at the rows begin and finish with <tr> and </tr> tags.
The first row of headers has <th> tags while the data rows underneath for every club has <td> tags. Using the <td> tags that we are going to tell Python to secure our data from.
Before we go ahead, let’s work out some Beautiful Soup functions to demonstrate how it captures and can deliver data to us from the HTML website. If we do the title function, Beautiful Soup will return the HTML tags for the heading and the content within them.
#To get the title of the page
soup.title()
We can use this information to start preparing our attack on the HTML.
We know the data remains within an HTML table so firstly, we give Beautiful Soup off to retrieve all occurrences of the <table> tag within the page and add them to an array called all_tables.
# use the 'find_all' function to bring back all instances of the 'table' tag in the HTML and store in 'all_tables' variable all_tables=soup.find_all("table") all_tables
Under table class ‘wikitable sortable’ we have links with country name as the title.
# use the 'find_all' function to bring back all instances of the 'table' tag in the HTML and store in 'all_tables' variable My_table = soup.find('table',{'class':'wikitable sortable'})
My_table
Under table class ‘wikitable sortable’ we have connections with country name as the title. Now, we are going to extract all the links within <a>, we used find_all().
links = My_table.findAll('a')
links
From the URL, we have to extract the title which is the name of countries. To do that, we have to create a list Countries so that we can extract the name of countries from the link and add it to the list countries.
Countries = []
for link in links:
Countries.append(link.get('title'))
print(Countries)
Now, we have to convert the list countries into Pandas DataFrame to work in python.
import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame()
df['Country'] = Countries
df
If you are interested in scrapping the data in high volume, you should consider using Scrapy, a powerful python scraping framework and also try to integrate your code with some public’s APIs.
The performance of data retrieval is significantly higher than scraping webpages. For example, take a look at Facebook Graph API, which can help you get hidden data which is not shown on Facebook webpages. Consider using a database backend like MySQL to collect your information when it gets too big.
And that carries us to the end of our Beautiful Soup tutorial. Confidently, it provides you quite to get working on to examine some scraping out for your next project. We’ve introduced request to fetch the URL and HTML data, Beautiful Soup to parse the HTML and Pandas to convert the data into a data frame for proper presentation.
You can find this tutorial notebook here. If you have question, please feel free to ask. In next tutorial we are going to talk about the APIs. Feel Free to contact me on LinkedIn .
References: 1. http://www.gregreda.com/2013/03/03/web-scraping-101-with-python/ .
2. http://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2015/10/beginner-guide-web-scraping-beautiful-soup-python/ .
3. https://github.com/stewync/Web-Scraping-Wiki-tables-using-BeautifulSoup-and-Python/blob/master/Scraping%2BWiki%2Btable%2Busing%2BPython%2Band%2BBeautifulSoup.ipynb
4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_countries_by_area
5. https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/ | https://towardsdatascience.com/forget-apis-do-python-scraping-using-beautiful-soup-import-data-file-from-the-web-part-2-27af5d666246 | ['Sahil Dhankhad'] | 2019-04-01 00:28:58.569000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Web Development', 'Data'] |
This House Is More Than a House | I know most would laugh scornfully at the thought of a house changing its structure or a dictionary as a devoted watchdog. But I’ve lived here for most of my life. This house and the objects within have strange and capricious natures.
Bedrooms appear and disappear. Stairways go everywhere and nowhere. For the favored few, the house sees into their hearts and fulfills their needs.
I want to make it clear that doesn’t include me. I tend to it with respect and the house plays no tricks on me. But that’s all.
Susannah is a different story. House has dearly loved Susannah from the moment I brought her through the door. Within its confines, it and the faithful Merriam Webster are her fiercest protectors and, unfortunately, her greatest influences.
Grandmother Iline | https://medium.com/genius-in-a-bottle/this-house-is-more-than-a-house-2c2a916bc7c6 | ['Susannah Mackinnie'] | 2020-11-09 01:59:56.854000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life', 'Fantasy', 'Childhood', 'Storytelling'] |
How To (Happily) Read More Books | I outlined this post a few weeks ago but stopped without finishing it. My impostor syndrome crept in and reminded me of the superficiality of my views: what do I have to offer on this topic?
But I do! I do! I do because I went from hardly reading any books other than school requirements to enjoying reading so much that I will pick up a book whenever I have time. Aha…I am a happy avid reader!
There are things I consciously did that helped me become who I am now. If sharing them would help those who have every intention of reading more but are struggling a bit, I should share.
So here we go — how to (happily) read more.
Don’t finish every book
You don’t need to finish every book you read, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t (other than academic books). In fact, it was my misbelief that I needed to that threw me off my reading habit on my first couple of tries. I came across a book I didn’t like, I dreaded finishing it but I had to finish that one to move on to the next one, so I stopped reading altogether.
You are not going to learn from every book you read. You are not going to like every book you read. If you like everything you read, I can’t take you that seriously. If you’ve learned one thing from a book, you’ve got your money’s worth even without finishing it.
To not waste money through, you can read the first few pages on Amazon before buying or get recommendations from people with similar interests to you.
Adam Grant’s tweet on this topic
A couple of pages every day
Like exercise, you need to get moving regularly to form the habit. Like exercise, we tend to say we don’t have time for it, but can honestly squeeze out time if we want to.
I found reading at least a couple of pages every day, whenever I have the time, is extremely helpful to form the reading habit. It will train your brain to crave reading; so eventually reading becomes a natural part of your day, and you don’t need to make extra effort to reach for books.
Mix it up — one for every mood
If you have a full-time job or have other things you spend the majority of your time on during the day, it’s often hard to focus and read a ‘serious’ book after a day’s work. During the weekend, however, you tend to be more focused to be able to learn something new.
Depending on your mood or energy, your book preference is likely to change from day to day; and you should tailor what you read to that, instead of forcing a book on yourself at the risk of stop reading altogether.
To make sure I still read something every day, I usually have 2–3 books started at the same time. During the weekend, I usually read non-fiction or more technical books. During weekdays, if I can, I prefer fiction or memoir to take my mind somewhere else at the end of the day.
Share what you’ve learned
Sharing is a great way to record what you’ve read, to gauge your personal growth through reading, to spark conversations, and to form communities.
Regularly sharing things you’ve learned from books through posts or videos online or offline can create a virtuous cycle, a positive feedback loop, to make you keep reading: | https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-to-happily-read-more-books-6f3492860937 | [] | 2020-11-28 18:21:52.045000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Habit Building', 'Reading'] |
Mathematics for Machine Learning | Mathematics for Machine Learning
An online book that provides foundational knowledge about the mathematics behind machine learning concepts.
A new online resource appeared this week which gained much attention on Twitter. Just take a look at the engagement below:
Not everyday a resource like this comes by, actually this project, according to the authors, took roughly two years to complete. I thought it was a good idea to share it with our community. This will be archived under the “Learn” tab of this publication, which is intended to highlight useful educational resources and material to learn about concepts related to machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and deep learning.
The resource I am referring to is the online book called “Mathematics for Machine Learning” by Marc Peter Deisenroth, A Aldo Faisal, and Cheng Soon Ong. I share this book here because it’s free and it contains a great introduction to the mathematics behind some of the most pervasive machine learning techniques. Some concepts include Analytic Geometry, Vector Calculus, and Continuous Optimization, among others. The summarized table of contents looks as follows:
If you ever need a place to start learning about the maths behind machine learning, then this a highly recommended book.
Besides the book itself, the open project also provides easy to follow python notebooks that include code walkthrough of concepts like Maximum Likelihood and PCA, which are all important techniques in machine learning. | https://medium.com/dair-ai/mathematics-for-machine-learning-bbbaa5fb1c06 | [] | 2019-08-23 17:42:15.456000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
Submission guidelines | Welcome to Infosec Writeups. This publication has been created with the intention of being your go-to place to find a collection of awesome write-ups from best hackers in topics ranging from bug bounties and CTFs to vulnhub machines, hardware challenges and real life encounters which are published on Medium. It aims to help people in the InfoSec community to share and discuss new ideas and methodologies and learn from each other.
Many readers are unaware of this but you can clap 50 times on any post. So, if you like something don’t think twice, leave some more claps.
Before you proceed with the article, here is our submission guidelines (with a few quick formatting tips) in video format (featuring our editor Anangsha Alammyan):
Tips: | https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/submission-guidelines-3952000f119 | ['Sai Krishna Kothapalli'] | 2020-12-23 22:12:32.681000+00:00 | ['Guidelines', 'Information Security', 'Bug Bounty', 'Publication', 'Writing'] |
Tracking Loss of Containment in Virtual Agents | Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
If your enterprise has a virtual agent (chatbot) or is thinking about building one, you will want to understand how the solution can deliver business value. “Containment” is one of the top metrics a conversational solution will be measured against. This term refers to how often the bot is able to resolve a user’s request without escalating to a human agent.
Every successful transaction within a bot can be calculated as cost savings. Business value is often realized once the solution can contain enough transactions to cover the cost of the implementation and ongoing maintenance.
Many solutions are capable of tracking the total number of interactions that escalate to a live agent. However, the reasons for transfer are myriad. Having the ability to drill down into these reasons can aid you in identifying and prioritizing where to spend your improvement efforts.
Case Study
I recently consulted with a Watson Assistant client to help them improve the containment for their virtual agent. Since the bot was already in production, the first step was to audit the dialog flows. We needed to identify which nodes were making the decision to escalate to an agent.
For each node where an escalation decision is made, we assigned one of the categories listed below and added them up. Being a fairly mature solution, this was no small task. The dialog design contained dozens of complex interaction flows. These findings were an eye-opener for the solution’s business sponsor:
Read on for a detailed description, including some mitigation techniques, for each category…
Business Process
These escalation triggers are dictated by the business. Further drill-down behind each of these triggers included:
sensitive topics (as defined by the business)
the conversational interface does not provide an ideal user experience
complex manual processing required
lack of integration with systems required for task automation
lack of automation capability (such as APIs) within integrated systems
Each one should be reviewed for enhancement opportunities. Are there places where you can simplify the steps needed to complete a task? Can you overcome the barriers that are preventing integration with backend systems? Can API’s be implemented to facilitate automation?
Some topics/goals may never be able to be contained. Others are possible, they just take time and resources. These enhancements should be prioritized according to your runtime metrics and the most urgent pain points.
Menu Choice Other
This escalation category was a bit nuanced and may not apply to all use cases. In our use case, it was very closely related to Business Process. For complex (multi-turn) dialog flows, we had a topic confirmation mechanism. (Confirmation meant we were getting the right general intent.) At some point in the flow, the user is presented with drill-down options/subtopics. All options keep the conversation contained except the last one, “Other”. The user is escalated to an agent when they select this option.
In some cases, the wording for these menu options was found to be confusing. Sometimes the instructions were poorly worded. In other scenarios, the menu choices contained jargon that might not be understood by an average user. This could cause users to select “Other” even though a valid answer option is listed among the choices.
In other cases, we discovered options that were deliberately omitted from the original scope. The strategy (which is very common for an MVP) was, “If the problem isn’t ‘x’, ‘y’, or ‘z’, it’s too complex and we just need to escalate for now.” These cases are essentially the same as the Business Process category. This approach is often rooted in the constraints of inefficient/undocumented manual business processes. Fortunately, virtual agent projects tend to drive overall business process maturity. As time goes on, look for opportunities that allow your bot to start taking on more responsibility.
Another cause of hitting this escalation point was simply part of the natural evolution for a conversational solution. You don’t know what you don’t know. But you still have to plan for this eventuality. Review your runtime logs to discover the gaps between what you thought the users would come here for and what they actually want from your bot.
Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash
Long Utterance
This escalation point was implemented only after the solution had been in production for a while. Though Watson Assistant allows a maximum of 2048 characters as input, some use cases will not come near that. Our runtime logs revealed that extremely long inputs tended to be truly complex or contained multiple, unrelated requests. Since these requests were not essential to (or representative of) the bot’s core purpose, the best user experience was to immediately escalate.
Low Confidence
When the classifier returns low confidence, it will usually provide a message such as, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand. Please rephrase your question.” It is very common to set a counter for this occurrence and escalate after 2 or 3 retries. High occurrence of escalations in this category comes down to two main causes:
poor training of the model
scope of a model does not match real-world demand
You will need to analyze your runtime logs to determine which is the cause. You may find it is a combination of the two.
This was mentioned above but bears repeating: Review your runtime logs to discover the gaps between what you thought the users would come here for and what they actually want from your bot.
Negative Feedback
#General_Negative_Feedback is a pre-built intent which you can add from the Watson Assistant Content Catalog. It detects utterances that express unfavorable feedback. When a solution escalates due to negative feedback, it is important to find out how often this is happening. If the frequency is high, you will need to review the logs (or perhaps you have survey results available) to find out why so many users are frustrated or unhappy. Some possible causes for user frustration may include:
bot user interface design
poor intent detection
unsatisfactory answers
lack of “human touch”
Review the utterances that trigger this event to find patterns in what is making the users unhappy.
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
User Requested Agent
Our use case makes a distinction between when a user requested an agent immediately vs. when a user requests an agent after the conversation had completed a few turns. We suspected that users who ask for an agent right away have either had a poor experience with the bot, or they believe that their question is too complicated for a bot. This would be the equivalent of hitting zero/operator right away in a phone menu.
You can leverage this opportunity to collect training data (or perform some basic routing) by responding with something like, “In order to direct you to the right team, please provide a brief statement about what you need.” Review these utterances to find out how often they could have been successfully resolved by the bot.
If the user is requesting an agent after the conversation is underway, you might take a look at the topic/intent that was most recently identified. If a pattern emerges, investigate. This could be poor training or a problematic business/dialog flow.
Either way, the fixes will take place over time, as you continuously improve a bot to gain your users’ confidence.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
Runtime Logs: What’s Happening in the Real World?
These categorizations can be applied, in part or in whole, in many other domains and use cases. They help narrow down actionable resolutions. This is only one side of the story, though. Before we could make any judgments or take action, we needed to start collecting data about how often each of these events occurs in production.
Our next sprint was dedicated to tagging the dialog nodes with context variables. A reporting script was implemented to scrape the runtime logs. Then, all we could do was wait for the data to start coming in.
Actionable Insights
The insights gained from this exercise were incredibly valuable. For instance, the “Low Confidence” numbers indicated some problems in our training. The chatbot team immediately got to work on classifier improvements. The model steadily improved and our escalations for this reason were cut in half over the following sprints.
The “Long Utterance” and “Negative Feedback” escalations were relatively low, so we didn’t need to spend much time on these. They just need to be monitored.
We can’t prevent the user from asking for an agent, but we can indirectly influence those categories over time, through improvement in other areas. It takes time to build trust, so we planned to monitor these as well.
The business now had a starting point for prioritizing automation efforts. This data also gave the team some enlightenment on what level of containment should reasonably be expected for this use case. In an ideal world, the majority of escalations would be due to “Business Process”, and we would see that overall volume decrease over time.
Conclusion
Understanding why a chatbot is escalating to your live agents is key to improving your overall solution. Armed with this knowledge, your organization can make data-driven choices about where to invest resources for improvement and enhancement.
If you would like help in building or improving a conversational solution, reach out to IBM Data and AI Expert Labs and Learning.
Special thanks to the reviewer: Andrew Freed | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/tracking-loss-of-containment-in-virtual-agents-dd0d1b7f97a9 | ['Cari Jacobs'] | 2020-03-27 20:55:33.757000+00:00 | ['Virtual Assistant', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Editorials And Comments', 'Conversational UI', 'Natural Language Processi'] |
4 Simple Tips to Freelance Copywriting Success | 4 Simple Tips to Freelance Copywriting Success
It doesn’t have to take years.
Photo by Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash
Copywriting isn’t very glamorous, is it? Especially when you’re comparing it to fiction or poetry. I remember an aunt once asked me what I did for a living and I told her how I helped new businesses make their first few sales and inspire brand royalty through copywriting.
Of course, most of that just sounded like gibberish to her so, she asked to read something I had written. At the time, I was working on web copy for a French fashion brand that was launching in Australia.
They were one of my biggest clients at the time and I was really proud of the work I was doing with them.
My aunt looked at the site and went, “that’s it? People pay you for that?”
Umm, rude. But to those who don’t know any better — that’s exactly what copy looks like. In fact, her reaction was a compliment.
As a copywriter, our jobs entail making things simple. Having people glance at the words we’ve written and be prompted into action. That is the power of copywriting.
Usually, the simpler the finished product looks — the better the copy. Those carefully chosen words, after weeks and sometimes months of research, lead to thousands of dollars in return for clients.
The right words at the right time, have power.
I’ve met many business owners who have made the mistake of thinking like my aunt. They think it’s simple. They could do it themselves. Why hire a copywriter?
These same business owners have emailed me after one too many failed digital ad campaigns. Wondering what went wrong. It’s just not your area of expertise. Just like I can’t do your job — you can’t do mine regardless of how simple it looks.
If you get good enough at copywriting, eventually clients look for you. Because you have a proven track record of delivering results. But how does one get into the copywriting game?
More importantly — how does one play the game to win? Copywriting isn’t easy but, it’s no rocket science.
Below you’ll find a simple checklist for good copywriting. | https://medium.com/illumination/4-simple-tips-to-freelance-copywriting-success-8612be3c16b1 | ['Zee Praise'] | 2020-12-28 14:28:34.080000+00:00 | ['Copywriter', 'Tips', 'Advice', 'Copywriting', 'Writing'] |
Meditation and Mindfulness for the Western Mind: Fab or Fad? | They are popping up everywhere and in rich varieties: hot yoga, power yoga, hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, mindfulness. Practices from within the gut of the East are gaining the trust of Westerners who may be Christians, Pentecostals, skeptics, atheists, or hipsters. Just the other day, a particularly stressed friend told me he would try yin yoga, a type of yoga where you hold your asanas (postures) for longer periods of time. This, he had been told, would bring him emotional and mental salvation. Another friend meditates at least half an hour every morning. He might kick off the day hungry, thirsty, or sleepless, but he will always perform a ritual in which he will sit silently for 30 minutes, emptying his mind and controlling his breath before starting his life anew, as he says. A third friend is always telling me that being “mindful of the moment” helped heal her emotional wounds far more effectively than years of therapy. And a fourth does yoga because she was told it would keep her fit and confident.
Pointing fingers at perhaps some degree of shallowness of the West’s Zen culture is nothing new. On the other hand, it’s an overstatement to say that everyone who practices some of the most sophisticated and millennia-old Eastern practices does so in an empty way. In our attempt to restore our inner core to equilibrium, we should rather be asking the question: Can we children of the West genuinely benefit from spiritual practices premised on religions and cultures completely different than our own?
We have the tendency to toss around words like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness as if they were all one and the same. It might be safe to assume that meditation is an umbrella term for a host of techniques and practices—like silence, breathing, emptiness, mindfulness, love, and patience — all aimed at reaching self-regulation or a heightened level of consciousness. Mindfulness is a subcategory of meditation; it’s the act of being focused on the present moment. Yoga, or the spiritual science of the mind, contains methods applying to both body and mind — ethical disciplines, physical postures, breath control — meditation included.
In this quest to understand how the Western mind can or cannot benefit from such practices, I narrowed my search to meditation and mindfulness. I spoke with C. Robert Cloninger, Wallance Renard Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the book Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being. Cloninger has produced extensive research on the correlation between mindfulness-oriented meditation and well-being.
Neuroscience-wise, his research has revealed changes in the activity of the brain’s default mode network (the part of the brain associated with self-referential processes and anything related to ego) and in the activity of the autobiographical system of learning and memory (a system comprising episodes recollected from a person’s life) during meditation. Cloninger has also found that the appropriate meditative practice can lead to increased happiness and health and to feeling more self-directed, cooperative, and self-transcendent. It can also lead to feelings of boundlessness and inseparability with something greater than yourself. “Essentially, with meditation you are able to think of your life as a creative narrative in which you are responsible for writing the next chapter in a way that is meaningful and satisfying for you and others in harmony,” Cloninger writes.
I also spoke with Candy Gunther Brown, professor of religious studies at Indiana University and author of the chapter “Can ‘Secular’ Mindfulness Be Separated from Religion” in the book Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement. Gunther Brown attributes the popularity of secular mindfulness programs in the West partly to the decline of other traditional religions and to our modern frustration with technology. “People feel bondaged to their cellphones and computers, so part of the appeal is the nonsecular, mystical part of it. If ancient religious people have done it for a long time, it must work, modern people think,” Gunther Brown says. She also stresses that as traditional religions — especially Christianity — are losing traction, the promise of mindfulness is increasingly filling the inevitable moral vacuum. “Mindfulness will get you more focused, optimistic, and compassionate, but through the cultivation of ethical virtues that come from other religious systems, Buddhism in particular,” Gunther Brown says.
In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn, an MIT-trained molecular biologist and longtime student of Buddhist meditation, went on a two-week meditation retreat, during which he had a vision of a mindfulness-based stress-reduction program (MBSR), or, rather, of researching its effects on medical patients in a hospital setting. Soon he was applying the ancient Eastern disciplines to people with chronic health conditions in the United States. Patients responded warmly to the program, and Kabat-Zinn did not take long to put MBSR into the mainstream conscience, though Gunther Brown says he did so by adopting a commonsensical American vocabulary and denuding mindfulness of its original Eastern origins.
Since then, mindfulness has found it way into mainstream science. Clinical psychology and psychiatry have developed therapeutic applications based on mindfulness to assist people who are experiencing a variety of psychological conditions. Large population-based research studies have shown that the practice of mindfulness is strongly correlated with greater well-being and perceived health.
For Gunther Brown, however, the benefits of such alternative practices remain an open question because studies have not looked at secularized mindfulness, but at things that are supposedly secularized yet are still deeply entrenched in religious tradition. She also thinks scholarly literature looks the other way when it comes to the adverse effects of mindfulness, which, upon her feeling of the research, range from anxiety to even psychotic episodes in people with preexisting conditions. “Just the other day,” Gunther Brown says, “I received an email from a schoolteacher who had been removed from her classroom because she refused to teach a mandatory mindfulness curriculum, and the reason she refused was because she had a history of post-traumatic stress disorder. Every time she tried it, it would send her into a panic attack.”
Doing aerobics, taking a walk in the park, listening to music, doing math, or eating a nutritious meal can all produce the same benefits as mindfulness, says Gunther Brown, who finds “the hype much more than the actual evidence about the benefits of mindfulness programs.” But her major concern is that these programs carry the risk of proselytizing people to other religions or cultural systems. “Many of these programs marketed as secular mindfulness programs are still connected with the beliefs of their founding religious system. And the longer you practice, say, mindfulness, the more you internalize religious ideas that go with it.”
Cloninger, on the other hand, distinguishes between spirituality and religion. “Spirituality is the attempt to find meaning in life beyond instant gratification of individual desires and goals, with invocation, prayer, or meditation being essential aspects of it,” he says. “Religion is a set of dogmatic beliefs established by either authority figures or institutions, which could be cultivated by a spiritual search or enforced by fear or dependence on these authority figures.”
His work reveals that there are core psychological and biological elements of spirituality across different dogmatic traditions, and based on these commonalities, people from different religions and even atheists can benefit from practices such as meditation. “Even agnostics and atheists can be highly spiritual and healthy contributors to the society through their dedication to the meaning of self-transcendence and to the cultivation of beauty and truth in the arts and sciences,” Cloninger says. “It is extremely dogmatic and idiosyncratic for anyone to suggest that only the Buddhist path is safe and effective. This insults the many people from other religious traditions and secular approaches that identify the common biopsychosocial elements of all these alternative approaches. Aren’t there saints in every religion?”
What do you think? Have you tried meditation, mindfulness, yoga, perhaps tai chi? Have you seen tangible results, are you continuing, did you drop out, did you fall head over heels in love with the new changes in your life? Or did you perhaps notice some disconcerting effects, or just nothing? Would you agree that these practices are above religions and traditions, imprinted in humanity’s common soul with the potential of doing only good, or are they products of cultural appropriation with obscure psychological effects and the ability to mess with your previous belief system?
You might want to meditate on this. | https://medium.com/s/spirits-in-your-brain/meditation-and-mindfulness-for-the-western-mind-fab-or-fad-aa60264e0c22 | ['Stav Dimitropoulos'] | 2017-11-22 22:01:51.078000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Mindfulness', 'Meditation', 'Spirituality', 'Yoga'] |
Reasons for Using ML Kit in Mobile App Development | The picture is provided by Unsplash
Recently, a growing interest to Machine Learning forced the companies to focus and invest on it. Machine Learning (ML) is the field of computational science, which focuses on analyzing and interpreting patterns and structures in data to enable learning, reasoning, and decision making outside of human being interaction. As a result, the introduction of new mobile SDK called ML Kit has been a prominent topic in the IT industry. Today, more than 25,000 applications on Android and iOS make use of ML Kit’s features. This essay aims to introduce and discuss ML Kit as an advanced SDK for having smarter mobile apps.
Introduction and Overview
Nowadays, Machine learning (ML) is an exciting field of research in computer science and engineering. It is considered a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) because it enables the extraction of meaningful patterns from samples, which is a capability of human intelligence. The demand of having a computer that performs repetitive and well-defined tasks is clear: computers will perform a given task consistently and tirelessly, but these tasks would be difficult to accomplish for human. Recently, machines have showed the ability to learn and even master tasks that were thought to be extremely complicated for machines, showing that machine learning algorithms are potentially useful elements of detection and decision support systems. Another exciting point is the finding that in some situations, computers seem to be able to observe patterns that are beyond human perception. This discovery has led to substantial and increased interest in the major of machine learning in various areas. At a high level, machine learning is the process of teaching a computer system how to make accurate predictions when fed data. Those predictions could be answering whether a piece of fruit in a photo is a banana or an apple, spotting people crossing the road in front of a self-driving car, whether the use of the word book in a sentence relates to a paperback or a hotel reservation, whether an email is spam, or recognizing speech accurately enough to generate captions for a video. The key difference between traditional computer software and machine learning approach is that a human developer has not written codes that instructs the system how to tell the difference between the banana and the apple. Instead, a machine-learning model has been taught how to reliably discriminate between the fruits by training on a large amount of data, in this instance likely a massive number of images labelled as containing a banana or an apple.
Machine learning (ML) is the study of computer algorithms that enhance automatically through experience. It is seen as a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as “training data”, in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the photo is provided by Oracle
In fact, we use algorithms to learn from data and then we make predictions about similar data that has not been seen before by using Machine Learning. Thus, it would be a two-step process: training and inference. First, the model learns, and then we use it to make predictions. The process of model learning is what we typically call training, and when the model is making predictions about the data is what we call inference. This is a high-level view of what is happening during training the model for extracting knowledge from input data with using prediction and decision. Because we know what the right answer in our case, we are able to calculate the errors that occurs many times. As a result, we use these errors to enhance our model, and this process is repeated many times until we reach the point that we make sure that the model is good enough or that this is the best result that we can do. This involves a number of steps and preparations and that is why we have to use a framework to make this easier.
Machine Learning (ML) is the science of computer algorithms that improve automatically through past experiences.
To sum up this section, Machine Learning is considered as a subset of AI, which uses statistical methods to enable machines to improve with experience. It enables a computer system to make decisions to carry out a certain task. These programs or algorithms are designed in such a way, which they can learn and enhance over time by observing new data. The aim of machine learning is to derive meaning from data. Thus, data is the key to unlock Machine Learning. The more qualified data ML has, the more accurate the ML algorithm becomes.
Machine Learning is the extraction of knowledge from data.
Difference between AI and ML
Basically, the goal of Artificial Intelligence is to create a machine that can mimic a human mind, and it needs learning capabilities as well. However, it is more than just about learning; it is also about knowledge representation, reasoning and abstract thinking. In contrast, Machine Learning is solely focused on writing software that can learn from past experiences. Besides, Machine Learning is more closely related to Data Mining and Statistics than it is to Artificial Intelligence.
Machine Learning: Using data to answer questions. “Using data” is what is generally referred to as “training”, and also “answering questions” is referred to as “making predictions”, or “inference”.
ML Kit for app developers
As a matter of fact, ML Kit SDK is a new product from Google, which was presented in 2018. ML Kit is a software development kit that makes it possible for developers to simplify the integration of machine learning models into their mobile apps. In addition, even a junior developer can address this task easily. Another point is that it makes your iOS and Android apps much more engaging, personalized, and useful with solutions that are optimized to run on device. Today, more than 25,000 applications on Android and iOS make use of ML Kit’s features.
A new SDK that brings Google’s Machine Learning experience to mobile developers in a powerful, easy-to-use package on Firebase.
The picture is provided by Google Documents
ML Kit has some features that can be categorized in three sections:
Vision: Video and image analysis APIs to label images and detect bar-codes, text, faces, and objects. Natural Language: Natural language processing APIs to identify and translate between 58 languages and provide reply suggestions. Custom: Build your own models using AutoML Vision Edge, or bring your own TensorFlow Lite models, run experiments, and deploy them in production with ML Kit.
Each category has some features. For instance, Vision has some features as Base APIs: Barcode Scanning, Face Detection, Image Labeling, Object Detection, Landmark Detection, and Text Detection.
The picture is provided by Google Documents
Some features in ML Kit for developers
Fundamentally, some features in ML Kit that are classified into Vision category have been introduced as follows:
Barcode Scanning
By using ML Kit’s barcode scanning API, you can be able to read data encoded using most standard barcode formats. Barcode scanning happens on the device, and does not need a network connection. In fact, barcode is an efficient way to pass information from the real world to your application.To be specific, when using 2D formats like QR code, you can encode structured data such as contact information or WiFi network credentials. Since ML Kit can automatically recognize and parse this data, your application can respond intelligently when a user scans a barcode
Face Detection
There are a lot of possibilities in you apps where you may want to utilize the detection of faces. Probably, you want to perform facial verification, tag photos, or add filters to a camera. Now, this feature is available as a part of the ML Kit. When API gets an image, it returns coordinates of nose, mouth, eyes, cheeks, and ears. Furthermore, this API supports the information whether a person on the picture has eyes closed or smiles. However, take into consideration that this determination works only for frontal faces. Another important aspect is the speed of face detection. As API performs tasks extremely immediately, it can be used in real-time apps. Besides, it is important to note that face detection via ML Kit is just only available as on-device recognition. So, you cannot perform face recognition on the cloud. This is probably a noticeable point for your users in terms of their personal data and privacy.
Image Labeling
By utilizing ML Kit’s image labeling APIs you can be able to detect and extract information about entities in an image across a broad group of categories. The default image labeling model can identify general objects, places, activities, animal species, products, and more. Also, you can use a custom image classification model.
Object Detection and Tracking
Initially, with ML Kit’s on-device Object Detection and Tracking API, you can identify and track objects in an image or live camera feed. Another choice is that you can classify detected objects, either by using the coarse classifier built into the API, or utilizing your own custom image classification model.
Text Recognition
With ML Kit’s text recognition APIs can recognize text in any Latin-based character set. Furthermore, they could be used to automate data-entry tasks such as processing credit cards, receipts, and business cards.
Digital Ink Recognition
By using ML Kit’s Digital Ink Recognition API, you can detect handwritten text on a digital surface in lots of languages. Also, you can classify sketches. In fact, the Digital Ink Recognition API uses the same technology that uses handwriting recognition in Gboard, Google Translate, and the Quick, Draw! game. So, digital Ink Recognition makes it possible to write on the screen instead of typing on a virtual keyboard. This lets users draw characters that are not available on their keyboards. Another key point is that the API can also transcribe handwritten notes, and recognize hand‑drawn shapes and emojis.
Benefits of utilizing ML Kit in mobile apps
Easy-to-use framework for developers
Typically, adding ML to a mobile app is a challenging and time-consuming process. By using this new SDK, this process is dramatically simplified. All you need is to pass data to the API, and wait until SDK will send a response. Google’s team stated, that implementing their APIs. Therefore, you don not need deep knowledge of neural networks.
2. Custom models
This option is helpful for experienced developers. If base ML Kit APIs do not cover all your needs, you can have your own ML model. New SDK can work with Tensor Flow and mobile app machine learning library. Besides, it supports developers with the possibility to download their own model to Firebase console, and bundle it with their products. Another significant key factor is that models are updated dynamically. It suggests that model will be updated even without updating the whole app.
3. Cloud and on-device APIs
In fact, developers can choose between cloud-based and on-device APIs. To make a right choice it is significant to take into consideration some differences between these two variants. Cloud APIs process data on the Google Cloud Platform; therefore, recognizes objects more accurately. However, cloud models are larger in comparison to on-device ones. Offline models need less free space, can work offline and process data faster, but their accuracy is lower.
4. Security Concern and privacy
As we know, most models are app-specific. Thus, probably, your customize model should be protected from other accesses from other developers. Now, you can do this task safely by using ML Kit. Furthermore, Google claims that cloud APIs do not store user’s data, and it is removed when processing is done.
In addition to this section, you can make your model smaller and it runs faster on mobile devices by using conversion and compression. Also, A/B testing and report performance can be done via Analytics for A/B testing.
On-device machine learning with ML Kit
To be exact, the original version of ML Kit was exceedingly integrated with Firebase. However, developers wanted more flexibility when implementing these features in their mobile apps. Therefore, Google are making all the on-device APIs available in a new standalone ML Kit SDK that no longer needs Firebase although you can still use both ML Kit and Firebase to get the best of both products if you want to. After making these changes by Google, ML Kit is currently fully focused on on-device machine learning. So, this gives developers access to the some benefits that on-device versus cloud ML offers such as no network latency, work offline, and privacy for sensitive users’ data.
In conclusion
As a matter of fact, Machine Learning (ML) is the major of computational science, which focuses on analyzing and interpreting patterns and structures in data to enable learning, reasoning, and decision making outside of human being interaction. Therefore, the introduction of new mobile SDK called ML Kit has been a prominent topic in the IT industry. This article discussed some reasons for using this software development kit in mobile app development. | https://medium.com/kayvan-kaseb/reasons-for-using-ml-kit-in-mobile-app-development-898fcd6c0c1a | ['Kayvan Kaseb'] | 2020-08-16 10:29:38.707000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Android', 'Mobile App Development', 'Ml Kit', 'iOS'] |
Career Opportunities | Digital Marketing
Career Opportunities
Top career opportunities for a digital marketer
Until the last decade, digital marketing was something that was almost unheard of. Almost all companies were satisfied with traditional marketing channels and did not see the reason to change. A fresh college grad would have never thought about building a career in digital marketing.
However, standing in 2019, the scenario looks remarkably different. Digital marketing is not anymore, a luxury or a ‘nice to have’ option but is a mandate for businesses that want to keep up with the competition. With the evolution of technologies, digitization, and rapidly changing market dynamics, digital marketing is the only way forward for start-ups and enterprises alike to reach their audiences.
Today’s market is content-driven and people believe more in what others are saying about a product rather than believing in traditional marketing gimmicks produced by televisions and newspapers. With this shift in marketing strategy and industry outlook, digital marketers are now in high demand, and if you know how to do it the right way, there is no dearth of career opportunities for you.
What are the top career options for a digital marketer?
More and more students and professionals are now more than willing to take up a career in digital marketing. Digital marketing is a vast field and you can pick up a career option that suits your interests and skills. Some of the career options for digital marketer include:
Content marketing manager: Content is the base of all channels of digital marketing. Whether it’s a website, blog, social media posts, or any other marketing materials, it has no value without the right content. Relevant content can build a brand, drive traffic and help sell a product. The power of content is immense and it can’t be ignored. If you have the ability to write compelling content with a thorough understanding of how digital marketing works, then making a career in content marketing can be a fulfilling one for you. To get into this field, you should have an impeccable grip over the language with a fair understanding of SEO techniques. You would be required to work in a team and need to liaise with different stakeholders to gather inputs, understand the content trend, what format works better in each of the marketing channels, etc.
Search Engine Optimization Expert (SEO Expert): With a mind-boggling number of websites coming up every day, there is cut-throat competition to rank on top of Google’s search results. Experts say that quality content with strategically used PPC can help your website grab the first spot. Hence the opportunities for SEO experts are enormous. As an SEO expert, you need to research keywords, analyse web traffic, develop a social media strategy, content strategy, and planning, and organizing campaigns to improve ranking. Apart from the technical skills, you can thrive better if you have leadership skills as well as the skill to adapt yourself quickly. The Google algorithm is changing constantly and so you need to keep on working on new strategies.
Influencer: If you’re an expert in your field with a niche and have a strong social media presence with a huge number of followers, you can become a social media influencer. As an influencer, you will promote the brand among your followers as you incorporate them in your daily life.
UX/Graphic Designer: The role of a UX designer is critical. It is all about how a user feels when he/she is utilizing the app or website. From the look and feel to the emotional quotient, you need to engage with your customers. Graphic designers visually depict the concepts and ideas to inform and inspire the audience and illustrate business value. They create layouts and designs for communication materials such as Ads, magazines, brochures, presentations and much more.
PPC/SEM expert: Have you ever come across those ads at the side/bottom/top bars when you visit a website? Or Google’s sponsored search listings in the search page? That’s the job of a PPC/SEM expert. As a PPC expert, you will be generating lots of leads for the company. You will do so by managing the PPC keywords, generating reports, managing the budget for ads, splitting different ad groups alongside working with content creators for writing the ads and graphics designers for designing the landing pages. PPC experts are always in high demand because of the value they bring to the table.
Copywriter: A copywriter works with different professionals within the digital marketing team. If you think you can write better than what you read online/offline, you’re an ideal fit for this job category. As a copywriter, you will be helping the social media manager to write posts that should go viral or help the SEO specialist to write web content that will increase the organic traffic of the website. You will also need to write ad copies and any other content requests that the organization may have. A degree in English with lots of creativity will help you to bag a job as a copywriter. You also have the option to transition to a Content Marketing Manager role once you gather enough experience.
Social media marketing expert: With the constantly increasing popularity of social media channels, social media marketing is growing by leaps and bounds. The basic idea is to leverage different social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. to gain the attention of the target audience. As a social media marketing expert, you will have to understand how each of these platforms works and how you can hook your customers to convert them to leads. Along with building the brand of the company on social media, you will also have to take care of the promotions, content and do social media ‘listening’ to monitor what people are saying about your brand. This portfolio has high responsibility and hence you can expect a handsome salary.
Digital marketing is a growing industry and the opportunities are endless if you’re willing to test the water, learn, and up-skill yourself. Along with technical skills, you need to have a fair mix of a number-driven mindset and creativity to excel in this field. | https://medium.com/my-great-learning/digital-marketing-career-opportunities-49888882bcd5 | ['Great Learning'] | 2019-08-17 09:27:40.988000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Digital Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Careers'] |
How to get Published on Javarevisited | Photo by Carli Jeen on Unsplash
Hello guys, if you love to write about Java and other related technologies like Spring, Hibernate, Algorithms, Data Structure, Design pattern and about your Interview experience, we would be happy to publish your article here.
Just drop a note on [email protected] to get you started.
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One of my goals is to encourage Java developers to write about things they know because writing makes you a better developer. It also helps you to do research and fill the gaps in your knowledge.
It also helps in your learning and that’s why I am encouraging a lot of junior and senior Java developers to write about their experiences.
Here is a list of some of the topics I loved most, but you feel free to share whatever you like:
Java Programming Coding Design Patterns Algorithms Data Structure Book Reviews Course Reviews Resources Programmer life Interview Questions Personal Stories of Programmers Debugging Git Maven Gradle Spring Framework Hibernate Spring Boot Cloud Spring Cloud Blockchain Machine Learning Data Science Java 8 Functional Programming Best Practices Eclipse InteliJIDEA Tools Log4j and other logging libraries Mockito and other unit testing libraries SQL Linux Testing
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Tips:
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For new stories, always submit Draft to publication, this way all the Publication subscriber will see your post and Medium also promotes fresh stories. First 10 claps are most important and that’s why submitting a draft to publication is important. You can also submit old stories and once again all Javarevisited subscriber will see it, which means you will get more page views. I also tweet and share about all the stories published here from my Twitter account http://twitter.com/javinpaul and Javarevisited twitter account http://twitter.com/javarevisited, follow them so that you can know when your stories are published and you can then retweet them to create buzz.
This will give your story initial boost, Great stories are also shared on the Javarevisited Facebook page which has more than 36,000 followers. I also suggest you do the same, just tag @javareivisited whenever you do so that we know about it and can reshare it. They will also be shared on Javarevisited LinkedIn Page and Javarevisited’s Flipboard page, If you are on LinkedIn and Flipboard then follow those pages to get a notification when your stories are shared and then reshare from your persona account to amplify. Always use a great feature image at the top of the article. Always use 5 tags, 2 more specific and 3 broads like Programming, Web Development, Coding, etc. If you know any tip which has helped you in medium feel free to share and I can add it here so that we all can benefit from it. Share your stories to Reddit, HackerNew, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to get more exposure.
It takes a lot of effort to publish in Medium and our goal is that you should get as many views and readers as possible. All great stories should get the attention they deserve.
All the best and Welcome to Javarevisited!!. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/how-to-contribute-to-javarevisited-e95dcb0e8769 | [] | 2020-08-22 09:51:57.135000+00:00 | ['Publication', 'Javarevisited', 'Contribute', 'Java', 'Programming'] |
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence | Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Breaking down the various buzz words in the field
Image by Getty Images
Artificial Intelligence(AI) is changing our world today and has entered every domain from healthcare to engineering and telecommunications. It has completely changed the way we live. Before starting with AI it is really important to know what AI is and what are its elements. In this article, you will get to know about AI and its key elements like Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision and much more.
AI is the creation of software the imitates human behaviors and capabilities
AI softwares try to mimic human behavior and can essentially perform tasks that a human being can.AI is used to power search engines, online shopping recommendations, digital assistance and much more. The possibilities that AI provides are endless from detecting tumors to developing solutions for climate change, you will find it everywhere.
Some of the key elements of AI include:
Machine Learning
Machine Learning is the foundation of AI in which you essentially teach the machine to make predictions based on your dataset. You split up your dataset into training and test sets and use the training dataset to train( or teach in simpler terms) your model to draw out conclusions with the provided data.
Let’s have a look at a really interesting real-life implementation of machine learning that you wouldn’t have thought of. Machine Learning is used by an Australian agricultural technology-based project named “The Yield” that used it to make local predictions about light, wind and rain and helps the farmers there decide the correct time for sowing, irrigation and harvesting in turn leading to better production of their crop. Never thought this could be done with AI? Now you must be curious to know how all this is done.
Let’s understand this with the help of a flower dataset.
Suppose you collect flower samples, label them and make a dataset with the name of the flower and its features like shape, size, color, etc. This is your dataset. Now you divide the dataset into 2 parts( not necessarily equal)- training and testing data. Train the model with your training data. How is this done? The data is processed using an algorithm that finds relations between the flower name and other features. This model can later be used to identify the flower name based on its features. After training the data you can test the accuracy of your model with the testing dataset and use the model for further predictions.
Computer Vision
Computer Vision, as the name suggests allows the computer to interpret the world visually using images, videos, cameras. It enables the computer to understand and perform automated tasks that a human can do. Let’s look at the capabilities of computer vision in a little detail.
Image Classification
Image classification means training a machine learning model to classify images based on their contents. A very simple example of image classification could be to classify images based on whether it is of a bird, cat or dog.
Object Detection
Training a machine learning model to classify individual objects within an image and identify their location with a bounding box like identifying the location of a bird in a picture
Image by Papers With Code
Semantic Segmentation
An advanced machine learning technique in which individual pixels are classified according to the object to which they belong like overlaying or masking the images. This image shows an example of semantic segmentation in which different objects are overlayed with different colors.
Face Detection
A specialized form of object detection that locates human faces in an image. The face unlock in your smartphone is probably the best example of this. Another interesting example of face detection is its use to identify a person’s age and emotional state.
Image Analysis
Extracting information from images using and providing tags and captions based on the information is what image analysis is all about like “A dog on a beach” could be used to describe the image below using image analysis.
Photo by kilarov zaneit on Unsplash
Optical Character Recognition
It is a technique used to detect and read text in images and is widely used in reading scanned documents.
Anomaly Detection
The capability to automatically detect errors, unexpected and unusual events in the system like identifying unusual transactions for your bank account. Think of a system that can identify a possible machine failure and warn you ahead of time. Sounds great! Doesn’t it?
Natural Language Processing
Ever wondered how the voice assistant on your smartphone is able to recognize your voice and do the required job for you? Yes, Natural Language Processing or NLP is the answer! Natural language processing is the capability of our computer to identify the language(written and spoken) and accordingly respond to it. It can be used to determine the tone of a message, translate texts and much more apart from recognizing our speech and performing appropriate actions.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI is the capability of the computer to engage in a conversation with you. Chatbots are the best example of conversational AI where bots participate in a conversation with humans. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/introduction-to-artificial-intelligence-b74c1d0fbce4 | [] | 2020-10-02 16:12:02.823000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Computer Science', 'Programming'] |
How to Drive Away Everyone You Love… and How to Fix It | Scroll through your Facebook feed on any given day, and you’ll probably see him or her: That person who’s got strong personal feelings on just about every topic — who’ll jump into any discussion like a referee, ready to declare who’s in the right, who’s doing wrong, and who’s too ignorant or oblivious to know the difference.
Have you ever been that person?
Because I have. And it very nearly drove away everyone I cared about.
I’ll tell you a little about what I was like back then. I alienated most of my family by constantly picking fights about religion and politics — even as my parents tried to calm me down — because I’d recently learned that everything they believed was wrong, and I wanted them to admit it. A whole string of roommates moved out because I wouldn’t stop rebuking them about their poor life decisions. Several bosses fired me because, in response to negative performance reviews, I’d tell them just how sloppily they were running their companies.
“How can you think / believe / do that?!” were my favorite exclamations.
Even when I wasn’t actively picking a fight, I felt the need to make my presence known by cracking a joke or making a snarky comment about anything anyone said. And no matter how many times I got told to shut up for my own good, I insisted it was my responsibility to say the things no one else had the courage to say; to call people out when they were wrong; to serve as the trickster who kept everyone on their toes.
In other words, I was in my early twenties.
It wasn’t until years later that, when I broke up with a long-term girlfriend, I looked around to discover — to my shock — that almost no one else had stuck around to put up with me. Most of my oldest friends didn’t answer my calls anymore. Even my parents hadn’t tried to reach me in more than six months. I’d criticized, taunted and annoyed my entire social group into oblivion.
Why had I ever thought it was a good idea to behave this way?
Each of us is born with the unspoken assumption that he or she is the most important person alive. As we grow up, people in our lives debunk that notion again and again — sometimes gently; other times not so much — and over the years, we get a clearer sense of our actual place in the world. We learn through hard experience that we’re not the main character in every scene — sometimes we don’t even have a speaking part that day — but we still hold onto the idea that we’ve got extraordinarily important things to say, so we keep stepping in front of the camera anyway.
That’s why I felt the need to behave that way: Experience had convinced me I was the smartest kid on the block. I felt sure I had a rare and piercing level of insight into the world. I could see others’ shortcomings so clearly, and I seemed to be the only person brave enough to point them out and try to fix them.
Because the alternative was scary. Nobody wants to be yet another person who shows up without the keys; who fumbles through life without any conclusive answers, the way all the normal people have to. So what else could I do? I believed in my unique abilities; in my starring role. Maybe I was sent to this world with some special purpose…
Well, maybe I was. Maybe I am. Maybe we all are.
Growing up isn’t about losing self-respect, or learning better manners, or loosening up morally — it’s about gaining a broader context. It’s not just about understanding your own story, but also about learning to understand where and how you fit into other people’s stories. A surprising amount of the time, the scene in which you find yourself isn’t about you at all, because somebody else is the hero — and luckily enough, someone else is usually the villain, too.
Then again, sometimes you’re the main character after all, and your job is to step right into the spotlight and explain how to fix the problem. And sometimes — gasp! — that problem is you.
Maturity, I think, is knowing which kind of scene is which. | https://medium.com/mix-tape/how-to-unintentionally-drive-away-everyone-you-love-6827b8177d1a | ['Ben Thomas'] | 2016-12-14 20:12:28.934000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Life Lessons', 'Relationships'] |
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