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“Half-Caste”. A poem by John Agard about racist terms. | Métissage Sangue Misto | John Agard
“Half-Caste” is a poem that looks at people’s ideas and usage of the term “Half Caste”. The poem is taken from Agard’s 2005 collection of the same name, in which he explores a range of issues affecting black and mixed-race identity in the UK. It is one of the set poems for English schools, but its influence and presence extends well beyond them, making John Agard one of the most popular, well-known, and respected poet-performers on the school’s circuit. The poem is written in the first-person. Agard uses phonetic spelling throughout the poem, in order to create the voice of the speaker.
John Agard was born in Georgetown, British Guiana on 21 June 1949. He is an Afro-Guyanese playwright, poet, and children’s writer, now living in Britain. His love of language began in school where his favorite subjects were English, French, and Latin and, listening to cricket commentary on the radio, he was deeply affected by the verbal wit of calypso and the poetic commentary of legendary commentator, John Arlott, and tried to make up his own for matches: there he really realized he loved to play with language! Then, as a Catholic altar boy, he was attracted by the call-and-response style of the Latin mass. He started writing poems while he was still at school.
He taught the languages he had studied and worked in a local library. He was also a sub-editor and feature writer for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle, publishing two books while he was still in Guyana. He moved to England in 1977 and became a touring speaker for the Commonwealth Institute, visiting hundreds of schools throughout the UK. He has been a writer at the South Bank Centre, London, the BBC, and the National Maritime Museum. His awards include the Casa de las Americas Poetry Prize and the Paul Hamlyn Award.
He lives in Sussex with his wife, the poet Grace Nichols, with whom he co-edited No Hickory No Dickory No Dock (1991) a collection of Caribbean-flavoured nursery rhymes; A Caribbean Dozen; Under The Moon And Over The Sea which was also awarded the CLPE Poetry Award. Their latest anthology for children is Pumpkin Grumpkin, a collection of nonsense poems from around the world.
Through his 45 poems, John Agard explores a wide variety of themes: racial harmony, tension, and diversity; war and religion; society, patriotism, and politics; as well as more personal ideas on relationships, love, and attraction. This is all delivered with a range and depth in terms of content, language, poetic form, and technique that will engage and motivate children while developing their understanding. An ideal collection to sit at the heart of a scheme of work on cross-cultural themes.
He is a versatile writer known for his poems, short stories, children’s literature, drama, and nonfiction; one of the most exciting, energetic, and spellbinding readers you’ll hear, breathing passion and energy into each of his poems when he speaks them aloud. Agard has written lots about what it was like to leave home and the history of the Caribbean, as well as telling stories of his childhood and the myths and legends of Guyana.
He is fascinated with the world, and how everything works, taking inspiration from science and maths as well as legends and fairy tales — he’s able to apply this passion for learning to his writing, with poems about everything from big numbers like the ‘ Googol’, to those in the voice of an alarm clock, in ‘ Clockwise’, which sits “ squat as a toad “ ready to steal its owner’s sleep.
Adgard’s readings are an enchantment, bringing his poems to life. In performance, he is electrifying — compelling, funny, moving, and thought-provoking. His work in education over the years has changed the way that readers, writers, and teachers think about poetry. He drops his voice into a whisper to make us lean in to hear him closely, while at other moments he can sound spooky and scary, he’s even been known to burst into song! Listen to how he draws out certain words and sounds to make us feel the energy and emotion of the speakers.
“Half-Caste” is a four stanzas poem inspired by his mixed-race and resulting experiences upon moving to Britain, with his partner, in 1977, where he became angry with people who referred to him as ‘ half-caste ‘. Realizing that most people who say this do so without thinking about what it really means, he tells off people who use this term without thinking. Consequently, the poem is very personal in nature, however remains light-hearted through Agard’s colloquial, humorous and sarcastic tone and use of the occasional basic rhyme or half-rhyme in the absence of a regular rhyme-scheme. This is a poem about asserting your identity against others who would ‘bring you down’.
Half-caste is a derogatory term for a person who is of mixed racial heritage. It is derived from the Latin “ Castus”, meaning “pure”, implying that those that are mixed-race are less “pure” compared to those that are not, hence is dehumanizing. Agard comments on the absurdity of this dehumanization by offering the reader a physical interpretation, whereby he compares it to him “ standing on one leg “ as though he is in some way half a human being.
The speaker, indeed, begins the poem by excusing himself for being half-caste: “ Excuse me standing on one leg I’m half-cast”. Though it is evident that it is chock-full of sarcasm: he is not really apologizing. Agard means exactly the opposite. He makes the point that ‘ half-caste’ is an overbearing term designed to make people feel ashamed, ‘ excuse me ‘ sounds like someone apologizing for being an aberration.
The majority of the poem is filled with the speaker responding to being called half-caste He provides countless examples of the positive sides to being half-caste, asking himself if it being “ half-caste” is like Picasso mixing his colors or the dreary English weather, that is filled with cloudy skies. The speaker tells the reader that he will soon tell the “ other half” of his story, signifying that his mixed-race, by no means, defines who he is as a person, but there is so much more. The frequent use of the term ‘ explain yuself’ is a request by the writer to explain exactly how is someone half-caste, half a person. He goes on to point out that mixes happen in ‘Picasso’s’ and Tchaikovsky’s culture and the result is something beautiful. He also implies that mixes happen in nature (the weather) and that this is natural. Extending the metaphor of the weather with ‘ half-caste til them overcast ‘, is Agards’ way of implying the’re so much a person that they’re full of themselves.
He then writes how he must be able only to listen with half-a-year, look with half-a-eye, offer us half-a-hand, etc. — a sarcastic, even angry, denunciation of the word ‘ half’ in ‘ half-caste’. He writes: ‘I half-caste human being cast half-a-shadow’ — here, ‘ half-a-shadow’ has a sinister vampire-like tone, and the author seems to be pointing out that by using the word half-caste, people are saying that he is not really human, but inferring that there is something sub-human, even evil about him. He’s showing that half-caste is a very close-minded view of someone’s ethnicity.
He finishes by saying: ‘ but yu must come back tomorrow wid … de whole of yu mind’ — here he is pointing out that it is us who have been thinking with only half-a-brain when we thoughtlessly use the word ‘half-caste’. He dispels the idea that he is half a person (an idea that he created to undermine the term), saying that he does indeed have another half to his story. He will only tell this to the person he is addressing, however, if they see him as their equal, disregarding all stereotypes. In this way, he challenges the readers to change their thinking, and come up with a better word.
The language he here uses is a mixture of Caribbean dialect and formal British English. This, very powerfully, gets across and embodies the fact that Agard is of mixed heritage, and he demands an explanation for the use of the term, like he is seeking an intelligent justification, that he knows the person he is speaking to will be unable to provide. Then the direct and many commands serve to point his thoughts directly to the reader and to make the poem challenging and confrontational.
Again, the use of metaphor, comparing ‘ half-caste’ to art, the weather, and music, makes the poem a kind of parable and helps to get the point across. He wants to convey the idiocy of the term to the reader and undermine those that label him in this way. When painting, Picasso mixes colors to achieve one closer to what he desires in his pieces. Agard comments on how ridiculous it would be to label a piece of art created in this way as a separate, less valuable entity, which contrasts with racial stereotypes.
Very important is also the way he uses diction. For example, the word “ caste” is associated with the word “ purity”; therefore, it is easy to assume that “ half-caste” is a derogatory term for someone who is in some way impure, and in this case, that means they are not of one single race. While this term was once accepted, it certainly is insulting and today would be considered to be racist and fueled with ignorance and prejudice.
Both sarcasm and poignancy are escalated in a particular section of the poem, when he says : “ I’m sure you’ll understand, why I offer yu half-a-hand, an when I sleep at night, I close half-a-eye, consequently when I dream, I dream half-a-dream an when moon begin to glow, I half-caste human being, cast half-a-shadow, but yu come back tomorrow.” Agard, again, undermines the term half-caste by emphasizing the absurd way in which it likens him to being half a human being by in some way being less ‘pure’ compared to those of one ethnicity. The imagery of Agard looking with half an eye to shaking hands with half a hand are comical, although saddening upon reflection. Where Agard claims he dreams ‘half a dream’ implies that firstly if society sees people as half a person they will be treated unfairly, but also that if people think of themselves as half a person they will limit themselves in their own lives. “ De other half of my story “ implies that we have something to learn and that we are the ones who are incomplete until we do.
Last, but not least, the scathing humor, including the joke, helps to give a point more impact. His feelings sound angry and bitter. He objects to being called half a human being and asserts that there is much more to him than we realize. The words: ‘ I half-caste human being’ show that he is insulted by the term ‘half-caste’. His tone is challenging, even threatening (e.g: ‘ Explain yuself wha yu mean when yu say half-caste’) as he asserts his identity as a whole human being and demands that readers change their attitudes. In later recordings, Agard does not sound as angry — he even makes a joke of it, and he brings out the humor of phrases such as: ‘ Excuse me standing on one leg ‘. Perhaps this is because fewer people use the term half-caste nowadays. But it may also be that sees the funny side to it himself.
The key message to this short, but a very complex poem, is clearly and powerfully stated. In each of its four sections, each with a different message, even though it is funny and angry, the poem gradually builds up its argument, step by step, that ‘half-caste’ is an unacceptable phrase and we ought not to use it and people should stop judging others for racial difference. This poem very clearly conveys the message behind the poem, by itself. The poet has been very successful in setting his point, through the use of literary tools and devices, which help give the poem lots of emotion, as well as help the reader, comprehend the purpose of the poem.
He once said that “This imposition of half, half, half on a person’s total human complexity implies that some sort of ‘purity’ has been subverted. A child of mixed race is a tangible, loving expression of human beings from different cultural backgrounds getting together — that should be seen not as something threatening, but as something enriching…”
@Wizzy, Afro Bodhisattva, Entrepreneur, Multipotentialite Wantrepreneur, Physical Anthropologist, Freelance researcher of African Studies, culture, tradition and heritage, CEO Dolomite Aggregates LTD and Founder IG MBA Métissage Boss Academy , MBA Metissage & Métissage SangueMisto. | https://metissagesanguemisto.medium.com/half-caste-a-poem-by-john-agard-about-racist-terms-m%C3%A9tissage-sangue-misto-5015b180ca69 | [] | 2020-10-30 15:01:05.646000+00:00 | ['Racist', 'Books', 'John Agard', 'Mixed Race', 'Poem'] |
Understanding Pinners through funnel analysis | Changshu Liu | Pinterest engineer, Data
Our number one value as a company is putting Pinners first, and putting that into practice with data requires us to deeply understand how Pinners navigate and use our product. A common analysis pattern for Pinner activity is sequentially analyzing their movement from one logged event to another, a process called funnel analysis. In addition to helping us better understand Pinners, we also use funnel analysis to inform engineering resources. Here we introduce Pinterest Funnels, a tool that enables interactive visual analysis of Pinner activity.
Our funnel analysis platform
We define funnel as a series of ordered steps within a session of Pinner activity. Each step is made up of at least one action a Pinner takes, like viewing a Pin or sending a message.
For example, one might define a funnel (conceptually) like the following to understand invitation conversion ratio:
{
‘name’: ‘invitation conversion’,
‘creator’: ‘Changshu Liu’
‘steps’: [
‘click invitation’: [‘email_invite_click’, ‘fb_invite_click’, ‘twitter_invite_click’],
‘visit landing page’: [‘langing_page_visit’],
‘registration’ [‘email_reg’, ‘gplus_reg’]
]
‘experiments’: [‘exp_name1’, ‘exp_name2’]
}
Funnel definition example
To simplify the task of creating funnels, we provide a web-based funnel composer with predefined action name auto-completion. This enables non-engineers to adopt funnel system easily and also reduces action name typos thereby improving user productivity.
After defining a funnel, we use one of the two funnel analyzers (detailed later in this post) to generate results visualized in the web portal, including:
How many Pinners reached which step defined in the funnel (for Pinners at step N, they’ve already reached step 1, step 2 … step N-1).
A segmentation feature that lets us divide the total count into different segments. (We now support six segmentations: gender, app, app version, country, browser and experiment group.)
Results from different segment combinations.
The history of the result.
Behind the scenes
There are three main subsystems powering the funnel analysis platform:
Action sessionization pipeline , which collects original data sources, annotates them with proper meta information and groups them into per-user sessions that will then be consumed by the following two analyzers.
, which collects original data sources, annotates them with proper meta information and groups them into per-user sessions that will then be consumed by the following two analyzers. Hive funnel analyzer , which consumes the session data using Hive UDF, generates a session number for each funnel step with each segmentation combination and feeds these data into our Pinalytics backend.
, which consumes the session data using Hive UDF, generates a session number for each funnel step with each segmentation combination and feeds these data into our Pinalytics backend. ElasticSearch funnel analyzer, which translates funnel definition into ElasticSearch query operator trees and queries against indexed session data to verify funnel definition correctness. It can also serve interactive ad-hoc funnel analysis requests.
Action sessionization pipeline
Pinner action data used in the funnel analysis platform comes from three sources. The first two sources are frontend event and backend events which are logs with predefined schema. The third source is freeform logs that any developer or team can add to. Each log entry may contain many fields, but here we mainly care about who (a unique_id representing a registered or unregistered Pinner) did what (a string representing Pinner action) at what time (a standard timestamp).
To make Pinner action data easier to use by the funnel platform, we did some special handling to the original action name.
A short prefix is added to each action to avoid any conflicts For example, we might use _f_ for frontend event and _b_ for backend event.
We also track where (such as view, component and element info) the action happened for a frontend event. The final action of this kind would look like _f_action@view@component@element.
The three sources are then unioned together, spam filtered, sessionized into a series of Pinner sessions and annotated with experiment/segment information. There are multiple ways to group actions into sessions. In our case, we care most about actions Pinners did within one day or one week. We group daily action and weekly action tables by unique_id. A typical row in the final raw session table looks like:
(uuid_xyz, [‘action_1’, ‘action_2’, ‘action_3’ ...], [‘exp_1’,...], ‘Android’, ‘3.3’, ‘US’, ‘Chrome’, ‘Male’)
After the raw session tables are generated, the analyzer logic is applied to it. We have two analyzers for different scenarios, one Hive-based offline analyzer and the other is an ElasticSearch-based online analyzer.
Hive funnel analyzer
In the Hive funnel analyzer, we built a Hive UDF to process the session table. For each Pinner session (a row in raw session table), the UDF matches it with all funnels defined in our funnel repository and generates the total number of sessions that match the step actions defined in each funnel.
For example, suppose we have a Pinner session that looks like this:
(‘uuid_1234’, [‘fb_invite_click’, ‘action_1’, ‘langing_page_visit’, ‘action_2’], [‘exp_1’], ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’ )
The UDF will generate the following records after processing this session against the funnel we defined in the beginning:
(‘invitation_conversion.step_1’, ‘exp_1’, ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’, 1)
(‘invitation_conversion.step_2’, ‘exp_1’, ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’, 1)
As you can see, there’s no record for step three since the given Pinner session didn’t reach any actions defined in step three of the invitation conversion funnel.
Next, these session counts are summed up, and we now have the total session count for each step in each funnel for each segment combination. But most likely, a user only cares about the total sum or the sum of some segmentations. For instance, a user might want to know the session count for step one and two in the invitation conversion funnel, only in the U.S. We use Pinalytics to implement on the fly “rolling up” functionality using HBase coprocessor. This eliminates the need to pre-compute rolling up numbers which would cost a huge amount of space given our segment cardinality and makes backfilling relatively easy.
As mentioned previously, we included view, component and element in frontend event actions. Sometimes users want to build a funnel based on the pattern of such actions. For example, a user might want to know how many Pinners did a ‘click’ action on an ‘invite_button’ element, no matter what the view or component is. We provide a special ‘pattern matching’ action syntax to express this semantic: _f_click@*@*@invite_button. The tow ‘*’ chars the mean view and component attribute could be any value, and the ‘@’ char is used as a field separator.
ElasticSearch funnel analyzer
If you’re familiar with how a search engine works, you might have noticed the session/funnel matching logic is very similar to how a typical search engine matches documents against a query operator tree. If we model a Pinner session as a search document, each action as a positioned term and segments as document fields in ElasticSearch, then the relationship among actions in the same step of a funnel can be expressed using OR operator and the relationship between consecutive steps can be represented using APPEAR AFTER (a NEAR operator with in_order property set to true in ElasticSearch) operator.
For instance, the funnel definition in the beginning example can be translated into the following three query operator trees:
The returned doc count for these queries will be the session count of each step in the funnel definition.
In order to support the “pattern matching” action syntax like: _f_click@*@*@invite_button in the ElasticSearch funnel analyzer, we use technologies from the search community called “query expansion.” We pre-build a trie from the concrete action dictionary and use it to expand the ‘pattern matching’ action to a list of concrete actions during query time. If there are too many expanded concrete actions, we weight them according to term frequency and choose the top K actions, where K is a configurable parameter.
As an example, _f_click@*@*@invite_button might be expanded to the following four concrete actions according to our action dictionary:
As you can see, the two analyzers have different characteristics.
Hive Analyzer is slower than the ElasticSearch Analyzer. If the funnel definition changes, we would need to rerun Hive queries to update the results. However, it covers more historical session data since there’s no need to load them into ElasticSearch cluster. The result is more accurate, because there’s no approximation logic.
ElasticSearch Analyzer is super fast (at sub-second level) but it covers less data as we need to index the session table into ElasticSearch cluster which has limited capacity. It’s less accurate in some cases since we ignore some expanded actions if there are too many candidate actions.
In practice, we use ElasticSearch for funnel preview, which helps verify whether the funnel definition is what we want before materializing the definition into funnel repo. We also use it for ad-hoc funnel analysis, an interactive and on-demand funnel analysis of those recent sessions available in ElasticSearch.
Next steps
The process above enables our team to look at navigation on a predefined path. We’re currently considering how to allow easy comparisons across multiple funnel paths. To extend the example above, we might compare data between Pinners that sign-up via different types of invite emails. Secondly, there are tradeoffs we’ve had to make as a result of the data size with respect to what’s available in the ElasticSearch index. Optimally, we would provide greater flexibility for users to navigate live funnels rather than wait for the MapReduce funnel analyzer job to populate their data.
Acknowledgements: Funnel analysis project is a collaboration between Data team and Growth team. Thanks to Ludo Antonov and Dannie Chu on the Growth team for feature suggestions and implementation discussions and for the initial efforts on funnel analysis, as well as Suman Jandhyala, Shuo Xiang and Jeff Ferris on the Data team. | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/understanding-pinners-through-funnel-analysis-f759f4a77e2c | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2017-02-21 19:19:47.726000+00:00 | ['Mapreduce', 'Elasticsearch', 'Engineering', 'Hive', 'Data'] |
StreetLib Write: New Content Sanitizer | At StreetLib, we noticed that authors and publishers needed an easy and convenient solution for building high-quality eBooks. This is why we developed our online application with a WYSIWG text editor.
And however amazing this system may seem from the outside, it is on the inside that the magic truly happens.
See, the most common problem with poorly made ePubs (the standard eBook file format) is the mess of HTML behind the words. Even though you may see a beautiful paragraph, with a well integrated image and text aligned to perfection, that doesn’t mean that all is well behind the curtains. And this may give a completely different, and much uglier, reading experience to others.
From the outside, it may look like just a hammer nailing down a nail, but what goes on isn’t that simple or efficient.
To fix this, I and the rest of the tech team built an HTML neat freak, cleaning up every ounce of the text file to make it as sleek as possible, and thus more efficient. This way, readers get the book they deserve.
We recently released a new version of this HTML cleaner and I want to tell you about it. And for the less tech-savvy amongst you, my colleague AC de Fombelle will explain what I mean without all the jargon (in italics).
The original HTML sanitization
In order to generate valid EPUB documents, the StreetLib Write backend has always performed a series of tasks to sanitize the HTML contained in the users’ books.
The first basic form of sanitizing has always been always performed by the generator itself. The generator is the component that actually “makes” the final EPUB file: it takes all the book contents from the database and it assembles the final EPUB file (note that the EPUB is also the base used for other formats such as the MOBI and PDF).
So, from time to time, as new errors were found and reported by our users, new checks were introduced inside the generator.
Of course, this strategy had too many limits. We therefore needed to create a separate sanitizer that could perform the validation and sanitization based on a set of “grammar rules” that could be easily defined, and another set of “actions” to be performed in order to fix the HTML errors found in the user contents. The set of rules was loosely taken from the W3C specifications for XHTML1.1.
Consequently, we introduced the HTMLSanitizer (HTMLSanitizer class) as a new component within StreetLib Write a few years ago. Users can disable the feature via a checkbox in the download dialog of StreetLib Write’s User Interface. | https://medium.com/streetlib/streetlib-write-new-content-sanitizer-104e42cd3438 | ['Fabio Nicotra'] | 2017-05-16 07:00:52.331000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Web Development', 'HTML', 'eBooks', 'Publishing'] |
The Best-Seller Formula | The Best-Seller Formula
Want to know if readers will love your book BEFORE you write it?
August Birch’s Book Review Spy
I made this for you.
I used to get these great ideas for books. I’d head straight to my computer and type as fast as I could so the idea wouldn’t leave me. I thought I had the greatest book ideas on earth. The world would beat a path to my digital door, just to get their hands on my next book.
I wrote five manuscripts and published a half-dozen non-fiction books (now removed) using this write-and-pray method.
But no one came.
I wrote books no one wanted to read. I wrote first and looked for readers second.
What if there was a way to uncover exactly the kind of book your reader wants to buy?
What if you could see what you competition was writing, and make your book even better?
There is a way and you can use it too.
In my latest micro-course, I give you all the tool necessary to peek inside your reader’s minds without having to ask them what they want to read.
Using this best-kept secret, I’ll show you how to spy on your competitor’s Amazon reviews to help craft your next five-star book, using someone else’s one-star mistakes.
You’ll be able to create semi-automatic outlines your readers are sure to love
You’ll uncover keywords your potential audience uses, so you can incorporate those words in your marketing and writing
You’ll save valuable writing time by knowing exactly what to write before you write it
Plus I’ll give you two bonuses (an automatic email subject line generator, and a way to uncover book covers that sell)
This simple secret is called the Book Review Spy.
These micro-courses are designed with your busy schedule in mind. No seventeen hours of video. Just a simple, five-step process to get your next book idea from zero to hero.
I have clients who email me with a similar issue, weekly, “how do I know what I’m writing is something readers will buy?”
The Book Review Spy is the first step in the process.
I can’t write the book for you.
This isn’t some magic bullet.
But it sure is a fast-track shortcut to uncover a book your readers will BUY, not just a book your readers might say they’d like. Buying and liking are two different things.
This micro-course focuses on book-buying behavior.
We look at the best-sellers in your niche and work backwards. The other authors will make all the mistakes for us, and we’ll scurry behind, jumping over the landmines.
Let the other folks make the one-star mistakes.
There’s no more room for good books anymore. Only great books. Our readers have too many choices. We want 4.5-star books and above. Why waste valuable reading time on a ho-hum book? These are the mistakes we’ll avoid.
Welcome to the Book Review Spy (Tap this link and you’ll go straight to the micro-course).
We’re waiting for you inside. | https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/the-best-seller-formula-e0e834759669 | ['August Birch'] | 2019-11-14 15:28:53.064000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Writer', 'Authors', 'Writers On Writing'] |
About Me — Aldric in Technology Hits. | About Me — Aldric in Technology Hits.
Technology is intricately woven into our daily life. Look around us and we see all things digital. As I sit and look around my working desk this morning, I realized that being a digital native is as important as learning how to earn. And that wasn’t my takeaway 10 years ago. I have overcome it since then. This is my story.
Photo by CX Insight on Unsplash
I entered into the Workforce as a Management Consultant 10-years ago. Okay, that is a stretch. I wanted to. My application went through, and I was due to start. Then things happen.
The trouble with professional services firms is they are project-driven. I entered at a point where the project requiring headcount evaporated into thin air.
I was given 2 choices when Human Resources contacted me. We could part ways, or I could give them the green light to assign me to other projects. I chose the latter.
My nightmare began. I thought I would be assigned to other management consulting projects. Instead, I was thrust into a systems integration project upon onboarding.
My first day at work was a string of shocks. I was at the Office of Human Resources to collect my lanyard and employee identification card. That was the first table upon entry. Then, I moved to the next table to collect my laptop. Then, I moved to the next table to be briefed on the client location. The exit was after that last table.
It didn’t occur to me that this was an assembly line. Looking back, I thought I stood on a conveyer belt.
I reached the client site. My gut tells me I am in for a tough time. This is a World of Interfaces, Audit Logs, Product Build, and User Acceptance Testing. There is nothing about Venn diagrams, simple 2-axis chart scoping the next big thing, and C-Suite meetings.
In short, I was out of place. I didn’t know enough to contribute to meetings, and lunchtime topics were boring to me. I mean, why would anyone talk about error messages triggered from an unidentified interface source for an hour?
I get it. A meal among dentists makes Gingivitis a lively topic. I am not one. If anyone were to tell me that they are faking till they make it — I understand perfectly. My only question is whether you are happy doing that.
I digressed.
And because I decided to stay in a place where I do not belong, I became more extreme towards technology adoption. I was thoroughly against it, professionally and personally.
I know exactly how it feels when someone shares what a Quick Read (QR) scan looks like, the ease of use it brings. I would be sold on the idea while bashing the person and the technology at the same time.
That was me, 10 years ago. I paid the price of going against an inevitable trend.
Today, it becomes inevitable to embrace user-driven technology.
Smartphones connect us with the World. They allow social media applications to be nested within, enabling us to stay connected with the World at a fraction of the cost.
We can compare making an international call using our phoneline against a What’s App video call. The business case is obvious.
Apart from cost-efficiency, Technology itself has deflationary impacts on our economy. For the first time through consumer-driven decision-making, we can avoid roads with expensive toll-fees set-up by Telecommunication companies.
There is a lot of good in technology advancement. Do you remember your high school Economics? One of the key assumptions for any country’s production frontier (it is a graph that measures the number of goods and services we produce per unit time) to hold its current equilibrium is that technology adoption holds constant.
That assumption no longer holds. We are destined to be the most productive human species in our evolution cycle, and we are pushing the envelope.
9–6 is a thing of the past. 24–7–365 is the norm today.
9 hours of productivity cannot beat 24 hours of productivity. This is a simple calculus. We cannot be competitive without the aid of technology.
At the same time, it worries me. There will be many people left behind due to the inertia of technology adoption. My personal history has proven me right.
This is why I want to contribute to Technology Hits. I want to share with everyone that technology adoption can be seamless and fun. The issue is the sense of discomfort we have when we use the application for the first time.
Let me make one point to that. We didn’t know how to drive. We learned it.
The World ahead of us will be powered by the internet. We are rapidly transiting away from the Industrial Age powered by Newtonian Laws of Force and Motion into an era where Michael Faraday and James C Maxwell takes the stage.
The physical force of Electromagnetism is ready to usurp the throne of Human Civilisation progress.
I will do my part to share my knowledge as a Technology-user through Technology Hits. Knowing how to trumps doing well in the World of Linkedin, YouTube, Open-Source applications, and 5G networks.
This is where I share my thoughts and tricks.
Thank you for reading and do follow me for my contents.
Aldric Version 2.0.
Aldric | https://medium.com/technology-hits/about-me-aldric-in-technology-hits-cd28af07e828 | ['Aldric Chen'] | 2020-12-23 08:17:11.790000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Digital', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Technology'] |
Innovative Blockchain Startups & Businesses | As you might know blockchain is the technology that helps track Bitcoin transactions. It serves as a digital ledger for those ins and outs of transactions. I become suddenly obsessed with the idea of blockchain and want to see what kind of creative ideas have been derived from it.
After just a little bit of digging, we realized that blockchain is basically useful in all kinds of contracts and markets including creating its own economy. But some ideas are still extra fun and enlightening, so here we go:
Our favorite is Provenance, a UK based startup, that uses blockchain to track supply chain of products to ensure that the manufacturing process is conscientious, sustainable and GOOD.
Telegram is an encrypted messaging startup . According to TechCrunch, Telegram is planning a multi-billion dollar Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for chat cryptocurrency.
. According to TechCrunch, Telegram is planning a multi-billion dollar Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for chat cryptocurrency. PROPS rewards video creators with its cryptocurrency. It’s like a coin / token enabled Youtube.
Provenance is a UK based startup that uses blockchain to track supply chain of products to ensure that the manufacturing process is conscientious, sustainable and GOOD.
Kodak and WENN Digital team up to create the KODAKOne platform which uses KODAKCoin to manage image licensing rights and royalty payments.
and royalty payments. According to Fast Company, WePower is creating a new cryptocurrency to help facilitate a more democratic system of funding and buying renewable energy.
There are more than a few decentralized news networks that aim to make news more open to all.
FACTMATA backed by Mark Cuban, Mark Pincus, Ross Mason, Sunil Paul have communities fact-check news to combat fake news.
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros wants to use blockchain technology to help refugees. He explained in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Cryptocurrency can be used to help “keep their money safe and to carry it with them” (source: Fortune).
Barcelona-based Goin is a blockchain enabled mobile platform that encourages millennials to save. It successfully pitched at AngelHack’s Global Demo Day.
In San Francisco, two blockchain startups are teaming up to provide decentralize airbnb. Bee Token handles the short term housing rental part and WeTrust handles its security deposit — basically a form of insurance using blockchain.
If you want a full list of blockchain companies, google ‘blockchain landscape’ instead. Above are only some unique growing ones.
Here’s a medium article that list 101 blockchain startups. https://medium.com/due/101-top-blockchain-companies-b74814424a6b
Some of the big guys — corporations are hurrying to be associated with blockchain technology. As Long Island Iced Tea changed its name to Long Blockchain, Comcast Venture is investing in blockchain; IBM and container global shipment giant Maersk are creating a new blockchain company that commerializes blockchain technology.
*Some experts say that Initial Coin Offering is equivalent to a blockchain startup trying fund itself. Don’t buy into it. It’s super risky. | https://medium.com/tech-digest/innovative-blockchain-startups-businesses-8bb8f96b188 | [] | 2018-01-30 09:34:41.072000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Startup', 'Blockchain', 'Pitching'] |
Trust Is a Choice, Not an Effect | Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths (Proverbs 3:5–6, ESV).
It’s easy to tell others to trust in God when they’re struggling with something. It’s much harder to trust when the struggle is our own. We all too often become consumed with our circumstances, not seeing the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes.
Trust may be a restful place, but it’s certainly not a passive thing. Trust is about as active as it gets. It doesn’t just happen. In fact, if we wait for trust to come to us, we’ll be waiting a long, long time.
We choose to trust
In any group of people, there will always be some who are more or less trusting than others. Sometimes, this trust (or lack of it) is based on childhood experiences or a major event in our lives.
When we choose to trust God, we’re literally putting our lives in his hands. He’s the only one who has ultimate control over life and death 100 percent of the time, regardless of the circumstances we may find ourselves in.
And we need to trust that he knows what he’s doing and that he has our best in mind.
I think the biggest problem we have when trusting God is that we measure him by our own human standards. We assume there’s even a small percent of a chance that he could fail in some way, and we’ll be left worse off than we started.
I learned to not trust certain people
As the child of an alcoholic father, I learned that I couldn’t trust my dad in many ways. He was steady in his provision for our family, and I never had any doubt that he would keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. But he wasn’t steady in his emotions and reactions, and I never knew whether I was getting the dad who would listen quietly and give a thoughtful response, or the dad who would react in anger and provoke an argument.
I also learned that I couldn’t trust my mother, because she would react emotionally based on how everything affected her. To be fair to her, she was probably always dealing with my dad’s unpredictability, and that would cause her own stress. But she also tended toward the narcissistic, and no matter what was going on in our lives, she would somehow turn it around to make sure that everyone knew how she was affected, and how inconvenienced she was by the things that happened to others.
She also could not be trusted to keep a conversation in confidence, so even into adulthood, I held back from sharing anything that was close to my heart or important. The times I made myself vulnerable to her inevitably came back to haunt me when I heard from others that she was sharing those things I’d confided to her.
I knew this about my parents, and yet I still continued to want to trust them. Eventually, our relationship was broken because of those trust breaches, to the point where I felt that all our interactions were superficial. I could no longer share any of the important things in my life with them, good or bad.
So what stops me from trusting in God?
Is my lack of trust in God at times because I don’t know him well enough to really grasp his nature? I mean, if I know him . . . really know him . . . I should know that he is trustworthy. With everything. Good or bad, big or small, I can put my worries into his hands and he will know exactly what to do with them for my good, for his glory.
He’s shown, not only in the Bible but in my own life, that he is perfectly trustworthy.
He will do what he says he will do. He acts in a way that’s consistent with his nature and his promises. A friend of mine used to say he was always amazed at people who seemed surprised when God came through for them in a difficult situation. He said, “We should be surprised when he doesn’t!”
What if I like my path better?
We also tend to fall into the trap of thinking that God’s best for us involves something we’re going to be miserable about. After all, don’t we know better than anyone what makes us happy? How can we trust that God isn’t going to make us give up one of the things we enjoy most?
I should laugh at the ridiculous nature of that thought. I mean, really. Why would a loving God want us to be miserable? His every action, every chastisement, is based on having a closer relationship with us. So I have to trust that if he is indeed asking me to give something up, then that something must somehow be hindering me from a deeper relationship with him.
In all these things, I need to trust him. To choose to trust him. To pray for the strength to trust him.
The song “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” talks about that rest when we believe his promises, and yet the final line of the chorus is a prayer for grace to trust him more. It really is a choice.
Oh for grace, Lord, to trust you more. | https://medium.com/koinonia/trust-is-a-choice-not-an-effect-13ef787f7cd4 | ['Lynda Dietz'] | 2020-12-21 20:24:54.708000+00:00 | ['Trust', 'Christianity', 'Trusting God', 'Proverbs', 'Relationships'] |
Horace: Life Lessons in Verse | We can be turned off by complicated ideas. We want it easy.
Philosophers are damned like the mythical Cassandra, who could see the future and warn people of the dangers before them but never be believed. They have advice for us that can save us plenty of trouble, but the advice rests on complicated ideas.
Epicurus (b. 341 B.C.E.) was seen by a multitude as a saviour. His followers preached that his philosophy brought sustained tranquillity. But his style of writing was wilfully boring.
The spartan-living philosopher believed that poetic or flowery writing does important ideas a disservice. He actively warned against enjoying arts like music, poetry and theatre.
But if you’re the bearer of good news, you want to share it as best you can. Roman poets defied the teachings of their long-dead guru by setting his life lessons to verse. It’s the ancient equivalent of singing Nietzsche to a pop beat.
Lucretius was first. It’s thanks to the rediscovery of his first century B.C.E. masterwork On the Nature of Things during the Renaissance that we know many interesting details of Epicurus’s philosophy.
Lucretius justified his putting philosophy to verse with the metaphor of the sick child, who refuses medicine unless the rim of the cup is sweetened with honey. It’s by ruse that profound life lessons can be learned:
“[since] This philosophy’s a bitter pill to swallow, and the throng
Recoils from it, I want to coat this psychic in rich song,
To kiss it, as it were, with the sweet honey of the Muse.”
(Book 4, Trans. A.E. Stallings)
A few decades later Quintus Horatius Flaccus — known to us as Horace — became the most celebrated poet during the reign of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor in the 30s B.C.E. A new book on Horace’s poetry by Stephen Harrison, How to be Content: An Ancient Poet’s Guide for an Age of Excess, shines a light on the philosophical core of the great poet’s writing.
Horace was well-schooled in Athens in both Stoic and Epicurean philosophy. Despite being the son of a freedman (ex-slave), and fighting for the losing pro-Republican side in the civil war after Julius Caesar’s death, the poet found himself in the circles of the imperial court.
Along with Virgil — the other great poet of Rome’s golden age of literature — Horace was patronized by the ultra-rich and powerful Gaius Maecenas, a lieutenant and close friend of Augustus.
Harrison paints a fascinating portrait of a low(ish)-born poet teasing his extremely rich and powerful friends with lessons that ran against the grain of their lifestyles. Poets in the ancient world were given some licence to shame the powerful into living up to their moral obligations.
Horace’s philosophy is an amalgam of Epicurean and Stoic thinking, though it seems the poet favoured the teachings of Epicurus.
Stephen Harrison translates excerpts beautifully in modern English, giving us the historical and philosophical context in detail. Here are just a few ideas put to verse, using Harrison’s translations.
Don’t indulge in materialism, even when you’re wealthy
“The man who has been over-pleased by fortune’s favour
Will be shaken when it changes.
Avoid great surroundings: in a humble house
You can surpass kings and kings’ friends in living.”
(Epistles 1.10)
According to Epicurus, any desire that does not lead to physical pain when unfulfilled is unnecessary. For example, if I desire water I am thirsty, I will suffer and eventually die if I do not quench my thirst.
But owning a 12-bedroom mansion is not a desire that when fulfilled will save me any pain. Our happiness is not in externals, but in our own minds. As long as we have the means to live free of natural sufferings like hunger, thirst and cold, we have the means to be happy.
The world around us tells us that happiness comes from ever-bigger homes, ever-fancier cars, clothes and gadgets. All this serves to make us unhappy with what we actually have.
When our career is going well, or we come into money through luck, we’re tempted to indulge in unnecessary purchases and indulgences. These will likely make you take wealth for granted, only to start to fret and worry about keeping — or adding to — what you have.
A modest home is a sufficient abode for good living, and if our business or our career does hit the rocks, we’ll not have to suffer as much. The higher you climb the harder you fall.
The more you possess the more you’ll worry and stress. Luxury will not save you from anxiety.
“He who longs only for what is enough
Is not stirred to fear by the sea’s tumult,
Or by the fierce force of the falling
northern star or of the rising Kid”
[…]
“Fear and Threats can climb
As high as the master and dark Care
Stays on the copper-sheathed trireme,
And takes her seat behind the horseman.”
(Odes 3.1)
Our anxieties multiply with our possessions. Horace puts this beautifully in verse by demonstrating how the course of nature stressed the Roman wealthy. The rich would have been terrified of storms wrecking their cargo ships, or droughts shrivelling their crops.
The person content with what is sufficient to live undisturbed is not worried by external matters. A person content with little wouldn’t gamble with risky investments.
The “copper-sheathed trireme” was the private 747 or super-yacht of the Roman world. Decommissioned navel warships were bought by the rich as their own vessels to travel the Mediterranean in luxury.
But, as Horace warns, the most luxurious surroundings are no refuge from worry. For as long as we place our self-worth in the things we own, worry will follow us closely no matter how much we run, as if taking the seat behind us on a horse.
Those who long for ever more lavish luxuries or fears for their ever-growing possessions will never be pleased by their wealth. “If the vessel is not clean,” Horace warns, “whatever you pour in goes sour.”
Don’t postpone enjoyment for the future holidays
“Grasp every hour god has kindly bestowed on you
With grateful hand, and don’t postpone
Pleasure for another season:
This way you can say that wherever you were
You lived most gladly: for if reason and good sense,
Not a place that commands a wide spread of ocean, banish cares,
Those who speed across the sea change their climate, not their temper.” “We seek for the good life. But what you seek is here,
Here at Ulubrae, if you have sufficient steady mind.”
Epistles (1.11)
Horace’s super-rich friends loved to travel. Tourism was hugely popular among the Roman elite, who would tour the empire to see the sights of beautiful places they read about as children.
How many of us long for that next holiday to the extent that we seem to postpone our happiness till the day we pack up and head to that sunnier place? Horace is fine with travel, but warns us not to think our lives at home are drab in comparison to our holidays.
We are capable, according to Epicurean philosophy, to be happy no matter where we are if we take pleasure in the necessities of living.
He chose a boring location, an Italian Nowheresville called “Ulubrae”, as a place where we can be just as happy as on a beach or the ski slopes if we’re of “steady mind”. We can change our surroundings, he tells us, but that will not change our disposition — that needs to be changed from within.
You’ll be truly happy if the simple things in life please you.
“If all is well with your stomach, your midriff, and your feet
A king’s wealth will add nothing more.
If you happen to live on a frugal diet of herbs and nettles
Though surrounded by ready-made dainties
That way you will lead a smooth course of life
Even though Fortune’s clear stream suddenly gild you,
Either because you cannot change your nature
Or because you think that everything is inferior to virtue supreme.”
Epistles 1.12
Central to the Epicurean philosophy is the idea of “ataraxia”, which means being free from mental disturbance or feeling unperturbed. For Epicurus happiness is the default state of well-being that all human beings have. As long as we desire things we are not in that state of mind.
The philosopher taught that we should only do as much to satisfy the simple desires we have to eat, drink and keep company to regain ataraxia.
Beyond that, we risk losing our calm disposition. Desires for luxuries that are not essential to be fulfilled will multiply, and we’ll suffer turmoil for our longing. Any additional luxuries beyond a simple diet will not make you any happier.
Epicurus wrote, “Nature’s wealth is restricted [to what is sufficient to live] and easily won, while that of empty convention runs on to infinity.”
Horace reminds his ultra-wealthy friends that while their table may be covered in lavish foods (“ready-made dainties”), only contentment with simple food (“frugal diet of herbs and nettles”) will give them a “smooth course of life”.
Live for today, don’t ruminate on the future
“Amid your hopes and cares, amid your fears and passions,
Believe every day that dawns your last;
Sweet is the hour that comes that’s not expected.”
(Epistles 1.4) “Don’t search (for it is forbidden to know),
Leuconoe,
What ends the gods have given me, given you, and don’t resort
To the calculations of the Babylonians.
How much better it is
To endure whatever will be! Whether
Jupiter [God] has given you further winters
Or this one as your last,
[…]
be wise, strain your wine and cut back
Long-springing hope within a small space: as we speak, time the envious
Will have fled away. Harvest the present day, trust minimally in the next.”
(Odes, 1.11)
The famous “Carpe diem” appears in the last line here. “Harvest the present day”, is a more accurate translation than the more common “seize the day”.
It’s easy to worry about your future. We wonder if we’ll find love, or if we’ll come into money, or if we’ll live a long life. All those things are desirable. But for as long as we ruminate on the future, we are not enjoying the present.
The Romans were much the same. Romans often consulted soothsayers, oracles and astrology — “the calculations of Babylonians” — to try to glean some insight into their future.
In both poems above, Horace reminds us to just live without the expectation of a long life. This is not to say you should cash out your savings to go out and party like there’s no tomorrow, it’s to say that you should enjoy the moment you are in.
Epicureanism was a hedonistic philosophy, but not in the way that we expect “hedonism” to entail. Pleasure to the Epicurean is the absence of pain, not a positively quantified pleasure like getting drunk or having sex.
The wise Epicurean takes pleasure simply in being — in study (because to understand the world, is to not fear it), socialising or exercising — rather than in any activity that could entail later suffering (like getting drunk). | https://medium.com/the-sophist/horace-life-lessons-in-verse-2d4d5d6c9d18 | ['Steven Gambardella'] | 2020-11-25 11:24:07.574000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Philosophy', 'Psychology', 'History', 'Culture'] |
10 Most Essential Google Analytics Reports for Every Digital Marketer | In the last couple of years, as digital marketers, we have witnessed how the world has embraced digital marketing and the speed at which more and more businesses are adapting to it. This enormously growing popularity of digital marketing is mainly because of the many advantages it has to offer over traditional marketing. To name a few, digital marketing is cost-effective, offers high Return On Investment(ROI), allows to precisely target the audience, get real-time results, provides higher exposure, higher engagement, quicker global reach, it is non-intrusive, etc. The one major element that stands out from the rest of what digital marketing presents is “performance measurement”. As Peter Drucker quote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” but how do we do it? How do we measure the performance? The answer is, I know most of you would have already guessed it, yes it’s Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is Google’s free and very powerful web analytics tool. In simple words, it is a tool that tells you whether your efforts(SEO, advertising, backlinks, etc) are going in the right direction and fetching results or not. Setting up a Google Analytics account for your website empowers you to track and analyze the data captured by the tool and gain in-depth knowledge of your website’s performance. Google Analytics also facilitates the integration of other products like Google Search Console and Google Ads by adding a small tracking code on the pages of your website which is definitely an icing on the cake.
Every website owner would like to know answers to a few questions like, how visitors/clients/audiences are finding his/her website? Where are they coming from? How often are they visiting? What are they liking most on the website? What are they not liking? What are they doing on the website? How long are they staying on the website? What device are they using to visit my website? The answers to all these questions are available in the data captured by the Google Analytics tool. These questions may not even constitute 10% of what the Google Analytics tool is capable of capturing. This valuable data is presented in the form of reports by the tool which digital marketers can tweak according to their need for data analyzation. Upon obtaining the information the owner/business can take appropriate actions or decisions towards improved performance and business growth.
You might now be thinking, how do I master the Google Analytics tool? Considering the gigantism, it seems really challenging and overwhelming, especially if you are a beginner in the industry. Although this appears to be intimidating, the urge to leave an impression at work or to show the clients your worth, what you need to know are these 10 most essential Google Analytics reports. Analyzation of these reports in-depth can give vital insights on the website and help you to get going strong. Let’s see what these Google Analytics reports are and how they can be accessed and how they help the website/business.
1. The Acquisition Overview Report
Traffic acquisition report is the most basic and essential google analytics report for every digital marketer. Mostly this is the starting point when it comes to the reporting process. This report helps you understand which channels/mediums are contributing to the traffic to your website. Upon analyzing the data if you see that most of the traffic to your website it from social media, you know exactly what to do. Increase your efforts towards social media(Ads, campaigns, etc ) to grab more and more audience as you already know that this is the place your audiences are. If you happen to observe from the traffic overview report that the organic traffic is going down then you know there are problems with the SEO and appropriate actions need to be taken.
To access this report, under reports on the left-hand side panel of the Google Analytics tool, click Acquisition → Overview
The sample above shows the different channels and the percentage of traffic received through them. One can further drill down to know the list of all the links from where exactly the user has found your website. For example, clicking on referral will list all the website links that have provided a link to your website(backlinks). Along with the number of users, this report also gives information on the new users, sessions(active engagement time of the user), bounce rate(user visiting and exiting the website on the same page), etc.
You can also use this report to understand which channel is getting you the maximum conversions. You can then work towards that channel to increase brand awareness reaching more audience and maximizing conversions.
2. The Mobile Overview Report
Today, you have almost everything available at your fingertips and that’s because of the one and only gadget “The mobile phone”. According to CIODIVE, “70% of internet traffic comes from mobile phones”. With this in the picture, you have to consider your website’s compatibility with the small screens along with the desktops.
This report helps you to understand the number of users using mobile phones to access the website. If the number of users visiting from the mobile device keeps growing it means that your website is optimized and very much working on the small screens and being ranked well if it is organic traffic.
You can access this report by clicking on Audience → Mobile → Overview
This report gives you the various devices users are using to visit your website.
Going to Audience → Mobile → Devices report gives you the information on the mobile phones brand, the model, the service provider, etc. If the bounce rate on a particular browser, say iOS is more compared to Android, it can be that the website is not compatible with the iOS but most of your traffic is coming from Apple mobile phone users, you should sense the problem and work on the issue immediately.
You can also make use of segments to know which platform is mostly being used for conversion or goals set by you. If the traffic through mobile phones is higher and conversion rates are lesser then that’s an indication of poor website performance on mobile phones. Minimal average session durations, lower average page depth, etc are also the other indicators.
Sample reports showing mobile device branding and mobile device information
3. New vs Returning Audience Report
This is another important and one of the most essential google analytics report. The main focus of any website/blog owner is to get as many audiences/visitors to their website. After achieving this what is the next step? It will be compelling the already visited user to keep bringing to the website either by offering good products/services or great informational content, etc depending on what you have to offer. This report helps you to understand how successful you are to bring back the old visitors and how successful you are in reaching your goals time and again with the same customers. This definitely talks about your success. For example: If an e-commerce website is successful in bringing back the old customers for purchases, then the products/services offered by the website are impeccable.
This report can be accessed under reports, click on Audience → Behavior → New vs Returning
In the below sample report, if you closely observe the data, the returning users are having lesser bounce rate meaning they are visiting various other pages of the website. Also, higher average session duration indicating they spend more time on the website compared to the new users.
This report also helps you to understand which of your customers either existing or new are contributing more towards goal conversion. You can then shift your focus and build strategies for existing or new customers depending on the outcome of the report.
4. The Landing Pages Report
The page on which a user first land on your website is called a landing page. This need not be a single and dedicated page. It can be a blog page shared on social media, it can be a home page click on the SERP results, it can also be a form page or an email subscription page directed upon clicking a Google Ad, etc. This landing pages report provide valuable insight on which pages of your website landing pages are doing great and which are not. Understanding the poor performing landing pages by their high bounce rate and fixing them will help to retain the users and increases the chances of conversion.
You can fetch this report under reports by clicking on the Behavior → Site Content → Landing Pages.
The image below is a sample Landing Pages Report.
5. The All Pages Report
All pages report provides vast information on the pages of your website. You can get to know how many times users have visited a specific page? What is the average time users spend on the page? How many time users have entered the website through a particular page and exited the website through that same page? How much revenue that particular page has generated? etc. You can use this data to concentrate on the poor performing pages. You can add/modify content on these pages that users are interested to find on your website.
You can find this report under reports, click on the Behavior → Site Content → All Pages
The image below is a sample All Pages Report.
You can further experiment with the data in the “Explorer Tab” by choosing the relevant metrics to analyze the data. Below example shows the visual representation of a page’s entrances vs bounce rates in the form of a graph. This indicates how many times the user entered the website through this page and the percentage of which were bounced.
Below is a screenshot of the “Navigation Summary Tab” which provides a detailed list of the previous page visited by the user prior to this page and the next page visited after visiting this page helping the marketer understand the intention or behavior of the user. This tab also provides information on the percentage of entrances and exits of this page in the specified time duration.
6. Goals Overview Report
The actions you want your visitor to take on arriving to your website, the goal(s), can be set in the Google Analytics tool. The goal can be asking the user to submit a registration form or to subscribe to a newsletter or to download a file, etc.
To set the goal, you click on Admin → View → Goals → New Goal
Whenever a user completes the actions that are set in the goal, a conversion happens and that metric is reflected in the goal conversion overview report. There are many other tools in the market that are used to track these conversions but the advantage of doing it in the Google Analytics tool is you can compare various metrics. For example, you can understand out of how many users that visited in a week have completed the goals that are set? Which goals are achieved faster? These metrics also help you understand how good is your business doing.
You can also use this report’s data to get the conversion percentage(conversions/page views). The higher conversion percentage indicates that the pages are doing exceptionally well. To increase the conversions further, marketing efforts can be put on such pages to optimize them so that they can rank higher in SERP results, they can also be promoted on social media channels, finding more and more backlinks to these pages, etc
This report can be accessed by clicking on Conversions → Goals → Overview
The image below is a sample Goals Overview report.
7. Audience Demographics & Location Reports
These two reports give us information on the age, gender and the location of the visitors. These metrics can be used to tailor the content on the website depending on the majority of the gender and age group of the visitors. For example, the metrics show that most of your website visitors are millennials, creating the content that has internet slangs make more sense. This will make the content more fun to read and can keep the visitors hooked for a longer time. If the age group is above 60+ then probably this kind of content creation makes no sense.
So, the key here is to understand your audiences to take appropriate actions to attract them and keep them engaged.
To get to the demographics report, under reports click on the Audience → Demographics → Overview
The image below is a sample Audience Demographics Report.
Now, let us talk about the location report. This report gives you an idea of where the majority of your audience is geographically located. No matter if you are an international business or local, knowing the exact city/state that is getting you more revenue/conversion/visits that can help you focus more on those geographies.
To get to the location report, under reports click on the Audience → Geo → Location
The countries can be further drilled down to get the states from where the majority of your website visitors belong. Furthermore, clicking on the state will take you to the report you can see which city in the state is on top of the table.
The image below is a sample Audience Location Report.
Additionally, the outcome of these reports can be made useful, if you are planning or when you plan to run Ads for your website. They can help you to aim the target audience appropriately, getting you maximum results from the Ads.
8. Audience Visits vs Day & Time Report
This is a custom report which talks what day of the week and what time of the day your website gets maximum user visits. With this information at hand, you can make sure that your website is always serviceable during those days and hours. You can also make use of this while running Ads. Ads popping up during these active hours or days can help you in further increasing visits to your website.
This custom report can be generated by clicking on the Customization → Custom Reports → New Custom Report
You can further customize this report to get more insights into the data by adding more dimensions to the report.
9. Google Ads Campaign Report
Google Ads campaign report is one of the most essential reports to know if your marketing efforts are thriving positive results and also to rectify where they are not. To access this report, you have to link your Google Ads account to Google Analytics account. If you are successful in reaching the goals, don’t just assume that your Ads are doing great and the completion of goals are the result of it.
This report is your option to verify what actually the scene is. Is it really the Ads that are aiding in the goal completion? Also, if so, which are those Ads that are getting you maximum visitors and/or conversions? In this campaign report, you will get to know how each of your ads is doing, the number of clicks on each Ad and the CPC of the Ads to know which Ad is costing you more and if it is meeting your ROI? After getting answers to these questions you can invest in the Ads that are fetching your required results and meeting your ROI.
Here is how you can get to the report once the Google Ads account is linked. Go to reports, click on the Acquisition → Google Ads → Campaigns
The image below is a sample Google Ads Campaign Report.
10. Keyword Analysis Report
As digital marketers, we know the importance of organic traffic to our website. The SEO efforts have to be at its best to achieve the desired results(ranking high on the SERP). Keywords are one of the key players when it comes to SEO. If you get to know what keywords are getting visitors to the website, it is as good as finding a treasure. You can make use of these details to enhance your SEO strategies and aim to rank higher in the search results.
This report can be viewed under reports, click on the Acquisition → All Traffic → Channels
Once you get the report, you need to do some changes to get to the intended report. Click on the “Organic Search” link in the report. You will then get to see the keywords that bought visitors to your website.
The image below is a sample Keyword Analysis Report.
Conclusion
Google Analytics has tons and tons of information which when used wisely can provide you very valuable insights into how your website or Ads or visitors etc are doing. The above listed are the 10 most essential Google Analytics reports every digital marketer must know. You can further explore the tool and reports based on what exactly you are looking for from the available metrics. Google Analytics Solutions Gallery is a great place for both the newbies and the experts. If you are a newbie or someone who doesn’t like to work from scratch, you can find readymade “Custom Reports” that suits your needs. All you have to do is to import them to your account. If you are an expert, this is a great place for you to contribute your skills and help others. | https://medium.com/digital-ready-official/10-most-essential-google-analytics-reports-for-every-digital-marketer-b68aaee5ffff | ['Chiranjeevi Maddala'] | 2019-07-16 07:07:08.628000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Analytics'] |
The Volatility Range Indicator — Creating a Profitable Contrarian Trading Strategy. | The Volatility Range Indicator — VRI
The VRI is a slightly complex indicator that is composed of three elements:
Volatility as measured by the historical Standard Deviation.
Momentum as measured by the differencing of closing prices.
The maximum-minimum range technique as measured below.
We will discuss each part on its own before combining them and presenting the Volatility Range Indicator — VRI all together which will then be used in a strategy seen in the last part of the article.
The most basic type of volatility is our old friend the Standard Deviation. It is one of the pillars of descriptive statistics and an important element in some technical indicators. It is also used in the famous Bollinger Bands. But first let us define what Variance is before we find the Standard Deviation.
Variance is the squared deviations from the mean (a dispersion measure), we take the square deviations so as to force the distance from the mean to be non-negative, finally we take the square root to make the measure have the same units as the mean, in a way we are comparing apples to apples (mean to standard deviation standard deviation). Variance is calculated through this formula:
Following our logic, Standard Deviation is therefore:
The result of the above functions on the daily values of the EURUSD pair with a Standard Deviation period of 3 can be seen in the below chart: | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/the-volatility-range-indicator-creating-a-profitable-contrarian-trading-strategy-50609880ecf8 | ['Sofien Kaabar'] | 2020-12-20 14:48:24.821000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Trading', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Finance'] |
How to Cut Cloud Costs | This blog post was originally published here on CloudOps’ blog.
People leverage the cloud for many reasons. More often than not, the need to cut costs ranks high among them. And while the cloud does offer significant benefits that include cost-efficiency, some organizations have found out the hard way that this isn’t necessarily true as they scale. Cloud native infrastructures are complex entities that must be managed properly to scale cost-effectively. In this blog, we identify eight ways that can help your organization optimize its cloud usage.
1. Have a strategy for business continuity
It’s important to always maintain the ability to quickly and cost-effectively move your business-critical applications to new deployments should your region ever go offline. Developing a strategy for business continuity means making sure you don’t locate all your data in one region. While doing so won’t necessarily cut costs from month to month, it will help you avoid outages and unexpected loss in revenue and customer satisfaction.
2. Pay for cloud utilities in your local currency
Currency has become a (painful) topic of interest recently due to exchange rate volatility. Even if you consume a fixed amount of cloud resources each month, your bill can vary drastically if its exchange rate is pegged to a currency that is other than your local currency. This can make budgeting unpredictable and can adversely affect your organization’s profitability. Paying for cloud utilities in your local currency — whether by leveraging a regional provider or asking a hyper-scale provider to not peg your pricing in USD — is one way of stabilizing your costs in the cloud. CloudOps often recommends Canadian customers leverage cloud.ca, a regional, Canadian IaaS, for this reason.
3. Ensure your applications are cloud-ready
Avoid the classic mistake of adopting a lift-and-shift strategy to migrate legacy applications. If your applications are rigid, archaic, and tightly-coupled, you will not have the flexibility required to take advantage of the cloud’s operational model and will most likely face escalating costs as your application scales in the cloud. It can be easy to see costs escalating when your only way of deploying an application isn’t the most cost-effective. Refactoring VMs into containers can not only increase efficiency, but it can also increase the portability of your workloads in the cloud and provide more flexibility and options for your deployments. This can be further optimized by leveraging services, such as db-as-a-service where third-party launches and maintains a cost-effective cloud database for your storage needs.
4. Own the base, rent the peaks
Owning the base means knowing your steady-state requirements and possibly leasing infrastructure or bare-metal resources (from providers like Aptum, cloud.ca, or Packet.net) to create a hybrid-cloud architecture. Renting the peaks means having access to utility resources, so your infrastructure can scale when needed. This reduces cloud waste, which is expected to exceed $17.6 billion in 2020. Owning the base and renting the peaks is an integral part of cutting cloud costs.
5. Commit to expected resources
Just as knowing your steady state requirements will allow you to own the base, knowing your peak requirements will allow you to commit to expected resources. Most cloud providers have different offerings for committed and utility resources. When you consume utility resources, you pay as you use. In contrast, when you commit to a set number of base resources, you receive those resources at a discounted price. Taking advantage of discounts by committing your base resources is a critical way to cut costs in the cloud.
6. Check your licenses
Licenses can be a critical component of deploying workloads in the cloud. It is therefore important to know which licenses you own, and which you must get from your cloud provider. Understanding the availability and cost implications of the latter can be an important factor of controlling costs in the cloud.
7. Match your resources with your requirements
Cloud providers offer many different types of VMs and storage options. The resources you deploy in the cloud should optimally match your requirements. This isn’t just about determining the number of vCPUs and RAMs required, it’s about knowing how the different VM flavors are memory- and CPU-optimized. Smaller, regional cloud providers are much simpler. For example, cloud.ca has one flavor in VM in a standard, multi-tenant infrastructure. In contrast, hyperscale providers have a proliferation of choice, which can be intimidating.
8. Make sure you can understand your invoice
If you’re unable to understand the invoice sent by your cloud provider, how can you expect to manage your costs? There are many variables in the cloud, especially with the hyperscale providers. Having a clear understanding of where, why, and how you’re spending money will allow you to optimize your consumption and cut costs.
To analyze your technology stack, read ‘A Checklist for Your Cloud Migration Strategy’. You will receive a guide for understanding your hardware, OSes, middleware, and software, with an emphasis on translating legacy tools into cloud native equivalents.
Take your first steps to a more economical cloud journey. Our DevOps Platform and Practices Assessment will provide you with visibility into your infrastructure. It will identify any key gaps and provide recommendations for increasing your feature velocity and efficiency.
This blog post was originally published here on CloudOps’ blog.
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Follow us on Twitter 🐦 and Facebook 👥 and Instagram 📷 and join our Facebook and Linkedin Groups 💬 | https://medium.com/faun/how-to-cut-cloud-costs-494a320c9d11 | [] | 2020-11-07 10:39:51.429000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Cloud Cost Management', 'Data Management', 'Cloud Cost', 'Cloud Cost Optimization'] |
Contact Page Creation Key Elements | The Contact Page on any website is likely to get the most traffic, so in this article, we’ll explore the key elements of a good contact page creation process. No matter where people come to your site, they are very likely to be on the lookout for a way to get in touch with you. They might want a phone number, an address, an email, or even where they can find you on social media. Each visitor is unique in how they want to reach out. As a result, it is in your best interest to make sure that your Contact Page is. As clean and concise as possible.
Key Elements Of a Contact Page Creation
Contact page info and channels
Freshbooks is a great example of aggregating all the contact options in one location. Whether customers need technical help, updates on a current issue, or to make a press contact, it’s all available on one contact page with a good creation. While some companies distinguish between self-service knowledge bases and active support, at minimum, cross-linking all your contact options helps people more easily find their way to a solution.
Most of the pages I reviewed linked to FAQs and documentation from their contact pages. Hootsuite, HubSpot, and Basecamp all added social support channels as an option. Consider adding links to your customer community forum, pre-recorded videos, or training options too.
The FAQ in the contact page
Great contact pages walk a fine line between making the customer do the work upfront. In addition to saving them time overall. Average replies before a conversation are resolved. It is a valuable customer service metric for your support team. But when the initial question from a customer isn’t clear. It doesn’t contain enough information to answer the question, that average takes a hit. (I would hate to know the number of support replies I have personally sent that boiled down to “Can you please tell me which account you’re talking about?”) Adding additional fields and guidance to contact forms can help you do the following:
Automatically direct different requests to the appropriate teams while contact page creation. For example, you can send prospects to your sales team, job applicants to your people team, and product support to your customer service team. Show appropriate FAQs and support options. As shown above, Squarespace narrows down their knowledge base results according to the options you choose to describe your question.
Provide the support agent with account tools and history. If a customer can tell you the account they log in to or their company name. You can often give your support team access to internal tools and data to help them answer much more quickly. Inform your reporting. Letting customers self categorize their questions by product area, issue type, or the like gives your team great insight into where your main support issues are coming from and perhaps where the product teams should be focusing.
For some types of support in a contact page creation. Prompting customers to attach a file or a screenshot along with the question can shorten a conversation considerably. Basecamp’s contact form includes a file attachment option right upfront.
Set time in the page
As Tom Petty once said. The waiting is the hardest part. Unless you offer real-time support. Giving customers an idea of how long they should expect to wait lets them decide how to proceed and builds their confidence that they’ll get a response. Freshbooks notes their office hours and helpfully lists the current time at their office. Moreover, Basecamp says, “Expect a reply between 8 is CST — 6:30 pm CST Monday through Friday.”
Finally, the campaign Monitor quotes an email response time of “a few hours”. However, changes the page over the weekend when response times increase. If they are told email responses can take a day, a customer may decide to try self-service options. Ultimately solve the issue on their own. Alternatively, if the wait time is acceptable. In conclusion, they can move on with other tasks knowing the answer is on the way.
Conclusion
The contact us page creation keys should be one of the most user-friendly pages on your website. A great way to test its usability is to ask friends, family, and colleagues to give it a trial run. Ask them for feedback on:
Firstly, how quickly they can find the link to the contact page?
Secondly, how easily they can read the contact details on the contact page?
Do the contact form and all included links work?
Is the phone number, email address, location, and opening hours correct? One digit wrong and you could lose potential business.
Finally, does the look and feel of the contact us page actually make them want to contact you.
It should because that’s what a contact page key is there for. | https://medium.com/visualmodo/contact-page-creation-key-elements-1a79ec570fce | [] | 2019-10-12 19:27:25.283000+00:00 | ['Website', 'Contact Page', 'Design', 'Creation', 'Customer Service'] |
How to Look at What Is, Instead of What You Wish | I’m not going to pretend that I’m some expert on this. As a matter of fact, humans in general aren’t engineered to just look at what is. Civilization is a testament to dreamers and their visions, for better and for worse.
But it’s important to know when to dream and when to build your dream. You can’t be dreaming whilst you build. Not only will you be adding more and more to the vision, you’ll overwhelm yourself and you will fail to complete the task. There is a time and place for everything.
To be able to look at what is, you need to be able to do two things:
1. You are focused on the present moment, and
2. You do not have thoughts that compel you to address the future
Present Moment
Some of us are naturals at the first thing on that list. If you know about the Myers-Briggs Personality Types, the types which have strong extroverted sensing are masters at being in the present moment. These are ESFP, ISFP, ESTP and ISTP. The rest of us will largely struggle with this and can be more easily pulled into focusing on the future.
But in studying extroverted sensing we find the solution for how to be in the present moment more often. Using extroverted sensing means that we take in information using our five senses. As a result, we focus more on the smell coming from the kitchen — maybe something needs to be thrown out. Or we’re more aware of the intensity of someone’s stare as you talk — they’re very focused on what I have to say; I guess I’m saying something valuable.
To be able to improve your ability to be in the present, meditation is often touted as a great antidote because the goal is to focus either on an object in your environment like a candle or mirror, or you can focus your attention on internal states like your breath or your heart.
But sometimes it’s tricky to sit still, so what can you do then? Taking up a hobby where you have to be present helps too. Playing video games and sports compel you to take in a lot of sensory information and to take action on the goal you have for the game.
Okay, but maybe that’s too active. What else can you do? Visual arts like drawing, painting and sculpting work well. Writing and reading do too.
Lastly, having little reminders in intervals throughout the day to be in the moment and smell the coffee can also help you a ton because you are learning to connect to what is, instead of what is upstairs in your brain as you try to figure out this and that, which is a great segue into the second point.
Future-focused Thoughts
Being present helps when it comes to ruminating on the future. If you’re too busy soaking in the moment, you don’t have time to think.
However, there are times when we think the thoughts we’re thinking are very important. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they’re not and even worse, the thinking is being done at the wrong time and place. At this point it may even be compulsive.
To be able to tackle this, we have to do some introspection and I would suggest writing your thoughts down. Ask yourself, “What am I trying to prevent by thinking about this thing so much?” Often we’re trying to forge a better tomorrow and so that’s why we think so much, but I’m afraid that behind that is the primary desire to stop what is happening.
What I mean is, there are things happening in our present moment or in our lives in general that we’d rather not focus on and want to end once and for all. So we turn to the future because at least there’s the possibility that things will be better later. We make plans to escape our painful reality but when they fail, or when new problems surmount, we go right back into future-oriented thinking.
By asking, “What am I trying to prevent by thinking about this thing so much?” now you know what’s annoying you instead of it being some background thought that’s governing way more than you should be comfortable with.
You can now come to peace with what is instead of hating on it. But if the situation is too much to bear, you have to take action to put it to an end. You don’t need to be thinking about the future to do this. The only way to take action is to be in the Now anyway.
Because you are no longer trying to escape the present, you can now be more realistic with the reality of a situation rather than what you wish.
Instead of hoping this guy or girl likes you, you will be immersed in the moment and notice his disinterest or feigned interest. Because you acknowledged that you are just really tired of being alone, you try to stop hating your reality instead of projecting a hope onto someone you can’t fulfill your needs.
Instead of daydreaming about getting your big break really soon, you acknowledge that your career means you will always be putting in work and learning. Regardless of a big break or not, work must be done. Also, because you asked yourself what you were running away from, you realize that you are desperate for a big break because you hate not being able to afford better things. As a result, you take action, put in the work and try to make peace with what is.
As I said at the beginning, this isn’t my forte. But I get results when I remember these tips. Dreamers really can change the world but change can’t occur if you don’t smell the roses and you definitely can’t change your own world if you’re constantly trying to escape the present. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-look-at-what-is-instead-of-what-you-wish-80d2c7a66fbb | ['Jason Henry'] | 2019-07-16 06:28:08.667000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Mindfulness', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement'] |
Negotiating Reality and a Feminist Ecology in Kathryn Nuernberger’s “Rue” | Rue, by Kathryn Nuernberger. BOA Editions, 2020
What is the difference between escaping from reality and seeking solace in a space that is located somewhere between reality and an internal world of narrative, where one hasn’t quite crossed over into the realm of the imaginary yet? Does this mean emotionally settling into a sense of defeat, of resignation?
These questions recurred in my mind while reading Kathryn Nuernberger’s newest poetry collection, Rue, questions that are indirectly addressed by Nuernberger herself through her poems. In the narrative that runs through Rue, the reader follows the accounts of a female speaker living in a conservative small town as she documents her turbulent, even unhappy, marriage, wishing “to/ know how it feels to be nothing but untapped/ potential,” while simultaneously baring to the reader her love and worry for her daughter, perhaps most touchingly in “The Bird of Paradise”:
I’m making a little notebook of pressed flowers with my daughter. We learn their names in Latin and we learn the names the midwife-witches would have used. If they are safe to eat, we eat them; we brew them and dry them and salve them. It is a way to know them and a way to know ourselves as creatures among them.
Nuernberger also gives the reader a glimpse into the speaker’s thoughts on topics ranging from poking fun at the pompous scale of Professionalism in “A Difficult Woman” to a Lee Bontecou retrospective to the sight of a bald man in a sleek jacket at a local coffee shop who becomes an entry point for the speaker’s internal contemplation about the impeding “time/ […] when I’ll grow a mustache and my calyx/ will turn to sandpaper. I’ll be a volcano for a while,/ then a crater, then a little sack of dusty bones.”
The personal nature of Rue, where the first-person “I” feels less like it is speaking outward to the reader and more as a way of reaching back into the self and documenting, gives Nuernberger’s collection a diary-like quality. Yet Rue is distinctly not a diary. For those who might prefer to think of it as a kind of personal document, Rue is something closer to a “thought journal” that not only records and keeps track of things but is also a space inhabited by things the speaker wishes to say but does not say, as in the poem “Things I Did Today Besides,” where poetry is seen to perform a similar role of communicating without speaking between the speaker and her friend:
She and I feel so many of the same things that we only communicate them via poems. Part of what we have in common is that we’d never talk about an affair out loud, much less have one. Unless one of us actually has one.
Similarly, despite situating her speaker within a relatively specific circumstances — a married woman with a child, living in a rural town in a conservative state — the narrative that Nuernberger gives to Rue remains the right level of ambiguous. We do not ask who the speaker is because she speaks to something greater than mere individual experience. The things that seem personal, like the speaker’s contemplation of birth in “Poor Crow’s Got Too Much Fight to Live,” instead revolve around the bigger, all-encompassing issue of the patriarchy, of respect and care for the female body, which Nuernberger, in this case, sees manifested in the fact that “A woman/ isn’t supposed to be grateful to a man for birthing/ the baby for her.”
Dotting the collection and functioning much like the lines connecting stars in diagrams of constellations are poems about flowers, botanists like Anna Atkins, Marian Merian, and Carl Linnaeus (one of my favourite passages in Rue was the rare instance where the speaker addresses the reader in what is a quasi-love letter for Linnaeus in “Whale-Mouse,” telling us, “I need you to love him too” for the way “every species becomes/ a metaphor for some other genus or species/ until the flowers are toads and the toads/ are fish and the fish are the flowers.”) On one hand, these poems can be read as an escape from the struggles of everyday life into the world of books, history, and science, yet that would mean overlooking the way Nuernberger uses these poems as a way of revealing both the magic and the complexity inherent in history and science and the history of science, the magic we sometimes think it lacks. This magic can horrify as much as it can amaze, as the poem “A Natural History of Columbine” attests, shifting from the plant’s symbolic and medicinal history to its namesake Columbine, “the dancing beauty” who “learn[ed] how funny/ it was to see a man beat a woman bloody.”
As well as embodying the collection’s central theme of women’s knowledge, a theme that runs through Rue in two parallel forms — the speaker’s experiences in her town and the female ecologists and medicine women with their knowledge of herbs and flowers — the botanical poems also recall the Victorian language of flowers. Unlike in the Victorian era, where the flowers were seen as a way of connecting people together and symbolically conveying one’s thoughts and intentions to another individual, the language of flowers in Rue is turned inward, a relationship between the self and the body that is founded on more personal and intimate forms of knowledge that have been dismissed by “the minds of […] great thinkers/ [who] call[ed] it rumors and old wives tales. As if none of us/ has ever needed an old wife. As if only fools would/ allow themselves to turn into such wizened things.” The body becomes the greatest monument to love in Rue, something that has historically been denied to the female body for a long time but which, in the poems of Nuernberger, is given the love and care it needs and deserves.
Nearing the end of the collection, the sense of suspended timelessness, the kind you might get when leafing through someone’s notebook and becoming aware of the space and time that separates you, that permeates the entirety of Rue increases. The last few poems in particular contain a different kind of somberness, as if the speaker has faded away even further, leaving behind whatever semblance of identity she had. We are therefore left, once again, with the question with which I began this review: are the poems in Rue an attempt to escape from or a desire to understand, and what is it that they are trying to escape or understand? This “what” is left undefined for Nuernberger, just as there is no clear answer when it comes to talking about how to cope and find comfort in our still-imperfect world. What Rue offers its readers is a way, through the speaker’s narrative and thoughts, to be conscious of ourselves and our bodies, the way they exist within a number of complex systems that range from the factual realms of medicine to the more overtly constructed social realm of society. We are reading with the speaker the same way that she is reading historical texts, like her seeking a way to ground ourselves. | https://medium.com/anomalyblog/feminist-ecology-and-negotiating-reality-in-kathryn-nuernbergers-rue-3e9bf54126aa | ['Margaryta Golovchenko'] | 2020-09-17 17:36:46.466000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Literature', 'Review', 'Feminism', 'Poetry'] |
Need motivation? Get to know future you | “We believe that tomorrow will be different. We believe that we will be different tomorrow; but in doing so, we prioritize our current mood over the consequences of our inaction for the future self.” — Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation: Consequences for Future Self
What’s the future you doing right now?
Are you touring the nation, marketing your bestselling novel? Slurping oysters and downing champagne from your not-so-humble abode? Creating a cancer-curing technology? Rolling in a pile of award-winning golden retrievers? Yelling “action” on the set of your directorial movie debut?
Or is the extent of what you envision your future self doing microwaving a pepperoni hot pocket in a few minutes?
Or maybe…. You can visualize your future wants and goals.
But when you look at “future you”… you don’t know who that person is.
You’re as acquainted with them as the flustered mom of three standing behind you in line at Starbucks.
You can picture yourself blowing out your birthday candles next year… and maybe even in three years. But what about blowing out your birthday candles in 20 years?
Do you see the future you as a human being? Who has needs, wants, and still faces challenges? Whose heart still pumps blood to survive?
People who can visualize themselves in the future are more likely to take action towards their goals. They’re motivated to make better decisions with how they choose to spend their time. Since they have a different understanding and appreciation of their time.
Let’s explore the power of getting to know future you, and how they’ll provide you with the motivation you’re craving. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/need-motivation-get-to-know-future-you-e28a1d4b16b8 | ['Maddie Mcguire'] | 2020-12-03 16:43:38.640000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Motivation', 'Self Improvement', 'Personal Development', 'Self'] |
What A Running App Taught Me About Habit-Building | What A Running App Taught Me About Habit-Building
The process is more important than the results
Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash
It’s hard to get excited about a workout, but it’s fun to imagine yourself with a perfect body.
With any good habit in general, it’s hard to get excited about starting one when the results you want are so far away.
Here’s some stuff we all go through when it comes to habit-building:
We want to be fit, but running in the winter sounds like a nightmare.
We want to be a prolific writer, but waking up early to write thousands of words every day is way too hard.
We want to be completely mindful, but meditating every day for 30 minutes is a drag.
I definitely have had these moments but then I discovered the app called Nike Run Club, and it made me realize how to love the process of habit building. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/what-a-running-app-taught-me-about-habit-building-b969ed28c8ae | ['Christian Pow'] | 2020-11-17 09:02:20.124000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Apps', 'Habits For Success', 'Habit Building', 'Running'] |
13 Ways I Completely Changed My Life in a Year and So Can You | Let it all fall apart.
Denial is the enemy of reinvention.
My whole life was a lie. The solution was to stop pretending and start admitting. And then to ask myself one question: “What are you going to do about it?”
Playing spot the negative is easy. Critics do that all day for free.
So I admitted to myself what was going on and how I felt. It wasn’t in one triumphant moment like a Disney movie would portray. It happened over several months.
When the truth was obvious, I let everything fall apart. My romantic relationships, business ventures, lifelong friends, hobbies — all fell apart over a short period of time.
When things fell apart, only then did it become possible to rebuild my life from scratch again using a blank canvas.
Take a shit job.
I took a shit job in a call center. It was the worst job you could find.
But it got me out of the house. I stopped looking at my dwindling bank balance and all the stuff I had to sell to stay afloat, and started thinking about my colleagues and the needs of customers. It sounds cheesy, I know — but that tiny shift in focus got me out of my head.
Showing up at 11 AM on the dot each day to work the night shift was difficult. I’d walk 45 minutes from one side of the city to the other so that I didn’t have to pay for parking. The walk was brutal. The only footpath that took me to work was right next to the Yarra River. The winds were strong and the temperature was freezing.
The first week I broke my umbrella. So I went and bought another umbrella that was wind-tested for cyclones. Shortly after, that umbrella snapped in the strong wind and the manufacturer couldn’t believe it.
It was as if the weather was trying to demonstrate to me how much of a storm I’d have to overcome if I really wanted to turn my life around. Every walk to work was like walking through a blizzard. Arriving at work was a small win.
Work was tough. I knew nobody and my extrovert self was hiding and afraid to come out and play. It was me and one other who worked the night shift from 11 AM to 9 PM. Everybody else worked normal business hours because they were lucky enough to be normal, not broken like us night owls.
At lunchtime, I’d sit in the kitchen by myself and stare at the brick wall that was the view out the window. My lunch each day was minestrone soup that I bought from the supermarket when it was on sale once a month. People looked at me like I was homeless. The cheap suit I wore didn’t fit, and I looked like it had been several years since I’d had a good nights’ sleep.
Taking an entry-level job is not all bad though. One day a new boss rolled up to manage our team. He saw something in me and told me that every 1–1 we were going to watch a TED Talk. I had no idea what a TED talk was.
Each week he’d bring his iPad in and we’d watch a TED Talk. He was my first real friend at work and he pushed me. He expected me to take what I learned in the TED Talks and challenge my work colleagues. When they said we couldn’t sell more he would say “Tim, what do you think about that?”
On the spot I’d have to come up with an inspiring reason why they were wrong. The hard part came straight after, when I was forced to implement what I said, and show the team what could be done. By bucking the trend, people in other departments started to notice. I became the example of what doing things differently meant. That idea allowed me to get promotions and leadership roles that I wasn’t qualified for.
What they didn’t know was that thinking was learned from my startup days where being different was how you survived and paid the rent on the office. If you were undifferentiated in our business of selling physical products online, you were dead.
Scare yourself with social media.
People think social media is a dream. When I joined for the first time I was scared out of my mind. Posting my thoughts online seemed like career suicide, and the fear of being judged was enormous.
Setting up a LinkedIn account was crucial for me to change my life. It taught me, again, to go outside of myself. The thoughts I shared had to have value beyond my own life.
I had to get good at finding a few things each day to write about. This meant taking the negative and turning it into the positive.
The job interview I did, where I almost vomited over the hiring manager out of fear, had to become a story that had a lesson for other people. Turning my back on the startup world had to become the seed for a career in corporate rather than a giant failure.
Learning to hit publish and walk away from the computer straight after became a powerful little habit.
As I found my voice on social media, it started to show up at work. I gave presentations to my colleagues about business. I did LinkedIn training sessions for other departments.
Voicing your opinion is a step towards freedom.
The harshest part was when I shared my battle with mental illness. It was an embarrassing moment. I thought everybody would run in the other direction, but they didn’t.
People started moving closer towards my vulnerability.
The marketing team at work heard about my story and asked me if I would share it. So against all of my good mentor’s advice, I did. I answered a few interview questions via email, hit the send button, and thought nothing of it.
Weeks later that interview appeared on the front of our company’s internal homepage. 35,000 employees saw my story and left hundreds of comments underneath it. Then the marketing team made the story into a desktop background and put it on to everybody’s computer screens.
There was nowhere to hide.
Random strangers would come up to me at work and want to talk. Senior leaders would ask me to come to their team meetings and talk about what it was like to endure entrepreneurship driven by mental illness. The desktop background also appeared in all of my former employer’s retail stores.
The madness was supposed to last a week. Due to a glitch in desktop background software, my face and story was on people’s computers for several months. It was a risky move to share a story so personal on social media, and then allow my employer to do the same.
It taught me that when you step out from the dark and into the light, everything changes.
Humans can relate to other humans through stories. And those relationships change the direction of your life.
Say yes when you’re not ready.
Work became complicated when a colleague asked me to look after a client. They were a billion-dollar tech company and I was a call center worker that dealt with small business clients who were likely to be out of business in the first few years.
Even though I wasn’t ready, I said yes. It was a critical turning point.
I invested every waking moment in trying to help this customer with whatever they needed. Stupidly, during winter, I got a really bad dose of the flu which left me bed-ridden. My passion for the customer was so ridiculous that I left home at 4 AM in the morning and arrived at work just before 5 AM.
I sat at my desk until 7:30 AM and completed all the manual application work the customer required. As I walked to the lift to leave before anybody saw me, I bumped into a group of my colleagues. They saw that I was deathly sick and asked me where I was going. “On my way home. I’m not feeling well.”
The customer ended up seeing what time I had actioned their requests, knowing I was away sick. The story became famous amongst my co-workers and led me down a career path towards technology.
While working yourself into the ground is a stupid idea, showing that you care is definitely not.
Take hurt and turn it into unconventional motivation.
I was hurting from so many self-inflicted wounds caused by selfishness.
My drive to make millions of dollars and buy flashy junk caused everybody to run in the opposite direction. That rejection hurt immensely.
I ended up listening to an audiotape called “Get The Edge” and reading “Think And Grow Rich.” These resources taught me to take all the pain and turn it into unconventional motivation that might reshape my life. The goal was to create an empowering meaning from the devastation of the past.
“If I had to find one good thing about this, what would it be?” became the question that drove me. Those highlights became the motivation. The motivation caused me to do the following:
Rejoin the gym and get in shape.
Ask a woman out on a date.
Attend job interviews to further my career.
Start writing on a random blog.
Do the unthinkable.
What is the unthinkable?
Give when you have nothing, so that you will give when you have something.
My mindset changed slightly. Instead of hoarding my ideas and contacts, I started sharing them. I stopped trying to guard what I had and instead opened the door for people to come in and help themselves, thus helping me.
People would email me and ask for a phone number or a contact that I had. I would give it to them and not think twice. My aim, although I didn’t realize it, was to be helpful.
Helpfulness disguised my former selfishness that was holding me back.
Give it all away for free.
I’d spent most of my life wanting to be paid for every little thing I did. What changed was that I started giving everything away for free. I gave away my advice in the form of blog posts. I answered questions about topics I knew about without asking for any money.
The barrier that holds us back is trying to attach money to everything. When you attach money, you turn away most people because they don’t know or trust you enough to pay.
If you’re a content creator like me, try free. Hoarding your ideas and expecting huge amounts of money for them is actually limiting.
There are endless ways to make money online when you’re prepared to give yourself away for free. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/13-ways-i-completely-changed-my-life-in-a-year-and-so-can-you-2223a8da63c3 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2020-07-21 19:01:01.506000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Money', 'Life Lessons', 'Work', 'Inspiration'] |
Regifting Christmas Presents Can Ruin Relationships | Regifting Christmas Presents Can Ruin Relationships
When my mother-in-law gave me back the present I bought her, it nearly broke me
Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash
Regifting unwanted presents may be great for the environment, but it’s terrible for relationships.
When I was a young newlywed experiencing my first Christmas season as a married woman, I dutifully took my beleaguered credit card to the local department stores to procure presents for each of my husband’s family members. Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, step-siblings, parents, and step-parents, and all the accompanying grandparents and grandparental figures were each to receive his or her own special gift.
Shopping was fun for around five minutes.
It quickly became overwhelming as my carriage filled with cheeseboards, cheese plates, cheese knives, cured sausage, scented soaps, wicker baskets, and potpourri.
I could barely pay my rent. Now, I would have the added experience of paying off a bloating credit card bill with its insidious compounding interest all to please a host of people who probably wouldn’t even appreciate my gifts. Christmas was getting old fast, and it wasn’t even here yet.
There was one bright and shining spot in my dismal souring mood. I found the perfect Christmas present for my mother-in-law. The woman absolutely loved cardinals. To my delight, there was a delicate porcelain Christmas ornament at the last store I visited, and a brilliant red cardinal was painted right there on the front. It was everything I’d never hoped to imagine, and it was on clearance.
This store, the last one of my shopping trip, was going out of business. Everything was priced to move, including the perfect porcelain cardinal-emblazoned Christmas ornament for my mother-in-law.
In addition to its whimsical painted cardinal and crimson fabric bow, the ornament featured a hollow body and a circular slot into which one could drop pine-scented pellets. The pellets were included. I hastened my treasure into my shopping cart and headed for the cash register at the front of the store, satisfied that I had done an amazing job choosing something my husband’s mother would adore.
Christmas Day came and went, and it was a success.
I was in more debt than I’d ever seen in my life, and I’d distributed cheeseboards, cheese plates, cheese knives, cured sausage, scented soaps, wicker baskets, and potpourri to every member of my husband’s family while receiving very little in return beyond the stress of wondering how I was going to pay my bills.
Most of all, I was able to give my mother-in-law the single present of which I was most proud. With anticipation and glee, I watched her tear into the wrapping paper surrounding that delicate porcelain Christmas ornament with the brilliant red cardinal painted right there on the front. I could tell it was a success from the expression on her face.
My mother-in-law held up the plastic-and-cardboard packaging containing the ornament with its accompaniment of pine-scented pellets for all the family to see, and she thanked me profusely for my thoughtfulness at remembering her fondness for cardinals. She loved it.
I didn’t even notice when she failed to take the ornament out of its package.
On a Christmas morning several years later, my mother-in-law handed me a wrapped present that didn’t look familiar at all until I opened it. I tore the brightly-colored wrapping paper off the small object with excitement and gasped. There beneath the ribbons and bows lay an old unwelcome friend.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It was the same porcelain cardinal-emblazoned Christmas ornament I’d bought for my mother-in-law years earlier. In one corner of its yet unopened packaging remained the price tag sticker, with the price removed, from my long-ago shopping trip to a store that had closed shortly after my purchase.
There was no mistaking it. My mother-in-law had just regifted me the very gift I’d gifted her. It wasn’t a coincidence or a duplicate. The name of the store was the proof of the pudding, the smoking gun; my mother-in-law obviously hated me. Why else would she do such an egregious thing?
I had the sense not to say anything in the heat of the moment. There was no reason to ruin everyone else’s good time. This was between me and my husband. I couldn’t wait to tell him exactly what type of woman had raised him.
She was a regifter, and a lousy one to boot.
What kind of person regifts a gift to the same person who gifted it? My mother-in-law. That’s who.
At my first available opportunity, I showed the offending Christmas ornament to my husband and told him the story. “Look. Your mother gave me the same gift I gave her,” I exclaimed. I thrust the evidence into his hand. “See.”
“What?” A look of genuine irritation furrowed his brow. It was never a good sign when his brow furrowed.
“I gave that same ornament to your mother years ago,” I hissed, “and she just gave it back to me today. It’s the same one.”
He shrugged. “So what? That just means she liked it. That’s why she got you one, too.”
“She didn’t get me one, too,” I insisted. “This is the same exact one I gave her. Look at the price tag.” I pointed out the fading store name on the fluorescent pink sticker. “That store hasn’t been open in years. I bought this at their going-out-of-business sale. She couldn’t have found another one. The store is closed. Closed!”
My husband was unmoved by the evidence. He actually had the nerve to grow angry at my accusation that his mother would do such a thing.
She would never, he claimed. I must be mistaken.
I actually had the nerve to insist the truth was true, and I didn’t give up until he completely lost his temper. Then I hung it on our Christmas tree every holiday season until our divorce as a reminder of everything that was terrible about married life, especially around the holidays.
It really was the perfect ornament, and those pine-scented pellets inserted through the small round hole into its hollow core kept their festive aroma for years. | https://medium.com/traceys-folly/how-regifting-christmas-presents-can-ruin-relationships-249ff45a0ed0 | ['Tracey Folly'] | 2020-12-20 18:45:52.579000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Nonfiction', 'Relationships', 'Christmas', 'Family'] |
The Eagle in Space | Thousands of light years
Farther from Earth
Revolves a cloud of cheers
Where stars give birth
Gases keep mixing
Atoms keep splitting
New matter is forming
And keeps on shining
Full of vivid colors
From red to violet
Splash as watercolors
In patterns of eyelet
A beauty in the sky
Ruling her kingdom
She shines sky high
Twinkling in rhythm | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/the-eagle-in-space-ecb967d81c5b | ['Vijini Mallawaarachchi'] | 2017-09-16 20:05:32.528000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Science', 'Poetry', 'Stars', 'Cosmos'] |
Interview: Bombay Bicycle Club | The alarm goes off at half-past six in the morning. Bombay Bicycle Club bassist and solo artist Ed Nash gets out of bed. He sees the sun come up, goes on a walk, has a coffee, perhaps some breakfast and then takes himself off to his home studio, where he reads for half an hour. Next, he’ll take care of the boring stuff: death by email is a fate that even famous musicians can’t avoid. Then, at about 10 o’clock, he’ll get started making music and will work until the evening, when his girlfriend gets home from her job as a veterinary nurse. Each night, like hundreds of other couples up and down the country, they will cook dinner. Perhaps they’ll watch television. Maybe they’ll read. Or perhaps play some music. Then, they’ll call it a night and go to bed. “It’s just that on repeat, which isn’t a bad life at all. But it would be nice to play some shows at some point,” says Ed.
The band has done their bit to amplify the work of the international hospitality sector campaign by We Make Events and UK Music’s #LetTheMusicPlay initiative. Ed even designed a band shirt, where the proceeds were given to their crew, who aren’t able to make an income from making music in the same way that Bombay Bicycle Club’s Ed, Jack Steadman (lead vocals/guitar), Jamie MacColl (guitar), and Suren De Saram (drums) can. It’s not just their own crew that they’re helping out, either. Lockdown EP (an acoustic reworking of three songs from their January release, along with a Bonnie Raitt cover that gives the EP its title) raised funds for the charities and Youth Music . Ed says: “It was when — and I mean, this is still very, very important, it wasn’t just a one off thing for us — Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protests were in the media, and we did a lot of reading on it and we thought it was an important thing to look into and support.”
Despite the monotony of his everyday routine, Ed is, all things considered, doing okay. He acknowledges he’s lucky to have a recording studio in his North London home that is big enough for the band to rehearse in when the UK government restrictions have allowed the separate households to meet. The EP offered an opportunity to rework ‘Let You Go’, Ed’s least favourite song from the band’s fifth studio album, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong, released on 17th January 2020 after the band’s four-year hiatus. And, on 11th December, the band is also set to release a live album from their November 2019 Brixton show for the 10-year anniversary tour of their debut, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose (released 11th August 2009). The band is also broadcasting a special live performance of the album on December 15th at 8PM GMT time .
Bombay Bicycle Club’s electric guitar-fronted debut revolves around the theme of youthfulness, and was the product of demos produced by Steadman, honed under the expert guidance of producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not ). The band recorded at Konk Studios, in North London. Ed says: “I was really shy, I was really nervous, I was really intimidated by being in the studio and working with adults in a very serious capacity. So Jim very much showed us the ropes in those sessions. For that album we played together for the most part, so drums, bass, and two guitars, and you can kind of hear it on that — it’s very live — and worked our way through it like that, with Jim very much steering the ship.”
How does it feel looking back on a record which is both about youthfulness, but also encapsulates the band’s own inexperience? “Doing all this I Had The Blues stuff and looking back at that is a bizarre experience,” says Ed. “When we made that album I was 18 and I’m definitely not 18 anymore. So guess it’s just like looking at a diary or looking at old photos, you take stock of where you were and where you are now and understand it in a different way.”
What’s changed between now and then? Ed says: “I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose came out when I was 18 and I’m 30 now. So growing up, being an adult, just being responsible and the best person I can be.” For Ed, the album is “fairly heart-on-its-sleeve, it’s very honest. I would say probably our most honest record, and a very good account of being aged 14 to 18.” Young, keen and excited as they were back then, Bombay Bicycle Club wasted no time in releasing their sophomore effort, in 2010, which was followed a year later by A Different Kind of Fix , and So Long, See You Tomorrow in 2014. The November 2019 anniversary shows were a chance for the band to savour the record they rushed out as teenagers, then: “When we did I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose 11 years ago, we didn’t really play it through ever, there are a few songs that we would have played once or twice and then moved on. And we were so eager to move on from that record, just because we were young and restless so we didn’t really tour it for that long, we did maybe six months and then we started doing . And then went straight into a Different Kind Of Fix .”
The upcoming live album is a chance for fans who weren’t able to attend the anniversary shows to feel a part of that moment in the band’s history as they play the record in full, as well as anyone who is pining for a live music fix to get their fill. “I really like it especially because you can hear the crowd,” says Ed. “From that recording, listening back to ‘Always Like This’, it’s our biggest song so it’s lame for me to say but you can hear the crowd singing along, it sounds fantastic. It’s real goose-bump giving stuff.”
A band that induces a similar effect for Ed is the Osees: “Whenever they play I try to go and see them, it’s one of the best live shows. And the live album doesn’t quite capture the intensity of it, but you if you put that on in your living room and you’ve seen them before, you can kind of imagine being there.” He adds: “John Dwyer, the frontman of that band, is just unbelievably energetic. He must be in his late 40s now, he’s way more energetic than anyone else I’ve ever seen, a really charismatic, good looking guy. The rest of the band are amazing, super tight, and just put on a good show.” It’s this power for a live album to transport you to a specific moment in time which is really powerful, says Ed: “I guess that that’s the important thing with this live album and any live album: you’re capturing something that you couldn’t get in the studio. It’s something else.”
But sometimes, a break from the live shows can be a force for good. Back in 2016, burnt out from their frantic touring schedule, Bombay Bicycle Club needed some time to live “normal lives” and pursue their personal projects, and so they announced an indefinite hiatus. Ed says: “It gave us the chance to grow up as normal people for a bit. I’m not saying that we were unusual people before, but we left school and we did the band. And that’s all we did. We were dedicated to it, we put all our time into touring and when we weren’t touring, we were writing and recording and rehearsing. Everything just rolls along and you become like a part of a big machine. And to stop doing that, spend time by yourself, living with your friends, seeing your family, having proper relationships, living a pretty normal life allows you to grow as people. So when we came back to it, I think everyone was a more rounded, happy person. And then the band was a better thing for it, everyone was able to speak their mind and communicate with each other in their own individual way, as opposed to being part of this bigger machine.”
As a touring musician, not stopping can hamper creativity, or stop you from writing relatable songs. Ed says: “You’re not really living life, you have these amazing experiences, but you write a clichéd album about how you’re playing shows or you’re on an aeroplane or you drink too much or all those stereotypical things about touring bands. That’s unrelatable for people; you want songs about real life. A song like ‘Good Day’, which a lot of people can relate to, is a song about feeling down at home and worrying too much.”
Ed also co-wrote ‘People People’ with longtime Bombay collaborator, Liz Lawrence: “I guess that song is about friendship and companionship. Within that album there’s a lot of talking about the digital age and the rejection of that, though I would say less overt on that song.” He adds that the subsequent track ‘Do You Feel Loved’, penned by Jack, is “literally a song about the reliance on technology, and the rejection of technology to some level.” Although both tracks were written pre-pandemic, there’s definitely a tension between the idea that technology hampers meaningful human interactions, and the blunt truth of the fact that in 2020, digital connection has often been all we’ve had.
During Bombay Bicycle Club’s hiatus period, the members pursued their own solo projects; Jack undertook soul/funk project Mr Jukes, Ed released music as Toothless, Suren played drums with Jessie Ware, and Jamie did a degree in War Studies, made a documentary for the BBC, and launched a campaign group to help under-30s get involved with Brexit negotiations. But despite their individual success, there was a yearning to get back together, certainly on Ed’s part. “I don’t think anyone realised what a special thing we had, and how much we were going to miss it,” he admits. “Jack and I went away to Cornwall on a writing trip, which we ended up doing quite a lot of over that year [2018]. And ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)’ came up. And that was one of the first songs written for Everything Else Has Gone Wrong . And when that came, everyone realised that there was something good to go on.” He added: “I really, really enjoyed playing that live, it’s fun. And yeah, it just reminds me of writing records with Jack and going to Cornwall that year, and getting the band back together as well: realising that we were doing it again and being excited by that.”
The work he’s put out as Ed Nash since is lyrically driven in contrast to the experimental production values at the core of bandmate Jack’s solo endeavour, Mr Jukes. “I, personally, am becoming more and more lyric driven. I find it more interesting. Now, just spending time by myself writing, it’s really fun to move words around and play with that,” says Ed. He contrasts his approach to Jack’s: “I can’t say the same for Jack and I won’t talk for Jack, though I think melody comes first for him. That’s not to say that lyrics are an afterthought, but I think he writes songs through melody and harmony, and then lyrics come afterwards for him. Whereas with me, lyrics are more front and centre.”
Their differing approaches to songwriting combine in Everything Else Has Gone Wrong , a record which is fittingly about turning to music when the world is falling apart. Has it been difficult for Ed to renegotiate his working relationship with Jack, having had a taste of being a frontman himself? “We were very content playing Jack’s songs, and still are. When we came back, there were one or two songs that I thought would fit in, which everyone was into, so I put them forward. That came from developing that skill, flexing that muscle, and there wasn’t really any negotiation in it,” Ed says. “I don’t think those songs are there for the sake of it, because I’m being placated, or anything. They’ve got a place in that record and they are different to what he’s doing.”
When it came to recording Everything Else Has Gone Wrong , the band came to the table as “four people that know how to make records”. After recording part of the release in London at Konk Studios, they went to LA and stayed in an Airbnb in Silverlake. Ed says: “I guess the main difference between Jim Abbiss and John Congleton’s ways of working, is that John works unbelievably fast. His kind of thing is, “Don’t overthink it. If you’ve got a good idea, don’t think, just get it down.” His workflow is very, very quick so everything’s set up and good to go. And he works from 10 until 7. And then from 7, he’s out, he just goes home, he decompresses, as does everyone. And then you come back to it, you work really hard and then you leave. Whereas with Jim and Konk, and most of the other sessions we’ve done in our past, we have worked from 11 until 12 or 1 in the morning. So you have a much, much longer day, which is actually more intense. With John’s way of working you get everything done and then you go your separate ways, decompress and don’t think about it so much, whereas with the other one, you can kind of get lost a bit. I mean, they both have merits and they both have their disadvantages.”
Commenting on his bandmate’s production skills — which allowed Jack to self-produce 2014’s So Long, See You Tomorrow as well as engineer his own success as Mr Jukes — Ed says: “I guess Mr Jukes fulfils a lot of things he wanted to do, with sampling and making records, having electronic beats and things like that. So he probably wanted to move on to something else when he was writing Everything Else Has Gone Wrong . And actually, having said that, there’s a lot of those elements still in it. So I don’t know… each album changes so much and I think with each new sound he picks something up, and learns it, gets comfortable with it and then it goes into his arsenal of things he can do. So actually, no, I don’t think he got bored or got satisfied with making that kind of music. I think he got very accomplished at doing it. And then it became another part of the toolkit of Bombay Bicycle Club and his songwriting. So those elements are in it; you listen to that record and there’s elements of Different Kind Of Fix , our first record, and of . I’d say it’s the most eclectic record that we’ve got as opposed to just doing one sound at the forefront.”
The DIY approach is not one that Bombay Bicycle Club have shied away from, it’s been part of their identity since their very beginning; they self-released their debut via their independent label, Mmm… Records, and Ed also has his own label, brilliantly named Bangers & Nash. There’s an appeal to doing things yourself, because it speeds up the process. “At the moment, it’s very exciting to be able to do stuff DIY because there’s so much infrastructure. Like with my own music, I’m literally writing it, recording and then putting it on the internet with nothing in between and 10–15 years ago, I don’t think you could do that,” says Ed. “The music I’m trying to put out now — and I’m trying to keep it like this — I can just do everything myself, so I can work quickly. And I don’t really have to answer to anyone: I can do the artwork, I can record it here and write everything and then put it on the internet and people can get into it. I guess the trade off is “Jack of all trades, master of none”, it could sound better if I was working with other people. The covers could be more professionally done, more complete. I’m sure I’d get some different ideas when working with people. But I really like the idea of just being in control of everything and working fast. And that you know, with records, we decide everything ourselves as well. So being able to make those decisions is fantastic.”
Technology has certainly democratised music production — you don’t need your own recording studio in North London to be successful: “You can make an amazing sounding album with just a laptop now. Not everyone’s got it, it’s still a privilege to have these things, but most people have the opportunity to make a very good sounding album and put it on the internet and for people to hear it.”
It’s really easy to distribute your music on DSPs like Spotify, too, which Ed speaks fondly of despite ongoing music industry debates about the rates Spotify pays to artists . “I don’t have any ill feeling towards Spotify at all,” he says: “I think it’s an amazing place to be; being able to listen to any music you want, anywhere, without having a record collection. Kids can find anything that’s ever existed: nu-wave, punk, metal, they can flick between them.”
“People hate Apple and iTunes but they basically saved music I think. People weren’t paying for music at all so at least now they’re taking some money and giving it back to artists,” he says. “I do listen to Spotify playlists, and the recommendations that the AI is giving me are absolutely amazing. It knows me better than I know myself.” But, there is something romantic about the old-fashioned music discovery method, too (this is, afterall, a man who writes songs about letter-writing: “Gonna write you a letter” promises the opening lines of ‘People People’). A friend recently gave Ed a box of records that he is currently working through. He says: “Most of it is completely terrible but one in five records is absolutely amazing, just a hidden gem. So I’m going through and just listening to a record when I’m cooking or getting up in the morning, which is really nice. Because an algorithm is not recommending it, you’re just finding something completely naturally.”
It’s all very well and good having the tools to make amazing music at your disposal, but where does inspiration come from when you’re stuck at home, doing the same old thing, day after day? Well, there’s actually a lot of material to be found in the minutiae of the every day, says Ed, who is taking comfort in having a strict daily routine. Eat, Sleep, Wake, indeed. One of his current influences is the American singer-songwriter Bill Callaghan: “It’s quite minimal, especially the most recent album he put out this year, which I loved. A few backup instruments, but he is telling stories. He’s talking about his life. You know, he must be in his mid fifties so he’s singing about his kids and his replica eames chair and being middle aged and things like that, but it’s done in a really human and witty way that I love and I find it very personal.”
Ed also likes Gillian Welsh; his friend’s band, Flyte; Liz Lawrence — who he is going to be releasing a Christmas cover with in the next few weeks — as well as Purple Mountains. The latter is the brainchild of David Berman, formed after his old project, Silver Jews, disbanded in 2009. Commenting on the eponymous release, Ed says: “It’s a really horrible, dark album but there’s something very nice about wallowing with someone or listening to something negative to uplift you.” But as well as wallowing, don’t be afraid to reach out and spark a connection with a fellow human, says Ed, who profusely apologises for forgetting various details over the course of our conversation, blaming it on the lack of human interaction he’s had in the last year.
Those connections, even digital ones, are pretty special. Spotify dropped its seasonal marketing campaign ‘Spotify Wrapped’ the other day, and social media has since been flooded with fans sharing the details of the artists who have helped them get through the horrendous year that is 2020. Ed says: “This guy messaged me on Instagram and he said, “I love your band. I’m in the top 0.5% of your followers. Thanks very much.” And I replied to him. And I said, “No, thank you. That is really, really nice to hear. Thank you so much.” And I think he felt stupid or he was surprised, that I’d replied, but it did mean a lot that he sent me a message and was being genuine and nice about something we’ve done. It means a lot. So I guess if anyone has anything to say, or, you know, communicate or whatever, I’m on social media, we read the stuff. It’s great. It’s lovely to talk to people, lovely to hear what people are up to. And it does mean a lot.”
It lovely to hear what people are up to, especially bands as busy and selfless as Bombay Bicycle Club. For now at least, digital connections with our favourite artists will have to do in lieu of in-person concerts. But with promising news of the Pfizer vaccine, let’s take solace in the fact it won’t be ‘Always Like This’. To Ed, Jack, Jamie and Suren we say: So Long, See You Tomorrow.
Words by Beth Kirkbride | https://medium.com/the-indiependent/interview-bombay-bicycle-club-d43b5c648e40 | ['Beth Kirkbride'] | 2020-12-06 12:41:23.084000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Interview', 'Bombay Bicycle Club', 'Music', 'Culture'] |
Turning the camera around: who watches the watchers? | Nothing breaks the spell of a movie quite like imagining the cameras around the actors and the mundane process of making the film — the lunch trolley at the back of the studio, the Portaloos on location. Movies rely on the willing suspension of our analytical capabilities, but in the consumption of news media, we need to do the opposite.
When we accept the social and political narratives that we are presented with through mass media without thinking about the process of their construction, we risk allowing our view of the real world to be shaped by a storyteller, without considering how and why it is happening.
Putting a spotlight on migration reporting
The Media Practices component of the REMINDER project aims, in effect, to turn the camera around on the news production process and reveal how reporting about migration into and within Europe happens. Specifically, it attempts to understand why different stories, narratives and themes about migration have taken hold in different countries, and what led the people creating these stories to operate so differently.
Our analysis looks at how and why media practices differ across different locations and media types, and then examines how these different practices impact the way that the reporters consider the issue of migration when they report on it.
Different perceptions, different approaches
Will this reporter, who thinks that they are perceived to do an extremely important job, for example…
“I enjoy great respect. People listen to what I say and want to hear my opinion” (newspaper journalist, Sweden).
…present information about migration in the same way as this journalist, who sees their role as a source of disdain from others:
“Even my own friends hate the fact that I work here and think I’m a disgrace, but I’ve just learned to ignore it and I just get on with my work.” (newspaper journalist, UK)
The answer, in this particular case, seems to be “no”. Here are the same two journalists describing significantly different approaches to dealing with the issue of migration:
First, the Swedish newspaper journalist describes how they deal with the issue of non-EU migrants who are not refugees/asylum seekers:
“Globalisation is a positive force. We rarely write something negative. Labour force migration is positive.”
Then, the UK newspaper reporter describes how they would expect to use the term ‘migrant’, in general:
“To be brutally honest, it’s more likely to be people who are a burden on society than those who are a benefit to society, because there is more newsworthiness in a foreign criminal or a teenager who’s being looked after by the council than, say, a brilliant academic who’s come here to further their career… so from our perspective it’s more newsworthy if people are abusing the system or exploiting loopholes or abusing the hospitality being extended to them by British society… because that triggers a reaction in readers.”
These two reporters represent something important. Both cover migration and both work for newspapers, but they exhibit radically different perceptions of both the place they occupy in society, and the subject they cover. Our analysis worked to try to unpick what factors would shape that.
Not a mechanical process
The team interviewed more than 200 journalists and key media sources (such as government migration spokespeople, NGOs and think tanks) in 9 countries around the EU and looked at both their personal reasons for undertaking their work in the ways that they did it, and the institutional, social and political norms that shaped their outputs.
At the most basic level, our analysis showed that migration reporting is fundamentally human: it is not a mechanical process in which information is inserted at one end and a story pops out at the other.
Instead, ideas, information and anecdotes pass through a reporter whose biases and perceptions of the world are affected by a suite of national, social, institutional and political factors. Some of them are immediate and obvious, like their imagined version of what their proprietor might want to hear, others more abstract or distant — such as a sense that they have a responsibility to help people, or to tell hard truths as part of their job. These can impact everything from the things they think actually constitute a valid story, to the language they will choose to articulate that story.
For example:
“We prefer to use the term ‘refugee’, as the word ‘migrant’ might sound correct in English, but in Hungarian a ‘migrant’ is an enemy who will kill us. Therefore, we call them ‘refugees’. […] We could use the term ‘migrant’, but it is a delicate one as it is widely used by pro-government propaganda” (Hungarian broadcast journalist)
Governmental influence
The national context is also fundamental. Specific national history, experiences of migration and even norms relating to whether journalists feel they are expected to make an emotional connection with the reader or focus more on technical reporting are also fundamental.
Perhaps most critical in some countries — particularly states with a recent history of autocratic government — is the degree to which governments would try to intervene in and influence reporting. But even in several states where the ideal of press freedom was highly prized, governmental influence was often a significant factor — though often felt in more nebulous and indirect ways.
“There is an awareness of the owner’s circle of friends — he knows lots of influential people — and [awareness of] his enemies.” (newspaper journalist, UK)
We see that journalists are both affected by and affect their national policy discourse around migration. Journalists exist in roles where they are expected, for commercial, social and political reasons, to report on migration in particular ways. Of course, they consider the factual question of “what has happened?”, but they also operate in a world shaped by other variables: what do audiences expect from this sort of media? How has the story been framed by other reporters? What stories does the editor want to see? What will sell? What will get me into trouble?
The role of cultural practices within media organisations
The outcome of this, in total, is that national media traditions emerge from and are reinforced by cultural practices within media organisations. These shape reporting on migration fundamentally, and can have profound impacts on policy outcomes.
Would Germany have accepted a million asylum seekers if the culture within media organisations was less focussed on moderation and social justice? Would the Brexit referendum result have been the same if the culture within UK media — particularly within newspapers — was more moderate and less focused on winning political victories? Would Hungary have been able to implement radical anti-migration policies without a “patron and client” model of government relations with media?
These hypothetical questions are, of course, unanswerable. But, by turning the camera around, we hope that our analysis introduces new scrutiny of media practices, one that can in turn help lead to better understanding of media and its role within policymaking in the future. | https://medium.com/we-are-the-european-journalism-centre/turning-the-camera-around-who-watches-the-watchers-7bb3c6556d8e | ['Barbara Kuznik'] | 2019-03-28 09:10:09.653000+00:00 | ['Insights', 'Reporting', 'Migration', 'Journalism', 'Refugees'] |
UX? UI? What? | So you want to build a website. Sounds simple, right? Do a quick search on Craigslist and you’ll find plenty of freelancers ready to help. But like most projects, building a website is more complex than it seems and it becomes readily apparent creating a site isn’t as easy as putting a little code online in a visually pleasing way. Because of web design’s inherent challenges, it’s not a one-man or one-woman job. Web design takes a knowledgeable team with a variety of skills as well as ample forethought in terms of audience, structure, message, layout, interaction, and emotion. This is where UX and UI design play a large role, and where the distinction between the two becomes important.
UX
UX stands for User Experience design. That’s all well and good, but what does a UX designer actually DO? Basically, the UX designer is in charge of the overall experience (obviously) the user has on the website or app. UX is the creation of the seamless flow of the site and it determines whether or not information can readily be found. Oftentimes, user experience is most successful when the user doesn’t even know it is happening because they are not hindered by the site.
User experience starts with research on the audience itself: How will they navigate the site? What is it they are looking for? Who is the primary user? Once the audience is understood, the UX designer creates a sitemap and architecture for the site. The site map and architecture show the hierarchy of the site pages, how many pages the site has (and what those pages are labeled), what the paths a person will use to navigate the site, and where specific information can be found throughout the site. In other words, if a website is confusing to navigate, that is poor UX design.
Architecture
Another important task a UX designer tackles is the creation of wireframes. A wireframe shows what content needs to be on a particular page. Not to be confused with design or layout, black-and-white wireframes give a basic structure to an individual page and give guidance as to what content needs to be found on that particular page. No color, fonts, or imagery have been chosen at this time, but the wireframes serve as a guide for their implementation when the UI Designer steps in.
Wireframes
This is not to say the UX Designer only tackles the aforementioned tasks. UX design is present throughout the process of web design and the UX Designer is there to make sure the site’s hierarchy and structure is clear from design to development. UX design can cover both large structural ideas of the site or focus on smaller details like the functionality of a single button. For example, when a user clicks a button, they expect it to act a certain way in relation to the rest of the site. Good UX design will ensure the button acts as expected. Ultimately, UX design is critical in making a website flow and make sense to the user and is ever-present in the web design process.
UI
UI stands for User Interface design and it can often bleed into UX design, just as UX design can bleed into UI. After all, the design of a website needs to be clean, clear, and coherent both in terms of functionality and visuals. But, in a general sense, UI design is where the color, layout, emotion, and story of the site come together. This is where the brand comes alive and the connection between brand and consumer becomes apparent. Using the audience research, wireframes, and the architecture provided by the UX designer, the UI Designer can then take those critical pieces of framework and start adding the details that unify the brand as a whole. This includes consistent use of typography, colors, and imagery.
UI is where color, fonts, and style come in
The UI designer can also determine the layout of the page, and places buttons or content where they will be most logically found. While the wireframes give an overall structure and general placement of content, the UI Designer can take that guide and move elements to better suit the goals of the site while working within their newly established look and feel. The UX designer, of course, can bring their input into this process as well.
It is then the UI designer’s role to work closely with the development team to ensure the layout remains as it was envisioned. Clear communication between the UI designer and the development team is key in overcoming any challenges or clarifying any questions that may arise through the development process. Needless to say, communication is critical throughout the entire web design process.
UI & UX: They work best together.
You can’t have one without the other. A design with excellent UX won’t necessarily appeal to the eye, and a design with great UI can be confusing and frustrating to use. When these two areas of web design work well together, you end up with an easy-to-use site that clearly represents the vision and personality of the organization. And, even better, the site will become a pleasant experience for the user.
At a minimum, UX and UI are crucial parts of any web project, but they are also just the tip of the iceberg. Web design is a collaborative process. It often requires content development from individuals with editorial expertise, a graphic designer to really dig into the final UI design and create iconography, an interaction designer who knows exactly how smooth actions and transitions need to be, and a back-end as well as front-end developer to maintain the site and bring everything to life on screen. So yes, creating a website isn’t as easy as 1–2–3, but, with the right team, it can become something beautiful, easy-to-use, and most importantly, help your organization achieve its goals. | https://medium.com/madison-ave-collective/ux-ui-what-876d5dfd2452 | ['Kyla Tom'] | 2017-03-02 14:32:00.564000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Design', 'Ux Ui Design', 'UI'] |
How to Load Data from ElasticSearch to BigQuery? | Let’s take the data from ElasticSearch and write the data to BigQuery as append, using python in our case.
In each batch operation, get the max value of the relevant delta column (creationDate) from the table in BigQuery. Let’ call this value be our delta value.
We said that when we go to ElasticSearch, we give this delta value as a filter and return values greater than this value.
On top of that, we prepared 2 Python files as follows.
params.py
Let me explain the code; while the code is running, it takes the config file path as a parameter.
get_params(yaml_file)
This function parses the yaml file that we have given as parameters and whose content is as follows, and sets the required input values to variables.
elastic.yaml
run_delta_query (sql)
This function sets the delta_value variable by running sql in the yaml config file.
(sql) This function sets the delta_value variable by running sql in the yaml config file. search_elastic (hosts, user, pwd, index, delta_column, delta_value)
This function takes the values set from yaml config file; Queries the data in ElasticSearch and creates the returned data as a json file under the files folder.
(hosts, user, pwd, index, delta_column, delta_value) This function takes the values set from yaml config file; Queries the data in and creates the returned data as a json file under the files folder. load_files_to_bigquery(index, table_project, table_schema, table_name)
This function takes the values set from yaml config file; Uploads the json files under the files folder to your Bucket you created in Google Cloud Storage. It then loads the loaded files into the BigQuery table in append type. If the load process is completed successfully, it also cleans the files created.
Have you noticed line 142 in the code? I used the gsutil library here because the BigQuery Python library does not support parallel uploading when uploading files to Google Cloud Storage.
With this code, with batch operation; We were able to upload the data from ElasticSearch to our table in BigQuery. In addition, our studies are continuing to make streaming processes from ElasticSearch to Kafka and from there to BigQuery. :)
Have a nice coding! :) | https://medium.com/trendyol-tech/how-to-load-data-from-elasticsearch-to-bigquery-64d98a1c6a82 | ['Onur Taşhan'] | 2020-12-28 10:23:37.765000+00:00 | ['Elasticsearch', 'Bigquery', 'Data Processing', 'Google Cloud Storage', 'Python'] |
Your Complete Guide on How to Become Self-Aware | Expectations
In your first 100 hours of learning Self-awareness, you should be able to:
Do successful Think Days and Self-reflection weeks
Find your life purpose
Get started on a mindfulness practice through Yoga and Meditation
Get better at self-feedback
Get better at receiving feedback from others
How to go from good to great in Self-awareness
Prepare
During this phase, you’re going to start looking into finding your life purpose, yoga, meditation, and dig deeper into getting feedback. We’ve filled out the skill tree with plenty of good resources to get you started.
Start scheduling short sessions of yoga and meditation in your calendar. Those can be as short as 10 minutes each. At this point, the goal isn’t to be good at any of them, but rather feel what it’s like to do them. You can schedule 3 sessions each per week to get started for a total of 1 hour during your week.
During this phase, you should make it a priority to schedule one Think Day per month. Essentially, Think Day is a day where all you do is reflect on your current situation and how you can improve. The goal is to get clarity about your current life situation.
If you feel like you’re lacking so much clarity that a single day of reflection isn’t enough, you should also consider doing a self-reflection week. The idea is basically the same, but for a week. You can also add some reading and entertainment time. Again, schedule it.
In total, this preparation phase shouldn’t take more than 2–3 hours.
Practice
The most important exercise to do during this phase is to find your why/life purpose. In Find Your Why, Simon Sinek proposes you go through 10–12 stories with a friend or someone who asks you lots of questions along the way, and you should get a lot closer to your purpose. Feel free to repeat the process by yourself during a journaling session or during Think Day. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find it right away. It took me over a week of searching deeply.
Another approach I like to use to find my why is to use the 5 Whys Method. Essentially, for each reason you find, ask yourself another layer of why. Do that until it reaches a point where you can’t ask why anymore or until you’re satisfied.
A good life purpose is broad enough that if your current situation changes, it still applies. But it’s also specific enough that when you set goals and milestones, you can easily axe those that don’t fit with your purpose. That’s why it takes time to find it. Also, it should be quite short. You should be able to narrow it down to a single sentence.
Outside of those approaches, please check the resources we’ve included in the skill tree. In addition, feel free to do another round of listing your skills, hobbies, passions, and talents. The more aware you are of multiple aspects of your life, the easier this gets. I’d also consider doing another round of Ikigai and the Map of Life.
As mentioned in the preparation phase, you should schedule one Think Day every month. If this is too much, you can try for a half-day. Refer to this article on exactly how to do a successful Think Day.
I also recommended you schedule one self-reflection week. This article tells you more about it. If you find that after a few journaling sessions and a few Think Days, you haven’t yet found your purpose, you should definitely consider doing a self-reflection week.
During this phase, you should start dipping your toes into yoga and meditation. As previously mentioned, the point isn’t to become good at them, but to get a sense of what they are. Yoga is fantastic to be more aware of your body and meditation is great for being more aware of your mind. We’ve included many good resources for both in the skill tree.
I recommend practicing each for 10 minutes at least 3 times a week, for a total of 1 hour per week. If you can do more, even better. For me, yoga and meditation were some of the hardest skills I’ve learned. If you’re not physically flexible and you have a hard time calming your mind, you’ll find yourself in the same situation I was in. Don’t give up. Focus on the process, not the results. It took me 28 days of practicing meditation for 20 minutes to finally be good enough to calm my mind.
Another important aspect of this phase is to get better at giving yourself feedback but also getting feedback from others. Both of them are harder than it seems at first because until you’re truly self-aware, you lean towards your biases every time without knowing it.
So, during this phase, in addition to giving yourself feedback like you previously did, you’ll want to involve others. Regularly, you’ll want to ask people for their honest feedback about different aspects of what you do. Your key practice here is to truly listen, take notes, and not judge feedback positively or negatively. Once you gather people’s opinions, take time alone to reflect on what it means.
Note that it’s hard to get honest feedback from people. The more receptive you are to criticism, the more open people will be to give it to you. Don’t be afraid to dig deeper if you think the person is holding back. However, be mindful of their comfort level. Not everyone is comfortable giving honest feedback, even if you’re fully receptive to it.
Ponder
Self-awareness is all about asking yourself questions. At this point, you’ve already done your fair share of reflection. At the end of each week and month, reflect on the usual questions:
What went right?
What went wrong?
How can I improve?
In addition to those basic questions, ask yourself: | https://medium.com/skilluped/your-complete-guide-on-how-to-become-self-aware-fd81a3af73e7 | ['Danny Forest'] | 2020-11-30 14:56:07.424000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Education', 'Inspiration', 'Learning', 'Productivity'] |
The Hidden Cost of Amazon’s Surveillance Tech | The Hidden Cost of Amazon’s Surveillance Tech
A new drone from Amazon subsidiary Ring raises familiar questions
Ring
The phrase “surveillance capitalism” was coined by Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff to describe the system in which internet platforms such as Google and Facebook profit through free services that track users’ online behavior. Another company in their cohort, Amazon, has in recent years taken a different approach with its subsidiary Ring by offering actual, physical surveillance devices that allow its users to track other people. It’s not surveillance capitalism so much as plain old surveillance tech.
The surveillance tech model is far more straightforward than surveillance capitalism, at least on the surface: Customers pay Ring directly for the privilege of putting Alexa-enabled cameras on their property. The power of surveillance is in the user’s hands, and they can choose whether they share it with neighbors or law enforcement through the Neighbors app.
The two models have something in common, however, in that the surveillance comes at a cost that isn’t reflected in the price paid by users. Economists call this an externality. In Ring’s case, the privacy cost is not to the people who buy Ring devices, but to the people they use those devices to watch. In some ways, that’s more insidious than the Facebook model — people choose to use Facebook, but they don’t necessarily choose to be captured on a Ring camera. On the other hand, Ring would likely argue that its devices also have positive externalities, because they make the neighborhood safer even for people who don’t buy them, although evidence for that is mixed.
The Pattern
Surveillance tech empowers its customers to disempower others.
Undercurrents
Under-the-radar trends, stories, and random anecdotes worth your time
The Cold War between mobile platforms and app developers flared up on multiple new fronts this week. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Google is tightening its enforcement of rules that give it a 30% cut of in-app purchases made through the Google Play Store on Android devices. It had previously turned a blind eye to some developers’ efforts to circumvent the fee by directing users elsewhere for payment. The move comes as both Google and Apple are facing antitrust scrutiny over such fees, and brings Google’s policies a step closer to the ones that have made Apple a bigger target to date. The move might seem counterintuitive, but it reflects both companies’ determination to hold the line in response to an insurrection from Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. Google still has the more defensible position from an antitrust standpoint, because unlike Apple, it allows third-party app stores on Android devices. At the same time, Apple has temporarily backed down from taking a 30% cut of online classes and events sold through its App Store. While that may ease the pressure on one front, it underscores the arbitrariness of Apple’s rules, and how they can tilt the playing field for developers in one direction or another. Finally, a Facebook executive tells The Information that his company has pushed for Apple to allow users to set Facebook’s Messenger app as the default for messaging on iPhones. Facebook going public with that call, after apparently keeping it private for years, suggests it sees Apple as particularly vulnerable now, likely due to the various antitrust inquiries. If that’s the case, this is another example of how a credible threat of antitrust regulation can affect firms’ behavior even before any actual laws are passed or enforced.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Google is tightening its enforcement of rules that give it a 30% cut of in-app purchases made through the Google Play Store on Android devices. It had previously turned a blind eye to some developers’ efforts to circumvent the fee by directing users elsewhere for payment. The move comes as both Google and Apple are facing antitrust scrutiny over such fees, and brings Google’s policies a step closer to the ones that have made Apple a bigger target to date. The move might seem counterintuitive, but it reflects both companies’ determination to hold the line in response to an insurrection from Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. Google still has the more defensible position from an antitrust standpoint, because unlike Apple, it allows third-party app stores on Android devices. At the same time, Apple has temporarily backed down from taking a 30% cut of online classes and events sold through its App Store. While that may ease the pressure on one front, it underscores the arbitrariness of Apple’s rules, and how they can tilt the playing field for developers in one direction or another. Finally, a Facebook executive tells The Information that his company has pushed for Apple to allow users to set Facebook’s Messenger app as the default for messaging on iPhones. Facebook going public with that call, after apparently keeping it private for years, suggests it sees Apple as particularly vulnerable now, likely due to the various antitrust inquiries. If that’s the case, this is another example of how a credible threat of antitrust regulation can affect firms’ behavior even before any actual laws are passed or enforced. Moore’s Law is dead. Long live… Huang’s Law? That’s the term the Wall Street Journal’s Chris Mims is trying to coin, in reference to a recent trend of accelerating performance by the silicon chips that power artificial intelligence. He makes the case for Huang’s law as part of a profile of the chip maker Nvidia, which has become a driving force behind A.I. advances in the past decade. “While the increase can be attributed to both hardware and software, its steady progress makes it a unique enabler of everything from autonomous cars, trucks and ships to the face, voice, and object recognition in our personal gadgets.” My OneZero colleague Dave Gershgorn, who follows A.I. more closely than I do, agreed the trend is noteworthy, but pointed out that an eight-year trend may be a shaky basis on which to build a law. Still, the comparison of Huang’s Law to Moore’s Law — which was driven in part but not exclusively by Intel — could be instructive in explaining why Nvidia wants to buy fellow chipmaker Arm.
Headlines of the Week
How much oversight can an oversight board have if an oversight board has no real oversight?
— Josh Sternberg, The Media Nut newsletter
Rat that sniffs out land mines receives award for bravery
— Anna Schaverien, New York Times
An entire village lost its broadband at the same time every day for 18 years. Now we know why.
— Jack Guy, CNN
Going postal: A psychoanalytic reading of social media and the death drive
— Max Read, BookForum
I am all love blaseball (and you can too)
— Cat Manning, The Garden of Forking Narratives | https://onezero.medium.com/the-hidden-cost-of-amazons-surveillance-tech-4b071f04199d | ['Will Oremus'] | 2020-09-26 13:09:59.401000+00:00 | ['Amazon', 'Technology', 'Ring', 'Pattern Matching'] |
Loading Ridiculously Large Excel Files in Python | Background Info on Excel File Structure
Before we dive in, here’s some background information on how spreadsheets work on the backend.
I. Data Structure
Spreadsheets store data as row-wise arrays consisting of column keys with cell values.¹
The functionality of spreadsheets deride from their behavior as a directed acyclic graph (DAG) which allow cyclical (arbitrary) relational functionality.² This is best demonstrated with the illustration below which shows how some cell values are derived from their relationships to others.
II. Size Limits
Current size limits for excel are 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns — owing to memory resources. To be clear, data can be stored in an excel file which breaks these rules — but will not function in the excel program.
If you were to open an excel file of 1.25M rows, the program will drop all data below row 1M.
Image by Caspio
III. Q: If excel is so limited, why use it?
The easiest answer is that the file itself is easily shareable and provides better encryption than csv, txt, or json structure. Also, excel’s UI is incredibly user friendly and makes inspecting data really easy.
Some specific situations where I’ve received massive excel files:
External access not-allowed to database — existing user exports data to encrypted excel format and shares.
Data is being collected/generated by non-technical team. (Ex. agile marketing project.)
Data needs to be inspected by legal / compliance team before being shared.
IV. Why python over excel?
Programmatic analysis or data manipulation has the advantage of:
reproducibility
automation
efficiency
reduction of spreadsheet risks | https://towardsdatascience.com/loading-ridiculously-large-excel-files-in-python-44ba0a7bea24 | ['Yaakov Bressler'] | 2020-06-11 19:37:05.821000+00:00 | ['Openpyxl', 'Pandas', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Excel'] |
Iconic Icons: Designing the World of Windows | Icons of the Future
Fast forward to the era of Windows 10 and the concept of the personal computer (the PC, fondly) means something entirely different than it did three decades ago. It’s estimated that there are four connected devices per person, with that number rising steadily. As designers, this signals to us that modern life is complicated. And as designers for Windows, this signals a need for simplicity at the systems level.
In terms of a system, we can look to the Windows icons as a means of wayfinding. Systems are inherently complex and icons provide simple points of reference. We may not even realize how much we rely on these subtle cues to navigate the OS — our brains are amazing machines that synthesize this information in the background. We rely on that cognitive machinery when we design, helping the mind multitask, organize, and communicate.
This design choreography becomes more critical as technology advances. That’s why we’ve embarked on a multi-year effort across Microsoft’s design teams to redesign our icons: a system within a system. Flat, monochrome icons look great in context of colorful tiles, but as more icon styles enter the ecosystem, this approach needs to evolve. When icons in the taskbar and Start menu are different styles, it creates more cognitive load to scan and find applications. We needed to incorporate more visual cues into the icon design language using our modernized Fluent Design Language. | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/iconic-icons-designing-the-world-of-windows-5e70e25e5416 | ['Christina Koehn'] | 2020-02-20 17:56:01.478000+00:00 | ['Icons', 'Design', 'UX', 'User Experience', 'Microsoft'] |
4 Unique Approaches To Manage Imbalanced Classification Scenarios | We will be using the make_classification method in Scitkit-Learn to generate the imbalanced dataset.
import pandas as pd
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.datasets import make_classification
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.metrics import f1_score,accuracy_score
from sklearn.metrics import plot_confusion_matrix
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
We will be learning the five unique approaches to handle the imbalanced dataset of 5000 samples with one class comprising of 98% cases.
X, y = make_classification(n_samples=5000,weights=[0.02, 0.98],
random_state=0,n_clusters_per_class=1) ycount=pd.DataFrame(y)
print(ycount[0].value_counts())
The proportion of majority and minority class in-sample data set ( output of the above code)
Out of 5000 sample records, we have 4871 records for class 1 and 129 class 0 records. Lets us consider class 1 suggests normal transaction and class 0 as fraudulent transactions.
Sample dataset is split into two parts viz. training and test set. The training set is to train the machine learning model, and the test set is to check the prediction of the model.
We will train the model with 80% of the sample data set and the remaining 20% records which model has not seen before is reserved for the testing set.
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.2,random_state=42,stratify=y)
To understand the effect of the imbalanced dataset even on the sophisticated algorithm like Random Forest Classifier let us first train the standard Random Forest Classifier directly with the imbalanced training set and without any weight parameters.
clf =RandomForestClassifier(max_depth=2,random_state=0).fit(X_train, y_train) print("F1 Score is ", f1_score(y_test,clf.predict(X_test)))
print("Accuracy Score is ", accuracy_score(y_test,clf.predict(X_test)))
The F1 Score and accuracy score of the trained Random Forest Classifier Model on the test dataset is high. But only considering only these metric to judge the prediction performance of the model can be very misleading in case of the imbalanced dataset.
F1 and Accuracy score of Random Forest Classifier trained on the imbalanced dataset ( output of the above code)
Deploying such a model only based on these two metrics and not understanding the areas in which the classification model is making an error can be quite costly.
A visual metric, like the confusion matrix, outshines other metrics in several ways. We get an instant view on the model performance in terms of classification areas the model excelled and the areas which require fine-tuning. Based on the business use case, we can judge quickly from the false positive, false negative, true positive and true negative counts whether the model is ready for deployment.
You can learn in-depth about the confusion matrix in the article Accuracy Visualisation: Supervised Machine Learning Classification Algorithms
fig=plot_confusion_matrix(clf, X_test, y_test)
plt.show()
As expected, the majority class has completely influenced the model, and the trained model has predicted the classification of all records in test dataset as the majority class. Such misclassification prediction in case of rare fraud detection or uncommon malignant disease prediction is very detrimental.
Confusion Matrix of test dataset prediction by Random Forest Classifier trained on the imbalanced dataset (output of the above code)
Fortunately, Random Forrest Classifier has a parameter “class_weight” to specify the weights of each class in case of an imbalanced dataset.
In the sample dataset, class 1 is approx 38 times more prevalent than class 0. Hence, we will mention the “class weights” in such proportion for the algorithm to compensate during training.
weighted_clf = RandomForestClassifier(max_depth=2, random_state=0,class_weight={0:38,1:1}).fit(X_train, y_train) print("F1 Score for RandomForestClassifier with class_weight parameter is ", f1_score(y_test,weighted_clf.predict(X_test))) print("Accuracy Score for RandomForestClassifier with class_weight parameter is ", accuracy_score(y_test,weighted_clf.predict(X_test)))
The F1 Score and accuracy score for Random Forest Classifier Model with class weigh compensated is also high, but we can ascertain the real performance by checking the confusion matrix.
F1 and Accuracy score of Random Forest Classifier trained on the class optimised dataset with class_weight parameter ( output of the above code)
We can see that the majority class has not completed overtaken the Random Forest Classifier Model with weight-adjusted.
fig=plot_confusion_matrix(weighted_clf, X_test, y_test)
plt.show()
Out of the total 1000 records in the test dataset, it has misclassified only 14 records. Also, it has correctly classified 20 of the minority class sample records out of 26 minority class records in the test dataset.
Confusion Matrix of test dataset prediction by Random Forest Classifier trained on the weight-optimised dataset (output of the above code)
We have learned the way to handle imbalanced dataset with class_weight parameter in Random Forrest Classifier and improve the prediction accuracy of the minority class.
Next, we will learn a different approach to manage the imbalance input training dataset with BalancedRandomForestClassifier in the imbalanced-learn library.
Install the imbalance-learn library with pip
pip install imbalanced-learn
In the below code, we trained the BalancedRandomForestClassifier with the training dataset and then checked the metrics scores on the testing dataset.
from imblearn.ensemble import BalancedRandomForestClassifier brfc = BalancedRandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=500,
random_state=0).fit(X_train,y_train) print("F1 Score for Balanced Random Forest Classifier is ", f1_score(y_test,brfc.predict(X_test))) print("Accuracy Score for Balanced Random Forest Classifier is ", accuracy_score(y_test,brfc.predict(X_test)))
Like the previous two examples, it also indicates high F1 and accuracy score.
F1 and Accuracy score of Balanced Random Forest Classifier trained ( output of the above code)
We can see in the confusion matrix that BalancedRandomForestClassifier handles the class weight internally quite well compare to RandomForestClassifier without weight_class parameter.
fig=plot_confusion_matrix(brfc, X_test, y_test)
plt.show()
Out of 1000 test records, it predicted the classification of 968 records correctly. It also performed slightly better than Random Forrest Classifier with class_weight by correctly classifying 21 records out of 26 records in the minority class.
Confusion Matrix of test dataset prediction by Balanced Random Forest Classifier (output of the above code)
Next, we will use a completely different approach of oversampling to manage the minority class in the training dataset.
Next, we will use a completely different approach of oversampling to manage the minority class in the training dataset. The basic idea is to randomly generate examples in the minority class to have a more balanced dataset.
from imblearn.over_sampling import RandomOverSampler
ros = RandomOverSampler(random_state=0)
X_resampled, y_resampled = ros.fit_resample(X_train, y_train)
print("Number of records for X_train is ", X_train.shape)
print("Number of records for X_resampled oversampling is ",X_resampled.shape)
Earlier we divided the sample dataset of 5000 records into training and test dataset with 4000 and 1000 records respectively.
Training dataset fit on RandomOverSampler generated minority class record at random and resampled balanced training data has 7794 records.
Training dataset count with oversampled strategy- generated minority class record at random to balance the training dataset (Output of the above code)
Once the training dataset is artificially balanced, then we can train the standard Random Forest Classifier without “class_weight” parameter.
oclf = RandomForestClassifier(max_depth=2, random_state=0).fit(X_resampled, y_resampled)
We see that standard Random Forest classifier trained on artificially balanced training dataset with oversampling could predict pretty good.
Oversampling helped the Random Classifier to overcome the influence of majority classifier and predict the test data record classes with high accuracy.
Confusion Matrix of test dataset prediction by Random Forest Classifier trained on the oversampled dataset (output of the above code)
Out of 1000 test records, it predicted the classification of 985 records correctly. It also performed nearly at par with BalancedRandomForestClassifier with classifying 20 records out of 26 records in the minority class.
Finally, we will learn about the undersampling strategy to handle the imbalanced dataset. It is a completely different approach than oversampling we learnt earlier. Randomly delete examples in the majority class. The key idea is to randomly delete the majority class records to have a more balanced dataset.
from imblearn.under_sampling import RandomUnderSampler rus = RandomUnderSampler(random_state=0)
X_resampled, y_resampled = rus.fit_resample(X_train, y_train) print("Number of records for X_train is ", X_train.shape)
print("Number of records for X_resampled undersampling is ",X_resampled.shape)
A number for majority class records deleted at random to balance the training data set with 206 records from 4000 data records.
Training dataset count with under-sampling strategy. Deleted majority class record at random to balance the training dataset (Output of the above code)
Once the training dataset is balanced, we can use it directly to train the model just like oversampling strategy discussed earlier.
uclf=RandomForestClassifier(max_depth=2,
random_state=0).fit(X_resampled, y_resampled)
It seems undersampling strategy enables to predict the rare minority class event with similar accuracy like other strategies discussed in this article, but in comparison to other strategies, it performed pretty badly in of predicting the majority class. It predicted incorrectly 82 majority class records from the test dataset.
fig=plot_confusion_matrix(uclf, X_test, y_test)
plt.show()
Confusion Matrix of test dataset prediction by Random Forest Classifier trained on the undersampling dataset (output of the above code)
Key takeaways and my approach
Most of the machine learning classification algorithms expect balanced training dataset. It is vital to check whether the training dataset is imbalanced and take appropriate pre-processing actions before training the machine learning model with the data.
GIGO — Garbage In and Garbage Out: If we train a model with imbalanced data, then there is a high probability that the model will miss to predict the minority classes in production.
Data is very valuable. I do not prefer the undersampling strategy as it forces to prune the data related to the majority class. We saw that due to this even though the model could predict the minority class records nearly with the same accuracy as other strategies discussed in this article it performed miserably in predicting the majority class records.
I prefer the Random Forest Classifier with ‘class_weight’ parameter and BalancedRandomForestClassifier in imbalanced-learn library.
I will suggest you check the training sample performance with all the strategies discussed in this article before selecting any one of them for your project.
You can gain insight into the imbalanced dataset with exploratory data analysis. To know more about it read the article- 5 Advanced Visualisation for Exploratory data analysis (EDA) | https://towardsdatascience.com/4-unique-approaches-to-manage-imbalance-classification-scenario-7c5b92637b9c | ['Kaushik Choudhury'] | 2020-09-09 21:25:57.297000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Scikit Learn', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Python'] |
Interpreting the Probability density functions as a data scientist | Random variable:
Discrete random variable: X is a discrete random variable, if its range is countable.
Continuous random variable: A continuous random variable is a random variable where the data can take infinitely many values. For example, a random variable measuring the time taken for something to be done is continuous since there is an infinite number of possible timestamps that can be taken.
Population and sample:
A population includes all of the elements from a set of data. Mean of the population is denoted as μ .
includes all of the elements from a set of data. Mean of the population is denoted as . A sample consists of one or more observations drawn from the population. The mean of the sample is denoted as X̄. If sampling was done randomly than it is called a random sample.
As sample size increases, the sample means converges to the population mean.
Depending on the sampling method, a sample can have fewer observations than the population, the same number of observations, or more observations. More than one sample can be derived from the same population.
Gaussian distribution(Normal distribution):
The mean, median and mode of the distribution coincide. The curve of the distribution is bell-shaped and symmetrical about the line x=μ. The total area under the curve is 1. Exactly half of the values are to the left of the center and the other half to the right.
Most of the continuous random variables followed Gaussian distribution by nature. The probability density function can be shown below.
The peak is mostly located at the mean position of the population where σ² denoted variance of the population. σ² decides the shape of the PDF.
As x increases(move away from μ), y reduces exponential of the squire. The curve is symmetric. Shape fall is exponentially quadratic.
When mean = 0, all curves are at probability =0.5.
As the variance decreases, the curve tries to become vertical line at x=0.
68–95–99.7 rule
68% of the points lie between -1σ to 1σ deviation of the mean.
Symmetric distribution, Skewness, and Kurtosis:
A symmetric distribution is a type of distribution where the left side of the distribution mirrors the right side. By definition, a symmetric distribution is never a skewed distribution.
Kurtosis measure the peakedness of a distribution. Mean gets impacted by outliers.
The curve above the normal plot is positive kurtosis and below the normal curve (N=0) is negative kurtosis.
Standard normal variate:
Given any distribution with given points (X1,X2,X3,X4..) with mean and variance = N(μ,σ²), you can standardize to convert into standard normal variate N(0,1).
After standardization, you can tell simply the 68% of points lie between -1 and +1. and 95% point lies between -2 to +2.
Kernel density estimation:
Used to convert histogram into PDF.
Take all heights of points on individual kernels and sum them — the sum is total height of distribution.
Sampling distribution & Central Limit theorem:
CLT: The means of each sample from the population is equal to the population mean(μ). The distribution can be any distribution.
Quantile-Quantile plot(Q-Q plot):
To determine the random sample variables normally distributed or not. if the number of samples is small, it is had to interpret the Q-Q plot.
How distributions are used?
Gaussian distribution give the theoretical model of distribution of data which observed in many cases of natural phenomenon.
Suppose we know that data is distributed normally X ~ N (µ, σ) with mean µ and deviation σ. We can draw PDF and CDF using the above random data.
PDF and CDF tell us how data is distributed. PDF and CDF draw only in the case of Gaussian distribution.
Chebyshev’s inequality:
If I don't know the distribution, mean=finite, and standard=finite. We can not draw PDF and CDF because of distribution.
Here you can find the percentage of points lying between the given range.
Uniform distribution:
It is used to generate a random number which has a lot of applications. Height tells us what the probability is of finding that value. The probability density function(PDF) for continuous random variable and probability mass function(PMF) for a discrete random variable:
NOTE: sample uniformly means each point have equal chance of lie in sample dataset D’
Bernoulli and Binomial Distribution:
Log-Normal Distribution:
if ln(X) is normally distributed. if not, you can check using the Q-Q plot.
NOTE: if data given in log-normal, convert into Gaussian distribution by taking log. so you can use all ML techniques.
Most of the time in the real application, distribution is log-normal. Log-normal is right-skewed as we increase σ value. please see the example given below link.
example found at the below link.
Power law distribution:
also know as 80–20 rule. 80% of the time value found in a 20% interval.
Pareto distribution:
you can find an example in the application section in the above link.
Box cox transform:
if the dataset is in power-law/Pareto distribution, to convert into Gaussian distribution, use Box cox transform.
By putting all x value in Box cox function, you will get lambda( λ) value. use lambda( λ) value you can convert each x into y.
you can directly find Y value using the formula given in link
In a single line using boxcox(x) function, in just one line, we can find y value which is normally distributed.
Weibull distribution:
Used to measure the height of the dam. collect a one-week interval of rain data.
to determine particle size | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/interpret-as-data-scientist-of-the-probability-density-functions-32e933fa47c5 | ['Rana Singh'] | 2020-12-28 16:39:50.703000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Statistics'] |
Writing Is the Best Thing That Happened to Me in 2020 | Writing Is the Best Thing That Happened to Me in 2020
Finding my blessing in disguise!
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
2020 has been a big-rollercoaster, we lived through things that no one anticipated(except for Bill Gates of course).
This was a difficult year for everyone, so many people lost their loved ones. Almost 80 million people suffered from the life-threatening virus.
Coping from these tough times is a difficult yet essential task, writing has helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Writing Helped Me Process Grief
This year taught me many things, I suffered the worst loss of my life. I lost my grandma on September 8th. We took all the precautions to keep her protected from this virus, but our efforts were in vain.
She was a tough old bird, nothing ever scared her. She was a fighter and the commander in chief of the house. She was an adorable goofball, with a ton of hilarious stories, her stories taught us about life. Losing her is the worst thing that happened to my family this year.
Writing helped me process this loss and despair. I am an introvert I am not always comfortable sharing my feelings, most of the time I don't even know how to. Writing stories about her gave me peace and sharing them with you all gave me hope that she will live in my heart forever.
Writing Strengthened My Recovery From Covid
Just before my grandma died, my whole family tested positive for covid. It was a terrifying experience as my aunt is diabetic and we were all worried about her health the most. Everyone except her had mild fever and fatigue. We were the lucky ones as the virus didn’t affect us severely.
This virus has taken more than 1 million lives. It was a scary experience to see your loved ones suffering from an illness in mourning. Writing helped me process the pain and the illness. I was sad, depressed, and ill all at the same time.
Writing gave me hope, it encouraged me to help people who were also going through the same thing. Writing whilst I was sick made me forget about my pains and aches. It helped me divert my mind from sadness and illness.
Writing Rebooted my Fitness
I am a big fitness freak, but after getting covid, I lost all my motivation and energy. Post covid recovery kicked my a**. It was difficult to do even a quarter of my regular workout. All my gains disappeared, I was so lethargic and unmotivated that I even stopped trying. All I was doing in the name of fitness was evening walks.
Writing about my fitness journey and yoga motivated me to get back in shape(I had legit abs before this lockdown). I wanted my strength and flexibility back. I wanted to do a handstand again. Writing about all the things that I love in fitness made me miss my active and healthy old self. So I finally decided to get back in the game.
Now I do 1-hour morning yoga routine and 10 minutes jump rope routine in the evening. It will take time to get to my old level, but I am happy that I finally started. Writing made that happened.
Writing Lead Me Back To Books
I am a self-attested nerd, a lover of books. But a few years back I made the mistake of choosing binging over reading. I used to watch series back-to-back with no worry about my future. I procrastinated my studies to watch television. It was a shameful act to cover my low self-esteem.
This year I finally got back in habit of reading regularly, I read more and more articles by the top writers to figure out the best way to write. I studied their work for hours on end to learn something that I can apply to my own writing to get better. Saturday is my reading day, I easily read for 4–5 hours, trying to learn some tricks of this trade. Now, I watch less than 1 hour of television on most days.
On writing well by William Zinsser is a book that helped me improve my writing rapidly in a short amount of time. It is a must-read.
Writing Helped Me In Becoming More Grateful
In these difficult circumstances, it was hard to be grateful for the blessings and joys of life. Grief and sickness made us all miserable and sorrowful.
It is easy to be grateful when everything is in your favor but expressing gratitude in the thought times is a real challenge.
Writing a gratitude journal helped me in being grateful for the little things that helped me cope with these tough times. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/writing-is-the-best-thing-that-happened-to-me-in-2020-abcb108848c4 | ['Khyati Jain'] | 2020-12-26 20:32:11.299000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Self', 'Life', 'Relationships', 'Writing'] |
A Cryptocurrency App in Just 2 Days | When we were sure that our perfect loop was ready, it was time to bring out the big guns and get to work. We had a 2-hour long Sprint, so we really needed to stay focused, to make sure we stayed on schedule.
Phases of the Project
We kept up a steady pace of work and finished most of what we had planned by the end of the first day. It was a really productive day! We made a summary of our progress and made sure we were on track.
On the second day, we started early in the morning with a short 5-minute stand-up. Taking a fresh look at what we had already done, we developed a plan for the work we needed to complete for the final day. It turned out that we had more than half of the work behind us already, which was a weight off our shoulders, and helped to motivate us.
The visual designs were ready, most of them even well implemented, screens were connected to each other and clickable through the whole application. Everything was going great, but like in every great story there must be a catch… | https://medium.com/elpassion/how-we-created-working-cryptocurrency-app-in-just-2-days-of-hackathon-basing-on-sprint-rules-e1584f064c9a | ['Kamil Janus'] | 2018-08-14 10:45:30.356000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'React Native', 'Blockchain', 'Design', 'UI Design'] |
Are Addictive Phones a New Problem? | In honor of the iPhone 11 Pro I wish I had ordered
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/502/ | https://rstevens.medium.com/are-addictive-phones-a-new-problem-7ca62b1d1147 | [] | 2019-09-18 12:26:16.703000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'iPhone', 'Smartphones', 'Iphone 11', 'Comics'] |
Breakout Startups #24- Odoo | What is Odoo?
Odoo is a suite offering 30 applications via its Enterprise platform — including ERP, accounting, stock, manufacturing, CRM, project management, marketing, human resources, website, eCommerce and point-of-sale apps.
It boasts a community of ~20,000 active members who have contributed more than 16K apps to the open-source version of its software, addressing a large number of business needs.
Story
In 2005, Fabien Pinckaers building TinyERP with the vision to compete with SAP. He was hell-bent on going against SAP that he even bought the domain SorrySAP.com. However, the name didn’t work well with a lot of big clients so 3years later, the name was changed to OpenERP.
The company started to evolve quickly and in 2010, OpenERP had become a 100+ employee company. At this point in time, the company was primarily a services company building and selling services on top of OpenERP but soon the team realized that they had an ugly product out there.
Soon after this, the company made a move.
Oodo’s Founder & CEO, Fabien, writes in a blog post👇
We wanted to switch from a service company to a software publisher company. This would allow to increase our efforts in our research and development activities. As a result, we changed our business model and decided to stop our services for customers and focus on building a strong partner network and maintenance offer.
From inception, Odoo(then OpenERP) had released software as open-source but starting with the V9.0 release, the company transitioned to an open core model, which provided subscription-based proprietary enterprise software and cloud-hosted software as a service, in addition to the open-source version.
Team
Odoo is a Single Founder company that was started as TinyERP right out of University in 2005 by Fabien Pinckaers. One of the investors in Odoo wrote something like this about Fabien and his hiring capabilities,
Thankfully, Fabien is surrounded by the best devs you can find. How does he attract and keep them? He’s one of them. [Source]
Antony Lesuisse — CTO of Odoo, He oversees 200+ in-house developers and looks after the community of 2,000 developers/
Phuong Luu — Chief Services Officer, One of the oldest employees at Odoo(2006).
Johan Wouters — Chief Project Officer, TinyERP Partner since 2006, joined Odoo in 2012.
Funding
Odoo has raised a total of $104.1M in funding over 3 rounds. The latest funding round, a Series B of $90M was led by Global Equity Investors, Summit Partners. Prior to this, the company had raised a Seed and Series A round of $3M & $10M from one of the top European VC firms, Sofinnova Partners.
The team plans to invest this money into recruiting Engineering and Growth Talent. During the Odoo’s latest fundraising announcement, company spokesperson mentioned,
“Odoo is largely profitable and grows at 60% per year with an 83% gross margin product; so, we don’t need to raise money. Our bottleneck is not the cash but the recruitment of new developers, and the development of the partner network”
Open Core Companies
Over the past few years, we are seeing a new generation of Open Sourced Competitors come up with GitLab, Redhat, Mattermost and several others.
The perks of having an Open Source software are endless but there is one that stands out
Community
More than 20,000+ people have contributed Odoo from around the world which enables a strong number of ideas and contributions for the productions.
And, this is one thing which Open Core Companies such as Mattermost, Gitlab have a strategic advantage over large and deep-pocketed competitors such as Slack, GitHub respectively.
Market Landscape
Odoo is competing with giants such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and Zoho. The important aspect is that there is an Open Source Competitor to such products.
However, even after such strong competition, the company boasts of more than 4.5 million users worldwide. The company is growing consistently above 50% over the last ten years which is an astonishing achievement in itself.
Currently, the ERP Market remains fragmented with a good amount of market share available for a new product to come in and capture.
With the current growth rate of 1.2%, the ERP applications market size is expected to reach $96.7 billion by 2023, compared with $91.1 billion in 2018 which makes it a very big opportunity. [Source]
Odoo definitely has the potential to become a key player in the market given the current growth rate and the open-source nature of the product.
All these factors make it a Breakout Company in 2019. The best part, they are hiring across roles 😄
Jobs at Odoo | https://medium.com/the-spectrum/breakout-startups-24-odoo-6f5c83ed3d73 | ['Ankit Kumar Singh'] | 2019-12-27 11:35:51.783000+00:00 | ['Odoo', 'Breakout Startups', 'Erp', 'Startup', 'Sap'] |
Would You Rather Not Wake Up Early? | Mornings are a magical time for many. A good start sets a positive tone for the day, and most times, when you have a productive and fulfilling morning, your day will be successful.
But what about the people who find mornings to be hideous? What about the people who will murder if someone dares to address them before coffee?
You have to think about them too.
Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash
As I lounge in bed, listening to the first morning showers of the rainy season, enjoying the darkness and the brush of cold air from the air conditioner, I wonder why I’m not more of a morning person. Some of the most pleasant and peaceful times I’ve experienced have been after I woke early to have coffee and take a morning stroll.
Mornings are usually a good time for me, except when they’re not.
When I told my friend Jay what I was doing, he confided that he had already walked four dogs, drank his hot chocolate, and had a Father’s Day breakfast. I felt like I was cheating because I was tucked happily under the blanket in my underwear, not any closer to getting up and having coffee than I was a half-hour before.
I haven’t always been so lazy in the morning. I used to get up early when Zoey had to go to school. I made the rice for breakfast, and sometimes even had eggs and ham on the table when Flora and Zoey woke up. I don’t cook enough because Flora hates it. I don’t know what’s different about the eggs when I cook them, but she asks that I refrain from making the meals most times.
My job in the morning before I sit down to write is to get Zoey ready for school. This past week, I haven’t been able to roll out of bed until 7 am, and Flora has most things done already. I still do have time for what I need to do, but it’s much easier if I get up earlier.
I know the reason I can’t get up is the new regimen of medication that I take. I’m so doped up that it takes an act of mother nature to shake me awake. I stumble up, drool on my face, heavy-lidded eyes staring at nothing. More than likely, I am so drugged up that I injure my toes on the door frame or bed and stand spewing f-bombs in the dark.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of trying to wake up through a haze of psychiatric meds, you don’t know what you’re missing. The strongest coffee doesn’t even make a dent in the stupor in my first hour of the day.
When my doctor feels I have sufficiently moved past my psychotic episode, I may be able to drop the dosage a bit. Then I hope I can have a more productive morning. Until then, I will have to stumble about, fracturing sensitive body parts, trying to make instant coffee with my eyes closed.
The perfect morning
If everything in my life were perfect, I would get up at 5 am every morning, even weekends. I would stand on my porch, drinking coffee, and relishing the cool air coming off the ocean.
Then, I would strap on my walking shoes for a brisk walk around the neighborhood. The times I’ve walked in the morning were wonderful. I felt energized and alert when I finally sat down to write for the day.
Then, I would take a cold, refreshing bucket bath and wash off the sweat and germs. Then, a healthy breakfast, catching up with my family at the table.
I wouldn’t touch my phone until much later, so as not to spoil the serenity of my morning rites.
Then I sit to write for the day, uninterrupted by needs and wants of the family.
Except that’s not how it works.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
My actual morning
I wake in a panic with my wife yelling loud enough to echo in the bedroom. She’s not grouchy, that’s just how her voice sounds first thing in the morning. I roll over and grab my phone and stare at notifications and stats until I hear Flora yelling with more urgency.
Ugh, 7:10 am…
I get shakily to my feet and stumble to the bedroom door, catching my finger in the door as I slam it. Yes, that’s blood under my nail. I mumble “good morning” to Flora, who has already been up for an hour and is now making eggs.
I reach for the instant coffee because brewed coffee is way too much trouble, and I’ve learned to adore the taste of freeze-dried. The smell of my Folgers perks me up, but I spill it setting it down on the table anyway.
I try to make sense of my Medium stats while I sip, trying my best not to burn my tongue, but failing. We eat a hurried meal and rush around getting Zoey ready for school. After I drive her to and back, I try to get enough motivation to sit at my desk and create.
I write for 2 hours, interrupted by Flora who can’t ever seem to reach the sugar on the top shelf.
At 10:00 am, I finally take a cold bucket-bath, which immediately does the trick of waking me up. After taking lunch to Zoey, I write for a few hours into the afternoon.
This goes on every day, except when I have to put out fires. There always seems to be a bill that needs paying, or an item needs picking up from the store. There always seems to be things that trump my writing, and I end up skipping the morning writing session.
If I could call my morning routine one thing, I would call it CHAOS.
Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash
Have a good morning!
But, this isn’t all about me. I bet as you read my morning follies you are thinking about your own screwed-up morning routine. Life is complicated, and that includes mornings.
I came up with a way that I can change my mornings from crazy to serene, and I wanted to share.
Get a good nights sleep
Are you staying up until 2 am watching Friends on Netflix? Stop it. Go to bed early and get at least 7 hours of sleep. If you’re under a lot of stress during the day, you may need much more.
Sleep is one of the most important things your body needs to reset and recharge, so don’t overlook it because you want to see how Rachel is wearing her hair in the next episode.
Wake up early
My ideal is 5 am, but for you, it may be different. Get up early enough that you can get through your routine at a leisurely pace. Try to have enough time to exercise and move your body, even if it’s only a walk around the block.
Eat something healthy
Some people skip breakfast, but I find that I always feel better when I’ve gotten some protein, carbs, and good fat in my body. My cholesterol is very good, so I make sure I always get eggs with butter, rice, and some kind of meat or other protein.
I don’t believe in low-fat because your body needs protein, carbs, and fat in moderation. You need to balance what you eat, so your mind and body get everything it needs.
Have a routine
You don’t need a checklist that you check off every morning, but some kind of routine is helpful, especially if you feel hazy or foggy in the morning.
Even when I am stumbling around for coffee, I have a list of things I know needs doing before I can do what I want — writing.
Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash
Whether you spring out of bed every morning, ready to take on the day, or you fall out of bed late and rush around in a stupor doing everything you need to do, mornings are the most important part of our day.
Having a productive morning will set you up for success. It helps if you can get enough sleep so you can wake up early, get some exercise, and eat a healthy breakfast.
I’m going to keep trying to improve my mornings every day.
What about you? | https://jasonjamesweiland.medium.com/would-you-rather-not-wake-up-early-8fecccdcdbb0 | ['Jason Weiland'] | 2020-02-13 04:18:03.761000+00:00 | ['Morning Routines', 'Lifestyle', 'Self', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity'] |
What is Deep Learning | What is Deep Learning?
In this article, I will be talking about What is Deep Learning which is a hot buzz nowadays and has firmly put down its roots in a vast multitude of industries that are investing in fields like Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Analytics. For example, Google is using deep learning in its voice and image recognition algorithms whereas Netflix and Amazon are using it to understand the behavior of their customer. In fact, you won’t believe it, but researchers at MIT are trying to predict the future using deep learning. Now, imagine how much potential deep learning has in revolutionizing the world and how the companies will look for certified professionals in Deep Learning. Before talking about deep learning, one must understand its relationship with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. The easiest way to understand this relationship is by going through the diagram below:
fig: What is Deep Learning — AI Technologies Timeline
Here, in the image, you can see that Machine Learning is a subset of AI. This implies the fact that we can build intelligent machines that can learn based on the provided data set on its own. Further, you will notice that Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning where similar Machine Learning Algorithms are used to train Deep Neural Networks so as to achieve better accuracy in those cases where the former was not performing up to the mark. Following are the topics that I am going to discuss in this deep learning tutorial:
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Drawbacks of ML
What is Deep Learning?
Deep Learning Application
Get Certified With Industry Level Projects & Fast Track Your Career
Artificial Intelligence
fig: What is Deep Learning — Artificial Intelligence
The term AI was coined in 1956 by John McCarthy, who is also referred as the Father of Artificial Intelligence. The idea behind AI is fairly simple yet fascinating, which is to make intelligent machines that can take decisions on its own. You may think it as science fantasy, but with respect to recent developments in technology and computing power, the very idea seems to come closer to reality day by day.
Machine Learning: A Step Towards Artificial Intelligence
Now, that you are familiar with AI, let us talk briefly about Machine Learning and understand what it means when we say that we’re programming machines to learn. Let us begin with a very famous definition of Machine Learning:
“A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” — Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University
So, if you want your program to predict, traffic patterns at a busy intersection (task T), you can run it through a machine learning algorithm with data about past traffic patterns (experience E). Now, the accuracy of the prediction (performance measure P) will depend on the fact that whether the program has successfully learned from the data set or not (experience E).
Basically, Machine Learning is referred to as a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed by exposing them to a vast amount of data. The core principle behind Machine Learning is to learn from data sets and try to minimize errors or maximize the likelihood of their predictions being true.
Drawbacks of the Machine Learning
Traditional ML algorithms are not useful while working with high dimensional data, that is where we have a large number of inputs and outputs. For example, in the case of handwriting recognition, we have a large amount of input where we will have different types of inputs associated with a different types of handwriting.
The second major challenge is to tell the computer what are the features it should look for that will play an important role in predicting the outcome as well as to achieve better accuracy while doing so. This very process is referred to as feature extraction. Feeding raw data to the algorithm rarely ever works and this is the reason why feature extraction is a critical part of the traditional machine learning workflow. Therefore, without feature extraction, the challenge for the programmer increases as the effectiveness of the algorithm very much depends on how insightful the programmer is. Hence, it is very difficult to apply these Machine Learning models or algorithms to complex problems like object recognition, handwriting recognition, NLP (Natural Language Processing), etc.
Deep Learning
Recognize the face of their parents and different objects as well.
Discriminate different voices and can even recognize a particular person based on his/her voice.
Draw inference from facial gestures of other persons and many more.
Actually, our brain has sub-consciously trained itself to do such things over the years. Now, the question comes, how deep learning mimics the functionality of a brain? Well, deep learning uses the concept of artificial neurons that functions in a similar manner as the biological neurons present in our brain. Therefore, we can say that Deep Learning is a subfield of machine learning concerned with algorithms inspired by the structure and function of the brain called artificial neural networks.
Now, let us take an example to understand it. Suppose we want to make a system that can recognize faces of different people in an image. If we solve this as a typical machine learning problem, we will define facial features such as eyes, nose, ears etc. and then, the system will identify which features are more important for which person on its own.
Now, deep learning takes this one step ahead. Deep learning automatically finds out the features which are important for classification because of deep neural networks, whereas in case of Machine Learning we had to manually define these features.
At the lowest level, network fixates on patterns of local contrast as important.
The following layer is then able to use those patterns of local contrast to fixate on things that resemble eyes, noses, and mouths
Finally, the top layer is able to apply those facial features to face templates.
A deep neural network is capable of composing more and more complex features in each of its successive layers.
Have you ever wondered how Facebook automatically labels or tags all the person present in an image uploaded by you? Well, Facebook uses Deep Learning in a similar fashion as stated in the above example. Now, you would have realized the capability of Deep Learning and how it can outperform Machine Learning in those cases where we have very little idea about all the features that can affect the outcome. Therefore, Deep network can overcome the drawback of Machine Learning by drawing inferences from data set consisting of input data without proper labeling.
Applications of Deep Learning
Moving ahead in this what is deep learning blog, let us look at some of the real-life applications of Deep Learning to understand its true powers.
Speech Recognition
All of you would have heard about Siri, which is Apple’s voice-controlled intelligent assistant. Like other big giants, Apple has also started investing in Deep Learning to make its services better than ever.
In the area of speech recognition and voice controlled intelligent assistant like Siri, one can develop more accurate acoustic model using a deep neural network and is currently one of the most active fields for deep learning implementation. In simple words, you can build such system that can learn new features or adapt itself according to you and therefore, provide better assistance by predicting all possibilities beforehand.
Automatic Machine Translation
We all know that Google can instantly translate between 100 different human language, that too very quickly as if by magic. The technology behind Google Translate is called Machine Translation and has been savior for people who can’t communicate with each other because of the difference in the speaking language. Now, you would be thinking that this feature has been there for a long time, so, what’s new in this? Let me tell you that over the past two years, with the help of deep learning, Google has totally reformed the approach to machine translation in its Google Translate. In fact, deep learning researchers who know almost nothing about language translation are putting forward relatively simple machine learning solutions that are beating the best expert-built language translation systems in the world. Text translation can be performed without any pre-processing of the sequence, allowing the algorithm to learn the dependencies between words and their mapping to a new language. Stacked networks of large recurrent neural networks are used to perform this translation.
Instant Visual Translation
As you know, deep learning is used to identify images that have letters and where the letters are on the scene. Once identified, they can be turned into text, translated and the image recreated with the translated text. This is often called instant visual translation.
Now, imagine a situation where you have visited any other country whose native language is not known to you. Well, no need to worry, using various apps like Google Translate you can go ahead and perform instant visual translations to read signs or shop boards written in another language. This has been possible only because of Deep Learning.
Note: You can go ahead and download Google Translate App and check out the amazing instant visual translation using the above image.
Behavior: Automated Self Driven Cars
Google is trying to take their self-driving car initiative, known as WAYMO, to a whole new level of perfection using Deep Learning. Therefore, rather than using old hand-coded algorithms, they can now program system that can learn by themselves using data provided by different sensors. Deep learning is now the best approach to most perception tasks, as well as to many low-level control tasks. Hence, now even people who do not know to drive or are disabled, can go ahead and take the ride without depending on anyone else.
Here, I have only mentioned few famous real-life use cases where Deep Learning is being used extensively and showing promising results. There are many other applications of deep learning along with many fields which is yet to be explored.
So, this is all about deep learning in a nutshell. I am sure that by now, you would have realized the difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning as well as how Deep Learning can be very useful for various real-life applications. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Python, DevOps, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Data Science. | https://medium.com/edureka/what-is-deep-learning-a71030766ce0 | ['Sahiti Kappagantula'] | 2020-10-28 14:19:26.570000+00:00 | ['Ml Algorithm', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Streams and Silent Roars. Today I’ve found myself thinking about… | Far more often than not, while unwittingly dividing ourselves off from the world “around us,” we nonetheless externalize our emotions — the last vestige of our interwoven relationship with the world. Forgetting our own oneness, that union begins to oppress us as a dance becomes a struggle and we begin to step upon one another’s toes.
We forget easily that we never encounter or experience anything that has not already entered our nervous system, collated and presented to us by our brain in mere nanoseconds. Everything we encounter — including that from which we wish to escape — is always already inside us. You are the space in which all the world appears — the world begins and the world ends with you. Because of this, however, forgetting how deeply enmeshed we always already are in what we experience, we neglect the fact that that which presents itself to us — all this — is always already colored in and suffused with our expectations, our valuations, our preferences, desires, fears. We not only contain the world we experience, but we in fact have a hand in creating it.
Returning to Vedanta: it is said that each individual atman or “self” is but a fragment of the great Brahman or singular “Self” that is the totality of existence — we little atman are but drops in the endless sea of Brahman. Another image to consider is many-armed Shiva, who dances the world into being. All things are a gesture or motion of Shiva, and thus a part of Shiva. In this sense, everything that occurs in existence is a movement of Shiva — a play or drama, to borrow from Watts once more. To explain, consider the English term persona, ported directly from Latin, referring to the conical masks actors would wear in ancient Greek theater. Today we use the term persona to refer to ourselves, or at least the self that others see; and each of us, the selves we are and the selves we believe we are and the selves others believe we are, are but roles Shiva plays in the grand drama of existence. Shiva wears persons in the way an actor wears a persona.
Similarly, Watts describes existence as a singular God playing hide-and-seek, losing themselves so thoroughly in the game and its many roles, getting into all kinds of trouble before finding itself once again and having a good laugh at the fun of it all — that the danger seemed so real, that the suffering seemed so palpable — but that the characters were only just an Actor playing the role.
Watts sums up this cosmic game of hide-and-seek in a fundamental myth:
“Myth, then, is the form in which I try to answer when children ask me those fundamental metaphysical questions which come so readily to their minds: ‘Where did the world come from?’ ‘Why did God make the world?’ ‘Where was I before I was born?’ ‘Where do people go when they die?’ Again and again I have found that they seem to be satisfied with a simple and very ancient story, which goes something like this: “‘There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can’t have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn’t be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black. “‘In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn’t, for if the world went on and on without rest for ever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don’t. So because it doesn’t get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It’s like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It’s also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it’s always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn’t always hide in the same place. “‘God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear. “‘Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that’s the whole fun of it — just what he wanted to do. He doesn’t want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self — the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever. “‘Of course, you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to him. [With a sufficiently intelligent child, I illustrate this with a Möbius strip — a ring of paper tape twisted once in such a way that it has only one side and one edge.] The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as “he” and not “she,” God isn’t a man or a woman. I didn’t say “it” because we usually say “it” for things that aren’t alive. “‘God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding. “‘You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn’t really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.’” — Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Vintage Books, 1989), 14–16
Not realizing this, holding fast to the old illusion that what we encounter is separate from us, we assume our own unconscious coloration of the world is simply the essence of the enemy at the gates — having nothing to do with us. When we recognize that the gates were never there — that both “enemies” and “allies” have been inside us all along — we recognize the game we’ve been playing. We realize not that something is frightening, but that fright is something occurring within us; that nothing is in itself infuriating, but that anger is occurring within us; that nothing in itself causes anxiety, but that anxiety is simply something happening inside of me.
We spend an entire lifetime roaring at the moon, believing the moon evokes this roar from us — believing the moon causes it, brings it on itself.
But then the moon disappears — and the roar still comes. And we are left with the truth: that the roar was only ever inside us. That the roar was only ever us in disguise.
A compelling game, to say the least. | https://medium.com/interfaith-now/streams-and-silent-roars-meditations-on-two-zen-koans-42690f5cea59 | ['Nathan Smith'] | 2019-11-02 23:39:19.947000+00:00 | ['Hinduism', 'Philosophy', 'Zen', 'Psychology', 'Religion'] |
The Write Stuff | We have lots of New Year’s resolutions for 2020 including getting the book out, going to cons, and creating more merch — Lisa actually learned how to screenprint just for that purpose! But the most important resolution we’ve made is to work hard at being better, more consistent artists and writers. | https://backgroundnoisecomic.medium.com/the-write-stuff-f57fed63016e | ['Background Noise Comics'] | 2020-01-06 05:18:28.703000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Writing Tips', 'Comics', 'New Year Resolution', 'Writing'] |
Algorithms That Surprize Us | Algorithms That Surprize Us
How to rethink algorithms to produce more diversity?
By Hossein Derakhshan
A few months after the Paris attacks by Isis terrorists, Sheryl Sandberg, a senior manager at Facebook, sat down at a warmly-lit gray and blue stage at a conference hall in snow-covered Davos. The ski-resort in Switzerland is now more famous for its annual gathering of men (and some women) in business suits rather than in skiing boots; it is where the World Economic Forum is held annually.
On a panel titled ‘The transformation of tomorrow’ she sat down with a few other businessmen and discussed the hot topic of the day: How can Facebook and other social networks deprive Daesh/Isis of their vast reach for spreading ideology and recruiting new members?
Twitter and Facebook has faced an uphill battle in shutting down the thousands of accounts belonging to Isis and its sympathizers. At Davos, Sandberg admitted the futility of trying to keep up; she did, however, come up with an interesting idea: Like-attacks.
She drew from a recent Facebook campaign in Germany in which Facebook pages of a racist, far-right political party, National Democratic Party (NDP), were targeted by activists and users who were encouraged to challenge racist and hateful content with critical postings and comments and liking them.
“What was a page filled with hatred and intolerance was then tolerance and messages of hope. Counter-speech to the speech that is perpetuating hate we think by far is the best answer,” said Sandberg.
A smart answer, but is she right? Can a different behaviour by users of social networks weaken extremists?
A few weeks later, New York Time’s columnist Thomas L. Friedman, raised a similar issue with a different touch. Exploring the reasons for the ultimate failure of the once-hyped ‘Arab Spring’, he asked if “social media is better at breaking things than at making things?”
The problem is not the nature of social media, but their present architecture. To create a different world, we need different values, rules, and ultimately different algorithms.
Friedman then quoted Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian online activist who played a major role in uprisings that led to the fall of Mubarak:
“First, we don’t know how to deal with rumours. Rumours that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of people.” Second, “We tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we can mute, un-follow and block everybody else. Third, online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are actually real people and not just avatars.
“And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the internet.”
Fifth, and most crucial, he said, “today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations. … It’s as if we agreed that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.”
Friedman and Ghonim are onto something different from Sandberg. Their question, while valid and helpful, is about the nature of social networks, as if there is only one way of organizing a collectively-produced and massive amount of information on social networks.
Influence behind the scenes
The debate around social media influence on its users was taken to the next level early in May when former employees at Facebook revealed to Gizmodo that they manipulated News Feed output and the trending topics to suppress conservative news. They said they sometimes removed some trending topics, and injected some at other times.
This set the conservatives on fire. The Senate Commerce Committee wrote a protest letter to Facebook. Quickly, Mark Zuckerberg invited seventeen senior conservative figures such as radio host Glenn Beck, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Tea Party Patriots CEO Jenny Beth Martin, Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, Dana Perino of Fox News, and Senior Donald Trump campaign aid Barry Bennett, to reassure them about his commitment to political neutrality. The meeting was so important to him, that when it ran over time, the young billionaire postponed attending to the affairs of his gigantic digital empire.
The outcome of the usual one-week news cycle was a series of articles and opinion pieces filled with the word ‘Algorithm’. A concept named after the medieval Iranian mathematician, Al-Kharazmi, who lived at the height of the Islamic civilization.
Ironically, our growing fear of the ‘Others’ passing our borders has coincided with our rising need to be comforted in our silk cocoons.
Algorithm is essentially an attempt to simulate the way we think the human mind works. A step-to-step rational decision-making process which produces a certain and simple output from numerous irrational, orderless inputs. Algorithm is a way we want to make our chaotic world tangibly simple — and at the same time to cut down the costs of expensive human work force.
The discussion then became about algorithms and neutrality. There are those, like Zuckerberg, who think Facebook output is neutral, because it is produced by algorithms. And others like Zeynep Tufekci, a US-based Turkish sociologist who studies the mutual impact of technology and society, who thinks algorithms by nature have an ingrained bias, because they are created by biased human beings and “they optimize output to parameters the company chooses, crucially, under conditions also shaped by the company.”
The truth is social network’s algorithms are filters that say ‘Yes’ to some of the stuff we share, and ‘No’ to others, and these filters follow certain rules. Therefore, there are theoretically as many types of algorithms as there are rules.
What is curiously missing from the general debate is this question: Is it possible to imagine other types of algorithms that produce balanced news, have radicals challenged, and help productive debates? My answer is a big yes.
Rules follow values. To imagine different rules (and thereby different algorithms), we should discover the underlying existing values based on which the dominant Facebook algorithms work, and then think of alternatives.
The age of consumption
Born and raised in the Middle East, what has always struck me in my visits to Europe or North America is how much the culture is dominated by the images of young people and celebrities. Everywhere you look, from print to television, to billboards and advertising, images of fresh young faces with sparkling eyes remind anyone above forty-five (yes, I set the bar higher so I don’t feel old myself) that they are soon expiring.
I’ve always wondered how depressing it would be to walk in the streets of New York City or London or Brussels — and sadly many other vibrant cities around the world including Tehran — when I’m sixty-something, and feel like an alien. Would I not rather flee to residential suburbs where I’m not constantly treated as too old and too useless?
‘Algorithm’ is named after the medieval Iranian mathematician, Al-Kharazmi, who lived at the height of the Islamic civilization.
The two major dominant values of the age of consumption, youth and fame, are translated into the new internet as newness and popularity.
In addition to native content for business purposes, Facebook algorithms mostly prioritize what is new and what is popular. If what you post is not freshly produced, or doesn’t receive certain amount of likes and reshares in a certain time (based on the secret rules Facebook sets) your posts won’t be treated as worthy of others people’s gaze. And in this time and age, as Donald Trump knows very well, gaze is money.
This is quite different from pre-social internet when audiences were faceless, anonymous masses whose most active engagement was to occasionally leave a comment. This was an era where browsing the internet was a non-linear experience, thanks to a concept called links. Links provided a break from a linear movement across time and space. They were always capable of surprising us. We all started from a favourite blog or website, and several clicks away, we ended up landing in alien places.
Links provided a break from a linear movement across time and space.
Archives used to be common, where we could quickly access posts from a different age. Even search had a vastly different dynamic to it, because most of the content that was produced was in words rather than images or videos. How can you find a sentence you heard or a scene you watched in a video last year?
Now with the new values and rules that guide algorithms, we are increasingly forced to remain in one space and be fed with what we already agree with. Facebook’s current algorithms want the entire world to remain inside of it all the time and to consume what they most enjoy. Facebook doesn’t like you to be upset or challenged or surprised, because that’s not good for business.
That is the core of the problem everyone is trying to articulate. It takes a UN-based diplomat, Ambassador Samantha Power, whose very job involves constant engagement with people around the world to realise the dangers of isolation.
Comfort cocoons
With current algorithms, views and beliefs of radical religious and nationalist groups, like those of all of us, are being reinforced in personal comfort cocoons Zuckerberg has made for billions of people. Common causes quickly become reasons for bitter divisions, once they are supposed to posit a vision rather than to negate one.
And all this at a time when the West needs to face the awkward consequences of centuries of colonialism and decades of self-serving interventions. Ironically, our growing fear of the ‘Others’ passing our borders has coincided with our rising need to be comforted in our silk cocoons. Old habits die hard, but thanks to social media, nobody wants to kill them anymore.
There are many things that can be done. On a personal level, we should disrupt current algorithms to confuse them in realizing what we want, so they give us more diversity. We can start liking what we actually dislike (or disagree with) on our News Feeds. We can follow people or communities we dislike. We can challenge majorities.
On a corporate level, we need to encourage Facebook and others to give us a choice between different kinds of algorithms stemmed from different values. How about someone who wants a challenge-oriented News Feed instead of a comfort-centred one? Or a minority-driven rather than majority-oriented? Or a text-privileged News Feed instead of a video-saturated one? Or a news-centred instead of a social-centred one?
We should disrupt current algorithms to confuse them in realizing what we want, so they give us more diversity.
This is all possible, and in fact Facebook has quietly tried them before. In 2014 they tested News Feeds with negative, saddening items on a fraction of users to see how it affected their mood. It proved too effective. Wasn’t market-economy about maximizing consumer options?
On a legislative level, states should start regulating algorithms, since they are the first steps toward an old science-fiction fear of human-made creatures who get out of control and come back to haunt us.
Algorithms should cease to be seen as industry secrets. They now control what we buy, who we date, what we read, and even what we think. They exert more power on many aspects of our lives than states do.
On the other hand, Facebook’s dream of providing internet access is, in the words of media scholar Dan Gillmor, an attempt at providing utility. Which state allows unregulated utility?
The problem is not the nature of social media, but their present architecture. To create a different world, we need different values, rules, and ultimately, different algorithms. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/a-world-without-surprises-a719e54e78d6 | ['Hossein Derakhshan'] | 2018-03-01 20:17:26.010000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Refugees', 'Facebook', 'Tech', 'Social Media'] |
Opinion: Scientists must learn how to interact with indigenous people | Opinion: Scientists must learn how to interact with indigenous people
Amazing opportunity for progress lies at the intersection of complex systems science and traditional worldviews. Can we find the humility to embrace it?
“Interconnected” by Vannessa Circe. Oil on Canvas — 36” x 48”
By Daniel Henryk Rasolt for Ensia | @ensiamedia | @DHRasolt
Last February, Jesus Rotieroke and I sat together chewing on our thoughts (in the form of coca-based mambe) after spending a sweltering day in the family chagra harvesting cassava and plantains. A leader of the Muina Murui of the Colombian Amazon, Rotieroke had a thing or two to say to me, a U.S.-trained physicist looking to learn from and support his traditional community, about the role science plays in his world.
The Muina Murui, like many Indigenous people around the world, have long understood the concepts of complexity and systems thinking — concepts we Westerners seem to think we’ve only just discovered — as the vital balance of an interconnected Mother Earth. Observing firsthand changes in what scientists call “biogeochemical cycles,” Rotieroke was sharing how he had begun applying some techniques that his daughter Susan learned while studying agroecology at the University of the Amazon aimed at enhancing the productivity, resilience and biodiversity of their traditional swidden agriculture. But he had some important caveats to insert into the conversation.
“We welcome anyone with occidental training who respects our rights, listens to our needs, and helps us adapt to threats happening in and around our territory,” he told me.
The take-home message was clear: An alliance between integrated science and traditional knowledge can help reshape our understanding and treatment of the natural world. But to make the most of the powerful potential of such interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration, the “Western World” must learn how to more effectively and respectfully interact with traditional Indigenous people and value their complex knowledge and understanding.
Lost Opportunity
The protection of Indigenous communities and the ecosystems they coevolved with is critical to a healthy living planet. While Indigenous people account for only around 5% of the global population, their territories contain approximately 80% of the world’s biodiversity, store the equivalent of some 33 years of global carbon emissions, and provide a whole range of ecosystem services for the other 95% of humanity.
Jesus Rotieroke prepares the chagra at Caqueta, Colombia. Photo by D. H. Rasolt
Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of Western-led conservation and restoration projects within Indigenous territories fail to fulfill their potential to benefit communities and ecosystems. Why is this?
Indigenous leaders from diverse biocultural regions consistently tell me that organizations, policymakers and researchers barge into their territories; impose viewpoints without listening to the needs and perspectives of their communities; do studies or projects based on preconceived, reductionistic mindsets; and rarely return to maintain relationships and ensure enduring positive impacts after the short-sighted study or project is deemed “complete.”
Many Indigenous people see this approach as disrespectful and ineffective. It leads them to reject offers of “help” from the outside despite the fact that many, if not most, Indigenous leaders are cautiously open-minded to the pragmatic application of “Western” knowledge.
Researchers who operate in a hubristic manner also lose a tremendous opportunity to learn from the profound perspectives and knowledge of Indigenous people.
Intricate, Interconnected, Interdependent
As a researcher with a background in theoretical physics and cosmology, and with a strong interest in complex systems science, I am one of those who risk falling into the trap of thinking that we are part of an advanced movement of academic and practical understanding.
I do believe that rigorous interdisciplinary analysis that values emergent order within the interconnected nonlinear whole, as opposed to the deconstructed individual parts, is a significant advancement within Western science and thinking. But I and others fool ourselves if we believe that this is a unique approach. The worldviews of many Indigenous people embrace this kind of holistic thinking at their core.
Teyrungümü Torres Zalabata, an Arhuaco leader and graduate student in particle physics, analyzes a water sample at the National University of Colombia. Photo by D. H. Rasolt
I have been working with Indigenous ethnic groups in Colombia on multidisciplinary and intercultural projects over the past five years, and am repeatedly inspired by their resilience and integrated worldviews. For traditional Indigenous people, nature, or the “Mother Earth,” is an intricate, interconnected, interdependent sacred living entity — a complex system — not a collection of isolated, exploitable, limitless resources and property.
There have been some recent successes and positive ideological trends based on intercultural understanding. Integrated food systems like agroecology incorporate local traditional knowledge. Circular economic models incentivize the preservation of traditions within Indigenous communities. “Rights of Nature” frameworks based on “ecocentrism” and Indigenous worldviews have legally recognized rivers, lakes, mountains, forests and animal species as interconnected “persons” within living, thriving and evolving ecosystems.
Colombian biologist Fernando Trujillo, founding partner and scientific director of Omacha Foundation and an international authority on Amazon River dolphins and freshwater ecosystems, has successfully collaborated with the Tikuna and other Indigenous ethnic groups in the Amazon on a range of conservation and resource management projects.
“Experts and the world at large are recognizing that alternative approaches to research and socioeconomic development are needed that integrate modern scientific tools, basin-scale analysis, Indigenous knowledge and a conscious general public,” Trujillo told me last year, while we discussed conservation efforts, options and frustrations in the Colombian Amazon. “The survival of many species and cultures in the Amazon and other dynamic ecosystems depend upon these integrated approaches being adopted soon.”
Unfortunately, these and other adaptable complex frameworks remain much more the exception than the rule.
Toward a More Resilient Future
Based on my personal experience and the observed successes — and failures — of some of my colleagues who have worked with Indigenous communities for many years, here are some interrelated suggestions for those looking to engage with Indigenous communities in their territories:
1. Value different perspectives and practices. Before even considering working with Indigenous people, truly realize that their incorrectly labeled “quaint,” “backwards,” “primitive,” or impractically “mystical” worldviews are actually highly complex and developed. They are full of deep reason, extensive empirical knowledge and practical implications. In fact, they are the longest running successful experiments in sustainable human land use that exist on our increasingly stressed planet.
2. Listen, do not impose. Plan to have dialogue and to patiently and respectfully listen, learn and exchange ideas, not just instruct.
3. Treat Indigenous people as equal partners. Indigenous people are strategic partners in local, regional and global problem-solving, and while many Indigenous groups are extremely vulnerable due to a range of factors, they should not be treated as “charity cases” in need of rescuing.
4. Respect autonomy. Infringement upon Indigenous autonomy and prior consent is a deep and contentious issue for many Indigenous communities.
5. Let Indigenous people lead. Let those who know their circumstances and territories best determine their needs and drive the work whenever possible.
6. Do not be in a rush. Go with a long-term plan and structure for support — technical, financial or otherwise — not a “one and done” study, workshop or program. Many Indigenous people see short-term approaches as ineffective, unimportant and disrespectful.
7. Limit preconceived notions. Indigenous people are diverse and complex. They should not be expected to fit some stereotypical image seen on TV, or even studied in an academic setting.
Take an integrated approach. Do not go with a reductionist agenda. Indigenous people do not see individual problems or challenges as separated from the whole, so the reductionist approach will create discontinuity from the outset, even if equitable collaboration is the goal.
Tremendous diversity exists among Indigenous ethnic groups. But the fundamental complex and adaptive nature of indigenous socio-ecological systems offers an opportunity for effective intercultural collaboration around the world. Complex systems thinking and Indigenous worldviews, while different in method and perspective, can complement each other with common goals, such as the conservation and restoration of ecosystems. It is time for the great advances of Western science to catch up to the traditional interconnected thinking of Indigenous people, to help move us all forward toward a more resilient future.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of Ensia. We present them to further discussion around important topics.
Originally published at ensia.com on March 12, 2020. | https://ensiamedia.medium.com/opinion-scientists-must-learn-how-to-interact-with-indigenous-people-bf8465e3af22 | [] | 2020-03-24 20:26:01.350000+00:00 | ['Ecosystem', 'Culture', 'Indigenous People', 'Science'] |
How I Whitewashed and Silenced My Own Blackness by Writing on Wattpad | How I Whitewashed and Silenced My Own Blackness by Writing on Wattpad
At 23, I just had the epiphany that I’ve been idealizing White stories and beauty standards for the majority of my life. I’d never seen Blacks be written about in a positive light, so I rejected their existence, smothered my own identity, and found comfort in telling stories that were not made for me. I admit that I hid my Blackness on Wattpad because I was afraid that if I wrote a story about a Black character, then I wouldn’t get any reads, votes, or comments…and my publishing dreams would never come true.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
In the ninth grade, a close friend of mine and I opened our first Wattpad accounts on a school field trip on a cold, sunny December afternoon. While the purpose of the field trip was to learn about the ever-changing world of news, how to cover hard topics, censorship, and the documentation of history, my friend and I were glued to our phones. We’d both been to the museum before, and plus we were fifteen — our minds were more focused on the latest Divergent book and not the traumatic and disturbing things at this museum, which still haunt me today, but is necessary to see.
I remember sitting on the bus with her, using my mom’s cellular data, typing away on our phones until our fingers were numb, struggling and laughing at the same time because we really couldn’t see what we were typing because the bus was so bouncy. Though, we prevailed through blurry vision and many misspellings. (Back then, the Wattpad app wasn’t too advanced and autocorrect didn’t exist on it, so you’d end up having a jumble of words and have to go back and retype everything. Such a First World problem, but it was frustrating.) The ride to the museum was about an hour each way, which meant plenty of writing time.
‘Chasing Rain’
I penned away at a story called Chasing Rain, which has long been deleted at the expense of my friend’s repulsion for removing what felt like “decent writing” as it dragged on the coattails of an overly angsty and drab version of Shiver mixed with If I Stay. I remember my heart racing as the ideas flowed and flowed, literary gold just oozing from my fingers. I imagined it getting published, visualizing what the front cover would look like and what the pages would smell like. Though Chasing Rain would never see the light of day in the publishing industry, it was the first time I was truly passionate about writing. In agreeance with my friend, to this day, I do wish that I hadn’t deleted Chasing Rain from the Wattpad-verse.
But then again, what is the point of forcing Blackness into Whiteness?
My Own Upbringing Made Me Unaware of Wattpad’s Whiteness
It’s important to note here, that back in 2011 when my friend and I first discovered Wattpad, there were little to no Black narratives on the site. Frankly, there were no Black narratives around other than the ones that chronicled stories of slavery and racism. It took many years for me to understand my Blackness and come into selfhood as a Black writer.
I grew up in a whitewashed suburban Maryland town, where Black stories were just never prioritized unless during Black History Month. However, I didn’t really have a problem with that, sadly enough, at the time. There was no blatant racism or discrimination that I’d experienced in my school. We all just went to school together, and because so many of us had known each other since elementary or middle school, we all just really viewed each other as individuals. Color, race, or creed was hardly ever an issue to the point of oppression. I had a lot of White friends through my young schooling years and so did everyone else. Though it was normal to have the majority of my friends be White, it caused me to be very ignorant, unaware, and in some cases reject my own identity by following White culture so closely. Fortunately, from my recollection, I don’t think I was ever treated any differently because of my Blackness. Unfortunately, my Blackness was not an issue until college, where I least expected it to be.
Because there wasn’t much representation for Black stories on Wattpad, I resorted to writing a story about a White teenage girl named Rain. And nope, I don’t remember her last name. Rain was living with her dad because her mom passed away at a young age. She craved independence, aspiring to go to the big city of New York to attend NYU. She never felt like she fit in, and enjoyed making art over going to parties. She had a boy best friend (who’s name I forced to be something aesthetically pleasing, but can’t remember the exact name. However, I clearly recall basing him off of Macaulay Culkin.) She also had an alcoholic boyfriend that was unpredictable and their relationship was binding and tumultuous.
This Was Going to be “The One”
I knew deep down that this was the story I had to write. This was the story that was going to get me a publishing contract. I could feel it. The cover for my story was created and droned over on an app called Phonto, featuring a White girl with a drape of curly brown hair, hugging her knees with her face buried into them, dressed a drenched cardigan that hung over her shoulders. (To this day, I still don’t know who that girl is.) While I wouldn’t consider myself “Wattpad Famous”, Chasing Rain did manage to rack up over 2K reads and about 70 comments during its short life on Wattpad.
A Passion Fizzled Out
My passion soon faded for the story. I got rid of the story because it was too inauthentic, and emotionally draining to read. I didn’t enjoy writing on Wattpad anymore for many reasons that pertained to the dropping engagement as the number of users on Wattpad grew, the influx of Harry Styles fanfiction, and the unspoken competition between my friend and I to see who could get the most reads. But the biggest issue of all was because I was silencing myself by writing a story about a White girl. I tried to create a character that was roughly based on myself that was only appealing to teen writers of the early 2010s: a one-sided, raging, pale White girl seeking approval from unhealthy relationships by pushing away her own family and fleeing from her own traumas (i.e. Bella Swan from Twilight).
Now the title, Chasing Rain makes sense. Ironic how it took me over 10 years to put that puzzle together.
I do think that Wattpad is a valid starting point for writers in their teens, but man, am I grateful I didn’t end my writing career there.
In Reflection of Wattpad, My Blackness, and Moving Forward
At 23, I just had the epiphany that I’ve been idealizing White stories and beauty standards for the majority of my life. I’d never seen Blacks be written about in a positive light, so I rejected their existence, smothered my own identity, and found comfort in telling stories that were not made for me. Now more than ever, do young Black people need to have their voices heard. Platforms that only cater to White stories deny us the ability and confidence to hold space there as Black writers. I admit that I hid my Blackness on Wattpad because I was afraid that if I wrote a story about a Black character, then I wouldn’t get any reads, votes, or comments…and my publishing dreams would never come true.
It is unnerving to think I had to suppress myself in order to get pats on the head from White, privileged teen writers when now, I wouldn’t even dare ever come across Wattpad again. There is no amount of internet clout nowadays that will encourage me to hide behind a screen and pretend to be something I’m not. I can only hope that Wattpad has done something to elevate Black stories not because it feels right for them at this time to do so, but because they genuinely want to hear what we have to say.
Update: I think Rain’s last name was Carrigan, by the way.
Originally published on Vocal Media. | https://medium.com/social-jogi/how-i-whitewashed-and-silenced-my-own-blackness-by-writing-on-wattpad-32d6bf04050c | ['Courtney Lowry'] | 2020-12-26 21:51:45.396000+00:00 | ['Identity', 'Life', 'Teens', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Writing'] |
The Matrix is here | The Matrix is here
To liberate yourself, let go of the stories
Most of us loved the Matrix movie. Many also know that the Wachowski’s, who made the movie, put Buddhist concepts in. What we think is normal is indeed a story. A clever story with several main forces driving you to believe it. And unlike the movie, to step out of the story is a much smaller step, than you might fear. So what’s the story and how to get out?
“If you’re ready to wake up, you’re gonna wake up” Alan Watts
Signs that should tell you to get out.
Are you depressed a lot? Are you heading towards a burn out? Or coming out of one? Are you on medication against some emotional unbalance? Are you fearing an invasion of whatever people? Are you always in a hurry and lack time to stop and think? These are all signals you aren’t living your real life. They all mean your caught up in a life and world, that’s not yours.
Finding “the courage to live a life true to yourself” should be the cornerstone of every education by the way. If you want to prepare children for life, this is it. The tools to do so, do include reading and writing, but also critical thinking and self awakening.
Why it matters to wake up.
Look up most important regrets of the dying. So when you aren’t living without regrets, or postponing taking care of them, chances are you are lost in suffering now. You suffer for a future that has to do with pictures in your head. And those pictures are the Matrix.
The real Matrix are all pictures and stories created by advertisers, politicians, peer pressure, family, cultural bias and especially by your own brain. Your brain thinks it’s trying to prevent you getting hurt, or feel socially awkward or even cast out. Yet, not learning to take the risk, the avoidance of anxiety is a addiction in itself, masterly preyed upon by marketing and propaganda. Fear this! Avoid that! Be safe by buying this, by voting that, by praying here. All story. What is happening here and now?
Neo taking the ‘Red Pill’ to wake up.
Waking up.
You breathe. You read. You may consider how it applies to you. You may play scenario’s of different options in your head. You may think of changing everything and people screaming at you when you do. Such scenario playing creates anxiety. But the real ‘unplugging from the story’ doesn’t need to be that big. Breathe. Read. Be here. Now. Repeat. This is what Zen is all about. And meditation is just the practice of practicing that. Breathe. Be here. Now.
All those stories, that tell you to get wherever you want to be, you have to stop living in the now? They are lies. The stories are the Matrix. It is as simple as that. Even when you think you’re alone, you can play, feel love, call a friend. And beyond the here & now, yet totally connected to it, is the experience of oneness. There is no you. There is breathing. There is action.
Living in this world.
Become true to yourself. More accepting of inner sides. If you want to play, play. If you hate your job, stop it, or change how you are present in it. If you feel the need to make a difference, volunteer, help, start giving. By the way, giving and helping are the best depression fighters ever. It’s the worrying about yourself (story) that takes freedom away, rather than offer it. With worry there’s only two choices, accept or act.
For some, ceremonies with magical mushrooms or ayahuasca can help experience or deepen the sense of oneness. I’ve never done it myself, only seen results, good and bad, in others. Such experiences may radically change your experience of reality. For many it’s a beautiful wake up, others get depressed, or unhinged. So don’t go there when not grounded enough and without very experienced trustworthy guidance. For me the sense of oneness is already in feeling connected very often. How and why? I don’t know. It feels like a grace coming with living my true nature. Mine. Not yours, so telling mine isn’t any guidance in this matter at all.
So here you are. The world is open. You are still breathing, otherwise you’d not reading this. You can go back to the Matrix and plug into the stories TV, Social Media, worries friends feed you. You can accept the targets that give you stress or.. you can see the openness and possibility in every situation. Breathe. Experience. Express. Have fun.
To further get out of the Matrix, here are some other helpful texts within the Gentle Revolution.
Here are some outside links that may be very helpful. | https://medium.com/the-gentle-revolution/the-matrix-is-here-da72f3744e6a | ['Floris Koot'] | 2020-05-05 00:06:25.403000+00:00 | ['Revolution', 'Storytelling', 'Life Lessons', 'Matrix', 'Meditation'] |
How to Use ‘Feel to Reel’ to Make Your Headlines Sparkle and Shine | “Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions. So find out how to light their fires.” — Jeff Dewar
Headlines are the beginning of the reading journey.
No matter how you cut it, your title determines how many people read your subtitle. Your subtitle determines how many people glance at your header image. Your header image reinforces the ideas of the headlines.
Then someone clicks, or more likely, moves on to another piece.
These three things combined paint a five-second picture in your readers’ mind of whether or not your work is worth their next five minutes of free time.
And damn it if our free time isn’t precious these days.
Or, more importantly, your readers’ free time.
Let’s find the best of both worlds and improve our headlines’ effectiveness by adding emotion and feeling.
If your writing is truly great, it needs a title to match. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-to-use-feel-to-reel-to-make-your-headlines-sparkle-and-shine-b4a4e2067bf5 | ['J.J. Pryor'] | 2020-12-28 16:51:00.495000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'Content Marketing', 'Headlines', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] |
Data Modeling with GridDB | GridDB: Open Source Time Series Database for IoT | Here’s a video version of some of the content found in this blog.
GridDB has a unique Key-Container data model. In this model, a key points to a container which is essentially a columnar table and a container’s key is often referred to as its name. Different containers can have different schemas and row key types, but unlike SQL-type tables, containers can’t have constraints where values in one container have a fixed relationship to another container.
Generally, data from one device, sensor, or input will be stored in one collection. In this blog post, we’ll explain what Containers are and what you can and cannot do with them. We will also explain how data is typically organized within a GridDB application.
To compare GridDB to other NoSQL databases, in a Key-Value database (Redis), the key points to any value and attributes of that value usually cannot be indexed or queried, a Key in a Key-Document database (like MongoDB) points to a document where different documents can have different structures.
Containers
GridDB has two container types: Collections which can have any type of row key, and TimeSeries which always have a timestamp as the row key. They also feature several other unique features.
In Java, a container is defined by a static class of variables; timestamps, simple strings, numbers, geometry types ( More info here), blobs or arrays of strings and numbers are all supported. ( Full list here) In all other languages, the container is defined by a ContainerInfo object, but some languages do not support arrays and geometry types at this time.
In a Collection, Row Keys can be either be unique or not, this is determined by placing a @RowKey attribute in front of the type in Java or the row_key parameter in a ContainerInfo object in other languages.
Data Modeling
With the Key-Container model, each device, application, sensor, account or dataset get its own container and typically the same schema would be used for each type of device. A unique ID would be part of the container key and a collection can be used to help organize the many container keys.
Writes to an ad-hoc queries of an individual container are very fast as just that container needs to be locked meanwhile the total time required to query many containers is usually faster than Key-Column or relational data models.
Let’s look at this example of a water company’s sensor recording and billing application.
The above ER diagram would be represented in Java with the following classes:
static class AccountRecord { @RowKey String accountId; String billingName; String billingAddress; String billingEmail; String[] sensorIds; } static class SensorReading { @RowKey Date timestamp; double liters; double psi; }
The following shows how a GridDB puts data into different containers as well as how the same data would be represented in a Relational Database.
Notice on the relational side that all of the sensors will populate into one table.(Note: we settled on inserting all sensors into one table because it was the more efficient method in RDMBS). Imagine now that the application scales out to several tens of thousands of sensors; the RDBMS table housing the sensors will quickly become too cumbersome to do any meaningful work without significant slow downs.
Over time each sensor would push data into the appropriate SENSOR_$sensorId container and customers would be written to the ACCOUNTS container with the sensorIds that apply to their account. When it comes time to generate bills, the billing application would iterate through the rows of accounts, reading each of the READING_$sensorId containers to calculate the bill.
GridDB’s novel Key-Container data model allows developers an easy and efficient way to model data (Time Series or not) of many individual inputs into many containers that can be aggregated and iterated. | https://medium.com/griddb/data-modeling-with-griddb-griddb-open-source-time-series-database-for-iot-cb7c2d0de555 | ['Israel Imru'] | 2019-11-21 00:13:02.023000+00:00 | ['Timeseries', 'NoSQL', 'Data Science', 'Internet of Things', 'Big Data'] |
How does the Blockchain Work? (Part 1) | Blockchain ABC and 123
How does the Blockchain Work? (Part 1)
A simple and easy explanation
Update: April 27, 2018:
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If you really want to get into the blockchain and cryptocurrency world, I would highly recommend that you start your journey by reading these two white papers:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
and;
Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform
and then read them again….and again…
If you’re like many people asking questions like: “I have an idea and I want to know if my project is suitable for a blockchain”. — read these two papers, plus this one -
How to hire a blockchain developer.
or; “I’m looking for investments and I want to know if this token or that token will go up in value” — read these two papers.
I wish you all the best on your journey….and here we go.
How does the Blockchain Work?
Well here is a simple explanation that cuts through the hype.
Blockchain is a hot topic around the world these days, yet for many, the technology remains an elusive concept. Yet it shouldn’t, the concept is simple once you get your head around the architecture and theory of basic crypto economics. When you do have your “a Ha” moment, the world will never seem the same to you again.
This blockchain basics guide is designed to deliver a clear, non-technical introduction to one of the most transformational & misunderstood technologies of our time. If you want to know what blockchain technology is, how it works, and it’s potential impacts, without all the technical lingo, then this post is for you.
A short History of Transacting Money
Historically, when it comes to transacting money or anything of value, people and businesses have relied heavily on intermediaries like banks and governments to ensure trust and certainty.[1] Middlemen perform a range of important tasks that help build trust into the transactional process like authentication & record keeping.[2]
The need for intermediaries is especially acute when making a digital transaction. Because digital assets like money, stocks & intellectual property, are essentially files, they are incredibly easy to reproduce. This creates what’s known as the double spending problem (the act of spending the same unit of value more than once) which until now has prevented the peer to peer transfer of digital assets.[3]
But what if there was a way of conducting digital transactions without a third party intermediary? Well, a new technology exists today that makes this possible. But before we dive into the mechanics of this revolutionary technology, it’s important to provide a little context.
Blockchain Vs Bitcoin — What’s the connection?
Bitcoin first appeared in a 2008 white paper authored by a person, or persons using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The white paper detailed an innovative peer to peer electronic cash system called Bitcoin that enabled online payments to be transferred directly, without an intermediary.[4]
how the blockchain transfers value
Via (techliberation.com)
While the proposed bitcoin payment system was exciting and innovative, it was the mechanics of how it worked that was truly revolutionary. Shortly after the white paper’s release, it became evident that the main technical innovation was not the digital currency itself but the technology that lay behind it, known today as blockchain.
Although commonly associated with Bitcoin, blockchain technology has many other applications. Bitcoin is merely the first and most well-known uses. In fact, Bitcoin is only one of about seven hundred applications that use the blockchain operating system today.[5]
“[Blockchain] is to Bitcoin, what the internet is to email. A big electronic system, on top of which you can build applications. Currency is just one.” [6] — Sally Davies, FT Technology Reporter
One example of the evolution and broad application of blockchain, beyond digital currency, is the development of the Ethereum public blockchain, which is providing a way to execute peer to peer contracts.[7]
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What’s under the blockchain hood?
Simply put, a blockchain is a type of distributed ledger or decentralized database that keeps continuously updated digital records of who owns what. Rather than having a central administrator like a traditional database, (think banks, governments & accountants), a distributed ledger has a network of replicated databases, synchronized via the internet and visible to anyone within the network.[8] Blockchain networks can be private with restricted membership similar to an intranet, or public, like the Internet, accessible to any person in the world.[9] [10]
When a digital transaction is carried out, it is grouped together in a cryptographically protected block with other transactions that have occurred in the last 10 minutes and sent out to the entire network. Miners (members in the network with high levels of computing power) then compete to validate the transactions by solving complex coded problems.[11] The first miner to solve the problems and validate the block receives a reward. (In the Bitcoin Blockchain network, for example, a miner would receive Bitcoins).
The validated block of transactions is then timestamped and added to a chain in a linear, chronological order. New blocks of validated transactions are linked to older blocks, making a chain of blocks that show every transaction made in the history of that blockchain.[12] The entire chain is continually updated so that every ledger in the network is the same, giving each member the ability to prove who owns what at any given time.
“A blockchain is a magic computer that anyone can upload programs to and leave the programs to self-execute, where the current and all previous states of every program are always publicly visible, and which carries a very strong crypto economically secured guarantee that programs running on the chain will continue to execute in exactly the way that the blockchain protocol specifies.” — Vitalik Buterin
Blockchain’s decentralized, open & cryptographic nature allow people to trust each other and transact peer to peer, making the need for intermediaries obsolete. This also brings unprecedented security benefits. Hacking attacks that commonly impact large centralized intermediaries like banks would be virtually impossible to pull off on the blockchain. For example — if someone wanted to hack into a particular block in a blockchain, a hacker would not only need to hack into that specific block, but all of the proceeding blocks going back the entire history of that blockchain. And they would need to do it on every ledger in the network, which could be millions, simultaneously.[13]
Will the blockchain transform the Internet & the global economy?
Make no mistake about it. Blockchain is a highly disruptive technology that promises to change the world as we know it. The technology is not only shifting the way we use the Internet, but it is also revolutionizing the global economy.[14]
By enabling the digitization of assets, blockchain is driving a fundamental shift from the Internet of information, where we can instantly view, exchange and communicate information to the Internet of value, where we can instantly exchange assets.[15] A new global economy of immediate value transfer is on its way, where big intermediaries no longer play a major role. An economy where trust is established not by central intermediaries but through consensus and complex computer code.[16]
“The technology likely to have the greatest impact on the next few decades has arrived. And it’s not social media. It’s not big data. It’s not robotics. It’s not even AI. You’ll be surprised to learn that it’s the underlying technology of digital currencies like Bitcoin. It’s called the blockchain.” — Don Tapscott
Blockchain has applications that go way beyond obvious things like digital currencies and money transfers. From electronic voting, smart contracts & digitally recorded property assets to patient health records management and proof of ownership for digital content.
Blockchain will profoundly disrupt hundreds of industries that rely on intermediaries, including banking, finance, academia, real estate, insurance, legal, health care and the public sector — amongst many others.[17] This will result in job losses and the complete transformation of entire industries. But overall, the elimination of intermediaries brings mostly positive benefits. Banks & governments for example, often impede the free flow of business because of the time it takes to process transactions and regulatory requirements. The blockchain will enable an increased amount of people and businesses to trade much more frequently and efficiently, significantly boosting local and international trade. Blockchain technology would also eliminate expensive intermediary fees that have become a burden on individuals and businesses, especially in the remittances space.
Perhaps most profoundly, blockchain promises to democratize & expand the global financial system. Giving people who have limited exposure to the global economy, better access to financial and payment systems and stronger protection against corruption and exploitation.
“Every human being on the planet with a phone, will have equal access. Expanding the total addressable market by 4X” — Brock Pierce
The potential impacts of blockchain technology on society and the global economy are hugely significant. With an ever growing list of real-world uses, blockchain technology promises to have a massive impact. This is just the beginning.
Many of the most exciting applications and platforms haven’t even been invented yet!
If you want more information, that is friendly and easily accessible, please see the rest of our series here:
How does the Blockchain Work? Part 2
The top 5 things you need to know
How does the Blockchain Work? Part 3
What is Consensus and why does it matter?
How does the Blockchain Work? Part 4
What’s the difference between private, public, and consortium blockchain?
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I’m always interested in meeting blockchain founders, academic researchers, and technologists who are working on challenging projects, so please feel free to contact me on LinkedIn , or by email at [email protected]
Collin Thompson is the Co-founder, and Managing Director of Intrepid Ventures, a blockchain startup studio that builds, and accelerates Blockchain powered companies. | https://medium.com/blockchain-review/how-does-the-blockchain-work-for-dummies-explained-simply-9f94d386e093 | ['Collin Thompson'] | 2018-04-27 11:57:15.063000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Digital Anger Management (For Hotheads Like Me) | It’s better to walk away from the fights you can avoid. And most fights you can avoid, even when it doesn’t feel like it. That’s true in social media and everywhere else.
In fact it’s more true on social media than everywhere else. Arguing on the internet is a bit like shaking your fist at the sky, except it takes three hours to do it and ruins the rest of your day.
You’ve got more important things to do. You’re better than that!
Yet there you are, defending your position against someone who’s challenging you in front of everybody.
I’ve had my share of online knock-down drag-outs over the years, and seen a lot from the sidelines, too. Sometimes it involves strangers, sometimes it’s close friends or family.
I’m not going to tell you to avoid taking somebody on.
I don’t believe in a universal policy of internet pacifism. Freedom of speech ought to be exercised, and that includes the right to express disagreements.
Instead of telling you to button your lip, I want to share a few insights I’ve gained over the years. Most of these lessons came the hard way, by making mistakes, miscommunications, and generally taking things too far online.
1. Recognize there are a lot damaged people out there.
My personal weakness is picking fights with bullies. Going back to grade school, I’ve always been a bit of a bully’s bully, sticking up for my younger brothers or smaller kids. Some fights were worth it. I once got kicked off the bus for hitting a boy in the face when I saw him flipping the ears of a younger child. (I remain unrepentant!)
But at the end of the day, a bully’s bully is still a bully.
After all, bullies have a lot of baggage you know nothing about. And online, there are plenty of strangers sauntering around looking for a fight because they’re bruised and hurting people.
Don’t feed the troll
“Don’t feed the troll” has been rule number one of internet culture since we were mingling on message boards a quarter of a century ago.
We all know this. It’s evident in any popular local newspaper comments section or Facebook page, however, that people still take the bait when a troll shows up to make life miserable.
Ignoring a troll is harder than it sounds. This is especially true when the purpose of their disruptive behavior isn’t clear. Are they just playing around, or are they serious?
Don’t try to diagnose the troll.
Today’s trolls often lack the joyful anarchy of those early discussion board disrupters. Some trolls seem genuinely invested in their insults and inflammatory positions. It’s hard to tell whether someone is simply being provocative or if they actually believe what they say.
Sometimes trolls are just genuinely ugly people. There are a lot of damaged, angry strangers out there with chips on their shoulders.
Here’s something I’ve learned over the years about that troll/hateful stranger distinction:
It doesn’t matter. Unless you’ve got angry strangers mobbing a business page you’re running, it doesn’t matter whether they are trolls or genuinely upset normal people.
If they’re getting into your face in a public forum or on your personal social media account, it makes little difference why they’re doing it. So don’t try to diagnose them. Don’t try to parse their motives. And don’t expect to change their minds.
If you have the power to delete a comment and block the troll, do it. If you feel their comment violates the terms of service of a platform, don’t lose sleep over reporting them. Reporting hate speech can result in a troll losing their megaphone, and that benefits everybody. Hate speech isn’t protected speech.
But don’t be surprised if a site administrator disagrees with what you think constitutes hate speech. Very often, trolls can get away with sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry right out in the open.
They can also get away with threats that escalate right up to “I’d shoot you in the face if you lived in my town.” How do I know? I’ve experienced it. So beware the illusion that social media is “a place for friends.” Below the surface, it can be a Wild West where the laws are meaningless without a sheriff.
Don’t become the troll.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” In any extended online argument, there’s an inflection point where the protagonist and antagonist resemble one another.
Outside observers are reading your flame war. They’re not seeing one person taking something too far. They’re seeing two people taking it too far.
If you don’t know when to quit, you will lose people who might otherwise be sympathetic. We’ve all seen this from the outside. Don’t become the very thing you hate.
2. Always argue to convince others.
So you’re in a fight on social media. You believe in your position. Your opponent is patently wrong, spewing lies, and personally attacking you.
You can win and still lose, even if your argument is watertight, if you’re not fighting to convince the lurkers.
In most public debates, rules stipulate that candidates may not directly address one another in their remarks. Instead, candidates joust with one another indirectly by referring to their rivals’ positions in their own statements.
Even with this rule in place, plenty of mud gets slung. But when candidates depart from the rule, the rivalries can swiftly descend into name-calling, interrupting, and even yelling or aggressive body language like lunging toward one another on the stage. It’s an embarrassing spectacle.
Fight for the crowd.
The way skilled debaters win is by winning public support for their positions. They speak to the audience. The metric for success in public discourse is conversion.
When you argue with someone online, write in a way that makes your message compelling for anyone else reading. Write in a humane way, never going for a low blow, even when your opponent is doing it.
Make points in a way that acknowledge what your antagonist has said, and build them into a case in your favor. But always keep your attention turned outward.
Imagine how a persuasive lawyer would craft closing arguments: she would address the jury, not the opposing legal team.
3. Focus on the big picture.
Don’t take a strawman bait.
Strawman arguments get thrown around a lot by both experienced and novice debaters. A strawman is a logical fallacy: your opponent misrepresents your argument, then demolishes it. They’re raising their gloves in victory when you’re not even down for the count.
It’s infuriating and dishonest. You can point it out, rephrasing your argument, and explain why the false representation is convenient for your opponent. Or you can ignore it and assume that anyone else reading your exchange will recognize the strawman for what it is.
Don’t get down in the dirt.
You’ll run into people who don’t know the first thing about constructing an argument but who want to get down and dirty when they’re challenged. They call you names and attack your character.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone accuse me of being “un-American” for being anti-war. Or “evil” for being pro-choice — “You support killing babies.” (Socialist, too? I’d count the ways I’ve been attacked, but it would take all day. When this comes under attack I like to point out that Albert Einstein wrote eloquently about why he supported socialism.)
The Latin word Ad hominem means “against the man,” and that’s the low-blow tactic being deployed in this situation. The worst part about an ad hominem attack is that it can be blatantly low-blow and still be effective. Its point is to bias the public.
In my experience, the best thing to do is maintain thick skin. You don’t have to “turn the other cheek” to let them slap that side, too, but it certainly makes a strong impression if you manage your outrage in circumstances where it is entirely justified. If you keep your head up and take a dignified approach, it ultimately makes your antagonist look worse.
Ignore subtle provocations, too.
Some people will antagonize you with their word choices, punctuation, even formatting. The “wall of text” can look like a hostile rant, to say nothing of caps-lock words or excessive italics. This is more common when they’re losing an argument.
The formatting choices may be inadvertent — many times they are deliberate. Your challenger may use punctuation or other syntax oddities to be passive-aggressive. If you point it out, they will deny doing it on purpose. They’ll act like you’re crazy.
Here’s something I have learned about this form of grammatical gaslighting:
It’s nearly impossible to win either an argument or an audience by calling out your antagonist on the way they write. Plausible deniability is always on their side, and the more you try to parse their wording, the more irrational you will look.
Take the high road.
Instead of calling out an opponent on all their bad manners, demonstrate proper online etiquette in your own responses. The difference will be clear to anyone else reading.
Keep a laser-like focus on what you hope to accomplish in your dispute. Ask yourself this again and again: What point are you arguing? Why is it important?
If you can’t answer those questions, you’ve lost the plot.
Even if you didn’t start the argument, you’re hardly in a better position than your antagonist. Your disagreement is just bickering, and you should walk away.
Here’s one way to end an argument that I’ve found infuriates trolls while making you look good to everyone else:
Tell them you’re letting them have the last word. Say, with more sorrow than anger, that the argument is no longer constructive. But add that you urge them to think about the points you’ve raised. And if they would like to reach out privately to talk some more, you’re always there.
All that kindness is like a corkscrew in the ear for people who don’t actually want to have an honest discussion.
4. Online fights have offline consequences.
Online fights can be serious business. Even when it’s just social media bickering, disputes can get really dirty.
They can spill over into our offline lives in the form of sleepless nights, stress, and lost productive time. It’s all too easy to throw away hours in an argument that could have been avoided altogether.
Maybe you know your antagonist offline. Maybe you already know of their differences. Recognize that putting any disagreement in writing is an escalation.
Heated arguments can result in doxxing. Doxxing — the release of your home and work address and other private information — can result in the exposure of you and your family to harassment or violence.
If someone doxxes you, the very first thing you should do is document it. Take screenshots, download the page, and report it to the site where it is posted. Doxxing violates most social media and website terms of services — not that reporting it will necessarily prompt a site to take action as they should. Depending on how much of your information has been exposed and how sensitive it is, you should alert family, supportive friends, and contact the police. | https://medium.com/swlh/digital-anger-management-for-hotheads-like-me-8f7280b67b7b | ['Edie Meade'] | 2020-02-11 23:48:06.840000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Internet', 'Stress', 'Social Media'] |
6 Ways to Gain Relevant Work Experience Even When No One Will Hire You | 1. Volunteer
Yes, this suggestion is a surprise to almost none of you. However, I cannot emphasize how important unpaid work can be when trying to start or change careers. If you are willing, work for a cause you care about that is related to the field you are interested in or that gives you the skillsets you need to be successful in your career. Your volunteer experience can give your resume the experience boost it needs to land you a paid job.
The downside of volunteering is that it is not paid work. Not everyone is able to work for free, but if you can get a job elsewhere and volunteer, do so. While volunteering isn’t paid, it does give you the opportunity to help others and network. Networking is one of the best ways to help you get a job.
Some websites that list volunteer opportunities are:
2. Job Shadow
Like volunteering, job shadowing doesn’t pay you. However, it does give you an excellent opportunity to really see if the career path you’re interested in is right for you. It will give you a chance to experience the pros and cons of a job before you completely commit to it. This way you can get to know the job ahead of time giving you a chance to change directions in your career if you realize that this isn’t the right fit for you. But if you absolutely love the job, it will give you the opportunity to meet a few people you can network with later on when you are ready to start working.
Also, if you are in high school or college, job shadowing looks great on your resume! It makes your future employers and graduate schools (if you choose to attend) see that you’ve really done your research about your career path. Part of the reason many people hate their job is because they had an idea in their heads what it would be like, and didn’t really get to know the inner workings of what exactly they were going to do.
To job shadow, you would have to find a company you’re interested in and ask someone there if you can shadow them. It might best if you contact someone you have a connection with, like someone you met at a conference.
3. Tutor
Well, you know what they say, those who can’t do teach! If you are passionate about a subject or skill that is important to your career goals, one of the best ways to get even better at it is to tutor. And you get the added bonus of helping others! I myself was a tutor online for 2 years on Chegg.com and Wyzant.com. These sites were a great way for me to gain more experience in my field because I help students from different schools all around the world with their assignments. Each professor has a different way of teaching particular subjects, so I became even better, vastly improving my skills.
Plus, tutoring gives you other skills that are important to jobs, no matter what career you want to enter into, such as the ability to understand a topic and train others in it, the ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in people and situations, and it helps to develop excellent communication skills.
Once, when I was looking for a job, I was told in an interview how impressed they were with my tutoring experience. They liked the idea of having me work at their company so that I could get trained in a subject and teach everyone else what I learned. That way the company would save money by only sending one employee. You just never know how specific experiences will be useful for your next job opportunity.
4. Freelance
Freelancing has similar benefits to tutoring, but it can pay more. You’d have the opportunity to work on a number of different projects, which can help you develop skills in different niches within your field.
There are many websites that you can use when looking for freelance jobs, like Upwork or Fiverr, but some freelancers don’t recommend these sites as you can end up working for exorbitant amounts of time for small amounts of money. Instead, to find freelancing opportunities it’s best to let others in your network know that you’re available if they need your expertise. However, that’s not to say that you can’t start off on one of these sites, I started freelancing that way. It’s how most people begin their freelance careers.
Once you’ve successfully completed a few freelancing jobs, this can be a great boost to your resume. You’ll not only have experience but possibly people willing to give you a recommendation as well. And the best part is you can keep freelancing if you’d like as your side-hustle. But if you’re freelancing does really well, you probably won’t need a full-time job at all.
5. Internships/Apprenticeships/Fellowships
In my opinion, internships, apprenticeships, and fellowships are some of the best ways to gain relevant work experience. It’s also one of the best ways to get a job when you are otherwise struggling to get one. That doesn’t mean that getting one isn’t very competitive. It can be just as difficult sometimes to get one as it is to get a job. However, they are usually more likely to give people will less experience a chance.
If you’ve done some of the previously suggested tips to gain experience, then you will greatly increase your chances of getting an internship. Internships have a bad reputation for forcing interns to do menial tasks, like get coffee for everyone in the office. But there are many great internships that allow you to gain excellent experience in your field. It’s a great way to transition into a new field if you are switching careers or just starting out.
Apprenticeships are great for people who either didn’t go to college or for those who don’t want to go back to school before starting a new career. Apprenticeships are usually paid and give you hands-on experience while learning new skills. While apprenticeships are not as popular as internships, they are definitely a great opportunity. Many of them tend to transition into jobs.
Apprenticeships can sometimes be a little harder to find, but the other day I found 2 opportunities at Johns Hopkins University. One that’s for high school students interested in science and engineering and the other is for people interested in clinical research. Searching online on different company websites is one way to see if an apprenticeship is available.
Some websites that list internships/fellowships/apprenticeships are:
Idealist — a great place to search for jobs/internships worldwide Zintellect — you qualify for these internships if you’ve graduated in the last 5 years US Apprenticeships — Find local apprenticeship opportunities in the US United States Federal Internships — For current students or recent graduates (graduated within the last 2 years) Presidential Management Fellowship — For recent graduates with advanced degrees
6. Get Involved In Your Field Online and In-Person (safely)
This advice is a little unconventional because this isn’t necessarily to improve your resume’s experience section. Instead, it is to give you more accolades and credibility within your field and most importantly give you an opportunity to network. These accolades are things you can discuss in your future job interview to help increase your chances of getting the job and can add to other sections on your resume.
Write about your industry
This is a great way to not only stay involved in your chosen field but also to learn and get your name out there. If people in your field are reading your articles, whether it’s on your blog site or in the Huffington Post, you are making yourself an authority in your profession (even if you don’t work in it yet professionally). It always amazes me how important different perspectives are.
Conduct your own research or project
This is similar to the previous point. However, if you are passionate about a topic within your field, do your own project and publish it somewhere. You’d be surprised how impressed your future interviewers will be when you say you’ve done research on your own. It shows that you take initiative and that you are passionate about your field.
Join a group related to your future career
This is a great way to meet people who may work for companies that you’d like to work for and network with them while you make some new friends. You can join a group, on a site like meetup.com, related to your career, or start your own group. Starting your own group will let you have more control over the group if you don’t mind the added responsibility of running it.
Participate in events related to your career
Consider participating in local and online events that utilize skills in your field. Events like hackathons, game jams, contests, and celebratory days, like GIS Day, give you opportunities to improve your skills, but best of all if you win this is a great and unique award to add to your resume! | https://ariadailee.medium.com/6-ways-to-gain-relevant-work-experience-when-no-one-will-hire-you-b7e8051d3b0e | ['Aria Dailee'] | 2020-12-01 04:00:06.203000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Work', 'Career Advice', 'Self Improvement', 'Work Advice And Insights'] |
Reading Data with Python’s Pandas | JSON
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is another common way of sharing data, especially on the web, and as the name states, this format holds data in the form of JavaScript objects.
They’re also straightforward to import, but there’s a catch with JSON, any value can be an array of values, and they’re not necessarily symmetrical — That is to say, JSON is not a table.
If we want to see JSON as a table, we need to normalize it, and pandas have a handy method for that, called .json_normalize.
We can pass our data to the method, and set the max depth we want to unpack, and Pandas will return a normalized Dataframe.
* If we don’t set the max_level, it’ll normalize all levels of our data.
Ok, but there are two notes to be taken here.
The first note is .json_normalize only accepts the data as JSON or as a string, so we can’t load a JSON to Pandas and then use .json_normalize on the Dataframe.
Let’s try reading the file with Python’s JSON, and then passing the data to be normalized in Pandas, defining the max depth as one.
The second note is, sometimes it just doesn’t work as we intended…
In this case, it’s because the ‘location’ is an array with JSON in it.
Instead of this → {location:{city:xxx, country:xxx}} It’s this → {location:[{city:xxx, country:xxx}]}
Let’s try rereading the file, but this time, let’s tell Pandas we want it to normalize the ‘location’ field.
Cool, now all we got to do is drop the location in the Dataframe, and add these new columns to it.
Alright, we did it.
We can conclude that getting a JSON to Pandas is very easy; normalizing a JSON, on the other hand, can be very tricky depending a lot on the number of levels in your data and their arrangement. | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/reading-data-with-pythons-pandas-2715ff925b1d | ['Thiago Carvalho'] | 2020-06-09 20:12:31.839000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Pandas', 'Data Science', 'Dataframes', 'Python'] |
Python Dictionaries | Python Dictionaries
Use Python Dictionaries Like a Pro
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
Python programming language is widely used by developers in data science projects. To complete such projects, understanding data structures plays an important role. Python has several built-in data structures such as lists, sets, tuples, and dictionaries, in order to support the developers with ready to use data structures.
In this article, I will try to explain why and when to use Python dictionaries, meanwhile giving you some hints about the correct usage of the dictionary methods.
Let’s understand the Python dictionaries in detail with step-by-step explanations and examples.
What is a Python Dictionary?
In a nutshell, a dictionary can be defined as a collection of data stored in key/value pairs. Keys must be an immutable data type (such as string, integer or tuple), while values in a dictionary can be any Python data type.
Duplicate keys are not allowed. If the same key is used twice in the same dictionary, then the last occurrence will override the first.
Data stored in a dictionary can be modified so they are called mutable objects. They are unordered which means that the order in which we specified the items is not maintained. (They are ordered in version 3.7 onwards)
As they are dynamic, they can grove or shrink when needed.
When to use Python Dictionaries?
As you now know what is a Python dictionary, it is time to explore when to use them in your code.
Here is a list helping you to understand when to use Python dictionaries;
When the data has a unique reference that can be associated with the value.
When quick access to data items is important. Dictionaries are designed to let us find a value instantly without the need for searching through the whole collection.
When the data order is not important.
As dictionaries are mutable, it is not a good idea to use dictionaries to store data that shouldn’t be modified in the first place.
When memory consideration is not an important factor for the application. Compared to lists and tuples, dictionaries take up more space in memory.
How to Create a Python Dictionary?
There are many ways of creating and initializing the dictionaries. As shown in the below code snippet, the easiest way of creating dictionaries is using curly brackets or dict() method directly;
If you have two iterable objects (for example list objects), you can use zip() function to create a dictionary. See the example below;
fromkeys() method is another way of creating dictionaries. It takes an iterable object and creates a dictionary with specified value as shown in the below code snippet;
What is a Python Dictionary Comprehensions?
Python dictionary comprehensions provide an elegant way of creating dictionaries. They make your code easier to read and more Pythonic. They shorten the code required in dictionary initialisation and they can be used to substitute ‘for’ loops.
The general syntax for dictionary comprehensions is:
dictionary = {key:value for (key, value) in iterable}
Adding Conditionals to a Dictionary Comprehension
You can extend the use of dictionary comprehensions with conditional statements. You can see below the use of multiple ‘if’ conditionals, ‘else-if’ conditionals in dictionary comprehensions;
Time Complexity of Dictionary Operations
Getting, setting and deleting an item in a dictionary has O(1) time complexity which means that no matter how big is your dictionary, the time it takes to access an item is constant.
Iterating over a dictionary has O(n) time complexity means that the time it takes to perform this task linearly proportional to the number of items contained in the dictionary.
How to Access Values in a Dictionary
If you try to access an element with a key which does not exist in your dictionary, you get a KeyError. Knowing the proper way of accessing the elements inside the dictionary is important for not to have KeyErrors during runtime.
To avoid the KeyError, access the elements of a dictionary with get() method. Alternatively, you can check the existence of the key with ‘in’ keyword.
How to Insert an Item Into a Dictionary?
There is no add() , insert() or append() methods that you can use to add items into your dictionary. Instead, you have to create a new key to store the value in your dictionary. If the key already exists in the dictionary, then the value will be overwritten.
Below code snippet shows many examples of adding items into your dictionary;
What are the Dictionary methods?
There are many methods contained in the Python dictionaries helping you to perform different tasks on the dictionary objects. I listed them below with their short definitions;
popitem() : Remove the last item from the dictionary
: Remove the last item from the dictionary pop(key, defaultvalue) : Removes and returns an element from a dictionary for the given key
: Removes and returns an element from a dictionary for the given key keys(): Return the keys
Return the keys values(): Return the values
Return the values items(): Return the dictionary’s key-value pairs
Return the dictionary’s key-value pairs get(key[, value]): Returns the value for the specified key if the key is in a dictionary
Returns the value for the specified key if the key is in a dictionary fromkeys(keys, value): Returns a dictionary with the specified keys and the specified value
Returns a dictionary with the specified keys and the specified value setdefault(key, value) : Returns the value of the item with the specified key. If the key does not exist, inserts the key with the specified value
: Returns the value of the item with the specified key. If the key does not exist, inserts the key with the specified value update(iterable) : Inserts the specified items to the dictionary if the key is not in the dictionary, otherwise it updates the value
: Inserts the specified items to the dictionary if the key is not in the dictionary, otherwise it updates the value copy(): Returns a shallow copy of the dictionary
Returns a shallow copy of the dictionary clear(): Removes all items from the dictionary
How to Remove an Item From a Dictionary?
To remove an item from a dictionary object, you can use ‘del’ keyword or pop() method. In addition, you can use dictionary comprehensions to remove items of a dictionary. Check below code snippet for the implementation of those methods with examples;
How to Copy Dictionaries?
You can use the copy() method to get a shallow copy of an existing dictionary. A shallow copy means a new dictionary will be populated with references to the objects in the existing dictionary.
To create a deep copy, ‘copy.deepcopy(dict)’ method should be used. It creates a fully independent clone of the original dictionary with all of its elements.
See below to understand how you can implement shallow copy and deep copy methods on dictionary objects;
How to Merge Dictionaries?
You can merge dictionaries with a custom function containing dict.copy() and dict.update() methods.
In Python 3.5 and onwards, you can merge dictionaries with unpacking them using ‘**’ operator.
The simplest and easiest way of merging dictionaries is using the merging operator ‘|’ which is available in Python 3.9+
Below code snippet shows implementations of all above methods with examples;
How to Sort Items In a Dictionary?
Python dictionaries are unordered up to version 3.7 so even if you sort the (key, value) pairs, you wouldn’t be able to store them in a dictionary by preserving the ordering. To preserve the ordering, we can store the sorted dictionary in an OrderedDict
See below to explore how you can sort the dictionaries by key and by value;
How to Loop Through a Dictionary?
Python dictionary methods; values(), keys(), and items() provide access to the elements contained inside a dictionary. You can use them in for loops to iterate through the dictionaries.
In addition, dictionary comprehensions can also be used for iteration as shown below;
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
As data structures are fundamental parts of our programs, it is really important to have a solid understanding of Python dictionaries to create efficient programs.
I explained why and when to use the dictionaries, some of the key takeaways are listed below;
Python dictionaries can be used when the data has a unique reference that can be associated with the value .
that can be associated with the . As dictionaries are mutable , it is not a good idea to use dictionaries to store data that shouldn’t be modified in the first place.
are , it is not a good idea to use dictionaries to store data that shouldn’t be modified in the first place. Python dictionaries are unordered up to version 3.7 so even if you sort the (key, value) pairs, you wouldn’t be able to store them in a dictionary by preserving the ordering.
up to version 3.7 so even if you sort the (key, value) pairs, you wouldn’t be able to store them in a dictionary by preserving the ordering. Python dictionary comprehensions provide an elegant way of creating dictionaries. They make your code easier to read and more Pythonic.
Thank you for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/python-dictionaries-651acb069f94 | ['Erdem Isbilen'] | 2020-11-15 23:22:51.829000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Comprehension', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Python Dictionaries'] |
3 Lessons I’ve Learnt to Embrace as a Introverted Black Woman! | 3 Lessons I’ve Learnt to Embrace as a Introverted Black Woman!
I knew that I would face discrimination as a Black woman, but not as an introvert
Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash
‘I knew that I would face discrimination as a Black Woman, but not as an Introvert.’
For years I had been told that I was ‘weird’ and ‘quiet.’
I didn’t fit into the stereotypical image of a black woman, which was ‘loud, sassy and bossy,’ but when I became an adult, I believed that this was a phase in my life I could forget about.
I knew that I would face discrimination as a black woman, but I didn’t think I would face discrimination as an introvert too.
It wasn’t until I was earning a wage when I continuously faced what others perceived about me.
Although I navigated through predominantly white spaces during my childhood, this was soon a reality again when I started working.
This usually meant that others were quick to make assumptions about me and whether I was worthy of respect or acknowledgement.
I remember when I first failed to live up to the expectations of my managers and colleagues, as a ‘loud black woman.’
Instead of standing up for myself, as I should have, they faced me with criticism that has stuck with me ever since- ‘you need to speak more, otherwise you will never make friends.’
For me, it had felt like black women could not show their introverted side.
We’ve seen many introverts of other races portrayed in the media, such as the stereotypical image of a ‘quiet Asian,’ but everyone praised and applauded these stereotypes.
Society makes black introverted women feel that they cannot exist.
Thankfully, I have learned from these experiences and I’m slowly starting to accept my introverted personality.
Here are three life lessons I’ve learnt as an introverted black woman:
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
1. I’m not alone in this big world
Slowly, there have been conversations and positive portrayals of black introverted women in the media, such as Issa Rae’s book, ‘Awkward Black Girl’ and articles such as ‘Black Women aren’t allowed to be Introverted,’ by Sequoia Holmes.
However, as a black introverted woman, we often feel isolated because of not feeling accepted by others.
As I had mentioned earlier, I had and still feel isolated sometimes as an adult. Luckily, in today’s world, the power of technology has allowed us to connect with like-minded people with the same problems as us.
If it wasn’t for reading articles and watching TV Shows about black female introverts, I would be the person I am today.
2. Being quiet does not make me boring
A brief memory I remember from secondary school was my closest friend saying ‘you’re boring.’ At first, I thought nothing about it, and I carried on with my life as normal.
It wasn’t until I met new people when I realised the effects of what my friend had said.
I had over-thought what others had perceived about me, and this fuelled my belief that I was not the ‘go to girl’ for having a ‘fun time.’
Instead, I was the ‘comfort zone girl,’ someone who’s used as the support system when they had no one else.
And I hated it.
As a black woman, people assume that you are the entertainer. And this was true for many of the friends I had at secondary school.
For not meeting their expectations, most people saw me as a ‘blank slate,’ since I didn’t speak up when I needed to.
The truth is, it’s okay to not want to speak all the time. As an introvert, I never see the point in constantly trying to put my point across, so that everyone could hear what I had to say.
I had to remind myself that I’m not an entertainer for others, I’m my own person.
3. Many people have questioned my quietness
Many of us would have seen the negative portrayal of black women in Pop culture, such as with The Real Housewives of Atlanta and in music.
Normally, in these shows and in music, black women are portrayed as one or both traits- ‘loud’ and ‘hot-headed.’
Unfortunately, these negative portrayals have fuelled stereotypes which have affected us all, but what happens when you don’t meet these stereotypes?
As humans, we find it hard to ignore the stereotypes of other races.
It helps us to make quick assumptions and decisions on how to react to certain people, so when people don’t meet the expectations of these stereotypes, the reaction can go in one of two ways: surprised or question the individual’s personality.
Personally, I have experienced these two reactions, but one experience that sticks out is when people question your personality. This had resulted in me constantly being asked, ‘why don’t you speak?’ and ‘you’re so cute.’
Because of the stereotypes of black women, it has led to others being suspicious and criticising me over not speaking a lot.
Even when many people have proven to go against stereotypes, people still stand by them and ignore getting to know each individual’s personality.
My way of dealing with stereotypes is not to give into others’ expectations of me and show them that everyone is not the same person.
It’s hard not to feel pressured and live up to other people’s expectations since you have the desire to exist and be heard.
However, my way of dealing with this is to continue being my own person and prove that black women have their own individual personality. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/3-lessons-black-introverted-woman-1477b997cc5e | [] | 2020-06-22 12:09:55.347000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Women', 'Racism', 'Race', 'Culture'] |
Coinster Thoughts: Together We Rise | When you enter our headquarters in downtown Seattle, you will see a phrase on a poster next to the door. These three words carry a world of importance and are the driving factor behind everything we have done and will continue to do as a company.
Together We Rise.
Three simple words. Not only do they hang on the walls of our office but for myself and our entire staff that is working hard every day, these words also hang on the walls of our hearts.
Far too often in the world of technology and finance, the ones benefiting from the system are those at the top. Just take a look at the fees on a bank account. They penalize people for being late when so many of those working in this country are living within their means and yet still often paycheck to paycheck. Maybe you want to send money to a friend or family member, but fees eat into the final amount, and unless you are willing to lose more of your hard earned money to expedite the transaction, it could be days until the money is received.
Those that have access to money will never complain about issues like this because it doesn’t affect them. In some cases, they will be the ones profiting from the current system and will not want that to change.
We at Coinme understand that for a system like digital currencies to thrive there is one aspect of the process that needs to be addressed first and foremost: Accessibility.
That is why we are thrilled for the collaboration we announced two weeks ago with Coinstar, and we are proud to share that we are now the largest bitcoin kiosk network in the United States with over 1,500 locations live and more being added in the coming weeks.
“[Bitcoin’s] biggest step towards the mainstream world.” -Fortune Magazine
Neil said it best to our staff on the day of the launch: When the world has access, we will even the playing field so that everyone has a fair chance for financial prosperity. That was true in 2014 when Coinme was founded, and it is even more valid today.
Together We Rise. | https://medium.com/coinme/coinster-thoughts-together-we-rise-9b3aa62317c3 | ['Dom Garrett'] | 2019-02-01 23:41:52.054000+00:00 | ['Digital Currency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Startup', 'Coinme'] |
What Is a Good Read Ratio on Medium? | What Is a Good Read Ratio on Medium?
And why a high read ratio can be a bad thing
Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash
A good Medium read ratio is generally between 20 and 50%.
It depends, though, on the length of your article and the audience you’re trying to engage. Very short articles (3 minutes or less) tend to have a higher read ratio, because it takes less time for a reader to complete the article.
Likewise, long articles tend to have lower read ratios — but not always. I have a 23 minute article that still has a 30% read ratio because its content is very engaging. But in general, if your article takes longer to read, it will tend to have a lower ratio. Seven minutes is usually the sweet spot in terms of article length to get an optimal read ratio.
If your read ratio is too high, that can indicate a problem, too. If everyone finishes reading your piece, that can be an indication that it was too short. Readers may be left wanting more, and you may have had the opportunity to go into more detail on a specific topic.
If you write a 5–8 minute piece and it has a very high read ratio, congratulate yourself on writing something really engaging, but also immediately start to think of follow-ups.
Can you write another article (or several) building on the same topic, or exploring aspects of it in more depth? If people loved your shorter article about the topic and were really engaged, it’s likely that they’ll want to engage with your follow-up pieces too.
If your ratio is really low, there can be reasons for that, too — so don’t immediately despair. It could be that your article is getting a lot of traffic from external sources (Flipboard, social media, etc.) and these readers (who often aren’t Medium members) tend to spend less time reading stories on average. Over time, it’s likely that your ratio will increase as more members read your piece.
Also keep in mind that read ratio is a lagging number. It’s only updated periodically, and Medium waits a while before assuming that a reader has stopped reading an article. So for newly published pieces, your read ratio might appear very low at first, but over time it will go up as more people who are in the middle of reading the piece finish it, and as Medium updates the numbers.
Here are some more tips on improving read ratio and other Medium metrics: This Formula Determines Your Medium Earnings — Thrive on Medium | https://medium.com/swlh/what-is-a-good-read-ratio-on-medium-ee63d2f6fd9e | ['Thomas Smith'] | 2020-11-22 20:59:46.294000+00:00 | ['Passive Income', 'Read Ratio', 'Medium', 'Metrics', 'Writing'] |
How to make an easy to read flowchart | How to make an easy to read flowchart
A guide for VUI designers
When you design a VUI, you will undoubtedly draw a flowchart or two. The examples available make this seem oh-so-straightforward. Just draw a couple of boxes, a decision or two, and you’re done.
The reality is much less serene. Flow charts can quickly go haywire.
Problem #1: They can sprawl in lots of directions
If your flowchart looks like the roots of a plant in a pot that’s too small, you have a problem. A sprawling flow chart is hard to follow, and can lead to inconsistencies. Flow charts like the one below are the reason people hate flow charts.
How are people going to figure out how to make toast with such a messy chart?
Problem #2: They can have hard to follow loops
It can get pretty confusing to follow a loop that extends past the current view. The cleaned-up toast flow is easier to follow, except for the mega “enough for everyone” loop.
A cleaner chart for toast-making. The loop to the right is ridiculous.
Problem #3: They can require screen-sharing to discuss
Are you literally opening up your chart and pointing to boxes to discuss your flow? What language would you use to talk about the toast flow above? Likely you would either talk about the name of decisions or individual boxes. There aren’t any obvious sections.
If this has happened to you, consider borrowing some ideas from Drakon, an extension to traditional flowchart language.
What is Drakon?
Drakon was designed as part of the Russian Space Program to make algorithms more comprehensible. Woo! Space!
What makes Drakon generally useful is its custom patterns and layout rules.
To give you a taste for how a Drakon chart compares to a traditional flow chart, consider a Drakon-ish version of the steps to make toast.
A Drakon-chart for the toast-making process.
Isn’t Drakon orderly?
Building a Drakon chart
Basic building blocks
Drakon is easy to understand because it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It uses many familiar flowchart symbols.
Start/ End
Action
For voice assistants, you can punch things up a bit by making a custom style for dialogue.
Question
Oh wow. I’ve always wanted this Alexa skill.
Subroutines
Drakon calls this insertion. It’s basically a repeating pattern. These are great for modular parts of flows like custom fallbacks. To make your subroutine documents easy to reference, consider numbering your subroutine blocks.
Drakon-specific visual vocabulary
Drakon charts are easier to interpret and discuss than typical flowcharts thanks to custom symbols and patterns, like Silhouette.
Silhouette
The silhouette pattern provides a way to display a flow compactly and label individual parts.
The silhouette pattern uses two Drakon-specific symbols: headline and address.
Headline
Each silhouette part starts with a headline symbol containing its name. This is super-handy for when discussing a chart. You can quickly direct attention to a section: “What I really want to work through today is the ‘cook until done’ part.”
Address
Each part ends with an “address” symbol that names where to go next. The address and headline can be colour coded to improve readability.
You can also use a smaller address symbol to indicate a certain next step is less common.
A “mini-address”
Here’s an example of silhouette applied to making toast.
The colour-coding helps people know what section to jump to next.
The flow is broken into “prepare bread”, “cook until done”, “add fixings” and “done cooking”. The “add fixings” path has two potential endings. One is “done cooking”. The other is to “prepare bread”, because, inevitably, when you start making toast, someone else is going to want a slice.
Shelf
Another interesting pattern is the shelf. A shelf is a special case of the action symbol. It has two compartments. The top compartment is used to define a sender and/or a target. The bottom is to define the action.
A shelf is useful for identifying system-defined dialogue. For example, a shelf can be used for Google Assistant’s “Place and location” helper.
The top compartment of the shelf contains the name of the helper.
The bottom compartment contains the dialogue associated with this helper.
Choice pattern
The choice pattern is nice for modelling local intents. Here’s the choice applied to a prompt.
The choice pattern introduces two symbols:
Choice
Drakon distinguishes between Questions, which have a Yes/ No answer and choices, which have multiple potential answers. The choice symbol is similar to a traditional flowchart decision symbol.
Case
Where a traditional flowchart would list options above flow lines, Drakon charts list options within case symbols. Case symbols act as sub-headers.
So many options for toast fixings
Layout rules
Beyond the custom patterns, Drakon includes some layout rules that bring needed order to flow-chart drawing.
Here are some notable rules:
There is one start, there is one end. The happy path is the most direct path. Go down first; send branches to the right. This matches people’s natural reading order. Put any loops as the final options.
Notice the easiest path (orange line added for emphasis) is on the left. The fallback is on the right.
3. Avoid arrowheads. These add visual clutter, and are only required for loops. For the fixings choice, the only arrow in the chart comes from the fallback.
Notice that most paths don’t have arrowheads.
4. Align related actions. This is called “Common fate”. You can help people see that actions on different paths are related through alignment. In the example below, the various methods of adding fixings to the bread are aligned to show their relatedness.
The 3 “fixings” application steps are aligned.
5. Fit diagrams to a single screen. This is easier to do with the silhouette pattern.
6. Don’t cross paths.
You’re not going to capture every detail
While Drakon elegantly handles a lot of things, you’re not going to capture all of the details of VUI design. Be prepared to document a number of things outside your charts, such as invocation phrases, training phrases/ sample utterances and custom slots.
Some parting tips
These examples might break some Drakon rules. If you’re interested in learning more about “pure” Drakon, here’s some good references used in the making of this post. | https://uxplanet.org/how-to-make-an-easy-to-read-flowchart-1221b64c1b6d | ['Janna Cameron'] | 2020-05-02 15:50:33.707000+00:00 | ['Flowchart', 'Vui Design', 'Design', 'UX Design'] |
Day 22 — Queue using List. 100 Days to Amazon | Day 22 — Queue using List
100 Days to Amazon
Image by Richard Mcall from Pixabay
100 Days to Amazon — Day 22 — Queue using List
Out of Free Stories? Here is my Friend Link.
Hey Guys, Today is day 22 of the challenge that I took. Wherein I will be solving every day for 100 days the programming questions that have been asked in previous interviews.
You have a bonus at the end if you keep reading. You can find out the companies that have asked these questions in real interviews.
All these problems are taken from the following e-book. 🎓
This is completely free 🆓 if you have an amazon kindle subscription.
This e-book contains 100 coding problems that have been asked in top tech interview questions. It also has a guide to solving all the problems in 200+ ways. These problems I assure you has been asked in previous interviews.
You have to decide whether you want to go unprepared for a tech interview or go ahead and quick search for this guide to solve the 100 problems.
Begin Your ascent to greatness🚀
Note : this e-book only contains the links to the solutions.
Day 22- Queue using Linked List
AIM🏹
To Implement a Q using LinkedList.
You need to implement an enqueue and dequeue function.
When getHeadOfLinkedList is called, return the head of the linked list.
When enqueue is called, insert the items in the list at the head.
When the Q is empty and dequeue is called return 0.
When the Q is empty, GetMax and GetMin should return 0.
GetMin should return the MIN element in the Q and it should NOT remove the element out.
Example
ENQUEUE 4 ENQUEUE 6 ENQUEUE 8 DEQUEUE
GETMAX should return: 6
Code👇
Author: Akshay Ravindran
Explanation🦅
This is a basic linked list concept that is used to create a queue data structure.
Queue by default works based on the first come first serve strategy(FIFO).
When a data element is inserted a node is created and it is inserted to the tail of the existing list if there is a list already.
If there is no existing list the node is created and made as to the head of the list.
Enqueue function adds a node to the list and the dequeue function removes the top element from the lists.
If there are no elements in the list then the dequeue function returns 0 as the result.
Algorithm👨🎓
Algorithm for enqueue:
• A new node is created using SintNode n=new SintNode(num) with the num initialized in the node.
• If the head of the list is null then the node is made the head and tail of the list.
• If there is an existing list the new node is added as the next node to the tail and the inserted node is made as to the tail node of the list.
Algorithm for dequeue:
• If the list is empty then the dequeue function returns zero as the result.
• Else the node element stored in the head is returned and the next node is made as to the head of the list.
Algorithm for getMin():
• A variable min is initialized with 0 as the value.
• The loop continues until the list is not null.
• If the curr. num value is less than the min value then min is assigned with the curr. num value.
The min variable value is returned as the output.
Conclusion⚔
Have you come this question in your interview before? Share it in the comment section below. 🤝
Don’t forget to hit the follow button✅to receive updates when we post new coding challenges. Tell us how you solved this problem in the comments section below. 🔥 We would be thrilled to read them. ❤
I have published an ebook. A compilation of 100 Java(Interview) Programming problems which have been solved. (HackerRank) 🐱💻
Click HERE 🧨🎊🎃
This is completely free 🆓 if you have an amazon kindle subscription. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/100-days-challenge-to-cracking-the-coding-interview-1b293e6cf4d7 | ['House Of Codes'] | 2020-08-24 15:44:32.717000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Problem Solving'] |
Losing it in Illinois | O kay. I think I’m officially f*cked-up. (Notice how I used the asterisk so as not to hurt my chances of curation?)
I realize I’m not being very helpful here, but I’m going through a bit of a “thing,” and I hope my wonderful Medium friends can give me an assist, mainly by letting me know that I’m not the only one who is feeling shaky.
Yesterday, I was in “We can do this” mode. Today, I feel my brain spinning out of control. I wanted to take this one day at a time, but, the thought of our having to deal with the Cornovirus and its horrific fallout for months, is kicking my ass, emotionally and mentally.
Of course, the most impactful thing we can do is to stay home and stay well, but that is not without its own set of challenges. (Addendum: I just found out that we may be FORCED to stay home. They’re already doing this in San Francisco and the mayor of New York is “considering it.”)
As I wrote in my most recent story, this is a powerful community and given that, I know we can help one another through the storm. I’m going to need that help and, if you do, too, I implore you to speak up.
Admittedly, as I suffer from OCD and anxiety, I have to work harder to maintain my sanity. That’s not high drama, merely the truth. And I know many of you get this.
In a little while, I will get my ass out of this seat and exercise. And then, I will start cleaning our basement, a task that I committed to, yet haven’t started, weeks ago. Now’s my chance, right?
I’ve started a newsletter on Substack. Why? Who the hell knows. Just one more place to share my thoughts on a myriad of topics. When I figure out how to use the platform, I will link to my stories here in the unlikely event that someone will want to subscribe.
This latest endeavor might turn out to be a total bust, but it’s just one more distraction to keep me busy and engaged. And relatively sane. And hell knows, I have the time.
An aside: Who the hell is Ira Bowman and why do I keep getting Twitter alerts that he’s “live?” Am I supposed to give a damn?
So. “Strange Days,” indeed.
Oddly, I can’t say why I’m having such a tough time today, as opposed to yesterday. Perhaps it’s due to “information overload.”
That, or I’m definitely overdue for an orgasm.
Because I want to walk the walk and not wimp out on you people, I’m going to take a break here to see what I can do to calm myself down. I’ll come back and report what I think is working the best. | https://medium.com/rogues-gallery/losing-it-in-illinois-3a89a23d4316 | ['Sherry Mcguinn'] | 2020-03-17 20:19:19.710000+00:00 | ['Current Events', 'Mental Health', 'Community', 'Quarantine', 'Medium Writers'] |
You Can’t Be A Writer By Writing All The Time | This weekend, I took two days off.
It would never have happened if I hadn’t been forced to slow down by the flu. My brain was like a huge piece of fluff and I couldn’t have coherent conversations, let alone trick my brain into thinking and writing. And so after scribbling down a few paragraphs of babble, I gave up, and had two days off. I had long conversations with my boyfriend, I went to a new part of town with a market and concert held by charities, I drank too much beer with a friend and had long discussions about love and sex and our messed-up world. I spent a lot of time in bed, too, catching up on some reading, doing macramé, and watching some arty French films that I never usually feel up for.
On Monday morning, something amazing happened. My articles wrote themselves. It was like they had been bubbling in my brain throughout the two days, and when I finally got around to writing them down, they slid off my fingers with ease. I don’t know about you guys, but I usually find writing more like trying to get water out of a stone. It is a long, painful process. So when it feels like the words already lined up by the door, with their shoes and their coats on, ready to walk outside docilely, I was pleasantly taken aback.
It came as a useful reminder to me about the importance of breaks in general, whatever your line of work. Working every hour of the day isn’t productive, it just leads to a lower quality of work and, more importantly, to your heart and soul growing weary. It has been calculated that people coming to work when they aren’t fit for it actually cost companies a lot in terms of productivity — more than people pulling sickies.
A year-long telephone survey of 29,000 working adults dubbed the “American Productivity Audit” calculated the cost of presenteeism in the U.S. to be more than $150 billion a year. Most studies confirm that presenteeism is far more costly than illness-related absenteeism or disability. Two Journal of the American Medical Association studies found that on-the-job productivity lost resulting from depression and pain was roughly three times greater than the absence-related productivity loss attributed to these conditions. — Forbes
The reason people continue to come is, of course, not because they really want to be at work feeling like crap, but because the culture around work still tells us that more is better, when it isn’t. Not for workers, not for society.
It is important to bear this in mind as a freelancer because the person ultimately suffering from you not taking breaks is you — twice over — as the person having to work when they need rest and the person who suffers from the lack of productivity. The problem is the burden of guilt which any freelancer has to deal with. Working for yourself does require a lot of discipline. It is hard not to go to far, and to set healthy limits. | https://starkraving.medium.com/you-cant-be-a-writer-by-writing-all-the-time-a1956c8732f | ['Stark Raving'] | 2020-12-04 15:23:51.473000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] |
What is product design and what do product designers do? | What is product design and what do product designers do?
A first-hand, updated account of the industry and role in 2020
Illustration by Peter Tarka
In the mentoring calls I conduct with students, the two most frequently brought up questions are — what is product design and what does the role of a product designer entail?
I’m here to debunk the mysterious aura behind the field and shed light on the role. While my day-to-day as a designer shifts based on numerous factors, most of what I do falls under a rhythmic routine that floats between different responsibilities. The information I share below stems from my former design internships and full-time roles.
What is product design?
Product design is the all-encompassing process of creative problem-solving. It’s the thoughtful, intentional application of design knowledge to craft functional, intuitive user experiences.
Illustration by Danny Jose
Using data, product design identifies the right issues to be solved while also highlighting the business value behind the given project. User testing is then conducted to check assumptions and narrow the funnel of ideated solutions brainstormed. Ultimately, product designers determine if a design was successful by analyzing defined metrics to observe whether or not a desired outcome was achieved.
Contrary to popular belief, product design is not the transformation in beautifying a digital product. At its core, the field is a combination of many varying disciplines: graphic design, visual design, interaction design, information architecture, branding, business strategy, prototyping, data analyzation, user research, and sometimes coding.
Great product design balances both aesthetic and utility in order to both captivate its users and fulfill objectives.
Illustration by Peter Tarka
What do product designers do?
Define the problem
To kick-off the design process, product designers work with a multitude of stakeholders to solidify goals of intended projects and its relationship to the needs of the business. This can be represented as cooperation in validation of pain points, collaborative prioritization of various features, and unanimous agreement on a list of requirements. Questions answered in this phase include, but are not limited to:
What do we currently know?
What is the objective and intended outcome?
Who is our target audience?
What does the user journey look like?
What does the timeline look like for this project?
Photo by Dan Nessler
Ideate solutions
Once goals are clearly defined and agreed upon, a product designer can initialize the ideation phase. Typically, these first ideas originate from design sprints, competitive audits, low-fidelity sketches, and/or other ideation methods. This is my favorite part of the design process — the main task here is truly to create a range of explorations among constraints.
Collaborate with other teams
Product designers don’t design in bubbles; they collaborate. By providing background context on a problem and showcasing early-stage designs to other members on the team, one receives valuable feedback to expand on. This is highly beneficial in pinpointing certain design directions over others or proposing suggestions the author might not have considered. It’s also the perfect chance for one to better comprehend what other projects are in flux and offer a lending hand to others.
Additionally, branding, design systems, and marketing teams are great players to incorporate in the feedback channel. With the help of these teams, you can get approval for illustrations you created to supplement your designs, ask questions surrounding suitable components, or request friendlier copy text.
Illustration by Alissa Vu
Validate solutions
How do we know if our designs will be successful?
User research! It’s incredibly paramount to collect, record, and analyze data to either support your designs decisions or point attention to areas that need reconsideration. Thankfully, there are a variety of techniques that can be used to check if your designs are in alignment with your assumptions and hypotheses. This includes open/closed card sorting, unmoderated/moderated interviews, heuristic evaluations, and the RITE user testing method.
Present your work to stakeholders
All of the hard work a product designer puts into the design process is then shown to the leadership team. Once solutions are validated, team design reviews are held to check for any concerns in scope, constraints, or final decisions. Here, discussions are held with stakeholders and leadership to deliberate approvals to all the changes made to the product.
Illustration by Danny Jose
Work with engineers to implement designs
At this point, one’s designs are finalized and it’s now up to the engineer to implement the designs accordingly. Every company takes care of hand-offs differently, but the main gist is that the product designer works with the technical team to make sure that the designs look up-to-par once it’s live.
Record and measure metrics
Congratulations, your designs have shipped!
After launch, metrics are recorded in order to analyze for future months ahead. This is to ensure that the designs are performing well and to revert or make changes in the case they aren’t. With the data collected, you can truly see the impact you’re making as a designer!
Participate in hiring
If there are open positions at your company, you’ll most likely participate in interviews that allow you to assess candidates in consideration. Your feedback is crucial in helping maintain the company’s bar for excellence in the expansion of the team. Every culture has their own checklist for attributes of a great addition and red flags that signal who may not be a great match.
Illustration by Alissa Vu
Build skills
Designers are constantly learning inside and outside of their role.
Tools come and go, projects change, and trends are ever-evolving. This is why it’s incredibly important to continually invest into one’s education through conferences, blogs, and courses. Whether it’s animation, illustration, prototyping, or visual design, there are resources to grow any skill nowadays.
And repeat!
There’s a plethora of design challenges out in today’s world. Once you start to more heavily incorporate design thinking and process into practice, it’s difficult to escape mind-chatter on ways to improve objects, processes, and products around you. One of the great curses of being a designer.
I hope this walkthrough was helpful in your understanding of this industry and informs your decision on whether this role would be a great fit for you. | https://medium.com/swlh/what-is-product-design-and-what-do-product-designers-do-25bf8abf8912 | ['Michelle Chiu'] | 2020-09-11 18:45:52.708000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Careers', 'UX', 'Design', 'Technology'] |
How Morality Influences Consumers’ Personal Choice | Consumers Have Strong Intuitive Preferences
When Patagonia supported Democratic candidates for the Senate, they tried to use consumer moral tendencies to keep and draw them to their side. Even though they polarized the attachment to their brand, taking a stand on a political side strengthened their identity.
This case shows the power of intuitive thinking when it comes to morality. And it has been supported by a lot of recent studies.
Jonathan Haidt is a researcher who has studied the moral preferences of individuals extensively. His research has challenged the accepted idea in social psychology that the moral opinions of individuals are not innate, but acquired in culture.
To support his convictions, he conducted a rather ingenious experiment. He used the hypnosis skills of one of his students, who suggested unconscious preferences to a group of participants. The student asked the hypnotized group to feel disgusted when they heard the word “take” or “often.”
After the session, they were asked to give their opinion on situations such as “the story of a congressman who wants to fight corruption but takes bribes from the tobacco industry,” as well as other instances where the word “take” or “often” was added. When individuals heard those words, they were all the more in moral disagreement with the described behavior and inclined to condemn it.
These results show how moral certainties consist of intuitive preferences we have very little control over. Individuals express culture-based likes and dislike about moral behaviors that guide their choices and fuel their judgment.
Back at Patagonia, the marketing team believed that their common consumers are strong advocates for environmental and social causes. So they used a political vision to tap into deep convictions and reinforce their brand identity. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-morality-influences-consumers-personal-choice-e4990cdfd9c5 | ['Jean-Marc Buchert'] | 2020-11-11 17:15:01.782000+00:00 | ['Morality', 'Marketing', 'Branding', 'Advertising', 'Politics'] |
Moving from Portland to Wisconsin to Write | Dotters Books in Eau Claire, WI, photograph: Elizabeth de Cleyre
In the dead of winter, I relocated from Portland, Oregon to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Donald Trump had just been elected president of the United States, sending shockwaves through the liberal bubble of PDX, as the once-blue state of Wisconsin blushed red. I didn’t have any close friends or family in Wisconsin. I didn’t move there for a job. As a writer and editor, I could theoretically live anywhere in the world with an internet connection. I chose what some might view as an unlikely location: Wisconsin, a flyover state that is not necessarily synonymous with literary, cultured, or creative. Eau Claire was even dubbed “backwater” in a recent Pitchfork article.
Most people thought I was insane to leave a literary hub like Portland, where I could attend free readings at Powell’s every night and potentially follow in the footsteps of authors like Chuck Palahniuk, Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, or Ursula K. LeGuin.
But after three years in the city of roses, my writing had withered alongside my bank account.
I had moved to Portland with literary ambitions, choosing the city for its access to bookstores and other writers. In 2013, it was cheaper than Boston, New York, Seattle, or San Francisco, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. As more and more people like me were priced out elsewhere, we set our sights on PDX for its relative affordability and “Keep Portland Weird” mentality. Tech companies in Seattle and San Francisco squeezed residents out of the market and they met in the middle, in Portland.
People who were used to paying more for rent were — surprise! — willing to pay more than current residents, thereby contributing to a cycle wherein the people who made Portland weird could no longer afford to live in Portland.
It was a cycle I’d heard about at coffee shops and cocktail parties. Everyone had a friend who had a friend who had a friend whose friend had been pushed out of Portland. It was anecdotal until it wasn’t.
A 2016 article reported a 63% increase in rent from 2006 to 2015. Income for renters increased 39% in the same period, with median incomes for renters coming in at half that of the median homeowner. Portland has the nation’s highest year-over-year increases in home prices.
According to Oregon Metro, “A person would have to earn an hourly wage of $19.73 — approximately twice Oregon’s current minimum wage of $9.75 per hour — to afford fair market rent for a 2-bedroom apartment.”
I earned $12 an hour at a boutique selling high-end shoes — working full time before the holidays, part time the rest of the year, and subsidizing my income with editing. I was privileged to have a partner who worked full time at a company that provided benefits. My graduate degree imbued me with high hopes of being highly employable, but most of my applications to teach, write or edit went unanswered. Finally, one company hired me as a freelancer to edit (read: ghostwrite) nonfiction books for approximately $50 an hour.
I didn’t own a car and relied on public transportation. One of my favorite hobbies was walking through the Southeast Portland neighborhoods with my partner at the time, where we’d take turns guessing how much the houses cost. Most were easily half a million dollars. We’d laugh and ask ourselves what these people did for a living.
I lived in a built-up four-bedroom house on SE Division Street, on the cusp of the historic Ladd’s Addition neighborhood. I shared the house with my then-partner and three other roommates, which became a rotating cast of characters: a graduate student in engineering, a graphic designer/DJ, an unemployed dude who hotboxed the basement, a radio and podcast producer, and a hair stylist, whose girlfriend unofficially lived there half the week. We split the $2200 per month in rent according to the size of our rooms.
The owners bought the house in 2008 with the intention to flip it, but when the market crashed they rented it for $1850 a month. In 2013, the rent was raised to $2200. I moved into the house in August of 2014. In March of 2016, the owners sent a notice to increase the rent to $2695.
Since the whole point of living in a built-up four-bedroom was to save money on rent, my then-partner and I decided to find our own place. We settled on a nearby one-bedroom, six-hundred square-foot apartment for $1300 a month — almost twice what we’d paid with roommates just to have a space of our own.
The house we’d shared was marketed as having three bedrooms and 2,500 square feet. It was listed for $550,000 and sold in less than a month for $630,000.
The disillusionment that had been quietly building for years finally crescendoed. I just hadn’t been able to hear it over my own internal monologue: I was privileged and it was unreasonable to want more — to want a full time job in my field, to not have to depend on a partner for healthcare, an apartment of my own, a growing savings account, money to set aside for retirement, the ability to pay off student loans and purchase a home one day.
I wanted free time and the disposable income to actually enjoy the city’s offerings. I wanted to see my friends, but our schedules were brimming with multiple gigs needed just to make ends meet. I tried to start a book club (twice) but everyone I knew was too busy. I wanted a community of other writers, but all the literary events I’d attended felt cold and unwelcoming, and most people I met were closed off — understandably threatened by newcomers who threatened to push them out of Portland.
Sitting beside homeless people on the bus and passing tent cities erected on sidewalks, I crushed any shred of desire for financial security or belonging, chiding myself for wanting more when so many had much less. The notion that I needed to leave Portland gnawed at me, but I felt like I had nowhere else to go.
Cue Wisconsin, in summertime, in the midst of my disillusionment.
A music festival lured me there — Eaux Claires was launched the previous year by Wisconsin native Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Aaron Dessner of The National. My then-partner and I stayed at an Airbnb run by a young couple who almost instantly became close friends. When we enacted our usual hobby of walking through neighborhoods and guessing how much houses cost, we found a fixer-upper listed for $60,000. I thought they’d forgotten a zero.
Six months later, we signed a lease on an apartment 1800 miles away, sold most of our belongings, and shipped the rest. Accustomed to astronomical housing costs in Portland, I thought we’d have enough for a down payment on a house within a few years. I was astonished to be able to afford one immediately, closing three months after we moved.
Buying a home was something I always swore I’d never do — I claimed I didn’t want permanence, but my obstinance was a convenient cloak for my dismay at the fact that I might never be able to, especially in places like New England, where I grew up, or cities like Portland and Brooklyn. Only 37% of millennials ages 25–34 are homeowners, compared to 45% of Gen Xers and baby boomers at the same age. In Wisconsin, my monthly mortgage payment was hundreds of dollars less than my apartment in Portland and twice the size. When my partner and I amicably split and sold the house, we paid off the mortgage, earned a small profit, and cleared all of our remaining credit card debt.
The financial security I felt in Wisconsin engendered a swift and profound sense of freedom — able to meet my basic needs, it kindled previously unforeseen possibilities.
Within a month of my move, I launched a book club at a local shop simply by emailing the owner, even though we’d never met. She agreed and then introduced me to a novelist, who also offered to connect and discuss writing. He introduced me to another author, who told me about the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild, which introduced me to a whole flock of other writers. Everyone I met had someone else they wanted me to meet. Nearly everyone I met was open, welcoming, and warm — a stark contrast from Portland.
People remarked at how quickly I made friends those first few months, but it wasn’t a reflection of me — it was a testament to the incredible kindness of those I had been lucky enough to meet. Having lived in six US states and four countries in my life, the sense of inclusion and belonging I felt was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The burgeoning community of writers possessed a collaborative — not competitive — spirit, one where writers supported their own craft as much as they supported one another’s work. Maybe it’s the Midwest work ethic, but people didn’t talk about wanting to write, they just wrote, and being in the midst of such prolific people was expansive.
Selfishly wanting to learn more from the community, I organized a series of events for the state’s Creative Economy Week: a roundtable to discuss the state of literature in the region, a panel on the concept of “Writing for Exposure,” and a launch party for a literary magazine. I started a book club, where I met Margaret Leonard and Jill Heinke Moen. When Margaret mentioned her lifelong dream of starting a bookstore, I echoed that it had been one of mine as well. Within six months, we launched Dotters Books: a women-owned, independent bookseller, dubbed the state’s best indie bookstore by Mental Floss.
Yet my contributions are miniscule compared to other creatives here, one of whom writes one book a year, publishes articles and essays, teaches full time, spearheads the writing guild, and is raising three children.
This is not to brag or be self-effacing, but to point out that literally none of this could have happened in a larger city.
So much stock is placed into cultural hubs like Portland or Brooklyn, but the cost of living is prohibitive not just for writers but also for entrepreneurs, especially those in creative industries or retail. Bookstores aren’t a highly lucrative endeavor, but they provide immense value to the community, signifying the importance of literature, diversity, conversation, and connection through reading. One would be hard-pressed to afford a retail space in a city like Portland, and Dotters Books is in good company with other millennial-owned businesses in Eau Claire: design firms Odd Brand Strategy and Knorth Studios, homegoods store Red’s Mercantile, florist Fersk Floral Artistry, and print shop Ambient Inks, among others.
And yet I write this with a degree of hesitancy, having experienced and witnessed firsthand how people who are pushed out of expensive cities move to relatively cheaper cities and thereby make it unaffordable for the people currently residing there. What made Portland weird were the people who lived there. What makes Eau Claire unique are the residents who wove the fabric of the city’s current culture. People who move to a city without regard to its history and context slowly chip away at its roots — perhaps not conspicuously but subtly, such as ignoring local businesses in favor of Amazon Prime delivery.
There’s a deep-seated fear of contributing to that same phenomenon — both by moving here and by talking about my experience of moving here in such glowing terms, glossing over the downsides or inconveniences of living in a smaller city. I’m now less interested in questions around how to move to a more affordable place and more interested in how to be a better citizen in an adopted hometown, and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
These were questions I never cared about in a city because I was too consumed with trying to make ends meet.
Gentrification is real. And focusing on the individual’s actions while ignoring systemic and structural issues — like access to affordable housing and tenant rights — won’t alleviate the problems it poses. While larger cities may have more resources, smaller cities have the advantage of being easier breeding grounds for change.
The three-bedroom house I rented in Portland? It sold for $630,000 in 2016, $80,000 above its asking price. It was listed again in 2019 and sold for $695,000.
Around the same time it sold, the Eau Claire City Council approved a resolution to increase funding for low-income housing from $200,000 to $700,000.
The cost of a single three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2500 square-foot home in Portland is the same as one Midwestern city’s budget to help tackle the issue of affordable housing.
If everyone who cared about these issues left big cities, what would remain could be bleak. There’s an argument to be made for staying and advocating for change where you live. Bailing at the first sign of hardship or crisis and trading large cities for smaller ones because of rising rental rates isn’t an answer to the affordable housing crisis. Leaving won’t solve those problems — it’ll arguably make them worse. A solution requires both stepping up on an individual level, and necessitates cities make a concerted effort in engaging and retaining citizens.
It’s not an exaggeration to state that it’s unlikely I would have ever realized my dreams — of homeownership, of launching a bookstore — if it hadn’t been for the affordability and support of a city like Eau Claire.
If I were in Portland, I’d still be writing on borrowed time and in stolen moments — on breaks at work and on the bus ride home. The oversaturation of living in a city — tempted by well-curated shops and inundated with advertisements on my commute — gave way to a certain spaciousness in Eau Claire, wherein I could think and therefore write. | https://elizabethdecleyre.medium.com/moving-from-portland-to-wisconsin-to-write-3e847c99ed5f | ['Elizabeth De Cleyre'] | 2019-11-13 13:41:26.122000+00:00 | ['Housing', 'Gentrification', 'Wisconsin', 'Portland', 'Writing'] |
How to Create Telegram Bot in Python | 1. Setup
Make sure you have installed Telegram on your phone. We’re going to create our bot directly inside Telegram by interacting with BotFather bot. This is the official bot created by Telegram to facilitate bot creation.
Searching BotFather
Open Telegram on your phone and click on the search button at the top right of the main interface. Then, type botfather in the search bar. You should see the following user interface.
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Click on the first selection which has the blue tick icon beside it. The icon represents VerifiedBadge , which indicates bots or reputable companies or persons approved by Telegram. You should see the following user interface:
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Interacting with BotFather
Click on the Start button and you should see a list of commands that you can use to interact with BotFather .
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Send the following message to BotFather .
/newbot
You should see the following prompts which ask for the name and username of your bot.
name : The display name for your bot.
: The display name for your bot. username : The unique identifier across all the bots in telegram. You cannot use existing names that are already in the system. Also, it must end with bot post-fix. For example, TetrisBot , or tetris_bot .
To keep things simple, I usually use the same string for both name and username . A new token will be generated for you to access the HTTP API. Make sure to keep it secure to prevent other people from using it to control your bot.
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Privacy in group chat
If you intend to use your bot inside a Telegram group, you need to understand how privacy works in Telegram. By default, the bot will not receive all the messages in a group chat. Based on the official documentation, it will only receive:
Command messages that start with a slash / symbol (e.g. /help ).
symbol (e.g. ). Replies to messages sent by your bot.
Service messages (addition or removal of people from the group).
Messages from channels in which the bot is a member.
Generally, Telegram recommends using commands for interacting with bots. In the event where there are multiple bots in the same group, you can post-fix their usernames at the back of each command to prevent confusion. Please note that you need to process and handle it on your own in your server:
/help@your_bot_username
In the latest version, the @ symbol can be used when creating inline bots — where users can interact with your bot via inline queries without sending a message. However, one major downside is that you will lose the flexibility to provide any dynamic input, like this:
@your_bot_username check_phone_status 012345678
Configuring bot to access all messages in group chat
You may prefer to use the old convention, where the bot only responds when it’s tagged with the @ symbol:
@your_bot_username hello there
If so, you need to turn off the group privacy setting or make it as an admin (not recommended) to allow it to access all messages.
To do so, send the following message to BotFather :
/mybots
It will list out all the bots that you have. Since I have only created one bot, only one selection is available.
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Click on the desired bot to reveal more options as follows. Continue by tapping the Bot Settings .
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You should see a few options related to the group. Click on the Group Privacy button.
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Disable the group privacy setting by clicking on the Turn off button. Your bot will now have access to messages sent in group chats. If your bot is already in a group, the new changes might not be reflected or propagated. If you experience an issue with it, just remove it from the group and add it back to the group again.
Adding a bot to group chat
There are quite a few ways to add a bot to group chat. The easiest method is to just do it directly from Telegram. Search for your bot and click on the Start button to initiate a conversation with it. Next, click the name of the bot which is located at the top bar.
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You should see the following interface. Continue by clicking on the triple dots at the top right of the interface.
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A popup will appear with the following options. Tap the Add to group selection.
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Select the desired group and confirm the addition. Head back to the group and check the setting to make sure that your bot has access to group messages.
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Installing Python packages
We’re done with the Telegram setup, now let’s install the required Python packages for this tutorial. Before that, make sure you’ve created a virtual environment. Activate it and run the following command in your terminal.
pip install pyTelegramBotAPI
You can easily verify if you have installed the package by running the following:
pip show pytelegrambotapi
The following text will be output to the console:
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Once you have finished the installation, move to the next section and start writing Python code. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-create-telegram-bot-in-python-cccc4babcc30 | ['Ng Wai Foong'] | 2020-12-16 15:05:11.523000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Telegram', 'Python3', 'Programming', 'Python'] |
The Disturbing Movie That’s Taken Tik Tok By Storm | There is no denying that the popular video app TikTok has taken the world by storm. Almost every Gen Z that owns a smart phone probably has the app downloaded and use it frequently. From the way the app is formatted, certain messages can spread really, really fast. And that includes movie and show recommendations.
One of these recent movie recommendations that has taken over TikTok is a low budget independent thriller called Meghan is Missing. This film was made in the style where all of the scenes are “found footage” and consist of video chat calls, media reports, and other digital recordings. The film was directed, written, and edited all by Michael Goi, and although was made in 2007, it wasn’t distributed until 2011 when Anchor Bay Films picked it up.
The film centers around a 14-year-old girl named Meghan Stewart, a popular teenager and honor student and the days leading up to her inevitable disappearance. The film starts on January 2, 2007 and the footage continues until February 6, 2007.
In the days before her disappearance, Megan starts talking to a guy online through video chat named “Josh” who she is flirting with. The audience never sees what Josh looks like when Megan and her best friend Amy to talk because he makes the claim that is webcam is “broken”. The film is directed to be a warning to minors to watch out for internet predators.
Around mid-November, the film started getting more attention on TikTok where many users shared their own thoughts and experiences watching it. Many people talked about being disturbed, traumatized, and anxious. Despite the film’s budget of less than $35,000, it still paints a raw and accurate depiction of child abduction. But not before doing this, the script is filled to the brim with raunchy and uncomfortably sexual dialogue for 14-year-old actors. | https://nicolekenney.medium.com/the-disturbing-movie-thats-taken-tik-tok-by-storm-a05805ca8c5d | ['Nicole Kenney'] | 2020-12-27 23:07:16.423000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Social Media', 'Film'] |
Scale Your Automated Test Code Beyond a Single Project | Why Not Page Object?
A seasoned tester would find that Page Object falls short of a scalable and maintainable test suite. Many tried to overcome the weaknesses by employing variations of Page Object. In my opinion, the best variation so far is breaking the UI into components instead of pages and introducing a layer of abstraction between the UI and the tests. John Smart’s article on how to write Page Objects that “suck less” further suggests how to improve the approach by storing only the locators in the Page Objects, keeping the Page Objects free of business logic, and categorising the abstraction layer into actions and questions. Next, apply the SOLID principles and use objects rather than methods to represent the actions and questions, and we naturally arrive at the Screenplay Pattern.
Head to the Resources section down below to read articles that explain why you would want to employ these techniques. After reading the articles, you should be convinced of the benefits of the techniques mentioned.
Perhaps you are already using Page Object and thinking of just using some of the techniques above without fully resorting to using the Screenplay Pattern. I’ll show you why you would still want to consider rewriting your whole test framework or switch over to a test framework that supports the Screenplay Pattern.
We have established in the previous section that a fluent DSL is highly attractive to meet our goal of a scalable test framework. Let’s take Cheapflights or any travel website as an example. Say a user wants to fly from London to Bali on the 1st of October 2020 and return on the 31st of October 2020. In the Page Object world, the action “search flights" would be represented by the ensuing method. This is the method that contains the implementation of the interactions with the website that you would call from your step library. We are not going to go into why you shouldn’t do the implementation in the step library itself.
searchFlights("London", "Bali", "1 October 2020", "31 October 2020");
In an attempt to make this read better, you might use the Builder Pattern so that calling the method now looks like this:
Flight flight = Flight.builder()
.from("London")
.to("Bali")
.departOn("1 October 2020")
.returnOn("31 October 2020")
.build(); searchFlights(flight);
Now that looks better, but the Screenplay Pattern can make it even more elegant. This is possible because the action “search flights" is an object:
SearchFlights.from("London")
.to("Bali")
.departOn("1 October 2020")
.returnOn("31 October 2020");
Let’s take another example on the website. After making the basic search, users are presented with the search results and options to filter the results. Some of the options are in the form of a slider. You might create a Page Object for the slider component that takes in the data attribute of the slider container as a parameter to differentiate the sliders on the results page. Using the Builder Pattern for the stopover duration slider, the code looks like this:
Slider stopoverDurationSlider = Slider.builder()
.id(stopoverDurationSliderId)
.min(30)
.max(120)
.build();
slide(stopoverDurationSlider);
Compare that with the following if you were to use the Screenplay Pattern. Again, notice how the latter looks more fluent and natural:
Slide.toMin(30)
.andToMax(120)
.the(stopoverDurationSlider)
There you have it. The solid reasons not to use Page Object. | https://medium.com/better-programming/scaling-automated-tests-beyond-a-single-project-61adb05546e8 | ['Shirley Ong'] | 2020-08-20 07:54:23.363000+00:00 | ['Automation', 'Software Testing', 'Tdd', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming'] |
CORRECTION(S) | CORRECTION(S)
We egret the error(s).
A story that ran on August 23 titled “Flaming Cat Saved From Tree” incorrectly reported that the cat rescued had been on fire at the time of saving. In fact, there was no fire associated with the rescue, though the fire department was involved. Also, it was not a cat that was rescued, it was Mr. Michael Aiken of Carrollton. Mr. Aiken was not rescued from a tree, he was saved from choking.
*
Due to a printing error, a September 2 story titled “A New Ice Cream Stand On The Block” incorrectly described Mr. Harris Lowes as “undateable.”
*
There were several incorrectly reported quotes in an October 18 story titled “Councilman Blake Criticizes Procedure.” Councilman Randall Blake did not state “we deserve so much butter.” He said “we deserve so much better.” Councilman Blake also never stated “I am Hitler incarnate, but fatter.” He said “I am sorry I’m irate, but this matters.” The story also incorrectly described Councilman Bob Tucker as “smoking a bong” at the meeting. Councilman Tucker was using an inhaler.
*
A November 11 story titled “Carrsville Senior Charlotte McGinty Pursues Dream, Majors in Theater” incorrectly spelled the subject’s name. Her name is Florence Peterson. Ms. Peterson is also not pursuing a degree in theater, as stated in the article; she is planning to major in Biochemistry. She is not interested in theater. Carrsville High School Drama Coach Patty Taylor should also not have been described as “butch.”
*
A December 30 story titled “Actor Bill Murry Arrested For Larceny” incorrectly implied that the suspect arrested was the comedic film actor, Bill Murray. The suspect is in no way related to or affiliated with the actor. The suspect’s name was also spelled incorrectly in the article. His name is Kyle Epstein. The article also incorrectly stated that Lt. Mark Thompson “had a tear in his eye” as he made the arrest. Lt. Thompson did not have a tear in his eye. Mr. Harris Lowes should once again not have been described as “undateable.” | https://medium.com/the-clap/story-correction-s-67374876244d | ['R.J. Kushner'] | 2018-10-09 13:39:36.738000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Comedy', 'News', 'Satire', 'Storytelling'] |
When the Willow Breaks | Photo by Catarina Carvalho on Unsplash
She was leaning up against an oak tree, sucking on a long, slender cigarette. She flicked the ashes on the damp ground with her long, red thumbnail as she stared off into space. The memories of him trickled through her brain like a haunted stream, as tears floated down her cheeks. The breeze of the warm spring air dried the moisture on her face into dusty silhouettes, as she tried to regain her breath.
She never understood what happened to them. They were best friends who turned into complete strangers over the course of 17 hours. She trusted him and she thought he had the same decency toward her. She was wrong. One minute there was laughter and hand holding, the next….they were done.
During their date the evening before, he was acting strangely. She couldn’t put her finger on the issue, but he was distant and edgy. He could barely sit still as he sipped from his glass of beer and chewed on his rare steak. The restaurant was busy, and he continually searched over his shoulder for something, or someone. It made her uneasy. When she asked him if anything was bothering him, his response was a quick “no, all good.”
They had rushed through dinner and she was hoping he would come home with her and watch some TV and spend the night together, in a quiet, dark bedroom, surrounding each other with naked warm bodies and intimacy. She loved the way he smelled, with his expensive musky cologne and his natural scent. He was rugged with a slight beard and a tight physique. He loved to work out at the gym, and he loved the sight of his own reflection, She loved it too. Maybe it was too early for “love”, but he definitely made her feel amazing and he was kind enough to win her heart.
He paid the check and drove his Mercedes to the front entrance so she didn’t have to walk in her high heels in the rain. He opened her door for her, as always and she climbed into the shotgun leather seat. They never spoke much as he drove her to her condo, and when he pulled into her driveway he told her that he couldn’t stay. She swallowed to hide the disappointment and surprise and she felt angry at herself for making the assumption that he would stay, like he had many nights before. She didn’t ask questions and got out of his car, kissing his cheek quickly before she slammed the door.
“What the hell just happened?” she muttered to herself as she turned the knob on her condo door. Sitting on her couch, watching the spatter of a light rain hit the pane, she went over the evening in her head. They had never actually said that they were monogamous with one another, but the time they spent together suggested that they were a “couple”. They had just never made it official.
They started out their relationship as friends. They had been working together in the same office building for the past 5 years and saw each other Monday to Friday in the lunch room. One Wednesday afternoon, there were no free seats at the long tables in the cafeteria and he asked if he could sit beside her. She patted the seat and welcomed him into her life. They sat together daily for months until they decided to try and date. She was already falling for his charms long before their first dinner out. She found it fascinating that a man of his stature, who drives an expensive car and wears Armani suits, had lunch in the work lunch room. He was appealing to her.
So, now what? She sat alone and flicked on the TV. Her phone beeped beside her and her heart skipped. As she checked her phone, she realized that she had been holding onto a navy blue and white striped tie that he had left on her couch the evening before. It smelled like him. She held it against her cheek, careful not to smear it with her makeup, as she checked the message.
“Hi Willow sorry I couldn’t stay. See u tomorrow?”
She replied with a heart, a smiley face and a wink, followed by “of course”
She hoped she didn’t sound desperate or sad, as she replied.
She poured herself a glass of Merlot and sat down at her computer, trying to find a Netflix show to watch or a movie to download. She still had his tie in her hand, wrapped around like a large cloth bracelet, snaking up her arm in a tight grasp. As she searched through endless shows, she knew they would not distract her from thinking of him. She wondered to herself, why he had never left anything in her condo before. He had spent regular nights, at least 3 a week, even work nights, but he hadn’t left so much as a toothbrush in her bathroom for overnight emergencies. Perhaps he was uncomfortable leaving his “stuff” with her. He probably didn’t know his tie was left between her couch cushions the last time he was over, and they had ravaged each other during a mindless movie. The memory gave her the flutter of butterflies. The sex with him was amazing.
After almost an hour of idly searching through shows, she knew she wouldn’t focus on, she changed over to Facebook and scrolled through her newsfeed. Even all of her friends were boring her, and she felt pains of envy seeing that her girlfriends were on dates with their guys or at clubs with their besties. She closed the computer windows and sat staring at the rain soaked darkness outside again. She missed having him near her and missed having company.
He didn’t have any social media accounts, as he thought they were childish and replete with drama and bullshit. She tended to agree, but she needed to keep in touch with her friends and family, and Facebook was her go-to for keeping up, especially since she was now in some type of relationship that she would eventually brag about.
Absentmindedly, and giggling to herself, feeling the effects of her first glass of wine, she entered his name into a Google search engine, searching for photos of him she could pine over in his absence. As soon as she clicked the enter button, multiple photos of him popped up into the Images screen on her monitor. He worked for a large real estate firm and was kind of a big deal in their city.
She sucked in her breath, a gasp followed by a bolt of lightning. He was so incredibly handsome, in company photos in his suit and tie. She could see the outline of his bulging arms under his dress shirt in one photo. As she looked at his chiseled face, she could smell a waft of cologne float through the air. He was literally taking her breath away, as she sat on her dining room chair.
Then she clicked on a photo that made her curious. It was a studio shot from a photographer who was identified as a watermark on her man’s handsome chest.
She shouldn’t have clicked. She shouldn’t have creeped him. She should have just watched a movie.
She sat staring at his perfect teeth, his strong chin, and his steel grey eyes shining back, as though he was looking through her. There on his left, was a beautiful brunette with an equally perfect face and body. She had the bluest eyes Willow had ever seen. She was petite and smiling without a care in the world, holding his hand. The little boy who sat between them had the same blue eyes as the woman and the same chiseled face as his daddy.
He was married with a son.
She sat there staring at the image. Her heart beat so hard and fast, she felt as though it was trying to escape her slender body and shatter on the tiles of her floor. She searched through the album of the photographer’s family photos and saw the happiness the couple shared; the kisses, the hugs, and the love that the man behind the camera had captured. His subjects all wore blue jeans and white shirts to advertise that they were together. They were a family.
Willow couldn’t look anymore and slammed her laptop shut. Tearing the tie off her wrist she screamed at the top of her voice, knowing her neighbors would probably hear her, and not caring.
She should have known he was too perfect. She was angrier at herself than she was at him. She wanted to smash the empty wine glass in her hand. She wanted to run, or hide. She wanted his beautiful wife to know that she was with him now. She wanted to get even, but she didn’t want to hurt an innocent child. She crumbled onto her sofa for a moment to get grip and think.
She looked around her house and tried to block out the memories of their lovemaking, the memories of their laughter and cuddles, the memories of him. The faint scent of his cologne lingered in the air around her, or at least she imagined it was there. She couldn’t cry. She was too cluttered in of a web of emotions that cancelled each other out in her heart and her brain. Anger, love, regret, hate, resentment, self-loathing, betrayal and jealousy beat her from the inside out as if she had multiple personalities kicking at her guts.
She picked up her phone to text him, and then put it down. She couldn’t stand to look at his name with its red hearts saved beside it. She remembered their first date when he gave her his number and she thought it was cute to embroider his contact info with hearts, when she thought they had a future. The memory of that night infuriated her and she threw her phone across the room, leaving a black mark on her freshly painted white walls. The cracked phone landed on the tiles glaring at her.
She stormed to her door and took her car keys off the hook. Her condo was reminding of her of him too much, and she needed to get out. If she knew where he lived she would drive by his house and stalk his ass, just to see if he was with his wife, or out with some other idiot who had fallen for his body and charm. She climbed into her Toyota and sped off down the road.
She had no idea where she was going, but she had to just GO. She needed to blare some music, open her windows, and sing at the top of her lungs to some 90’s breakup bullshit music on the radio. She settled for Spiderweb and screamed along to Gwen Stephanie as she raced down the mountain lined highway. Her broken phone lie beside her on the passenger seat and she felt as though the shattered screen was an extension of her heart.
She pulled into a bar that rested at the base of a mountain, where she had never drank before. She never came to this part of her suburb, as it had a rough reputation from the transients that frequented there. Most of them were hitch hikers who stopped in for a beer to wait out the darkness or cold. She sat at the bar and ordered a shot of tequila. She downed it without lime or salt, and put 7 dollars into the cigarette machine, pulling the lever angrily as she waited for them to drop into the metal tray. She had quit smoking for many years, but this night seemed to be a reason to start again, if only for as long as it takes to get over that asshole. As she pulled a long cigarette out of the package and placed it in her mouth, a bedraggled looking hippy offered her a light. She accepted it and sat back on her stool, ordering another shot of tequila with a beer chaser. She was in no hurry to go anywhere now.
The hippy asked her name, and she quietly responded, “It’s Willow, and I honestly need to be alone. Thank you for the light.” She looked at her beer glass and remembered their earlier dinner date. He had drank his beer much more quickly than he had on their previous date nights. As she watched the bubbles dance in her lager she wondered what had happened tonight,’that differed from other date nights. What did he tell his wife on the nights when he never came home?
She searched her bag for her broken phone and looked at the webbed screen. It was as though he was thinking of her at that moment as those fucking hearts popped up with a message.
“Hi Willow baby. I am just going to bed and missing you. Sweet dreams”
She thought long and hard about what to text in reply, and opted to not say anything…..not yet.
Her cheeks flushed with rage and the alcohol seeping through her blood. She ordered another tequila to drown the pain in her heart. Her head throbbed in time with the pounding in her chest and she lit another one of the Virginia Slims. Her body felt as though it was trembling, and she held her beer glass to see if the liquid moved with her hand. It didn’t. She appeared cool and calm, and she downed another shot.
After the bar closed down, she knew she couldn’t drive. She slid into her car, after stumbling over the dirt and gravel lot, and fumbling with her keys. Maybe, she thought, she was numb enough to sleep now. She reclined her seat and drifted off into a drunken slumber in the bar parking lot.
The sun and early morning heat woke her with a start. It took her a few moments to figure out where she was and why, and suddenly her hurting soul reminded her. She wished it was all a nightmare. As she checked her reflection in her rearview mirror for damage control from a night of boozing and emotions, she decided her driving journey wasn’t finished yet. She would find a spot somewhere to gather her thoughts before she texted him. She drove down the road to a clearing in the lower mountain range. Oak trees scattered the valley beside an emerald green lake. She parked, took her phone and her disgusting renewed habit and sat at a picnic table. She held her phone as if it were an injured kitten and stroked it lightly. At least it still worked and she could get the text out that would end her time with him.
She pulled a smoke out and relaxed, leaning back against the table top while the sun grazed her temples. She breathed in the smell of the clean mountain air and the acrid taste of tobacco and nicotine. As she flipped over her phone, the only words she could think of, that resonated in her head, let the tips of her thumbs as she texted:
“I know…”
Those were her only words to him. No emojis, no cute phrases, no lies. She waited.
As she lit another cigarette she could see the all-too-familiar, 3 dots in the bubble, pop up, scarred by the cracks. He was replying. As she sat and watched her phone, she wondered what he would say. She bet he would play innocent and ask “Know what?” or “What do you mean” or the typical “Huh?”
He didn’t. He knew her well enough to know that she actually “did know”.
“I was going to tell you”
She never responded. More dots and bubbles popped up after she let him stew for a few long moments.
“I’m sorry Willow”
She couldn’t make her brain, her heart or her fingers connect together and she sat and watched her screen with more and more messages:
“I do care for you”
“My son, he needs me”
“I don’t love her”
“ I really wanted to tell you in person”
“You’re my best friend”
“ We could talk if you want to meet me. I’ll come over”
“I need you”
“Willow, are you there?’
“Please talk to me”
“Ok, fine don’t talk to me, but please know that I didn’t want to hurt you”
“Helllooo? Willow?”
“ I want to see you. I miss you”
“I want to hug you and show you I care”
“You mean so much to me and I love being with you”
“ What do you want me to do, Willow? Please tell me”
“ Ok, clearly you don’t want to talk. Can I call you?”
As she sat at the picnic table hearing the beeps between every message, and watching the one sided conversation, she struggled with what to do. He was relentless and although her heart strings were being tugged at, she couldn’t force herself to respond. She smoked another one and watched as the dots and bubbles subsided. She inhaled a long drag of her smoke and played with the cover of her phone, trying to think of how she could handle him.
~ beep~
“Please talk to me. Tell me we can work this out. Tell me we can still see each other”
The cracks in her phone framed his words profoundly and she had an idea. She scrolled through the first pages of his messages, and she forced the broken phone to screen shot them. She continued through his persistent, begging, words taking photos of everything he had sent her. She emailed the images to her email account and sat quietly. She knew he would go too far…
“Ok Willow, be a bitch. Don’t talk to me and just ignore me. I get it.. you’re pissed”
“ Look are you going to talk to me like a mature person about this or just shun me?”
That made her laugh to herself. The man in a marriage with a child indicating his “other woman” is immature. She was almost starting to look at his messages as entertainment now. It was as though she was watching some rom-com on her phone, with a one man cast.
“Did I leave my navy and white tie at your house? I will need that back. Can I come get it?”
“Seriously, stop ignoring me!”
“You can bring my tie to the office. Lets have lunch on Monday like we always do”
“Willow”
“Willow!! Damnit!”
She finished her smoke and stood up. She snapped photos of his last and final messages and emailed herself the photos. Without hesitation, she gripped her phone, and as it made one last beep, she threw it as hard as she could, hearing a splash in the emerald lake. She leaned against an oak tree and cried her last tears for this man, enjoying one last Slim.
She slid into her driver’s seat, started the engine and drove home, throwing the rest of her cigarettes out the window, as she stepped on the gas. She was going back to her house, where she would forget about him, forget about his amazing scent and body. She would forget the steely eyes staring back at her while they made love.
And she would email his pleading text messages, along with a photo of his precious tie, to his beloved, beautiful wife.
Did you like this story ? Maybe you will enjoy this one too 😊 | https://christinahaus.medium.com/when-the-willow-breaks-79d35810fe80 | ['Kristina H'] | 2018-06-23 02:45:40.230000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Relationships', 'Stories'] |
Why Stochastic Gradient Descent Works? | Crazy paths often lead to the right destination!
Optimizing a cost function is one of the most important concepts in Machine Learning. Gradient Descent is the most common optimization algorithm and the foundation of how we train an ML model. But it can be really slow for large datasets. That’s why we use a variant of this algorithm known as Stochastic Gradient Descent to make our model learn a lot faster. But what makes it faster? Does it come at a cost?
Well…Before diving into SGD, here’s a quick reminder of Vanilla Gradient Descent…
We first randomly initialize the weights of our model. Using these weights we calculate the cost over all the data points in the training set. Then we compute the gradient of cost w.r.t the weights and finally, we update weights. And this process continues until we reach the minimum.
The update step is something like this…
J is the cost over all the training data points
Now, what happens if the number of data points in our training set becomes large? say m = 10,000,000. In this case, we have to sum the cost of all m examples just to perform one update step!
Here comes the SGD to rescue us…
Instead of calculating the cost of all data points, we calculate the cost of one single data point and the corresponding gradient. Then we update the weights.
The update step is as follows…
J_i is the cost of ith training example
We can easily see that in this case update steps are performed very quickly and that is why we can reach the minimum in a very small amount of time.
But…Why SGD works?
The key concept is we don’t need to check all the training examples to get an idea about the direction of decreasing slope. By analyzing only one example at a time and following its slope we can reach a point that is very close to the actual minimum. Here’s an intuition…
Suppose you have made an app and want to improve it by taking feedback from 100 customers. You can do it in two ways. In the first way, you can give the app to the first customer and take his feedback then to the second one, then the third, and so on. After collecting feedback from all of them you can improve your app. But in the second way, you can improve the app as soon as you get feedback from the first customer. Then you give it to the second one and you improve again before giving it to the third one. Notice that in this way you are improving your app at a much faster rate and can reach an optimal point much earlier.
Hopefully, you can tell that the first process is the Vanilla Gradient Descent and the second one is SGD.
But SGD has some cons too…
SGD is much faster but the convergence path of SGD is noisier than that of original gradient descent. This is because in each step it is not calculating the actual gradient but an approximation. So we see a lot of fluctuations in the cost. But still, it is a much better choice.
Convergence paths are shown on a contour plot
We can see the noise of SGD in the above contour plot. It is to be noted that vanilla GD takes a fewer number of updates but each update is done actually after one whole epoch. SGD takes a lot of update steps but it will take a lesser number of epochs i.e. the number of times we iterate through all examples will be lesser in this case and thus it is a much faster process.
As you can see in the plot there is a third variant of gradient descent known as Mini-batch gradient descent. This is a process that uses the flexibility of SGD and the accuracy of GD. In this case, we take a fixed number(known as batch size) of training examples at a time and compute the cost and corresponding gradient. Then we update the weights and continue the same process for the next batch. If batch size = 1 then it becomes SGD and if batch size = m then it becomes normal GD.
J_b is the cost of bth batch
Implementation from scratch
Here’s a python implementation of mini-batch gradient descent from scratch. You can easily make batch_size = 1 to implement SGD. In this code, I’ve used SGD to optimize the cost function of logistic regression for a simple binary classification problem.
Find the full code here.
Still curious? Watch a video that I made recently…
I hope you enjoyed the reading. Until next time…Happy learning! | https://towardsdatascience.com/https-towardsdatascience-com-why-stochastic-gradient-descent-works-9af5b9de09b8 | ['Sujan Dutta'] | 2020-10-29 06:24:00.311000+00:00 | ['Gradient Descent', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Optimization', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Three Quick Tips from Hemingway That Will Make You a Better Writer | The master at work. Image from The Daily Beast
Three Quick Tips from Hemingway That Will Make You a Better Writer
Advice from one of the most influential authors of the 20th century
My father always said, “If you are going to take the time to learn something, you might as well learn it from the best.” Makes sense to me. Therefore, I’ve poured countless hours into studying the work of arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century, Ernest Hemingway. Papa, as he was known to his friends.
The year was 1934. It was springtime in Key West, Florida, and it was already sticky hot. A twenty-two-year-old aspiring writer by the name of Arnold Samuelson had just hitchhiked all the way from Minnesota in hopes of meeting his idol, a man named Ernest Hemingway.
Samuelson had no prearranged meeting with the great author, but he did have hope and a burning ambition to become a better writer. He had picked Hemingway to be his mentor, completely unbeknownst to him.
He arrived, without forwarning, at Hemingway’s home, a Spanish Colonial structure located at 907 Whitehead Street and knocked on the door. As luck would have it, Papa was home.
Samuelson begged his idol for a few minutes of his time. Much to his surprise and delight, Hemingway invited him into his home and spent considerable time talking to him. He even read a few samples of Samuelson’s work.
Hemingway was not impressed by the young man’s writing, but he was impressed by his ambition and dedication. During their conversation, Papa mentioned that he was about to head out to sea in his boat, Pilar. He invited his new pupil along to join his crew.
During their time at sea, Samuelson had the rare opportunity to ask questions of Hemingway in a relaxed, informal manner. In keeping with Hemingway’s reputation, it would be safe to say that drinks were involved.
The following year, Hemingway wrote an article for Esquire magazine. In it, he shared some of the advice that he had offered to the young Samuelson. We are fortunate to benefit from this sage advice. It is as applicable today as it was in 1934.
Stop writing while you’re still doing well
Samuelson asked Hemingway flat out, “How much time should I spend writing each day?” I’m sure we can all relate to this question. As a writer, you don’t want to bang away until you start to babble.
Hemingway didn’t answer with a specific amount of time or number of words, he said,
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.
We are advised not to write until we start to grow stale and run out of ideas. If we do that, our work will suffer and it can affect the continuity of our story.
Block out negative thoughts
Hemingway was advocating mindfulness before mindfulness was a thing. During their talk, Samuelson expressed doubts that he could finish a book-length project.
Hemingway proceeded to tell him how writers can stop worrying and maintain their creative process.
This is what he told Samuelson:
Once you are into the novel it is as cowardly to worry about whether you can go on to the next day as to worry about having to go into inevitable action. You have to go on. So there is no sense to worry… As soon as you start to think about it stop it. Think about something else. You have to learn that to write a novel. The hard part about a novel is to finish it.
I take this to mean that one should quit worrying about writing and just write. Sometimes we don’t feel like it. Too bad, just put your head down and keep barreling forward, you can always edit it later.
That brings me to what is, in my opinion, the best insight into great writing that I have ever received.
Hemingway reminds us:
“The first draft of anything is shit.”
Image courtesy of ryanholiday.net
He also said to “write drunk and edit sober”. The important message here is that getting the words down on paper is just the beginning of the process. Writing without editing would be like a sculptor roughly carving a form out of stone and calling it a finished product.
Putting words to paper is just the beginning. Anyone can do that. The art comes in honing them into something memorable and moving.
Practice empathy
Be sensitive to the feelings of others. Learn to see the world through their eyes. Hemingway taught Samuelson the importance of empathy in a writer. He had these words to offer on the topic:
Then get in somebody elseʼs head for a change. If I bawl you out try to figure out what Iʼm thinking about as well as how you feel about it. If Carlos curses Juan think what both their sides of it are. Donʼt just think who is right…As a man you know who is right and who is wrong… As a writer you should not judge. You should understand…Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Donʼt be thinking what youʼre going to say. Most people never listen.
When you practice empathy, you are forced to consider the motivation of others. Having empathy takes the “I” out of your writing and puts the emphasis on the reader and what they want. Unless you are writing a journal meant only for yourself, this is important.
Arnold Samuelson never did go on to write professionally. His trip to Key West and the time he spent with Ernest Hemingway, however, was not in vain. Because of his youthful ambition, we get to share in a behind the scenes glimpse of a genius at work.
For that, we owe him a debt of gratitude. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/three-quick-tips-from-hemingway-that-will-make-you-a-better-writer-757ec7867cf8 | ['Guy D. Mccardle'] | 2020-03-19 19:54:54.005000+00:00 | ['Genius', 'Learning', 'Hemingway', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] |
Smart ways to lead design teams in a radically changing world | Though the concept of leading through change is not new, no one can argue that 2020 has brought about tremendous challenges for design leaders that require drastic transformation. From economic uncertainty to a global pandemic to concerted efforts for social justice, major forces have disrupted every aspect of our lives.
For most companies, design is at the center of this disruption as leaders search for effective ways to stand out in an increasingly crowded communication stream. Meanwhile remote workers continue to struggle with the intersection of work life and home life, and simply keeping staff connected is difficult enough. In this chaotic climate, shifting to new processes and business strategies — across dispersed and distracted employees — can seem like an unsurmountable goal.
Our InsideOut Design Leader Community met in June to share insights, real-world issues and best practices on leading through radical change. Below are actionable learnings gathered from 6 roundtables with senior leaders from high profile brands to help you lead through recent events and beyond.
Start With Why
Made famous by Simon Sinek’s book and TED talk, the idea of engaging teams by tapping into the reason why a pivot is necessary is fundamental to lasting transformation. Leaders in several of our roundtables pointed to getting buy-in as a first step to connecting staff to a vision they can get behind. | https://medium.com/aquent-off-hours/smart-ways-to-lead-design-teams-in-a-radically-changing-world-c447de60bcb9 | ['Susie Hall'] | 2020-07-17 15:47:44.604000+00:00 | ['Design Leadership', 'Leadership', 'Change Management', 'Aquentinsideout', 'Design'] |
Be a Friend, Not a Fixer | Facing the Black Dog
For Christmas this past year, my wife gave me When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend, by Mark Meynell. I devoured it like a New York size slice of sausage and pepperoni pizza after a 24-hour fast.
Kristy knew this book would speak to me in a very personal way. Over the years, she has walked with me through the deep valleys of the mental anguish physicians call “clinical depression.” We are not talking about the blues or bad days or circumstantial sadness.
Winston Churchill called his depression the Black Dog. Meynell describes his as having a brain blizzard in a cave — a mental whiteout in a lonely place from which there seems no escape. For me, it feels like a crushing physical weight or vice crushing my brain. It is not merely an emotional experience. It is acutely physical.
The title of Meynell’s book comes from the last line in Psalm 88, a ruthlessly honest declaration by Heman the Ezrahite, that his hope had been snuffed out like a candle. All was darkness. Another apt description of clinical depression.
Moral vs Medical Issues
You may need to know that disorders such as clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), manic-depressive disorder (bi-polar), anorexia, panic attacks, PTSD and the like are not moral issues. They are medical issues. Yes, they are medical issues that may or may not result in or contribute to moral problems. But in themselves, there is nothing inherently sinful about a brain under the pressure of a chemical vice that causes the mind to feel that everything is dark, hard, and heavy.
“You may need to know that disorders such as clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), manic-depressive disorder (bi-polar), anorexia, panic attacks, PTSD and the like are not moral issues. They are medical issues.”
For those of us who suffer from the Black Dog, Brain Blizzard, Vice Grip on the Brain, we pray for deliverance from those like Job’s counselors who have a shallow understanding of our plight and give simplistic remedies (because they don’t understand either the complexities of the brain or the purposes and ways of God).
An SSRI prescription may be as critical for our survival as heart mediation is for a cardiac patient. But meds are not our greatest need.
“An SSRI prescription may be as critical for our survival as heart mediation for a cardiac patient.”
From his own personal story, Meynell shares how “the counter-intuitive, other-worldly nature of grace” (87) is what those who struggle need most.
Meynell quotes John Forrester’s summary assessment of what grace looks like for several of the facets that are often woven into the fabric of clinical depression: guilt, shame, and anxiety (87).
“Grace for guilt is unmerited forgiveness. Grace for shame is unmerited acceptance. And grace for anxiety is unmerited security.” - John Forrester, Grace for Shame, 152.
Granted, mere awareness of these concepts does not leash the Black Dog. But they do invite hope. They allow the clouds to part ever so slightly so that a few rays of light may penetrate into the darkness.
The way these rays of hope manifest themselves in practical ways is when friends, the hands and feet of Jesus as his body, demonstrate this “counter-intuitive, other-worldly” grace. When we are willing to forgive, accept, and make others feel secure, like God does for us, the environment of vulnerability and safety is established. It is that environment where that air of grace becomes an oxygen mask for the weary soul.
“When we are willing to forgive, accept, and make others feel secure, the environment of vulnerability and safety is established.”
Coping vs Curing
Notice that I did not say that the atmosphere is a cure. We may manage and cope with mental illness. But we don’t cure it.
This is why we need “friends, not fixers” (19).
Being this kind of friend is not easy. Refusing the kind of judgementalism and self-righteous condescension that comes naturally is a beast to shake. It really takes work to put one’s self in another’s shoes, especially when the shoes are such a different size than our own.
It is hard to sit in the unfixed and let God be God there.
“It is hard to sit in the unfixed and let God be God there.”
Sometimes, we simply will not understand. The same way I will not understand a combat survivor with PTSD (although there are experiences in my past that may resemble something akin to PTSD, at least in the way I feel when reminded of the former trauma).
A Friend for the Darkness
Walking with someone for a lifetime, down a very long, twisting road — more like a trail with roots and rocks, will test the most patient friend. But there is a friend who understands all of our issues. He is the one who not only walked a toe-stubbing path with us but traveled a nail-scarring one.
When I have trouble dealing with someone else’s mental challenges, may I remember my own affliction, my moral affliction, which is worse by far.
“Sometimes, we simply will not understand.”
Knowing that Jesus is with me as a friend (of a forgiven but largely unfixed sinner) and will not forsake me (though I continue to struggle) is not only hope for the darkness but also is the power for being the kind of friend needed for someone else in their darkness.
A friend, not a fixer. | https://mckaycaston.medium.com/be-a-friend-not-a-fixer-3c4b4c41f2ec | ['Dr. Mckay Caston'] | 2019-08-25 22:07:26.985000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Grace', 'Spirituality', 'Friendship', 'Religion'] |
Why you should buy an iPhone in 2021- Years of Software Support. | This is one of the strengths of Apple that users adopt new software very quickly and how many devices are currently running on the latest iOS software. Usually, the numbers Apple shared related to software running on their devices are typically very good. Apple launched its latest software iOS 14 for iPhones in September 2020 and now according to Apple, iOS 14 is now installed on 81% of devices launched in the last four years. For iOS 14 Apple released these details first time after 3 months of software release.
Source: Apple
According to the graph, iOS 14 is already installed on 81% of devices launch in the last four years. While only 17% of devices are running on last year's iOS 13 and 2% of the last four years' devices are running earlier iOS probably iOS 12.
While if we talk about all the iPhones in the world. The iOS 14 is installed on 72% of iPhones, which is really impressive. Only 18% of devices are running the last year iOS 13 and 10% of older devices are running iOS 12 and older iOS. | https://medium.com/macoclock/why-you-should-buy-an-iphone-in-2021-years-of-software-support-80f2325e68bb | ['Umar Usman'] | 2020-12-23 07:17:22.354000+00:00 | ['Iphone12', 'Apple', 'iOS', 'Tech', 'iPhone'] |
Kubernetes StatefulSets | prerequisites
I recommend you know the basic knowledge of Kubernetes Pods before reading this blog. You can check this blog for details about Kubernetes Pods.
What Is A StatefulSet
StatefulSet is a Kubernetes object designed to manage stateful applications. Like a Deployment, a StatefulSet scales up a set of pods to the desired number that you define in a config file. Pods in a StatefulSet runs the same containers that are defined in the Pod spec inside the StatefulSet spec . Unlike a Deployment, every Pod of a StatefulSet owns a sticky and stable identity. A StatefulSet also provides the guarantee about ordered deployment, deletion, scaling, and rolling updates for its Pods.
A StatefulSet Example
A complete StatefulSet consists of two components:
A Headless Service used to control the network ID of the StatefulSet’s Pods
A StatefulSet object used to create and manage its Pods.
The following example demonstrates how to use a StatefulSet to create a ZooKeeper Server. Please note that the following StatefulSet Spec is simplified for demo purposes. You can check this YAML file for the complete configuration of this ZooKeeper Service.
ZooKeeper Service
A Zookeeper service is a distributed coordination system for distributed applications. It allows you to read, write data, and observe data updates. Data is stored and replicated in each ZooKeeper server and these servers work together as a ZooKeeper Ensemble.
The following picture shows the overview of a ZooKeeper service with five ZooKeeper servers. You can see each server in a ZooKeeper service has a stable network ID for potential leader elections. Moreover, one of the ZooKeeper servers needs to be selected as a leader for managing the service topology and processing write requests. StatefulSets is suitable for running such an application as it guarantees uniqueness for Pods.
Headless Service
A Headless Service is responsible for controlling the network domain for a StatefulSet. The way to create a headless service is to specify clusterIP == None .
The following spec is for creating a Headless Service for the ZooKeeper service. This Headless Service is used to manage Pod Identify for the following StatefulSet.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
namespace: default
name: zk-hs
labels:
app: zk-hs
spec:
ports:
- port: 2888
name: server
- port: 3888
name: leader-election
clusterIP: None
selector:
app: zk
Unlike a ClusterIP Service or a LoadBalancer Service, a Headless Service does not provide load-balancing. Based on my experience, any request to zk-hs.default.svc.cluster.local is always redirected to the first StatefulSet Pod ( zk-0 in the example). Therefore, A Kubernetes Service that provides load balancing or an Ingress is required if you need to load-balance traffic for your StatefulSet.
StatefulSet Spec
The following spec demonstrates how to use a StatefulSet to run a ZooKeeper service:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
namespace: default
name: zk
# StatefulSet spec
spec:
serviceName: zk-hs
selector:
matchLabels:
app: zk # It has to match .spec.template.metadata.labels
replicas: 5
podManagementPolicy: OrderedReady
updateStrategy:
type: RollingUpdate
# volumeClaimTemplates creates a Persistent Volume for each StatefulSet Pods.
volumeClaimTemplates:
- metadata:
name: datadir
spec:
accessModes: [ "ReadWriteOnce" ]
storageClassName: standard
resources:
requests:
storage: 10Gi
# Pod spec
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: zk
spec:
affinity:
nodeAffinity:
...
podAntiAffinity:
...
# Containers running in each Pod
containers:
- name: k8szk
image: gcr.io/google_samples/k8szk:v3
ports:
- containerPort: 2181
name: client
- containerPort: 2888
name: server
- containerPort: 3888
name: leader-election
env:
...
readinessProbe:
exec:
command:
- "zkOk.sh"
initialDelaySeconds: 10
timeoutSeconds: 5
livenessProbe:
...
volumeMounts:
- name: datadir
mountPath: /var/lib/zookeeper
Metadata
The field metadata contains metadata of this StatefulSet, which includes the name of this StatefulSet and the Namespace it belongs to. You can also put labels and annotations in this field.
Stateful Set Spec and Pod Template
The field spec defines the specification of this StatefulSet and the field spec.template defines a template for creating the Pods this StatefulSet manages.
Pod Selector
Like a Deployment, a StatefulSet uses the field spec.selctor to find which Pods to manage. You can check this doc for details about the usage of Pod Selector.
Replica
The field spec.replica specifies the desired number of Pods for the StatefulSet. It is recommended to run an odd number of Pods for some stateful applications like ZooKeepers, based on the consideration of the efficiency of some operations. For example, a ZooKeeper service marks a data write complete only when more than half of its servers send an acknowledgment back to the leader. Take a six pods ZooKeeper service as an example. The service remains available as long as at least four servers (ceil(6/2 + 1)) are available, which means your service can tolerate the failure of two servers. Nevertheless, it can still tolerate two-servers failure when the server number is lowered down to five. Meanwhile, this also improves write efficiency as now it only needs 3 servers' acknowledgment to complete a write request. Therefore, having the sixth server, in this case, does not give you any additional advantage in terms of write efficiency and server availability.
Pod Identify
A StatefulSet Pod is assigned a unique ID (aka. Pod Name) from its Headless Service when it is created. This ID sticks to the Pod during the life cycle of the StatefulSet. The pattern of constructing ID is ${statefulSetName}-${ordinal} . For example, Kubernetes will create five Pods with five unique IDs zk-0 , zk-1 , zk-2 , zk-3 and zk-4 for the above ZooKeeper service.
The ID of a StatefulSet Pod is also its hostname. The subdomain takes the form ${podID}.${headlessServiceName}.{$namespace}.svc.cluster.local where cluster.local is the cluster domain. For example, the subdomain of the first ZooKeeper Pod is zk-0.zk-hs.default.svc.cluster.local . It is recommended to use a Stateful Pod's subdomain other than its IP to reach the Pod as the subdomain is unique within the whole cluster.
Pod Management Policy
You can choose whether to create/update/delete a StatefulSet’s Pod in order or in parallel by specifying spec.podManagementPolicy == OrderedReady or spec.podManagementPolicy == Parallel . OrderedReady is the default setting and it controls the Pods to be created with the order 0, 1, 2, ..., N and to be deleted with the order N, N-1, ..., 1, 0 . In addition, it has to wait for the current Pod to become Ready or terminated prior to terminating or launching the next Pod. Parallel launches or terminates all the Pods simultaneously. It does not rely on the state of the current Pod to lunch or terminate the next Pod.
Update Strategy
There are several rolling update strategies available for StatefulSets. RollingUpdate is the default strategy and it deletes and recreates each Pod for a StatefulSet when a rolling update occurs.
Doing rolling updates for the stateful applications like ZooKeepers is a little bit tricky: Other Pods need enough time to elect a new leader when the StatefulSet Controller is recreating the leader. Therefore, You should consider configuring readnessProbe and readnessProbe.initialDelaySeconds for the containers inside a StatefulSet Pods to delay the new Pod to be ready, thus delaying the rolling update of the next Pod and giving other running Pods enough time to update the service topology. This should give your stateful applications, for example, a ZooKeeper service, enough time to handle the case where a Pod is lost and back.
Pod Affinity
Like a Deployment, the ideal scenario of running a StatefulSet is to distribute its Pods to different nodes in different zones and avoid running multiple Pods in the same node. The spec.template.spec.affinity field allows you to specify node affinity and inter-pod affinity (or anti-affinity) for the SatefulSet Pods. You can check this doc for details about using node/pod affinity in Kubernetes
volumeClaimTemplates
The field spec.volumeClaimTemplates is used to provide stable storage for StatefulSets. As shown in the following picture, the field spec.volumeClaimTemplates creates a Persistent Volume Claim ( datadir-zk-0 ), a Persistent Volume ( pv-0000 ), and a 10 GB standard persistent disk for Pod zk-0 . These storage settings have the same life cycle as the StatefulSet, which means the storage for a Stateful Pod is stable and persistent. Any StatefulSet Pod will not lose its data whenever it is terminated and recreated.
What Is Next
I recommend you read this blog if you are curious about how to utilize Kubernetes Deployments to run stateless applications in Kubernetes.
I also recommend you read this blog if you are curious about how to utilize Kubernetes Services to load balance traffic to your applications in Kubernetes.
Reference | https://azhuox.medium.com/kubernetes-services-42a8b971e5ed | ['Aaron Zhuo'] | 2020-11-30 16:57:39.836000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Entry Level'] |
LIVE TO TELL IT | Fourteen years ago he founded an editing company that produces tailor made books. We always say that we are in the business of emotions,” says Eduardo Zemborain cofounder of MSB Storytelling, the “editing company” that makes bespoke books for people and companies.
Link to article: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1903292-vivir-para-contarla
That sentence might sound a bit strange if one doesn’t know all the work that is behind the surprise gift that ends up in the hands of a client and the honoree: on those pages there is gratitude, anecdotes and meaningful memories collected over many months.
The 55 year old architect founded MSB in 2002 after the economic crash that hit Argentina at the end of the previous year leaving his architectural office without the prospect of any projects in the immediate future. The options were, he recalls, leaving the country or to search for a “Noah’s Ark”. His eureka moment was triggered thanks to a birthday: his wife´s birthday.
When Vicky Randle-Zemborain (53), also an architect, turned 40 she received a one of a kind book from her husband in which her children, friends, and also an ex boyfriend, told anecdotes and wished her well.
A few months later she herself became cofounder of an initiative that went from being a family business to a professional one.
Currently the firm has other two partners: Juan Zemborain (43) and Carolina Tobias Cordova (52).
“When we started I thought that I didn’t want to be just a workshop but a corporation. We came up with an idea in which every person in the firm was an area and had to think like that, “ explains Zemborain. The couple started with $20,000 from their savings and an investment that involved time rather than money.” Four years later they won the NAVES first prize in a competition held by the prestigious IAE Business School.
The entrepreneurs explain that their focus is not the “photo book” or the “e-book” that you can manage yourself with simple digital tools but a “real book with a written story, proof read, well structured and impeccably printed.”
The possibilities are limitless: from an in memoriam book to the celebration of the centennial of a company, from a surprise birthday book to a biography or memoir.
The adventure of telling interesting stories, far from the typical biography or institutional catalogue, takes months of investigation and many times includes long distance calls, interviews, and motivational skills to encourage people to be an active part of the project.
So far MSB has produced more than 400 projects in six different languages that include Arabic and Dutch! All books have been edited and printed in Argentina. “It is a firm that uses local resources but that is open to international commissions,” says Zemborain. Among their pages one can find the memories of the son of survivors of the Holocaust, the surprise birthday gift for a well-known businessman. For one the experience was “healing,” for another it was “the best present ever, even better than that party thrown to celebrate his birthday with Rod Stewart providing the music!
“For those who have everything a surprise gift book is the best present you can give because it is impossible to buy what people feel about him/her or how they remember the shared moments” explains Eduardo. “MSB’s target is mostly persons of a certain economic status that allows them to afford luxury travel” adds Randle.
The partners highlight that what they do is “pricey” rather than “expensive” because it doesn’t have the value of a product but of a high level professional service.
On the other hand, the firm that in 2015 invoiced AR$ 4,5 M also has corporate clients searching for “humanizing” their companies as well as to earn their employees loyalty. Although their clients trust a physical book almost as a “cult object” lately they have begun to offer the books in digital and interactive format only for their corporate clients.
After fourteen years of working in a unstable Argentina, they want to focus on their premium services and to continue honoring their motto taken from the Nobel Prize author Gabriel García Marquez: “Life is not what you lived but what you remember and how you remember it to tell it.” | https://medium.com/msb-storytelling/live-to-tell-it-f57e0f5b13c4 | ['My Special Book'] | 2016-08-29 23:00:24.952000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Birthday'] |
How Cloud Provider Compliance Affects Your Application Compliance | How Cloud Provider Compliance Affects Your Application Compliance
Cloud is evolving fast and already becoming a significant part of the software ecosystems. With this growth, becoming compliant on standards such as ISO, PCI-DSS, HIPPA, builds confidence for you to trust the cloud in terms of security.
But have you ever wondered whether it could help your applications running in the cloud to become compliant as well?
This article will help you to understand cloud compliance and how it could potentially benefit your applications to become compliant for international standards. Since compliance is a broader topic, I will be using PCI-DSS as an example to demonstrate the details of this topic.
The Meaning of Cloud Provider Compliance
If you look at all the leading cloud providers such as AWS and Azure, they maintain compliance with the highest international standards. Being compliant is a way of building trust with its consumers to give a sense of security and the quality of the services they deliver. In terms of the standard, cloud provider undergoes the process of compliance for the underlying infrastructure and the services they provide by the respective governing body.
Before moving further, let me briefly explain the PCI-DSS if you haven’t heard about it already. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) is a standard to make it safer to use credit cards online payments. Any app compliant with the standard assures that storing and transmitting credit card data happens securely adhering to the industry best practices.
If we take PCI-DSS, for instance, both AWS and Azure comply with the highest level of PCI secure software standard. Having compliance reassures that the cloud platform is compliant in running large scale payment processing workloads.
But does this mean that your application complies with PCI-DSS by default if it’s running on a cloud platform? Sadly the answer is a big NO!. Therefore, you are also responsible for managing your app compliance with PCI-DSS separately.
Does it mean that any cloud provider having compliance for a particular standard is not useful for an application, to comply with the same standard? To answering this, let us look at how the cloud security model works.
Cloud Security is a Shared Responsibility
If you search about cloud security of any leading cloud provider, you will come across the sentence; it is a shared responsibility. Having shared responsibility means that the cloud provider is fully responsible for the underlying physical infrastructure, logical infrastructure (virtualization) and higher level services (e.g.; API Management, Identity Providers) and the cloud customers need to be responsible for the security of the application logic, how it uses cloud services following the recommended best practices.
If we take PCI-DSS for instance if you transfer credit card data without using SSL to your server, or a higher level service like API management in the cloud without configuring SSL you have violated the standard best practices for securely transferring payment information. The cloud provider having PCI-DSS compliance doesn’t help here.
Cloud Compliance and App Compliance
The shared responsibility model also applies to your app compliance. Having your cloud provider compliant on a standard does help you in the journey of your app getting compliance.
If we take PCI-DSS, for instance, you can rely on the cloud providers infrastructure and services to store, process, or transmit cardholder data. Since you need to manage your application’s PCI-DSS compliance certification separately, it will require to carry out additional testing to verify that your environment satisfies all PCS-DSS requirements as a part of the compliance certification process. It is essential to understand your responsibility here.
The cloud provider does not directly store, transmit, or process any customer cardholder data (CHD). You are responsible for creating the cardholder data environment (CDE) using cloud infrastructure and services.
The advantage here is since the cloud provider is compliant, your Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) can rely on cloud providers Attestation of Compliance (AOC) without further testing.
Relying on the cloud provider’s compliance, AOC reduces the overhead for your application to become compliant by sharing some of the responsibilities with the cloud provider.
Summary
Cloud provider compliance doesn’t mean your application get hold of the same compliance by default. You need to handle your application compliance separately. However, cloud provider compliance will ease your applications journey to become compliant on international standards. Reducing the effort happens since we share some of the responsibilities of the cloud provider, especially when it comes to the infrastructure and the services they provide. You need to make sure you follow the best practices and use the cloud services securely and effectively.
Also, it is essential to carefully evaluate which services that your cloud provider offers to comply with the standard your applications also need to meet. Some of this information you can find through your cloud providers compliance page.
For example, refer AWS Compliance and Azure Compliance for more details.
Benefits of cloud compliance are more relevant when you use higher level cloud services where some of them might not fully comply with the standard jeopardizing your applications journey towards compliance. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-cloud-provider-compliance-affects-your-application-compliance-38d73df53a3d | ['Ashan Fernando'] | 2019-07-02 12:51:00.968000+00:00 | ['Compliance', 'Cloud Computing', 'Cybersecurity', 'Security', 'Cloud'] |
Classify Job Descriptions with Watson Natural Language Classifier | Remember the last time you applied for a job online? With countless applications, job descriptions, and departments to navigate, it can be overwhelming to find an ideal fit.
Considering how important hiring great talent can be, my team tried to envision an HR solution that would allow companies or applicants to filter roles by job description. After some quick brainstorming, IBM’s Watson Natural Language Classifier service seemed to be an optimal solution for this proof of concept.
70% of HR departments at top-performing companies believe that AI can add significant value by enhancing their talent acquisition process.
The sample app, below, addresses this problem of matching job descriptions and candidates to certain roles. An applicant can input qualifications or a job description and be matched with a category that suits their ideal role. On the back end, Watson Natural Language Classifier matches them to roles with similar qualifications.
The Classifier
Using my GitHub Repo as a template, you too can create this app with relative ease.
This proof of concept, uses the NYC Open Data’s Job Category data set, an open-source data set that contains the various job titles and descriptions of jobs from the City of New York.
Prepare your classifier in 2 steps:
Prepare your data by removing irrelevant columns and making sure text falls within the character limit. Your first column will be the job description while the other columns will be corresponding classes.
Simply train Watson Natural Language Classifier API via a .csv file.
While the Natural Language Classifier has a beta tooling available at the moment, you can call the API directly using the cURL command (yes, just one!) found on the getting started tutorial.
After training is complete, all that is left is to include your newly created classifier’s credentials in the sample app’s source code and deploy.
Try out the sample app here or Fork the GitHub repo
Before you go, here are some quick tips: | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/classify-job-descriptions-with-watson-natural-language-classifier-fca735ff2f3c | ['Yalon Gordon'] | 2018-11-01 20:06:29.458000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Watson Nlc', 'Code Spotlight', 'NLP', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Is Burnout an Epidemic Among American Workers? Experts Are Divided. | In a story published in January on BuzzFeed News, reporter Anne Helen Petersen details her struggle with what she calls “errand paralysis,” or her inability to summon the energy for tasks that aren’t vital to her life or work.
Petersen identifies her brand of selective procrastination as a symptom of burnout, which she describes as a fundamental component of the modern millennial’s existence. “Why can’t I get this mundane stuff done? Because I’m burned out. Why am I burned out? Because I’ve internalized the idea that I should be working all the time,” she writes in the essay, titled “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.”
Petersen’s story went viral, and her sentiments helped crystalize a trend that has lately attracted greater acknowledgment and analysis from mental health researchers, human resource experts, and most recently, major public health organizations: namely, that burnout is widespread among today’s workers — especially young ones — and it’s a noticeable drain on their health and professional well-being.
“There is now a lot of academic literature on burnout, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s a real phenomenon,” says Gloria Mark, a psychologist and professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine.
A 2018 study in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that the rate of “overall burnout” among the general U.S. workforce was 28%. A 2017 Kronos survey of human resources leaders concluded that employee burnout is both an “epidemic” and a “crisis.” And a recent Gallup study found that 23% of American workers feel burned out “often or always.”
Mark says that a confluence of factors — incessant email communication, for one, but also America’s shift toward more solitary leisure-time pursuits — have created a “perfect storm” of work stress and overload. “A lot of people are being caught up in this maelstrom, and it’s hard to get out of,” she says.
But not everyone is buying the burnout hype.
In a recent New York Times op-ed titled “Is Burnout Real?,” Weill-Cornell psychiatrist Richard Friedman questions the notion that burnout is truly more common now than it used to be.
Friedman argues that “unrealistic and misleading” expectations resulting from “a shift in cultural attitudes” may be causing many workers — as well as the people who study them — to misconstrue run-of-the-mill job stress or dissatisfaction as something more insidious. In other words, what a lot of people today describe as burnout is the result of improper framing or overzealous pathologizing, not of real changes to the nature of job-related stress. “When a disorder is reportedly so widespread, it makes me wonder whether we are at risk of medicalizing everyday distress,” Friedman wrote. “If almost everyone suffers from burnout, then no one does, and the concept loses all credibility.”
Some commenters to Friedman’s piece point out that his logic here is dubious; if most Americans are obese, one wrote, that doesn’t mean obesity ceases to exist. (Friedman did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.)
But Friedman is not alone in questioning the realness of the burnout epidemic or in fretting about the disorder-fication of a common human experience. More and more researchers are raising alarms about “diagnosis creep,” which refers to the progressive loosening of the criteria a person has to meet to be diagnosed with a mental disorder or physical disease. “We are labelling more and more healthy people as sick and building bigger potential markets for those selling medicines,” writes the author of a 2016 paper in Psychological Inquiry.
Meanwhile, some experts who study burnout agree its current definitions and diagnostic criteria are nebulous. “There has been a great deal of variability and inconsistency in the measurement and conceptualization of burnout, which has made it challenging to be able to accurately evaluate and classify burnout,” says Elaine Cheung, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Currently, there is no established cutoff for diagnosing burnout, and there has been no clinical research that has been done to establish a diagnosis for dysfunctional levels of burnout.”
It’s also hard for researchers to untangle burnout from other work-related funks such as boredom or job dissatisfaction, or from related mental health disorders such as depression. “There is no doubt that mental health issues are on the rise and so is work-related stress — the question is whether burnout is actually on the rise,” says Torsten Voigt, a professor of sociology at Germany’s RWTH Aachen University. “As burnout is not clearly defined, it is challenging to count burnout cases.”
Voigt co-authored a 2017 review study on the mental state. “Even though burnout is one of the most widely discussed mental health problems in today’s society, it is still disputed,” he and his colleague wrote. The burnout studies to date have produced “problematic” results, they said, and the concept of burnout remains hazy. “Instead of clarifying and critically discussing the concept of burnout, most articles study the causes and associated factors, or measure the prevalence rates of a mental state that is not even properly defined,” they wrote. “This raises the question of whether all the studies that identify particular causes of burnout or measure the prevalence rates [of burnout] are actually investigating the same phenomenon.”
“We don’t go at a steady pace — we go at a fury and we run ourselves ragged.”
But while the formal definitions of burnout are still a bit wishy-washy, Voigt and others who study burnout, or work with people who experience it, say the current panic is not groundless. “Work-related stress is on the rise and there are several statistics that show that,” Voigt says. “Thus, one may say burnout is on the rise too.”
Experts say there are several factors that can help explain why this sometimes tough-to-define mental state is more commonplace today than in decades past. But addressing its causes is the greater challenge.
What is burnout?
The World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognized occupational burnout as a “syndrome” in May 2019, and the group included several predictable characteristics for the issue. These characteristics include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from work or a cynical or negative attitude towards work, and a drop in professional performance.
Some news outlets initially misreported WHO’s announcement as an acknowledgment that burnout is a medical condition — an understandable mistake, considering WHO has included burnout in its “International Disease Classification” (ICD) compendium. But WHO clarified its position, which is that burnout is a “phenomenon” driven by chronic unmanaged stress, and that it’s not an illness in and of itself.
WHO’s burnout characteristics closely map onto the diagnostic inventory developed by Christina Maslach, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is one of the foremost burnout researchers in the world.
“Exhaustion is the central quality of burnout and the most obvious manifestation of this complex syndrome,” Maslach and her co-authors wrote in a 2001 paper in the Annual Review of Psychology.
But by itself, exhaustion does not amount to burnout. “Although exhaustion reflects the stress dimension of burnout, it fails to capture the critical aspects of the relationship people have with their work,” Maslach and her colleagues wrote. “Exhaustion is not something that is simply experienced — rather, it prompts actions to distance oneself emotionally and cognitively from one’s work, presumably as a way to cope with the work overload.”
Both WHO and Maslach stipulate that burnout’s symptoms are “work-related,” and that the term shouldn’t be applied to non-work contexts. If a person is questioning the impact or import of their professional tasks — and this cynicism is a new thing — then this, coupled with exhaustion, is indicative of burnout. On the other hand, if a person is feeling insipid toward just about everything, that could be a sign of depression or some other issue unrelated (or at least, not directly related) to work. | https://elemental.medium.com/the-great-burnout-debate-431c677c9e50 | ['Markham Heid'] | 2020-10-13 16:23:20.606000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'Mental Health', 'Work', 'Burnout', 'Life'] |
Visualization Techniques | If you ever need to know any kind of charting/visualization technique — look no further. Check out the periodic table of Visualization methods. It is interactive — so give it a try and hover over. | https://medium.com/aloktyagi/visualization-techniques-c3329b0416ab | ['Alok Tyagi'] | 2017-03-08 21:01:48.883000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'Usability', 'Visualization'] |
Multi-target in Albumentations | Multi-target in Albumentations
Many images, many masks, bounding boxes, and key points. How to transform them in sync?
I am one of the authors of the image augmentation library Albumentations.
Image augmentations is an interpretable regularization technique. You transform the existing data to generate a new one. (For more details check the great post about different augmentations libraries by Neptune: Data Augmentations in Python)
You can use the library with PyTorch, Keras, Tensorflow, or any other framework that can treat an image as a numpy array.
Albumentations work the best with the standard tasks of classification, segmentation, object, and keypoint detection. But there are situations when your samples consist of a set of different objects.
Multi-target functionality specifically designed for this situation.
Possible use cases:
Siamese networks
Sequential frames in the video.
Image2image.
Multilabel segmentation.
Instance segmentation.
Panoptic segmentation.
A few buzzwords :)
For the past three years, we worked on functionality and optimized for the performance.
Now we focus on documentation and tutorials.
At least once a week users ask to add support for multiple masks.
We already have it for more than a year. :)
This article will share examples of how to work with multiple targets with albumentations.
Scenario 1: One image, one mask
The input image and mask.
The most common use case is image segmentation. You have an image and a mask. You want to perform a spatial transform of both image and mask, and it should be the same set of transforms. Albumentations takes care of this requirement.
In the following code, we apply HorizontalFlip and ShiftScaleRotate.
Scenario 2: One image and several masks
Input: one image, two masks
For some tasks, you may have a few labels corresponding to the same pixel.
Let’s apply HorizontalFlip, GridDistortion, RandomCrop.
Scenario 3: several images, masks, key points, and bounding boxes
You may apply spatial transforms to multiple targets.
In this example, we have two images, two masks, two bounding boxes, and two sets of keypoints.
Let’s apply the sequence of HorizontalFlip and ShiftScaleRotate
Q: Can we work with more than two images?
A: You can use as many as you want.
Q: Should the number of image, mask, bounding box, and keypoint targets be the same?
A: You can have N images, M masks, K key points, and B bounding boxes. N, M, K, and B could be different.
Q: Are there situations where multi-target will break?
A: In general, you can use the multi-target functionality to a set of images of different sizes. Some transform depends on the inputs. For example, you cannot perform a crop that is larger than the image. Another example is MaskDropout that depends on the input mask may. How will it behave when we have a set of masks is unclear. We will test these corner cases. But they are pretty rare in practice.
Q: How many transforms could be combined together?
A: You can combine the transforms into a complex pipeline in a number of ways.
We have more than 30 spatial transforms. All of them support images and masks, most of them support bounding boxes and key points.
That could be combined with 40+ transforms that modify pixel values of the image. Example: RandomBrightnessContrast, Blur, or something more exotic like RandomRain.
More documentation
Conclusion
Working on the open-source project is challenging, but very exciting. I would like to thank the core team:
and all the contributors that helped to build the library and get it to its current state. | https://medium.com/pytorch/multi-target-in-albumentations-16a777e9006e | ['Vladimir Iglovikov'] | 2020-11-20 18:37:40.487000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Programming', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology'] |
Ill-Conceived | Ill-Conceived
A Poem
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
Lost, I abandoned my earlier
strategies that would
have had me leaning back with
the book; but now
I keep reaching into a progressively
drained mind
trying to infiltrate the drafting
propensities, open to flood
this screen
I had a modicum of success
and people wrote in
about it; whispered, more like
but it was sound and there
was drinking involved, I imagine
Hanging as we were
from the lights of the patio
hooting for the bats flying over us
that were there
but we had no chance to see
It’s just an ill-conceived phenomenon
to keep going at that point
Best to drain the bottle
check out the ashtray
and make your way home | https://medium.com/literally-literary/ill-conceived-8a6b1b2d095d | ['J.D. Harms'] | 2020-12-12 05:32:25.988000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Image', 'Musings', 'Writing'] |
An Overview of Human Pose Estimation with Deep Learning | A Human Pose Skeleton represents the orientation of a person in a graphical format. Essentially, it is a set of coordinates that can be connected to describe the pose of the person. Each co-ordinate in the skeleton is known as a part (or a joint, or a keypoint). A valid connection between two parts is known as a pair (or a limb). Note that, not all part combinations give rise to valid pairs. A sample human pose skeleton is shown below.
Left: COCO keypoint format for human pose skeletons. Right: Rendered human pose skeletons. (Source)
Knowing the orientation of a person opens avenues for several real-life applications, some of which are discussed towards the end of this blog. Several approaches to Human Pose Estimation were introduced over the years. The earliest (and slowest) methods typically estimating the pose of a single person in an image which only had one person to begin with. These methods often identify the individual parts first, followed by forming connections between them to create the pose.
Naturally, these methods are not particularly useful in many real-life scenarios where images contain multiple people.
Multi-Person Pose Estimation
Multi-Person pose estimation is more difficult than the single person case as the location and the number of people in an image are unknown. Typically, we can tackle the above issue using one of two approaches:
The simple approach is to incorporate a person detector first, followed by estimating the parts and then calculating the pose for each person. This method is known as the top-down approach.
approach. Another approach is to detect all parts in the image (i.e. parts of every person), followed by associating/grouping parts belonging to distinct persons. This method is known as the bottom-up approach.
Top: Typical Top-Down approach. Bottom: Typical Bottom-Up approach. (Image Source)
Typically, the top-down approach is easier to implement than the bottom-up approach as adding a person detector is much simpler than adding associating/grouping algorithms. It is hard to judge which approach has better performance overall as it really comes down to which among the person detector and associating/grouping algorithms is better.
In this blog, we will focus on multi-person human pose estimation using deep learning techniques. In the next section, we will review some of the popular top-down and bottom-up approaches for the same.
Deep Learning Methods
1. OpenPose
OpenPose is one of the most popular bottom-up approaches for multi-person human pose estimation, partly because of their well documented GitHub implementation.
As with many bottom-up approaches, OpenPose first detects parts (keypoints) belonging to every person in the image, followed by assigning parts to distinct individuals. Shown below is the architecture of the OpenPose model.
Flowchart of the OpenPose architecture. (Source)
The OpenPose network first extracts features from an image using the first few layers (VGG-19 in the above flowchart). The features are then fed into two parallel branches of convolutional layers. The first branch predicts a set of 18 confidence maps, with each map representing a particular part of the human pose skeleton. The second branch predicts a set of 38 Part Affinity Fields (PAFs) which represents the degree of association between parts.
Steps involved in human pose estimation using OpenPose. (Source)
Successive stages are used to refine the predictions made by each branch. Using the part confidence maps, bipartite graphs are formed between pairs of parts (as shown in the above image). Using the PAF values, weaker links in the bipartite graphs are pruned. Through the above steps, human pose skeletons can be estimated and assigned to every person in the image. For a more thorough explanation of the algorithm, you may refer to their paper and to this blog post.
2. DeepCut
DeepCut is a bottom-up approach for multi-person human pose estimation. The authors approached the task by defining the following problems:
Produce a set of D body part candidates. This set represents all possible locations of body parts for every person in the image. Select a subset of body parts from the above set of body part candidates. Label each selected body part with one of C body part classes. The body part classes represent the types of parts, such as “arm”, “leg”, “torso” etc. Partition body parts that belong to the same person.
Pictorial representation of the approach. (Source)
The above problems were jointly solved by modeling it into an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem. It is modeled by considering triples (x, y, z) of binary random variables with domains as stated in the images below.
Domains of the binary random variables. (Source)
Consider two body part candidates d and d' from the set of body part candidates D and classes c and c' from the set of classes C . The body part candidates were obtained through a Faster RCNN or a Dense CNN. Now, we can develop the following set of statements.
If x(d,c) = 1 then it means that body part candidate d belongs to class c .
then it means that body part candidate belongs to class . Also, y(d,d') = 1 indicates that body part candidates d and d' belong to the same person.
indicates that body part candidates and belong to the same person. They also define z(d,d’,c,c’) = x(d,c) * x(d’,c’) * y(d,d’) . If the above value is 1, then it means that body part candidate d belongs to class c , body part candidate d' belongs to class c' , and finally body part candidates d,d’ belong to the same person.
The last statement can be used to partition pose belonging to different people. Clearly, the above statements can be formulated in terms of linear equations as functions of (x,y,z) . In this way, the Integer Linear Program (ILP) is set up, and the pose of multiple persons can be estimated. For the exact set of equations and much more detailed analysis, you can check out their paper here.
3. RMPE (AlphaPose)
RMPE is a popular top-down method of Pose Estimation. The authors posit that top-down methods are usually dependent on the accuracy of the person detector, as pose estimation is performed on the region where the person is located. Hence, errors in localization and duplicate bounding box predictions can cause the pose extraction algorithm to perform sub-optimally.
Effect of duplicate predictions (left) and low confidence bounding boxes (right). (Source)
To resolve this issue, the authors proposed the usage of Symmetric Spatial Transformer Network (SSTN) to extract a high-quality single person region from an inaccurate bounding box. A Single Person Pose Estimator (SPPE) is used in this extracted region to estimate the human pose skeleton for that person. A Spatial De-Transformer Network (SDTN) is used to remap the estimated human pose back to the original image coordinate system. Finally, a parametric pose Non-Maximum Suppression (NMS) technique is used to handle the issue of redundant pose deductions.
Furthermore, the authors introduce a Pose Guided Proposals Generator to augment training samples that can better help train the SPPE and SSTN networks. The salient feature of RMPE is that this technique can be extended to any combination of a person detection algorithm and an SPPE.
4. Mask RCNN
Mask RCNN is a popular architecture for performing semantic and instance segmentation. The model parallelly predicts both the bounding box locations of the various objects in the image and a mask that semantically segments the object. The basic architecture can be quite easily extended for human pose estimation.
Flowchart describing the Mask RCNN Architecture. (Source)
The basic architecture first extracts feature maps from an image using a CNN. These feature maps are used by a Region Proposal Network (RPN) to get bounding box candidates for the presence of objects. The bounding box candidates select an area (region) from the feature map extracted by the CNN. Since the bounding box candidates can be of various sizes, a layer called RoIAlign is used to reduce the size of the extracted feature such that they are all of the uniform size. Now, this extracted feature is passed into the parallel branches of CNNs for final prediction of the bounding boxes and the segmentation masks.
Let us focus on the branch that performs segmentation. Suppose an object in our image can belong to one among K classes. The segmentation branch outputs K binary masks of size m x m , where each binary mask represents all objects belonging to that class alone. We can extract keypoints belonging to every person in the image by modeling each type of keypoint as a distinct class and treating this like a segmentation problem.
Parallely, the objection detection algorithm can be trained to identify the location of the persons. By combining the information of the location of the person as well as their set of keypoints, we obtain the human pose skeleton for every person in the image.
This method nearly resembles the top-down approach, but the person detection stage is performed in parallel to the part detection stage. In other words, the keypoint detection stage and person detection stage are independent of each other.
5. Other Methods
Multi-Person Human Pose Estimation is a vast field with a plethora of approaches to tackle the problem. For brevity, only a select few approaches are explained here. For a more exhaustive list of approaches, you may check out the following links:
Applications
Pose Estimation has applications in myriad fields, some of which are listed below.
1. Activity Recognition
Tracking the variations in the pose of a person over a period of time can also be used for activity, gesture and gait recognition. There are several use cases for the same, including:
Applications to detect if a person has fallen down or is sick.
Applications that can autonomously teach proper work out regimes, sport techniques and dance activities.
Applications that can understand full-body sign language. (Ex: Airport runway signals, traffic policemen signals, etc.).
Applications that can enhance security and surveillance.
Tracking the gait of the person is useful for security and surveillance purposes. (Image source)
2. Motion Capture and Augmented Reality
An interesting application of human pose estimation is for CGI applications. Graphics, styles, fancy enhancements, equipment and artwork can be superimposed on the person if their human pose can be estimated. By tracking the variations of this human pose, the rendered graphics can “naturally fit” the person as they move.
Example of CGI Rendering. (Source)
A good visual example of what is possible can be seen through Animoji. Even though the above only tracks the structure of a face, the idea can be extrapolated for the keypoints of a person. The same concepts can be leveraged to render Augmented Reality (AR) elements that can mimic the movements of a person.
3. Training Robots
Instead of manually programming robots to follow trajectories, robots can be made to follow the trajectories of a human pose skeleton that is performing an action. A human instructor can effectively teach the robot certain actions by just demonstrating the same. The robot can then calculate how to move its articulators to perform the same action.
4. Motion Tracking for Consoles
An interesting application of pose estimation is for tracking the motion of human subjects for interactive gaming. Popularly, Kinect used 3D pose estimation (using IR sensor data) to track the motion of the human players and to use it to render the actions of the virtual characters.
The Kinect sensor in action. (Source)
Conclusion
Great strides have been made in the field of human pose estimation, which enables us to better serve the myriad applications that are possible with it. Moreover, research in related fields such as Pose Tracking can greatly enhance its productive utilization in several fields. The concepts listed in this blog are not exhaustive but rather strives to introduce some popular variants of these algorithms and their real-life applications. | https://medium.com/beyondminds/an-overview-of-human-pose-estimation-with-deep-learning-d49eb656739b | ['Bharath Raj'] | 2019-05-01 14:09:06.190000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Pose Estimation', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Minimum Viable Structure: Organisational Scaffolding to Get Out of Emergency Mode | Minimum Viable Structure: Organisational Scaffolding to Get Out of Emergency Mode
8 lightweight interventions to get a working team to shift from sprint to marathon.
First Published September 2017 .
I had a phone call last night with a friend in Houston. They’re doing emergency relief work in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. In their words, West Street Recovery is:
“a grassroots organization of people from diverse backgrounds, collaborating to leverage our skills and personal networks toward immediate disaster relief. We’re now transitioning to long term building of inter-community solidarity, information sharing, and inter-organizational collaboration with the goal of carrying the lessons learned from this disaster forward to make the communities in this city more prepared and more resilient to face the next inevitable catastrophic event.”
We talked about the excitement and challenges of this transition moment. The organization needs a little structure to get out of emergency mode, and into a form that can support them for the long road ahead.
There’s a lot of goodwill in the group, but right now they’re feeling the pain of doing consensus decision-making using chat + long meetings + a little bit of email. Meetings are overloaded with huge agenda topics. It takes a long time to get people up to speed and make a decision. It’s hard to keep the flow of conversation going between meetings. Important information is lost in the flow of group chat. Where was that insurance form again? Oh yeah, just after the funny picture of a cat…
After the call, I sent through my notes. On reflection, I decided to turn them into a blogpost, as this advice applies equally well to any consensus-oriented organization that is trying to step up from the sprint into a marathon, whether they’re activists, NGOs or startups.
1. Prioritise the vibe!
That means relationships, wellness, care, fun, kindness, peace, healing, trust, solidarity, shared purpose, belonging, harmony. If you are looking after each other, and you’re working on something that feels meaningful, that’s the endgame. Congratulations you win! There’s nowhere better than that.
A foundation of mutual care and trust is the best resource for all your upcoming challenges.
2. Make explicit agreements about how you’re working together.
Make agreements and update them regularly. E.g. at Loomio we have a Retrospective meeting every 2 weeks (what was good, what was bad, what will we do differently next time). Every 2 weeks there is some new process change: we are continuously improving and learning, turning tensions into positive changes. (Retromat has great resources for how to host these meetings.) If you’re systematic about this, you’ll hear frustrations early, while they’re easy to deal with.
If you’re looking after #1 and #2, everything else will flow from that. At a guess, these are some of the next issues you’re going to want to address:
3. Distinguish synchronous and asynchronous communication.
Synchronous is like “what do you think of this right now”. Usually it happens in a meeting, videoconference, or chatroom. It only makes sense now (not later) to the people who are there (no one else).
Asynchronous is like emails or Loomio threads: organised around a topic instead of a time. They’re slightly more formal, with context-setting (this is what we know), invitation (what do you think?) and explicit conclusions (we decided to do X).
Your group will step up a notch if they can distinguish between these two forms of communication. Use whatever language makes sense in your context (“sync”/“async” is geek-speak), e.g. maybe you could say “chat is for responsive and email is for reflective communication”.
First get the two concepts clear in the group, then it might make sense to use 2 different tools to sort them out, e.g. let’s do our realtime communication in Slack and our deliberative conversations in Loomio.
4. How to introduce a new communication tool without making things worse.
If you’re going to introduce a new tech tool, be warned: this goes wrong more often than it goes right. Here’s a recipe that can help.
Get clear on what problem you’re trying to solve (may help to describe the desired future you’d like to achieve). Give 2–3 people the mandate to research options, gather requirements, and come back with a recommendation. Agree to a time limited trial of the new tool, say 1 or 2 months to give it a fair evaluation. Support people up the learning curve (a stitch in time saves nine). Expect to spend some time reminding the group to build the new habit (‘hey we agreed we’d take these kind of conversations to Loomio…’). At the end of the trial, evaluate: is this better or worse?
5. Agree to a working rhythm and stick to it.
If you’re used to being in ‘always on’ mode, settling into a reliable working rhythm makes the world of difference. E.g. we meet every Thursday. We expect radio silence on Sundays and Mondays. Strategy meetings happen monthly. There’s a daily status report at 10am.
With reliable rhythms, you can get much more efficient about your decision making, with reliable paths for delegation, and clarity about what issues to discuss when.
6. Distinguish tactics from strategy.
It’s hugely inefficient to mix tactics (what are we doing this week) with strategy (what are we doing this year). Both are important. You can settle a lot of unease and complexity by splitting the two categories of conversation into two meetings. This is a lot easier if you have a reliable working rhythm.
7. Practice delegation.
Sooner or later you’re going to want to split up into working groups, sub-teams, committees… some way of dividing the whole group in to subgroups, so not everyone has to be involved in everything. I like Enspiral’s working group template.
People are much more comfortable with delegating decisions, if you have a regular working rhythm. E.g., everyone has their say at the monthly meeting, then the working groups split out, making whatever decisions they need to. You can trust them to report back at the next monthly meeting, and get input before then if necessary.
8. Use advice when you don’t need consensus.
If your relationships are good, you’re in a great spot to try Advice instead of Consensus for some decisions. My understanding of the Advice Process: anyone can make any decision, so long as they are willing to take responsibility for the outcome, and they have first listened to input from anyone who will be affected, or who has relevant expertise.
Notice it says listened to, not agreed with. If your relationships are good, this gives you most of the benefits of consensus, at a fraction of the cost.
This decision-making approach is greatly aided by having some agreed process for dealing with tensions, e.g. regular Retrospective meetings, or Conflict Resolution Process (see Enspiral again for resources). | https://medium.com/the-tuning-fork/minimum-viable-structure-92e91048ff66 | ['Richard D. Bartlett'] | 2020-04-07 11:55:45.614000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Agile', 'Collaboration', 'Organizational Culture', 'Activism'] |
Astronomers Spot Potentially Artificial Radio Signal From Nearby Star | Astronomers Spot Potentially Artificial Radio Signal From Nearby Star ExtremeTech Follow Dec 23 · 3 min read
by Ryan Whitwam
Credit: sharply_done/Getty Images
In 2015, Billionaire Yuri Milner launched the Breakthrough Listen project, an effort to scan the million closest stars for radio signals that could indicate intelligent life. Astronomers working on the project have announced the discovery of just such a signal from Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.2 light years away. We don’t yet know what this signal is, but there’s a (very) small chance it could have alien origins.
Breakthrough Listen uses radio telescopes like the Parkes telescope in Australia or the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. These instruments regularly record what look like signals from space but are actually due to local interference from Earth. In April and May of 2019, the team caught something different — a narrow beam transmission around 980MHz that lasted 30 hours. The signal, dubbed BLC1, also appeared to shift in such a way that it could have been coming from a planet orbiting the star.
The team is still preparing a paper that the scientific community can scrutinize, but there are a few reasons to be excited here. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system, and in 2016, researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone. Later, astronomers spotted a second, larger planet farther out in the solar system. So, it’s theoretically possible there’s life on one of those planets, particularly the one in the habitable zone.
The Green Bank Telescope used by Breakthrough Listen.
However, it’s still far too early to start celebrating the discovery of alien life. BLC1 is a candidate signal that needs to be analyzed, and if we’re being realistic, it’s doubtful that intelligent aliens live in the next solar system over. The Milky Way galaxy has an estimated 300 million exoplanets and is almost 14 billion years old. To find another intelligent species existing at the same time as us just a few light years away would be exceedingly improbable. If said aliens are also using radio frequency technology at the same time as we are, that’s an even bigger coincidence.
This is not the first signal that could be interpreted as having artificial origins. The famous “Wow” signal detected in 1977 by SETI researchers is another example. That one didn’t pan out, but BLC1 could be the first serious contender in decades. If this isn’t it, well, there are a lot more stars out there. The only way we’re going to find them is to keep looking.
Now read: | https://medium.com/extremetech-access/astronomers-spot-potentially-artificial-radio-signal-from-nearby-star-4a3d7923c982 | [] | 2020-12-28 14:05:29.587000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Astronomy', 'Aliens', 'Space'] |
High Schools: New Front Lines in Battle for Free Speech | University of North Texas (Unsplash)
Free speech continues to be broadly under attack in the United States, and a new front in the struggle has emerged in America’s high schools.
But the threat to free speech does not always take the form imagined or described in much of the public dialogue on this issue. The challenges to free expression follow no particular political line and are far more ubiquitous than most people realize.
Since the fall of 2017, student researchers at Georgetown University have been building the Free Speech Tracker, an online tool for monitoring and documenting threats to political, social, and intellectual expression in education, civil society and government. After examining and publishing online the details of nearly 200 episodes of actual or possible infringement of speech, our Free Speech Project finds serious, ongoing reason to worry about the survival of this fundamental building block of American democracy.
Conventional wisdom holds that today’s colleges and universities are, for the most part, rigid enclaves where, in an ironic turn of events, a liberal, even radical, establishment allegedly tends to suppress all opposing conservative or centrist voices.
Our tracker suggests otherwise. Of the incidents now documented, more than half took place in an academic environment, many at private institutions, which — unlike public institutions — are not strictly bound by the First Amendment. The popular stereotype of conservative voices being ruthlessly shut down is true in some instances, but usually involving the same few well-known people, who tend to arrive on campus with disruption, rather than a serious debate, on their minds.More striking, and counter-intuitive, however, is the fact that liberal or progressive views are also being suppressed, albeit with less fanfare and often out of public view altogether.
As Donald Trump’s presidency wears on, the turmoil on many campuses mostly reflects the extreme polarization in national politics. Dissent is now at least as likely to be suppressed on the left as on the right.
To be sure, our latest documentation demonstrates that some conservatives are still subject to the hecklers’ veto. In one prominent example, Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who believes that American feminism has undergone a damaging radicalization was the target of intense disruption when she spoke at the law school of Lewis & Clark College in Portland last year. Throughout her talk, protesters chanted refrains opposing her views and sometimes drowned her out by singing.
But more instances of suppression on the other side continue to emerge:
As part of an initiative to create “pop-up” courses in social justice at the University of Southern Maine, a former full-time professor offered students one course credit for taking a bus to Washington, D.C., to lobby Republican Sen. Susan Collins during the hotly contested confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. After the university learned of the unconventional plan, it permanently barred her from teaching there.
In an echo of the Vietnam War era, during a career fair at California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, a small contingent of student peace activists attempted to disrupt other students’ access to representatives of Raytheon, a defense contractor; they handed out leaflets, sang and filmed their own protest. Weeks later, organizers of the demonstration received emails from university administrators, informing them they would be investigated for “violating multiple codes of conduct.” Before long, however, disciplinary proceedings were dropped.
But the most notable phenomenon we have observed recently is that free speech is being aggressively challenged at the high school level, including in student publications. In some cases, school administrators are squelching views they find outlandish or disagreeable, but the complaints often have less to do with ideology than with avoiding controversy of any sort. Often, after acting harshly, they have second thoughts or outsiders step in to calm the situation:
In most of these cases, the students being silenced are headed for college, where they can expect more complicated challenges to freedom of expression. Educating high school principals and school boards may be a critical step to improving free speech on college campuses and beyond. | https://medium.com/informed-and-engaged/high-schools-new-front-lines-in-battle-for-free-speech-2dec4d6f299c | ['Sanford J Ungar'] | 2019-02-21 19:34:22.877000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Free Speech'] |
3 Mistakes Writers Make in Their Writing | As a writer, your job is to impress the reader. Just as a manufacturer designs a product in a such way as to appeal to the buyer, you as a writer should write in a way that appeals to the reader. That means your writing needs to be clear, spotless, and easy to read.
Here are three mistakes to avoid.
Write in a complicated language
If your writing style is too flowery or technical, you need to simplify it a little to attract a broader readership. Writing that is too complicated will turn off the reader, and they won’t read your work.
Think of ways you can get your message across in a simple way. Aim for clear and concise language and eliminate unnecessary words from your text.
To check if your writing falls within those parameters, copy and paste your text in Hemingway editor — it’s free and easy to use.
Skip editing
Before you hit publish or submit your piece to any publication, edit your work thoroughly. If you do it right, it will transform your writing from good to great.
Check for redundant words, phrases, spelling, and grammar mistakes. See if you can cut out unnecessary sections from your paragraphs. You can use Grammarly’s free features to help you.
It’s also best to put your work aside and let it sit for a day or a few hours and get back to it later. This way, you can look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and spot errors you may have missed the first time.
Quote too much
If you decide to quote text, don’t overdo it. First, it takes away originality from you as a writer; second, reading paragraphs full of quotations is tiring for eyes. I’d say do it within a 25% limit.
Also, follow a quoted section with enough text before you quote another section. This way you balance out quotes with text. | https://medium.com/illumination/3-mistakes-writers-make-in-their-writing-8db0cc3039c6 | ['Kristina Segarra'] | 2020-12-27 17:33:55.679000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Self', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing Advice', 'Writing'] |
Why You Will Never Understand Blockchains | Spend any time researching blockchains, and you’ll be inundated with a host of benefits with the potential to impact nearly every aspect of our lives. Numerous articles highlight the technology’s ability to replace existing financial systems, revolutionize the delivery of content, tokenize physical assets, establish the provenance of digital assets, etc… All told, you’d think that this phenomenon has the potential to create billions (if not trillions) of economic value.
That’s where you’d be wrong.
While the applications being discussed today are compelling, I’d argue that they’ll amount to little more than a rounding error by the end of the century. Factoring in recent and projected advances in AI, IoT and Big Data, the potential impact of blockchains won’t be measured in billions or trillions, but in the QUADRILLIONS.
Skeptical that this nascent technology could generate that much value? You should be. Because blockchains weren’t designed for your tiny human brain — they were designed for the machines…
The Dawn of the “Intelligent Machine” Economy
In his book The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future, former AOL chief Steve Case argues that the impact of digital technology on our economy has been relatively mild to date. While the internet has revolutionized how we shop, communicate and consume media, it’s not even close to reaching its full potential.
Over the next 10 to 20 years, we will likely see advances in IoT, AI and Big Data drive a new industrial revolution that permeates all sectors of our economy (and society). Some potential examples include:
Agriculture: “Smart farms” will use remote sensors to monitor microclimates and detect irregular conditions, automated systems will synchronize water and fertilizer usage and robots will plant, nurture and harvest crops
Logistics and Transportation: Fleets of autonomous vehicles will integrate with “smart” warehouses, track inventory with remote sensors and employ telematics to optimize routes and coordinate delivery times
Healthcare: AI doctors will become commonplace, remotely monitoring a 24/7 stream of patient data gathered from wearables, instantly referencing this against a global reserve of medical knowledge and providing early warnings and highly-accurate diagnoses
Energy: Utilities will relinquish control of the grid, using a combination of remote sensors and machine learning to automate their generation portfolios, coordinate distribution and remotely monitor and control energy consumption over a network of “smart homes” and buildings
Unlike previous industrial revolutions, the “Intelligent Machine Economy” will largely be self-governing, consisting of hundreds of billions of connected devices (e.g. “machines”) using artificial intelligence to automate nearly every aspect of our lives.
Running low on beer? No problem, your smart refrigerator will sense that and send a drone to pick up a six pack.
Infinite Complexity
While this is a promising vision, it’s also somewhat concerning.
Simple logic tells us that the more actors we have in an economic system, the more complex that system becomes. But many forget that this complexity grows at an exponential rate.
Robert Metcalfe illustrated this brilliantly with his eponymous law, which states that the number of potential relationships in a system is proportional to the square of the number of users of that system.
To put it in simpler terms — two telephones can make 1 connection, five can make 10 connections and twelve can make 66 connections.
Our world right now consists of 7 billion people — that’s 25 quintillion possible economic relationships with each connection representing the potential for multiple transactions.
That’s a big number, to be sure, but what happens if we imagine a world where hundreds of billions of additional economic actors are instantly added to the mix? Machines that can use some form of artificial intelligence to fashion their own relationships and conduct autonomous transactions…
As you might have guessed, things get complicated very fast. If research predicting over 100 billion connected devices using some form of machine learning by 2030 is correct, then we’re going to live in a world with 5 sextillion connections. If you believe Softbank’s estimate of 1 trillion connected devices, that number approaches a septillion.
While these numbers are hard to grasp because of their sheer size, the key takeaway here is that the impending increase in the number of commercial actors has the potential to make the global economic system up to 2,000,000% more complex than what we experience today.
Graphic: Visualizing a Septillion with the help of Sour Patch Kids
So by 2030, we have the potential live in a world of nearly infinite complexity — billions to trillions of connected devices, consisting of sextillions to septillions of connections executing an untold number of transactions, all without potential human oversight.
Scary? It should be. It’s a concerning scenario that raises many questions including:
1. Can the existing client-server or cloud architectures handle that increase in volume?
2. Will centralized ecosystems, like the ones we have today, be able to maintain security? Or will the single point of failure serve as a giant “honeypot” for hackers?
3. Can we trust the autonomous actors in this economy? More importantly, can they trust each other?
4. Do we trust centralized entities (such as FAANGS) to administrate this system and prudently exercise what could become almost unlimited power?
I think that many would argue that the answer to one or all of these questions is a resounding “no”.
Fortunately, there’s an elegant solution to these problems, one that (perhaps unwittingly) comes from Satoshi.
Blockchains as the Neurons of the Global Brain
As a quick reminder, blockchains are so groundbreaking because they are the first technology to solve the Byzantine General’s Problem.
Prior to the creation of the genesis block, people had no way to organize large groups of strangers over vast distances without employing centralized authorities (e.g. governments, banks, churches) to establish trust and enforce rules.
The release of Bitcoin in 2009 created a new paradigm, eliminating the need for middlemen and creating the opportunity — for the first time in human history — to organize in a decentralized manner.
The importance of decentralized networks can’t be overstated, as they will serve as the foundation that creates scalability, security and trust in the Intelligent Machine economy.
Advantage #1: Scalability
As mentioned previously, the emergence of IoT could increase the complexity of our economy by several orders of magnitude, creating a situation where an incomprehensible volume of transactions need to be orchestrated, monitored and managed.
The systems we use today may find it difficult to handle this unprecedented increase in traffic as centralization itself creates a “bottleneck” in the network. Because client-server architectures tend to scale linearly — in other words, a given increase in traffic requires a similar increase in capacity on the server side — it is unlikely that they will be able to keep pace with the expected increase in demand without requiring massive investments in infrastructure (e.g. a LOT of new server farms in the desert).
Decentralized, peer-to-peer networks, on the other hand, can scale exponentially because each device can act as both a client and as a server and simultaneously initiate and fulfill requests from the other devices. This allows them to handle substantial amounts of traffic without sacrificing efficiency or requiring large investments of capital.
Graphic: File diffusion times increase dramatically as client-server models scale, but remain relatively consistent with peer-to-peer models
While it may seem ironic to list “scalability” as a benefit of blockchains given the current struggles today, the fact that they enable the creation of true peer-to-peer networks — solving the issues of trust, security and misaligned incentives that have plagued such systems in the past — is a critical feature and one that will likely help create a robust framework for scaling the highly complex ecosystems of tomorrow’s economy.
Advantage #2: Security
The centralized architecture that causes the scalability issues listed above also creates massive security risks by being reliant on a central point of failure — serving as a “honeypot” where nefarious actors (human or machine) can disable the whole network with a coordinated attack on one target.
Decentralized networks, on the other hand, are not reliant on a single central server to handle all processes. They mitigate this risk by employing millions of individual nodes. While a malicious actor can attack one, dozens or even hundreds of nodes, it’s unlikely that they will be able to shut down the majority of them.
Perhaps more importantly, a decentralized economy can serve as a hedge against something much scarier than hackers or malicious AI — control of the “global brain” by a cabal of global elites.
Because legacy systems require centralized authorities for trust, increases in usage tend to create “winner-take-all” markets that breed monopolies. Indeed, over the past decade we have seen the rise of FAANGS, a cabal that currently dominates over 70% of internet traffic, is expected to control 90% of the cloud and effectively has the power to control prices, censor content and shape culture.
Graphic: Referral source of traffic by top web publishers
Under the current paradigm, exponential increases in traffic would only serve to deepen this moat, creating the potential for an Orwellian future threatening our economic, political and cultural freedoms.
But once again, the proper use of blockchain technology eliminates the need for these gatekeepers, “defangs” FAANGS (or whatever succeeds them), democratizes the ecosystem and ultimately ensures security in an autonomous marketplace.
Advantage #3: Trust
Finally, trust will be paramount in the creation of the Intelligent Machine economy. A fully-automated ecosystem that exists with limited human oversight is a scary proposition that breeds a host of questions, including:
How do we validate that the nodes and IoT devices are real?
Will devices at the “edge” be more vulnerable to hacking?
Can we verify that the data hasn’t been manipulated?
How do we protect against malicious AI?
Do we trust machine intelligence to behave to the best interest of society?
How can we ensure that centralized entities don’t co-opt AI for their own purposes?
Again, two inherent properties of blockchains — trust through consensus and immutability — can ensure data integrity, audit the system’s thinking processes, help the nodes validate each other and facilitate machine-to-machine interaction, allowing autonomous participants to share information and synchronize decisions.
The $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Machine
So what’s the takeaway here? How big can a blockchain-driven economy get?
Unfortunately, I don’t think I can answer that any more than a caveman could’ve predicted the effects of the industrial revolution.
But here are a few things to consider:
1/ Technological advancements throughout history have ignited exponential periods of global GDP growth, each seemingly larger than the last. Notable examples are:
The development of machine tooling and steam power in the 18th and 19th centuries (~300% growth)
The inventions of the telephone, light bulb, phonograph and the internal combustion engine around the turn of the 20th century (~800% growth)
The introduction of the personal computer, internet and information technology at the latter half of the 20th century (~1,400% growth)
2/ Starting from Year 0, it took roughly 1,500 years for World GDP to double. Now it doubles every twenty years.
3/ Applying Metcalfe’s law, although perhaps crude and inaccurate, to 100 billion new economic actors yields a global GDP of almost 18 quadrillion, (a 20,000% increase over today)
So is it ridiculous to assume that the refinement of artificial intelligence, the internet of things and blockchains could result in an expansion that transcends anything we’ve previously seen?
Perhaps, but I would’ve also probably been laughed at for showing this chart in the late 1800s:
Graphic: Inflation-adjusted world GDP over a 2,000-year period — each “industrial revolution” has ignited exponential growth.
While I’m not smart enough to even begin to warrant a guess on the exact value of a tokenized economy, I am humble enough to acknowledge that it may be much, much, much bigger than we can imagine.
After all, an “Intelligent Machine” economy has the potential to upend thousands of years of human history and drive value in ways we can’t even imagine.
And blockchains will be the “glue” that holds that economy together. | https://mtorygreen.medium.com/why-you-will-never-understand-blockchains-8e34bb10996e | ['Tory Green'] | 2019-05-28 17:56:19.745000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Venture Capital', 'Blockchain', 'Internet of Things', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
How to write products | Writing is no easy thing. It’s something product designers do all the time — buttons, navigation, empty states, etc — but rarely with the same rigor or delight that we reserve for visuals and interaction patterns. When you come across the rare style guide for in-product copy, most focus on the finer details of writing: which abbreviations to use, how to type out dates, how to compose error messages and so on. This post is about the bigger picture that we often miss. It’s about the intersection between style and usability where copy becomes a facet of product design.
Copy as design
Every product has a voice. As you read text, you “speak” the words to yourself and hear them like a spoken conversation. This voice is a tangible aspect of the product, just like its colors or animation. It should be designed.
Many factors contribute to your perception of voice: typography, what you ate for breakfast, and the words themselves. In design, we often have the greatest control over the words.
Make it easy
Some words are hard to read, or take a while to subvocalize (←like this one). Use them wisely. It’s not just five-dollar words to look out for, even “congratulations” takes a while to say.
The shape of some words makes them recognizable — think “Follow,” “Save,” or “Cancel.” These words are well suited for functional UI because you can tell what they say faster than you can read them. These words should usually stand by themselves. “Follow” can be understood instantly, but “Follow Username” can’t.
When in doubt, say it to yourself out loud. If it’s a mouthful, look for something that isn’t.
Keep it short
Users aren’t there to enjoy your copy. Don’t waste their time.
Keep it active
Active language is easy to follow. Avoid passive voice and phrasing that undermines the user’s agency.
Do: You liked this post. Don’t: This post was liked by you.
Keep it clear
Say the most important thing first.
Each piece of text should have a purpose, so pick words that convey it.
Do: Be clear. Don’t: There are innumerable ways to engage with our audience, of which we recommend first and foremost language that is as clear as the waters of Lake Como in the spring and not overly laden with descriptions, cliches, comparisons, or meandering lists, which have a way of obscuring the real point that you want to communicate because sadly, saying more often communicates far, far less.
Keep it appropriate
Each interaction with a user is a social situation. Be tuned in to how they might be feeling, and what they want to do.
Bad news and error messaging: keep the language polite but direct.
“That password doesn’t match. Give it another try.”
Good news and confirmations: informal and enthusiastic.
“The results are in: you’re the top player this week!”
Awkward situations: be direct, but not too serious. Consider a light touch of referential humor, playful rhymes, or self-aware formality. Keep it subtle.
“Pardon the interruption.”
Empty states: this is a good place to be clever, but don’t try too hard.
“Nothing to see just yet”
Remember that your user is reading quietly in their own personal space, so use your library voice. Reserve exclamation points for tweet-able moments.
The empty states in Dropbox Paper are my favorite feature. It’s hard to feel blocked with playful provocations like this on the ‘blank’ screen.
Keep it consistent
Assume that readers are distracted and forgetful. Give them consistent cues to direct their attention without making them guess what you mean. Consistency makes your language easier to understand, and each use of a phrase will reinforce the last.
If you want readers to upgrade, always say “upgrade.” Don’t be clever. Saying “join the elite Sing Karaoke VIP members club” in a button feels evocative in the moment, but doesn’t help readers connect the dots with their previous experiences.
Spotify makes sure you ‘get’ the picture.
Maintain perspective
Write as if you are having a conversation with the reader. This typically means assuming the perspective of a kind and attentive friend. Your reader doesn’t know everything, and you’re there to inform them and provide options.
This also means that you shouldn’t suddenly switch perspective, especially within a session. For example, imagine that you’re creating an account for Netflix and the flow of button copy goes like this: create your account→sign in→continue with Facebook→log in→continue as [your name] →got it.
Notice something a little odd there? “Got it” abruptly shifts to the reader’s perspective. As a rule of thumb you should address the reader in the second person. Only use the first person when a user assumes personal responsibility for an action. For example, when agreeing to the terms of service or deleting an account. Be mindful of context, and stay in character.
Convey character
Much of what makes a product relatable and memorable comes down to its personality. There should be a way that your product speaks. It’s on your team to cultivate this over time, and it often helps to keep an actual person as a reference point.
For example, I think that Evernote should speak like Tommy Lee Jones. First, he embodies its core brand attributes (full disclosure, I’m making this up): dependable, intelligent, and straightforward. Second, he gives us a lot more to work with. Aspects of his voice that we can use as inspiration include:
Casual yet professional demeanor. Calm and confident in any situation.
Dry sense of humor. Always pithy.
I can’t imagine him making small talk. Can you?
Sooner or later he will call you “boss,” and it will make your day.
This also helps us identify what Evernote’s voice is not:
Zany
Bubbly
Affectionate
What does this look like? As I interpret it, a header like “You have encountered your limit of 12 new files this month. Upgrade for unlimited access to our suite of tools” could be adapted to something like “Nice work, boss. You could use an upgrade.” Put this in a bold slab serif, and suddenly Evernote speaks in a very distinct voice.
Typography
Use typography to convey voice. Font size, weight and opacity are easy ways to make any given typeface speak loudly or softly. Consider the unique qualities of a typeface and what they communicate— the contrast of their strokes, the shape of their spurs, the angle of their crossbars — how they contribute to the voice’s timbre. For example, Medium juggles a few typefaces to distinguish between the voices of the platform and its content.
Noe represents the Voice of Medium in its purest form. It appears when the distinction between Medium’s voice and user content matters most. It can feel aloof when left to its own devices, so we write in a light tone and pair it with playful illustrations. It never appears in small sizes or light opacities.
Marat is for everything else. It’s versatile, friendly, and understated.
Charter represents the voice of Medium’s writers. It has a distinctive but quiet personality that elevates words instead of overshadowing them. We don’t use it for UI copy.
Conclusion
Great writing brings magic to a product, but there’s no magic to the writing process. It’s just one word after another. Think about your goals, attend to the situation at hand, and make each word count. Now go out and write a good product. | https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-products-a269c775bfa5 | ['Ben Hersh'] | 2017-12-17 03:29:21.835000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Design', 'UX', 'Tech', 'Copywriting'] |
myfitnesspal Re-Design | A sharpened focus on user needs and a new look at business needs.
Challenge:
Re-design four screens on a current iOS or Android product within a two-week timeframe.
Why myfitnesspal?
The myfitnesspal app redesign project was chosen based upon a clear need for user experience improvements. Specifically:
Evolving needs: As the industrie’s current go-to application for calorie tracking, the myfitnesspal app struggles to reflect current user wants and needs
Too many features and a lack of structure to effectively support them
Goals:
Re-design four myfitnesspal screens in a 2-week timeframe
Clean up feature and information hierarchy of the application
Improve access to critical information for calorie tracking while integrating current business goals of the brand
Retain brand consistency of the current myfitnesspal app
Power User
The project’s power user is an individual actively attempting to lose weight by tracking calorie consumption and other nutrition indicators. Quick access to critical information regarding total caloric goals and related consumption is imperative.
Pre-Transformation
The current app features a four-section navigation structure with a FAB (floating action button), which allows the user to input food, exercise, weight, water, or notes.
Home
The current home tab features a small top section dedicated to calorie tracking (Goal Calories, Food Eaten, Exercise, and Remaining). The remainder of the screen is dedicated to the feed, which currently houses the users’ food diary and blog posts (scroll).
Diary
The current app’s second tab features a diary, which is where the primary utility of the application lives. The diary allows the user to track food consumption and activity goals. You have the same element from the home page at the top so you can see your day as well as sections for you to add breakfast lunch, dinner, and snacks.
Progress
The current app’s progress tab features a tool that allows the user to post and track current weight and associated progress pictures, which is reflected in a progressive timeline that affords the user a visual view of performance.
More
The current app’s more tab acts as a menu for the rest of the content, which is quite extensive. Noteworthy tabs include:
Nutrition
My Profile
Blog
Community
Friends
Chosen Pages
For the pages I chose, I decided to stray away from the bottom navigation pages, choosing instead to focus on user goals in three (3) pages and one (1) business goal in the last page.
1 — Home Page
Ultimately, the home page was refined to focus on calorie tracking. The page shifted from a dual focus on daily calories and the feed feature to a sole focus on the caloric tracker, allowing the user to easily glean insights necessary to achieve weight loss goals.
Pages to incorporate into Home from the original application
2 — Progress
The existing progress page currently shows the users’ weight loss progress over time. However, it does not provide the user with immediate insights regarding caloric consumption over an extended period of time. Although the information is currently available on certain sub-pages, it does not allow the user to view an immediate correlation between reduced caloric consumption and related weight loss. Providing the user a visual tool to link the two helps them see how daily choices impact long-term weight loss goals.
Pages to incorporate into Progress from the original application
3 — Add Food
The goal for the Add Food page is to keep the same information but give the user insight into how the food choices and amounts will affect their calorie and macronutrient goals for the day.
Pages to incorporate into Add Food from the original application
4 — Feed
Looking at the product as a whole it is clear that there is a large feature set built out for the social aspects of this application. My original goal for this was to integrate all the social features in a way that met the business and user goals in a new page that would live on the bottom navigation. However, after further iterations, it became clear that more thought would need to go into how these two could be integrated.
Pages to incorporate into Feed from the original application
Re-Structuring
The entire app required restructuring prior to beginning the wireframing work needed to support the app’s redesign. That process began with re-imagining the bottom navigation.
The home tab’s blog and daily snapshot were replaced by the (previous) diary page, providing the user an immediate view of their progress on daily (today’s) goals.
The food diary on the second tab was replaced with a progress tool, showcasing how the users’ daily choices influence the achievement of their goals over time.
Both Home and Progress would have information that would filter into the feed. The feed would be a way for the information from the previous two tabs to be integrated into actionable insights customized to the user while still showing content from the previous version of Home. The actionable insights from here would then influence goals on the final tab, Profile.
The final, newly-created Profile tab features user information and related goals (weight loss, caloric limits, etc) that filters back to Progress page tracking and the Home page.
Wireframes
1 The home screen incorporates a “completing the circle” motif. With the redesign, the user immediately sees an updated snapshot of the remaining day’s calories and macros (protein, carbs, fat). This valuable information, previously hidden inside the Nutrition page, provides the user with a real-time tool to guide food choices.
Although an app-generated suggestion was added in the redesign process, it was later removed in order to retain user simplicity and focus.
2 The progress page was adapted. The page now features a segmented control near the top providing the user with a handy tool that allows them to switch between nutrition and weight goals. Now, users can see their calorie and macronutrient averages, performance (against goals) for a pre-selected date range, in addition to the daily (if selected) progress view housed at the bottom of the page.
3 After much experimentation, the food circle graph, indicating the macronutrients ratio, was removed and replaced with a rectangle graph, which provides a clearer visual. Although an exposed scroll wheel was among viable options, it was dropped upon discovery that it would disrupt the apps scrolling functions.
4 The feed page started as an attempted combination of all the social features myfitnesspal has to offer. I started down the road of a mosaic concept showing blog and diary post as well as showing challenges. Later this concept changed to a much greater solution that more accurately encompasses user and business goals.
Branding
The redesign retained the apps original color scheme (staying true to the brand) while bringing in new colors to drive informative data collection at a glance.
Although the primary color was retained, a gradient was added to specific areas in order to make them stand out. The call-to-action areas are now highlighted with a more energetic blue.
Secondary colors were added to macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) to help inform and educate the user. And intuitive red and green tones were added to signal user successes and misses.
The brand’s Helvetica Neue font was retained, but a few variations were added in the text hierarchy to provide navigation cues and call-outs.
Inspiration
Current fitness apps and other apps utilizing the “completing the circle” motif provided inspiration, in addition to study of various color and visual treatments of data.
Final Screens
1 In addition to pulling the nutrition tab out into the open, the home tab now provides the user with a full “at-a-glance” view of their daily caloric and macronutrient goals. The fab (floating action button) was removed from the bottom navigation in recognition of the fact that it did not support the app’s functionality and user experience. It is now only present on the home page.
2 The progress tab now allows for a seamless swiping between nutrition and weight progress cards so you can see how, for the dates you have chosen, your nutrition affects your weight and staying on goal influences your results.
3 Extraneous information was removed from the Add Food tab (example: 1 oz conversion of grams of macronutrients).
Now, the page just shows the percentage breakdown of macronutrients, in the form of a bar chart, as well as insight into how that food will affect your day’s calories and macronutrients.
More salient calls to action on the serving amount as well as the removal of the serving size vs the number of servings simplify the process of adding food while adding more detail to the screen.
4 The feed was altered from a public feed to a private feed, which provides the user a handy tool to see a chronological view of daily progress and related nutrition swaps and affirmational content which better support their individual goals and challenges.
This will add value to the user's experience through adding insights about staying on track for their goals such as suggesting the type of foods or times of the day to look out for.
Recognizing the feature-heavy nature of the myfitnesspal app, the feed incorporated feature suggestions to highlight the availability of additional tools and resources, as well as house sponsored content like blogs, etc., which fulfill important business needs.
Learnings
This type of solo project provides UI/UX designers like me with an important opportunity to witness the challenges associated with redesign projects, which are seldom as simple as they appear to be on the surface.
The interpretation and related incorporation of the user and business goals are always challenging. The additional charge to add value in the redesign process proved as challenging as it was rewarding.
I am particularly proud of the Feed page, which provides far superior value-add elements while retaining critical myfitnesspal sponsored content and user tools available in the previous version of the app.
It’s these type of efforts that feed my passion in UX/UI and provide first-hand experience to improve the critical skills needed to take on ever more challenging assignments. | https://medium.com/brian-berg/myfitnesspal-re-design-59ca837e2904 | ['Brian Berg'] | 2020-02-27 01:38:21.690000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Myfitnesspal', 'Case Study', 'UX Design', 'Data Visualization'] |
Medium Curation | Below are some of the most frequently asked question about Medium curation.
General Medium Curation Questions with In-Depth Article Responses
Quick Answers to Questions About Curation
What do the following messages about my article’s curation status mean?
If your story is not curated, and you mouse over the question-mark icon, next to the text “Not distributed in topics” you will see one of two messages:
The first message means you were not selected for curation after an actual human read your article. Some people on Medium would say this means you are not in “curation jail.”
Curators did not select this story for distribution, but it will be shared with followers. Read our curation guidelines to see what curators look for.
The second message means your story was automatically passed over, and is what many on Medium refer to as being in curation jail:
Our curators were not able to review this story for distribution in topics due to high volume. This story will still be shared with followers.
How do I know if my article was selected for curation?
You can find your story’s curation and distribution status on the story stats page. You will see at the top of the page whether your story has been reviewed and selected for distribution (and in what topics). To visit your story stats page, go to your writer stats page and click “Details” for a particular story. You should also receive an email letting you know your story has been distributed to various topics.
Do I have to tag my articles in specific topics to ensure curation?
No, you do not. Regardless of what you tag your articles, Medium curators will distribute them to readers of curation eligible topics, as they see fit.
My article was curated but did not receive many views — why is this?
Curation does not guarantee a large amount of views. While it is generally helpful, sometimes curation is just the catalyst for something bigger. For instance, your article on your tech company may get curated in technology, which by itself only gives it a couple hundred views, but then your article is notice by editors in The Startup, you become an approved writer and add your article, and it receives thousands of views.
Can my article be curated in multiple categories?
Yes, your article can be curated in multiple topics.
If I submit to a publication can my story still be curated? Or better, will submitting to a publication lower my odds of curation?
No, submitting your article to a Medium publication does not harm your chances of curation at all. Anecdotally, it might even help.
Does an article always need to be posted behind the paywall in order to be eligible for any payment at all?
Yes, in order to receive payment, and article must be in the Partner Program which places it behind the paywall.
Will including a Call-To-Action (CTA) at the end of my article destroy my chances of being curated? | https://medium.com/blogging-guide/medium-curation-356215bba1fe | ['Casey Botticello'] | 2020-05-30 03:16:39.428000+00:00 | ['Curation', 'Articles', 'Curator', 'Medium', 'Writing'] |
Genuine Expressions of Thanks — #26 | On the web side of things, the last week or so hasn’t been too bad. Things have calmed down from the recent flurry of critical website issues that flooded my consciousness with angst. Things tend to come in waves. I don’t like waves. I like a calm, still ocean of tranquillity. I don’t think life is geared up for fulfilling that kind of desire, though. I’ll wait for the next wave to hit and just hope it isn’t a tsunami.
I had a pleasant comment from a client last week in relation to a project that we’ve been working on for about three months now. We recently had a long skype call, in which I demonstrated the website we have been building for them. It is still in progress, but they are pleased with how the work is advancing. I followed up with a summary of everything we discussed and amidst the reply that came back, I was pleasantly surprised to see the following comment:
“Very much enjoying working with you on this — thanks for everything.”
Having somebody express their appreciation for your efforts and showing that they value what you’re doing is important. I’m not after awards or fame. The occasional genuine expression of thanks is worth much more than a lot of empty pomp and ceremony. | https://medium.com/100-naked-words/genuine-expressions-of-thanks-26-340064d676c | ['J M Jackson'] | 2016-10-19 20:01:01.032000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'Work', '100 Naked Words', 'Life', 'Writing'] |
Nectar | Nectar
A struggle for existence
Brick by brick they ascend the tower,
each gust doesn’t shake their core but strengthens it.
The ruthless entanglement is softly beautiful,
against the smoke stained edge of the storied edifice.
Gale forces rip their tendrils from the grout,
tormented day in and day out,
But they inch up and over,
as the gust flutters to oblivion,
struck by its own invisibility.
Ritual, is autumn’s last breath,
as streams flow to a glacial halt
and the summering bird flies south again.
The ivy’s climb is no longer, its leaves crumbling to a fertile detritus,
At last, at last, a winter slumber,
sleep tight,
because soon, it will all begin again. | https://scotthere.medium.com/nectar-9aa4108d135 | ['Scott Smith'] | 2019-09-17 02:59:22.300000+00:00 | ['This Happened To Me', 'Poetry', 'Mental Health', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
10 Creative Guerilla Marketing Tactics to Boost Your Brand, Company, or Cause | What is Guerilla Marketing?
Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy concept designed for businesses to promote their products or services in an unconventional way with little budget to spend.
What marketers really enjoy about guerrilla marketing is its fairly low-cost nature. The real investment here is a creative, intellectual one — its implementation, however, doesn’t have to be expensive. Michael Brenner summarizes it nicely in his article on “guerrilla content,” where he frames this style of marketing in the same context as repurposing your existing content, like taking certain segments of a report, and expanding each one into a blog post. It’s an investment of time, but not money (or at least, not a lot of money).
In a way, guerrilla marketing works by repurposing your audience’s current environment. Evaluate it, and figure out which segments of it can be repurposed to include your brand.
10 Creative Guerilla Marketing Tactics to Boost your Brand, Company, or Cause
1. Stickers
Reddit Sticker
Everybody knows Reddit as “the front page of the internet” and as one of the most popular websites on the web. With over 36 million user accounts and 169 million unique monthly visitors, Reddit is showing no signs of slowing down.
While many people who have used the internet have come across Reddit at some point, or will at least be able to recognize the alien logo that is plastered across the web, others may not know that the creators of Reddit have only ever spent $500 on advertising, and that a great deal of that money was spent on stickers.
Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian said in his book, Make Something People Love: Lessons from a Startup Guy:
“Yes, stickers [were] the soundest investment I ever made. “I used to travel around the country a lot (thank you, Chinatown bus), and everywhere I went I took stickers with me. I put them on signs, poles, and even other advertisement.” “‘Please sticker responsibly!’ we would say, and hand out these stickers at events, meetups, just to random people on the street. This may not sound like a major or even strategic marketing approach, but we kept at it. Within a few months we started seeing photos uploaded to the internet of people stickering with our stickers… often stickering in ways we’d never expected.”
2. Outdoor Installations
It Guerilla Marketing-Iconic Red Balloon in Sydney, Australia
While expensive outdoor installations can be an effective form of guerilla marketing, many of the best ideas require far less money to achieve noteworthy impact.
A clever guerrilla marketing campaign for horror movie It was met with both delight and horror on social media, with users saying it was “awesomely creepy.”
In September 2017, a number of red balloons appeared attached to drainage grates around Sydney CBD, accompanied by a stenciled chalk note saying, “It is closer than you think.”
The guerrilla marketing stunt played off audience recognition of the red balloon, which is associated Pennywise, a malevolent clown which preys upon the children in the Stephen King best selling novel, It. A number of murals were also painted around Sydney featuring artist’s impressions of Pennywise’s face.
These few strategically placed balloons yielded massive social media traffic and led to skyrocketing viewership of the film’s trailer.
3. Reverse Graffiti
Domino’s Reverse Graffiti
Reverse graffiti is when, instead of adding to a surface, marketers remove dirt and grime from a street or wall to create an all-natural marking message. Just put a stencil on a sidewalk and then wash the uncovered spaces. Domino’s is one of the larger companies to try this strategy.
4. Contextual Marketing
Weight Watchers Ad
Guerrilla marketing isn’t just found in urban settings — it can be found in print too. This Weight Watchers magazine advertisement changes shape as users remove perforated pieces. This same concept could be applied to flyers to further reduce the cost.
5. Creating Counter-Campaigns
Signs Designed to Trigger a Strong Reaction in Voters
After the recession hit, Troy, like so many municipalities, made some major cuts to its public spending. One unfortunate victim of the budget line was the Troy Public Library. The building was given just enough money to function as a storage facility until the operation shut down. They even set a closing date: June 30, 2011.
When the people of Troy were asked outside the ballot booth whether they’d be willing to pay for their library, they overwhelmingly said they yes. According to one survey, 72 percent of Troy residents wanted to keep the library’s funding level or even increase it [PDF]. Only 20 percent wanted its funding cut to some degree.
What was happening, according to library advocates, was thanks to a group called Troy Citizens United. The anti-tax organization contested any public proposal that included a tax increase, regardless of its purpose. Among the 19 percent of eligible city voters who turned out for these ballots, Troy Citizens United evidently held major sway.
In May of 2011, just weeks before the library’s demise, the city council delayed the closure long enough to let residents cast one last ballot. The vote was scheduled for August 2. This time the proposal on the table called for a 0.7 percent tax increase — enough to fund the library for 5 years.
True to form, Troy Citizens United — represented at public debates by soon-to-be-mayor Janice Daniels — opposed the proposal on anti-tax grounds. But this time they were joined in their opposition by a committee called Safeguarding American Families, which said it was rooting for the vote to lose so it could throw a book-burning party once the library closed.
Safeguarding American Families printed up signs that said: “Vote to close Troy library Aug. 2nd, Book burning party Aug 5th.” They planted them on lawns. They started a Facebook page and a Twitter account (“There are 200,000 reasons to close the Troy Library. They’re called books. #BookBurningParty”).
Needless to say, some people got a little angry. They left comments on the committee’s social media sites like “You people are sick” and “This is disgusting” and “Cheap imbeciles” and the like. Local leaders, voters, and media outlets took notice. Everyone assumed this was the group’s true intent. However the whole campaign was just a clever ruse to save the library.
Safeguarding American Families was an invention of the Leo Burnett advertising agency, which had been hired to create a blitz media campaign that would encourage voters to turn out and approve the library-funding proposal. Just before the election, Safeguarding American Families revealed its true message: “A vote against the library is like a vote to burn books.”
Leo Burnett says its goal was to change the conversation from taxes to libraries. Sure enough, come August 2, voter turnout hit 38 percent and the library proposal passed with 58 percent of the ballot.
6. Creative Product Placement | https://medium.com/digital-marketing-lab/10-creative-guerilla-marketing-tactics-to-boost-your-brand-company-or-cause-8dc02e43f02d | ['Casey Botticello'] | 2020-11-13 04:16:05.213000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Social Media', 'Government', 'Venture Capital'] |
New values in IoT at ThingsCon Amsterdam | Last week the third edition of ThingsCon Amsterdam took place in Volkshotel. As organiser the experience is always a bit blurred by all the last notice activities, but I was lucky to be part of a couple of sessions and see a lot of the talks. It turned out very well and I’m still chewing on the things that happened…
For me thinking on the Internet of Things is thinking on new possible meanings for both things as services. A new state of the thing, that adapts, have a dialogues with us as user and is able to play a role in our life on a different level. This is what I described before here on the principles of the connectable. It is also what the research of Nazli Cila is about, where I contribute to (a bit). She is looking into how products can be agents, take different roles towards the use and user, and other products. The product as a (passive) collector, as an actor or as a creator. These three levels of product agency have a personal and a societal impact. We need to think what is the level of delegation we give to these products. As Nazli put it:
The system must be adaptable to the different kind of user because each person may have different types of behaviour, characteristics, knowledge, skills and interest. Therefore, it is useful to design a system that is able to understand the type of user. There may be people with special skills and practices and they seeking assistance with their activities, someone who has a general knowledge and wants to improve his knowledge during the process or others who need a real support of help to make the activity easy and safe.
In the workshop on Thursday Nazli explored the principles with the different groups on a specific topic on design for people with dementia. This forces you to explore the concept of agency and delegation in-depth.
In another workshop on Friday Aduen Darriba Frederiks looked at the design for intimate interfaces, related to the new fashion tech that becomes more and more media for non screen interactions everywhere. How does this new garments influence our own feelings and behaviour. The designers from the Kimbow dress experiment with this on a conceptual level. I was not able to attend that session but it is a concrete installation of the new role of the physical-digital interaction-layer that will be present everywhere.
The adaptive dialogues with the products we use will be adaptive to the context of use. Value-exchange will be a leading principle, and it was good to have an workshop on the blockexchange to dive into the new tools for sharing value in the continuous connected presence. This can lead to new products like the self-sustaining bike-sharing concept that adapts to the state of product (bike) as much as that of the user. I had to miss the presentation on this in the Internet of Bikes session.
As we shift to these kind of products the influence of the design of the adaptive layer will impact our living even more. As we see that the technology not only deliver the happy flows it was very well present at this ThingsCon that we should discuss the design choice a level higher, to a more meta thinking on the role of this new technology in society. Max wrote a great piece on that already. Technology is not the start, but can play an important role to enable interactions within society and also can help to scale things.
It was maybe in that sense interesting that we moved a bit away from the pure thing at this year’s ThingsCon without losing sight of the role the thing plays as anchor point. We looked to the systematic impact more. The design angle is here important. What can we make from those new things with technology embedded to come to really new values. The complete merge of the physicality and the digital is an almost blank sleet to create new things, in that the maker culture in Shenzhen can inspire us. Where the ‘globalised mom and pop shop’ create a new collaborative model in making. It can us always inspire to ask the question to what level design is playing a role, and where functions emerge from use. Where participation is the approach to develop the meaningful things. | https://medium.com/target-is-new/new-values-in-iot-at-thingscon-amsterdam-b6d5fac10dac | ['Iskander Smit'] | 2016-12-07 01:24:37.482000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UX'] |
How to use the UNNEST function in BigQuery to analyze event parameters in Analytics | Oh, dear. That’s… a really weird error message.
The problem here is that event_params is essentially an array (actually in BigQuery parlance it’s a “repeated record”, but you can think of it as an array). So while it might contain several rows that themselves have a key field, it doesn’t have one itself.
This is where the UNNEST function comes in. It basically lets you take elements in an array and expand each one of these individual elements. You can then join your original row against each unnested element to add them to your table.
To use a simpler example, let’s imagine we have a table full of spaceships. And crew is an array, much like event_params was in our analytics tables.
Right now, if I wanted to find spaceships that contain a crew member named Zoe, I couldn’t do that with a line like this.
SELECT * FROM `spaceships` WHERE crew = "Zoe"
But if I were to write something like this…
SELECT * FROM `spaceships` CROSS JOIN UNNEST(crew) as crew_member
What BigQuery will do is take every individual member in my crew array, and add it on as a new column in my row called crew_member It will repeat my original row as needed to accompany each new value. Kinda like in this nifty animation:
Once I’ve done that, it’s easy to select spaceships with crew members named Zoe.
SELECT * FROM `spaceships`
CROSS JOIN UNNEST(crew) as crew_member
WHERE crew_member = "Zoe"
You’ll find that in practice, though, most BigQuery developers will replace the CROSS JOIN with a comma, like so:
SELECT * FROM `spaceships`,
UNNEST(crew) as crew_member
WHERE crew_member = "Zoe"
It still does the same thing, it just looks cooler. (BigQuery developers are all about looking cool.)
So going back to our example, we essentially have an array (or repeated record) of event_params . So if I were to say:
SELECT * FROM `my_analtyics_table`,
UNNEST(event_params) as param
…what BigQuery will do is take each individual event parameter and expand them out into a new column called param , and repeat the original row as needed. Like this:
You’ll notice that param itself is still a nested object. But it’s a single record, not a repeating one. (Again, kinda like a struct.) So we can query for things like param.key or param.value.int_value . Specifically, we can now look just for rows where param.key is equal to “value” .
Since, in practice, it’s a little weird to have the full repeated event_params object alongside each unnested parameter, I usually drop it and just look at the param object instead.
So with all that in mind, let’s go back to the task of analyzing the average score for users who complete a quickplay level. I can now grab just those events along with the unnested value parameter.
SELECT event_name, param
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND param.key = "value"
And then, it’s really easy to grab the actual value of the value parameter by looking at param.value.int_value .
SELECT event_name, param.value.int_value AS score
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND param.key = "value"
From there, I can perform interesting tasks like calculating the mean, getting some quantiles, and figuring out the standard deviation…
SELECT AVG(param.value.int_value) AS average,
APPROX_QUANTILES(param.value.int_value, 2) AS quantiles,
STDDEV(param.value.int_value) AS stddev
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND param.key = "value"
Hey, maybe while I’m at it, let’s make a quick histogram of all the values!
SELECT param.value.int_value AS score, COUNT(1) AS count
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND param.key = "value"
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1
So… this is interesting. There’s a pretty big peak around 21 or 22 moves… but if you keep looking, it seems like there’s also a couple of smaller peaks around 29 moves and in the 34–36 range.
The reason for that is the other parameter I was talking about — the board parameter. While the vast majority of games are being played on a small board, there’s a number of games being played on medium and large boards too, and those probably account for those smaller peaks.
In fact, we can kinda see that by looking at both the board and the value parameters for our event.
SELECT param
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND (param.key = "value" OR param.key = "board")
Sure enough, it seems like the “value” parameter is higher when it follows a board of M or L .
But how can we actually prove this out in BigQuery? Right now, making this analysis is kinda difficult because we have different values in different rows.
Now, there is a way we can bunch these rows together. If we add back the pseudo_user_id (essentially, a unique ID assigned to each app instance) and event_timestamp to each of our columns, we can then group together parameters for the same event based on those two values.
SELECT MAX(if(param.key = "value", param.value.int_value, NULL)) AS score,
MAX(if(param.key = "board", param.value.string_value, NULL)) AS board_type
FROM (
SELECT user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp, param
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND (param.key = "value" OR param.key = "board")
)
GROUP BY user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp
And then we can analyze score by board type…
SELECT ANY_VALUE(board_type) as board, AVG(score) as average_score
FROM (
SELECT MAX(if(param.key = "value", param.value.int_value, NULL)) AS score,
MAX(if(param.key = "board", param.value.string_value, NULL)) AS board_type
FROM (
SELECT user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp, param
FROM `firebase-public-project.analytics_153293282.events_20180915`,
UNNEST(event_params) AS param
WHERE event_name = "level_complete_quickplay"
AND (param.key = "value" OR param.key = "board")
)
GROUP BY user_pseudo_id, event_timestamp
)
GROUP BY board_type
But this seems like a pretty awkward way of doing things. Wouldn’t it be better if we could find a way of more easily getting multiple values in the same row? Well it turns out you can, and we’ll find out how… in my next post! (Woo! Cliffhanger ending!!) | https://medium.com/firebase-developers/using-the-unnest-function-in-bigquery-to-analyze-event-parameters-in-analytics-fb828f890b42 | ['Todd Kerpelman'] | 2019-03-11 17:03:18.466000+00:00 | ['Google Analytics', 'Analytics', 'Bigquery', 'Firebase', 'Big Data'] |
Why should your company give a sh*t about circular economy? | Products don’t have to be 100% shiny and new for customers to love them.
It’s not a secret that circular economy is hot right now. Sustainability trends come and go, but circular economy makes sense for both your company and the planet. Here are a few reasons why you should care:
Market leadership
If you sell physical goods, chances are your customers have gotten more and more concerned about what they’re made of. Having a clear — and more importantly, not greenwashed — sustainability value proposition mean that your customers can feel good about buying from you. The circular economy framework offers tangible ways to be sustainable, from implementing a rental program like Rent the Runway (which, as of last year, had an $800 million valuation), selling durable goods like BuyMeOnce, or offering repair services like Patagonia.
Access to new financing tools
New funds are springing up to invest in circular businesses. In 2015, Luxembourg, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank opened €24 billion in financing for ‘higher-risk, yet innovative sustainable business models and plans’, including ones that enable the transition to circular economy. At the national level, the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has set aside €2 million for discretionary government transfers to fund company circular economy initiatives in 2019.
Preparation for resource scarcity
The Guardian calls it a ‘ticking time bomb’: access to critical resources that make up the products we all rely on everyday. Down the road, companies won’t have a choice but to figure out how to do more with less. Circular economy can keep your materials circulating for longer, mitigating your risk if the well runs dry.
Compliance and accreditation
Customers have gotten wise to greenwashing, so accreditation under a national, supranational or industry framework can be an important way to show your sustainability creds. Circular practices can help you get sustainability certifications. For example, LEED certification gives points for using recycled materials. Not only can this help you, but if your market is B2B, you can also help your commercial customers comply with regulations or receive accreditation.
High-quality products that customers love
Just because products aren’t 100% shiny and new doesn’t mean customers won’t love them. At the end of the day, even though customers care more and more about the impacts of their products, they still want things that look and feel good. One example of a company doing this well is Finland’s Lovia, which makes beautiful designer bags from leather cutting scraps from the furniture industry, food industry and more.
Learn how to get started with one aspect of circular economy in Pure Growth’s guide Expand your circles: Rethinking relationships to create value from waste. | https://medium.com/pure-growth-innovations/why-should-your-company-give-a-sh-t-about-circular-economy-9acc3d123900 | ['Liz Miller'] | 2019-09-25 07:13:36.674000+00:00 | ['Business Models', 'Innovation', 'Sustainability', 'Circulareconomy'] |
Tonight’s comic is about books. | More from rstevens Follow
I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans. | https://rstevens.medium.com/tonights-comic-is-about-books-220f0e00c4b | [] | 2019-06-30 15:38:35.201000+00:00 | ['Comics', 'Books', 'Assholes'] |
Python for Cybersecurity — Lesson 3: Data analysis with Pandas | Hello everybody! Welcome back to our Python for Cybersecurity web series.
In this post, we are going to concentrate on the data science programming aspect of Python, which will be necessary to understand the role of machine learning in cyber security. Let’s first try to understand how data science and cybersecurity are related.
Source: Udemy.com
So, why do I need to know data science for security?
For a hacker, gaining access to a network might not be the biggest challenge. The challenge will be to figure out where they are once they are inside the network and to crawl through and attack the system. In this phase, which is usually known as the “recon” phase, they mostly leave traces of their location or of who they are.
This information can be extracted and this might be one of the places where data science can be leveraged. Through this, we can also correlate with multiple events that has already occurred and find similarities to figure out a pattern and relate.
Does this mean that data science is the solution for all the attacks?
It can be! But, the challenge is that we have loads of data related to the cyber security field and ‘no labels’, which is absolutely the biggest challenge for leveraging machine learning to make decisions. Few of the major applications where currently we successfully leverage this is:
Anamoly Detection
Malware Analysis
Network Traffic Analysis
With that being said, let us begin to explore data analysis with Python!
Learning Goals
Familiarity with using Pandas data structure
Analyzing a specific dataset using Pandas
Practice problem to get hands-on with the material
Learning Time: 1.5 hours
In our last post, we already saw how to use Pandas to read a text file. As already discussed, this package plays a huge role in various security applications, where machine learning is leveraged for analysis and detection of attacks. Now, let us dig a little deeper and understand the manipulations that can be performed on the data using Pandas.
Data Selection using data structures in Pandas
There are two main fundamental data structures predominantly used with the Pandas library:
Series
DataFrames
According the pydata.org, a Pandas DataFrame is a “two-dimensional size-mutable, potentially heterogeneous tabular data structure with labeled axes”. In short, these act like a collection of the series data structure which can also hold data of different types in rows and columns format sharing the same index and it’s size can also be modified. To understand this better, let us see how to use a Series data structure (can be considered as a one-dimensional array) and the type of manipulations that can be performed on it.
Series
A Series structure is similar to an array, list, or column in a table. It will assign a labeled index to each item starting from 0.
Now that we have covered the Series data structure, let us dive into the other structure — DataFrames.
DataFrames
A DataFrame structure looks similar to a spreadsheet or database table. Let us try to understand this structure with an example. We are going to pass a dictionary of lists to the DF constructor and display the content.
Reading a file
Let us download the Phishing dataset from the below mentioned website and save it as a csv file.
I removed the attribute information from the file and retained the data part. The headers are set when reading the csv into the pandas object using the ‘names’ attribute. You can find a description of the dataset in that link as well.
Manipulations on a Pandas DataFrame
There are a lot of useful functions that can be used on a DataFrame object for manipulation. Let us discuss a few of those here.
The head() and tail() method can be used to see the values at the beginning and end of the dataframe. You can also pass a number to these methods to specify the number of lines you want to see.
2. The describe() method will summarize all columns that contain numbers and give you the count, mean, minimum, maximum, etc.
3. The <dataframe>.dtypes command should give what type of information Python has stored in each column of the frame.
To explore this further, we have two other functions value_counts() and unique().
value_counts() the count of the different values that exist in the column.
unique() gives you the details of the unique values that exists in the column.
Note: NaN stands for “Not a Number” and is a special value assigned to empty column values.
4. When we are working with data and run into NaN values, these generally do not add value for analysis. So, these can be removed from the dataframe as part of the preprocessing phase.
Additionally, we can also add columns to the dataframe. Adding columns might be a scenario where when the selected features do not add value by itself but when combined with other features and formed as a new column, can be more useful. Let us not worry too much about these concepts for now!
5. To visualize the distribution, we can use matplotlib, just like we have used it previously in Lesson 2. Here, we are trying to display a histogram of the values available in the port column. One need to know is that visualization might play a huge role in trying to analyze clusters of data to show us if there is ‘over-fitting’ in a model. This concept is something we might run into during data analysis.
6. We can even read directly from a URL and put the information into a data table using Pandas. This is just a simple piece of code to read a URL.
You can also read and write from a database like Sqlite, SqlAlchemy or MySQL using Pandas.
7. We can sort the data using the columns using the sort_values() function.
8. Modifying the fields in a column present in a dataframe is very easy with Pandas. For instance, we can drop all the values that have empty fields using the dropna() function.
These are just a collection of a few things that we can do with Pandas. There is an ocean of things that we can analyze with this powerful package and a few others can be read from the resources mentioned below.
Watch out for the next lesson in the web series!
Happy Learning!
Practice
Try to do all the functions that was done above on any cybersecurity dataset of your choice!
Additional Resources | https://medium.com/cyberdefendersprogram/python-for-cybersecurity-lesson-3-data-analysis-with-pandas-501441e14fe0 | ['Johnsy Vineela'] | 2018-08-21 01:16:07.300000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Python4cybersecurity', 'Cybersecurity', 'Data Science', 'Python Programming'] |
Automatic Version Control for Data Scientists | One of the best parts about Data Science is the adventure of going through a full project, end-to-end. Starting from data cleaning, to visualisation, to feature building, and finally, training a machine learning model. The skills of a great Data Scientist are in high demand, commanding excellent salaries.
A major challenge in all of this is organisation.
These days, Data Scientists are working in small teams of a least a few members each. Every one of them is playing around with the same data, building on the work of each other.
The many different components of great Data Science
Unfortunately, Data Science team members often work in their own mini silos. They create their own codebase, run their own Jupyter Notebooks, and display their own visualisations. Some how, they hastily mash it all together to create the final report. It’s a less than stellar coordination, to say the least.
But there must be a better way. Some sort of system or tooling that allows someone who works extensively with data and graphing, a data scientist, to efficiently work with the rest of their team, building on each others work. That system needs to be flexible, easy to use, and something that doesn’t interrupt the Data Science workflow.
Let’s see what we can do……
How git can work for Data Science
In a regular old software engineering team, Git is a commonly used tool for organizing code, projects, and team collaboration. Team members work on their own local code, but always sync up their progress and new developments with a central repository.
This ensures that everyone is up to date and in sync. It’s a great way of having the work of the team compound on each other, rather than conflicting, which leads to higher output.
Git flow. Team members work on their own “Feature” branches which are then all synced up in the “Develop” branch. Once the Develop branch is nice and polished, the production version of the code is synced up with Master.
Data science is a bit trickier, since a lot of it is a combination of research and software engineering:
The data itself is large, so shared storage of it can be challenging. Git-LFS helps, but is pretty slow to use.
Much of the time, the code changes are minor, but the visualisations look completely different. Git doesn’t allow the ability to show changes in graphs from commit to commit
Data Scientists commonly work with Jupyter Notebooks. Visualising the changes in the notebooks on GitHub is terrible. It shows the difference in the .ipynb file, but not the actual code on graphs that we find useful in the notebook.
With all of that said, we can start to get an idea of what a good version control system for Data Science should look like.
First off, we’re looking for ease of use. DevOps and Backend engineers may be very skilled with git, but Data Science tends to be more on the research side than engineering. Dealing with code conflicts should be especially smooth.
We’re also going to want to see what the actual changes are in the data science project. Seeing code changes is fine, but it doesn’t tell the full story. That’s especially true if the team is using Jupyter Notebooks where visually, the code is far too complicated to tell us much about how some of the graphs or data manipulation has changed.
Lastly, a central data storage or working platform can be extremely helpful. Without a central storage, data scientists would always have to be downloading and preparing their own copies of the data — highly inefficient for large datasets.
With these in mind, we can now investigate a solution
A platform for using Git in Data Science
One great option for getting a version control system in place for Data Science is the Saturn Cloud platform. With it, multiple Data Scientists can work on the same Jupyter Notebook, with the same dataset, yet running on their own machines.
Data Science Collaboration
To get started, we’ll create our own hosted Jupyter Notebook, which anyone with a link can access. After creating an account, the video below shows you how it’s done.
Creating a hosted Jupyter Notebook
Once we have that up and running, we can go ahead and start up our Jupyter Lab. Once opened, you should see your project folder already setup.
For this experiment, we’re going to be using the 2018 Kaggle ML and DS Survey dataset. The dataset consists of over 23,000 multiple choice answers to a set of questions posed to Data Scientists and Machine Learning practitioners regarding the compensation.
A few interesting facts from the dataset:
“Data Scientist” had the highest compensation, higher than “Data Engineer” and “Research Scientist”
Technology companies pay the most, followed by Marketing and Finance
More experience and higher education increases pay
Compensation is highest in the US, followed by Switzerland and Australia
You can check out the full Jupyter Notebook for the Data Science compensation here.
Data Scientist compensation
To get started with the team collaboration, go to your Dashboard and click on the Collaborators link. In it, you’ll find the ability to add collaborators to your project by Saturn Cloud username.
Adding a user to your project sends them a personal email inviting them to collaborate on the project. Once they accept the invitation, their own cloud instance will be created with the exact same settings, libraries, and software.
The user (Data Scientist) instantly gets access to their own version of the project’s Jupyter Notebooks and datasets. This allows for multiple Data Scientists to be working in identical environments, with identical data, and an identical starting point for their notebooks!
Collaboration for Data Scientists
Data Science Version Control
Now we can get into Saturn Cloud’s version control system.
Once you open up the Jupyter Lab on your instance, you’ll see your working interface. On the left-hand side of your screen there’s a project folder. Any Jupyter Notebooks which are created and saved in that project folder will automatically have version control enabled. I’ve placed my ds_jobs.ipynb Notebook into the project folder to enable version control on it.
To showcase how the version control works, we’re going to modify some of the data visualisations. We’ll pretend we’re only interested in data from European countries and filter out everything else. Once the visualisation is changed, we’ll be able to push our changes to a remote git repository. The 45 second video down below shows exactly how that’s done!
Data Science Version Control
Great!
We were able to make some quick and easy modifications to our Jupyter Notebook. That Notebook is accessible to all project collaborators (Data Scientists). So whenever they log on, they’ll be able to see that you’ve made a change and optionally pull those changes so they can stay up to date!
Data Science on Demand — Rewinding
Another awesome feature here is the rewind function. It works similarly to a git reset which basically just reverts our changes so we can go back to an earlier state. This is super useful if you feel like you’ve made a mistake and want to roll back or just want to see what things looked like before.
Let’s say we want to rollback to our visualisation with all the regions shown for data science compensation. We’ll again click on the git button in the bottom right. This time, click on the you can rewind this repository link. A slider pops up where you can select the time you wish to rollback to. Once set, you’ll be able to see your old code and graphs!
Rewinding Jupyter Notebooks
Now that’s control! | https://towardsdatascience.com/automatic-version-control-for-data-scientists-fc4968bef8f | ['George Seif'] | 2019-09-14 00:43:17.292000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Programming', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
A Thematic Analysis on Life of Pi | Life of Pi was written by the Canadian writer Yann Martel in 2001. The storyline is based on an Indian Boy, Piscine Patel (aka. Pi), a boy with a zeal to explore the notion of spirituality.
His father is a zoo owner in the Indian state of Pondicherry. Due to a national crisis, he decides to sell his zoo and immigrate to Canada with his family. During their trip, a storm hits their ship, leading to a wreckage, and bringing death to everything on the ship except a zebra, a hyena, a monkey, a tiger, and Pi. These lives are left in a small boat in the middle of the ocean where there is no one to come to their aid. The writer eloquently articulates the conditions, circumstances, thoughts, feelings, environment that was with Pi in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but animals and a survivor kit until he reaches the border of Mexico.
The theme of the book introspects into the concepts of belief, spirituality, hope, and perception that humans adopt to lead their lives. One idea that springs very prominently in the book is that spirituality and an optimistic view on life not only enhance human tendency to survive in adverse conditions, but also alleviate the pain that humans endure during their life term. It also explores the notion of morality and cognitive dissonance in situations where humans are forced to take action contradictory to their moral standards. The author uses personification, contradictions, figurative language and other rhetorical strategies to convey these ideas and make the reader question the various demanding and dictating phenomena that influences their decision making, and life is, alas, all about taking a decision.
1. Nature of Humanity
With his work, Life of Pi, Yann Martel reflects a light upon the perpetual quest of humans to comprehend the spiritual phenomena that affects and rules their lives. The novel demonstrates the immense capability of humans to adapt. The point when Pi becomes zealous to explore different religions sheds light upon that humanistic curiosity which always ponders the question — What could be happening on the other side?
Yann Martel via Pi gives out a very bewildering image of a human. He reveals the different characters within a single person in different circumstances such as the transformation of Pi from a religious priest to a savage. He conveys that humans are subject to influence and are in a continuous struggle to survive and flourish. Martel manifests this idea that humans are not a plain surface of logic and reasoning, but are complex sophisticated beings that exhibit impervious (and sometimes implausible) behavior. It is an ambiguous state when one says that people are “no damned good”.
When we look upon the progress of the society and civilization, centuries upon centuries, it is the humans who have developed, created, and expanded over time, but, on the other hand, it has also been the reason for the destruction of its own species, of its own home. Humanity is obscure; it could be cruel and be polite at the same time; it is a complex system of cognition and emotion that can neither be constant nor consistent. With the novel, Martel does not seem to believe in the redeeming qualities of humans as seen with Pi. Nobody compensated for his loss but everybody forced him to tell an alternate lie about his journey. This indicates that humans shun their level of morality in the quest of being satisfied with their own beliefs. The flawed side of humanity is shown through the disbelief that the two inspectors show towards Pi when he narrates his story to them. This disbelief shows the nature of humans, who judge others and only choose to believe that part of the story that satisfies their logic and reasoning; while ignoring the other parts which are necessary to create the real picture.
2. The Nature of Society
Humans have this ability to connect with each other. The bridge of this connection could be either language, or emotions, or body movements, or phenomena of the complex silent communication. With all these traits and characteristics, humans come together and work coherently to form what we call a society. Society plays a huge role in influencing, and in determining the attitude and behavior of a person.
In his book, Yann Martel portrays Pi as a deviation to the societal norms. He displays a kid with the overwhelming characteristics of curiosity and questioning, which lead him to turn to multiple cultures — Islamic, Christianity, Hinduism — to find the Omnipotent that somehow dictates the path of his life. The writer clearly paints the picture of the conflicts and the upsurging of the humans. Are these societal norms, culture detrimental to or enhancing life? Not necessarily. The consequences are all dependent on the state of mind and the perception that the person takes which is also dependent on another factor — situation.
The character depicted by the writer is in a state of stalemate where he wants to explore all the factions, but also wants to be faithful to his original faction. But as it is the societal rule that one can either be affiliated with one or other (there is no middle space). And deviating from the social norms does cause a dissonance within the members of each faction (the scene where the Muslim priest, Hindu Pundit, and Christian father end up in a conflict when they find out that Pi is following all their religions). In a way, Pi is seen to get more entrapped in this society rather than escaping it. This is evident in the prayers that he prays, in all the ways, to reveal his inner subconscious self to his conscious self; to realize his actual beliefs which still seems to be ambiguous.
The origin of this system of society is all connected to the prophecy and holy books, and perhaps belief. The most prominent factor for this kind of society are the beliefs people hold onto which weres passed to them from their predecessors. And this tradition of passing down adds a sacred value to that belief, to that idea that it persists to sustains itself in the society, and keeps on growing irrespective of the opposition and resistance. Looking from the modern perspective, the society that Pi lives in(1900’s India) seems to be still enveloped by the orthodox ideas and beliefs which are certainly flawed in one or the other way. Being orthodox may not be detrimental or disastrous for any life, but it could hinder the development of the person. It could put restrictions and barriers which may prevent one from breaking that wall that stands between them and success. Society certainly is one of factor or reason that can either annihilate us or make us reach for the stars.
4. The Nature of our Ethical Responsibilities
Morals and Ethics are the subjective notions that one has developed or has gained. These notions are responsible for guiding the person on a path of truth, peace, and tranquility.
In the story, Pi is always seen to be in conflict with his morals and ethics. The first conflict is created by the interest in all three different religions at the same time. He faces various criticisms that lead him to question himself but later, he finds a moral compass between all these religions.
The second conflict is when he is forced to eat fish in order to survive on the boat. His ritual behavior, that of a Brahmin vegetarian, comes into conflict with his action causing a cognitive dissonance and stress which Yann Martel eloquently articulates. Pi has the choice to adhere to his morals and not eat flesh and not kill the tortoise, fish, shark, or meerkats; but the situation and the human instinct to survive lead to an action which directly opposed his morals.
But the question arises — do humans always seek to adhere to their morals, or they become flexible in order to suffer the least? In his book, the writer portrays the double standards of humans when they are trapped in a dilemma of life and death. Morals are ambiguous, and subject to change in order to adjust according to the circumstance and consequences. A human can be very persistent and consistent, but life is not. Life is an indefinite journey which twists and turns, and to tolerate these sudden twists and turns, humans adapt and change every second. Sometimes one has to choose something which is wrong according to their morals and ethics but the situation forces them to take that choice, leaving the human in a state of ambiguity. Similarly, there may be situations where they have to choose the best but not the right option.
Moral choices are flexible and are based upon each person’s perception. Pi’s traditional morals come into conflict with his actions, but considering his situation, it seems to be appropriate. The consequence of the decision are borne by the decision maker, who is responsible for the outcome only to the extent where, if one would have gone the other way, the situation could have been different. In the case Pi, he was partially blamed for his actions as it was completely his decision to follow all three religions at the same time, which had never been witnessed by the society he dwells in. Moreover, his decisions of eating meat and flesh, although conditional, are completely his action due to his instinct to carry on with his life and survive. Pi is responsible for the final outcome as he seems to deliberately take every action into consideration that would guarantee his survival.
4. Conclusion
Looking it as a whole, the moral center of the work seems to be inside Pi himself. His morals and ethics were indeed derived by the religious affiliations that he had, but he was the ultimate player who allowed those ethics and morals to foster inside his spirit. The center of spirituality, morality, humanity was all evident when he struggled to survive in the vast ocean where he was not only physically but also morally, spiritually, and mentally challenged. Moreover, the story picked up the motive that it would make one believe in the superpower that surrounds and influences us. The whole story is narrated from Pi’s point of view, one which is vivid and peculiar. The other characters are there to challenge this model in order to reveal the value of the belief, the value of hope, and the value of life. The moral center embodies the idea that there is a presence of that aura which encompasses human spirit even after death; the idea of hope that there is always someone looking after us; the idea that life is limited and the only thing that is important is what one does with it.
Yann Martel has carefully crafted this moral center that it persuades the reader to question their own existence and morals. It persuades one to deliberate, especially on the flaws that co-exist with the existing behavior and beliefs. Pi does not seem to be flawed as the moral center of the work as he holds onto his faith, his belief, and his morals until necessary for his survival. Although it seems to be wrong to shun morals in the order to survive but without survival, there would be no morals, that is, morals are subject to change. Pi himself not only affects the belief system of his parents, religious priests, and his teacher but also on the tiger itself. He works to raise the question of spirituality that lingers in the reader’s mind, thus affecting the reader. | https://medium.com/literally-literary/a-thematic-analysis-on-life-of-pi-8bb2424d71f8 | ['Faizan Anwar'] | 2019-09-20 02:40:17.889000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Life Of Pi', 'Essay', 'Morals', 'Analysis'] |
Designing Favicons: Importance, Design Process, and Trends 2020 | Favicons
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash
For a long time, favicons were not getting enough attention. Nowadays, with the tendency of more and more businesses going online and digitalization of almost all aspects of our life, favicons are gaining more popularity. And that’s not a surprise, as they are a significant part of brand recognition.
What is the favicon?
The word “favicon” is a shortened version of a favourite icon. Favicon is a small icon that appears in your browser tab. Each time you open a website, a favicon of that website will be visible in your browser window.
There are many good examples of favicons on the web. From the world-famous, you can think of companies as Airbnb, Invision, Google, Amazon, Paypal, Facebook. No matter how many tabs you have open, you will recognize the ones from these companies.
Where is Favicon Used?
People are spending a significant amount of time online, and your digital recognition is of great importance. Favicons are mostly seen in 4 locations:
The browser tab
Many people have multiple tabs open at the same time. The favicon gives them a clear understanding of which websites they have open and which one they need to navigate to, depending on their current needs.
2. Bookmarks
Google Bookmarks are your saved shortcuts to your favourite webpages. You can navigate to them in seconds from anywhere. You can choose them to be visible in the top bar of your browser window just under the address bar or to navigate to them from the menu.
3. Browsing history
That’s a handy function if you want to get back to the website you had open recently. When you have a long browsing history or/and need to find a website from some days ago, an easily recognizable favicon is a great help to find what you are searching for.
4. In Google search results on mobile devices
Google has recently updated its mobile search design, and they started showing a website’s favicon in the search results.
In all these locations, we can say that favicons perform the same functions.
The main favicon’s functions
Favicon is tiny, but a powerful player in the field of web usability. It represents the following functions.
Brand Awareness & Recognition
A favicon allows your site to be more recognizable in web browsers. Having a good favicon that represents your brand lets them identify your website among many other open tabs. Favicon is a memorable and catchy element that supports the general promotion strategy and increases brand recognizability in a variety of sources it can be found.
Navigation
Favicons save time and increase the user experience as the user is able to open the correct tab immediately. Thanks to a visual tag, the user can find the needed content in split seconds just looking through the set of images instead of reading a copy of all the links one by one. A favicon is a digital reference to the place you have left off. Users shouldn’t think long about where they should go, the visual guides them the right way.
Consistency of design solutions
Favicon is an integral part of the web interface; it is perceived as a functional element of the layout that is involved in providing a positive user experience. Usually, its design follows the same stylistic concept and contributes its part to a web page unity.
Also, designers themselves are always happy to see nice favicons. Your brand can make them happy :) Read further some rules and tips on how to make a great icon.
Designing the good favicon
Favicon is part of your overall branding. It should resonate with your brand and fit your marketing mix. Favicon is based on your logo. Generally, it’s a modified version of it that meets all the requirements for its visibility and identification.
In case you are a new business and don’t have a logo yet, start from designing it first, but keep in mind the creation of a favicon from it.
Either it’s a new logo or an existing one there are a few standard practices to make a favicon:
Shape
The space for a favicon, by default, is square. If you want anything else, a transparent background is necessary. A favicon should connect to your brand identity, but is often too little to include an entire logo. Consider using some part of your logo, which is recognizable and can be translated to favicon.
Mostly, companies are using as their favicon:
A part of their logo (first letter/ some of the letters) with keeping the style and colour scheme. Examples here can be Medium, Linkedin, Google.
The imaginary icon as a favicon. Examples here are Instagram, Spotify, Tableau Public.
Avoid complex elements and colour overload in the favicon design. It should be simple, visible, and specific to your brand.
Size
Make sure the file is small, but not too small. At one time, all favicons were just 16-pixel squares. That’s not the case anymore with the technology progress and more high-definition retina screens. The standard size for most desktop browsers is currently 32×32: which replaces the previous 16×16 size. Still, one image can’t work on all browsers, so you will need to test it.
Today, the variety of browsers and operating systems apply this feature allowing different formats of favicon files. They can be accomplished in ICO, PNG, GIF, and JPEG formats, which are supported by most common browsers. Some formats such as APNG, animated GIF, or SVG may not be supported by some browsers.
To cover all of the Browser necessities, you basically need three sizes (16x16, 32x32, and 48x48 full-canvas icons) and a .ico file in the root of your site. Three sizes are required for various pixel densities. a “.ico” file is needed in case something goes wrong, to let the browser find the backup icon.
The Icon Handbook offers a helpful chart of sizes for favicons applied in different formats.
Favicon Generators
There are a variety of services that can help create the favicon according to the right standards and convert different formats to the ICO files. Following simple instructions, everyone can generate the favicon for their website, which in turn will help with building brand awareness.
Some popular ones are:
Favicon CC
Favicon Generator
Favicomatic
Make good use of this miniature, overlooked but still very powerful detail. Apply it to your website and stand out in the crowd. It doesn’t take too much effort but is crucial for usability and awareness.
Favicon Trends
There are 3 main trends we have noticed that stayed from the previous times or appeared lately
Flat design
While much of the hard focus on flat design has melted away, icon design is still pretty flat (or at least almost flat). This is probably due to the small size of the design object as a favicon and the ability to combine the pure nature of flat design with other styles and colour schemes.
Colours
Again, due to the size of the object, colour plays a huge role in the favicon design to stand out. It’s common to use primary colours and bright colours. Primary colour palettes are a bold and engaging choice for small design elements. This icon design trend makes use of red, blue, green, and yellow (along with purple and orange) to create a basic set of colour rules.
Pretty often, we can see a combination of two colours where the emphasis is made on the contrast of them. When it comes to the design, pick a primary colour for most of the icons. Use a secondary colour to accent an element of the icon. (Think of using the primary colour for 70% to 80% of the design and the secondary colour for the rest.)
Using bright and contact colours brings the focus on colour and draws attention to little elements on the screen.
Interactive Favicon
Some businesses don’t stop on the image and decide to make it interactive. It is made to enhance the favicon’s functions we described above. Lt see a few examples of companies embracing this approach.
Google calendar — Favicon displays the day of the month.
Trello — favicon reflects the colour of the artboard, even if it’s a custom background. It makes it easier to scan when you have multiple boards open at the same time.
Github — their little mascot favicon changes colour depending on the current system status.
Picture credit to Little Big Details
Conclusion
Businesses online are competing for the user’s attention. Each design detail matters. Make sure to make your website stand out from the crowd. Due to the size of favicons, many people don’t find it worth the time to invest in their developments or designs. However, investing your time and energy in it once, will bring more brand engagement and recognition to your business and make it easier for the user to find it in the variety of open tabs. Create a favicon that resonates with your brand and start to see the benefits of using it.
For UX & UI design tasks and web development of your website, software, or app contact Amsterdam Standard. | https://medium.com/amsterdam-standard/designing-favicons-importance-design-process-and-trends-2020-4d901270ba02 | ['Amsterdam Standard'] | 2020-12-18 11:30:02.721000+00:00 | ['Favicon', 'Digital', 'UI', 'Design', 'UI Design'] |
Adding a Border to the Image using NumPy | In this article, we will learn how to add/draw a border to the image. We use OpenCV to read the image. The rest of the part is handled by NumPy to code from scratch. We rely on it for the matrix operations that can be achieved with so much ease.
There are two aspects in which we can start to think:
If the image is read in grayscale , we can simply keep the default color as black . This is because the length of the shape of the image matrix would be 2. Therefore we cannot add a color border whose color value would be of size 3 and thus it cannot be mapped easily.
, we can simply keep the default color as . This is because the length of the shape of the image matrix would be 2. Therefore we cannot add a color border whose color value would be of size 3 and thus it cannot be mapped easily. If the image is read in RGB, we can have a choice to pick the color for the border. This is because the length of the shape of the image matrix would be 3. Hence we can add a color border whose color value would be of size 3 which can be mapped easily.
Before proceeding further, we need to make sure we have enough colors (based on the user’s choice). I have extracted the possible color values from this website.
The code of the same can be seen below. The result is stored in a JSON file named color_names_data.json.
It is necessary to grab R, G, and B values in order for the mapping after the separation of pixels. We follow split and merge methods using NumPy.
The structure of the color data can be seen below.
Time to Code
The packages that we mainly use are:
NumPy
Matplotlib
OpenCV
Image by Author
Import the Packages
Read the Image
The above function reads the image either in grayscale or RGB and returns the image matrix.
Code Implementation with Library
For adding/drawing borders around the image, the important arguments can be named as below:
image_file → Image file location or image name if the image is stored in the same directory.
→ Image file location or image name if the image is stored in the same directory. bt → Border thickness
→ Border thickness color_name → By default it takes 0 (black color). Otherwise, any color name can be taken.
We use the method copyMakeBorder() available in the library OpenCV that is used to create a new bordered image with a specified thickness. In the code, we make sure to convert the color name into values from the color data we collected earlier.
The below function works for both RGB image and grayscale image as expected.
Let’s test the above function —
Image by Author
Image by Author
We can clearly see the borders are been added/drawn. For the grayscale image, though we have mentioned pink, a black border is drawn.
Code Implementation from Scratch
When we talk about the border, it is basically a constant pixel value of one color around the entire image. It is important to take note of the thickness of the border to be able to see. Considering the thickness we should append a constant value around the image that matches the thickness level.
In order to do so, we can use the pad() method available in the library NumPy. This method appends a constant value that matches the level of pad_width argument which is mentioned.
Example
>>> import numpy as np
>>> m = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]
>>> m = np.array(m)
>>> m
array([[1, 2, 3],
[4, 5, 6],
[7, 8, 9]])
>>>
>>> pm = np.pad(array=m, pad_width=1, mode='constant', constant_values=12)
>>> pm
array([[12, 12, 12, 12, 12],
[12, 1, 2, 3, 12],
[12, 4, 5, 6, 12],
[12, 7, 8, 9, 12],
[12, 12, 12, 12, 12]])
>>>
>>> pmm = np.pad(array=m, pad_width=2, mode='constant', constant_values=24)
>>> pmm
array([[24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 1, 2, 3, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 4, 5, 6, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 7, 8, 9, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24],
[24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24]])
>>>
More examples you can find in the documentation.
We just need to change the constant_values argument by taking the actual color value.
For a grayscale image, we simply pad the image matrix with black color i.e., 0.
For the RGB image, we are to grab the color value from the data collected, split the image into 3 matrices, and pad each matrix with each color value.
The below function would explain the flow more clearly.
Let’s test the above function —
Image by Author
Image by Author
Yay! We did it. We coded the entire thing including color choice completely from scratch except for the part where we read the image file. We relied mostly on NumPy as it is very fast in computing matrix operations (We could have done it with for loops if we wanted our code to execute very slow).
Personally, this was great learning for me. I am starting to think about how difficult and fun that would be for the people who actually work on open source libraries.
You should definitely check out my other articles on the same subject in my profile. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/adding-a-border-to-the-image-using-numpy-efa23f7f1cdf | ['Sameeruddin Mohammed'] | 2020-12-27 06:21:56.195000+00:00 | ['Numpy', 'Python Programming', 'Matrix Operations', 'Image Processing', 'Image Bordering'] |
Connecting with Your Ancestors | Every person is a quotation from all their ancestors. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Autumn is built to honor the places within yourself where are you drawn to connect with those who’ve come before. It is a time well suited for reaching back across time and space in search of connecting with your ancestors, whether blood relatives or cultural ones.
We, women, have unique cultural and ancestral lineages.
Some are far-reaching — like those brave women who fought and suffered to get American women the right to vote.
Some are closer to heart and home — like a great-grandmother who left everything behind seeking a better, safer life in a new country.
As women, much of our cultural lineage is weighed down by suffering and pain, and by the oppression of our rights and the suppression of our voices. One way to honor all the women who’ve suffered before us is to use our voices, as we are able, to speak up for justice.
Some questions you can explore in your journal are:
What lessons have your ancestors taught you?
In what ways have they let you down?
In what ways do you benefit from their hard work?
In what ways might you have let your ancestors down?
And in what ways might you be a blessing to those that have passed before?
You can, of course, free-write in whatever ways feel best and most natural to you. You can also simply sit or lay still while you ponder these questions one at a time, listening for your inner knowingness to bubble up as it is ready.
This post is an excerpt from the Complete Self-Care for Autumn System Guidebook. You can learn more about this offering by clicking here. | https://medium.com/grace-and-magic/connecting-with-your-ancestors-2e74abe5ecc0 | ['Katherine Grace'] | 2020-10-31 19:39:09.879000+00:00 | ['Halloween', 'Self-awareness', 'Journaling', 'Samhain', 'Ancestors'] |
Learn how to create beautiful and insightful charts with Python — the Quick, the Pretty, and the Awesome | The Pretty: Advanced plotting with Seaborn
Photo by Pavel Nekoranec on Unsplash
Seaborn utilizes plotting defaults. To make sure that your results match mine, run the following commands.
sns.reset_defaults()
sns.set(
rc={'figure.figsize':(7,5)},
style="white" # nicer layout
)
Plotting univariate distributions
As mentioned before, I am a big fan of distributions. Histograms and kernel density distributions alike are potent ways of visualizing the critical features of a particular variable. Let’s look at how we generate distributions for a single variable or distributions of multiple variables in one chart.
Left chart: Histogram and kernel density estimation of “Life Ladder” for Asian countries in 2018; Right chart: Kernel density estimation of “Life Ladder” for five buckets of GDP per Capita — Money can buy happiness
Plotting bivariate distributions
Whenever I want to explore the relationship between two or multiple variables visually, it typically comes down to some form of scatterplot and an assessment of distributions. There are three variations of a conceptually similar plot. In each of those plots, the center graph (scatter, bivariate KDE, and hexbin) helps to understand the joint frequency distribution between two variables. Additionally, at the right and top border of the center graph, the marginal univariate distribution of the respective variable is depicted (as a KDE or histogram).
sns.jointplot(
x='Log GDP per capita',
y='Life Ladder',
data=data,
kind='scatter' # or 'kde' or 'hex'
)
Seaborn jointplot with scatter, bivariate kde, and hexbin in the center graph and marginal distributions left and on top of the center graph.
Scatterplot
A scatterplot is a way of visualizing the joint density distribution of two variables. We can throw a third variable in the mix by adding a hue and a fourth variable by adding the size parameter.
sns.scatterplot(
x='Log GDP per capita',
y='Life Ladder',
data=data[data['Year'] == 2018],
hue='Continent',
size='Gapminder Population'
) # both, hue and size are optional
sns.despine() # prettier layout
Log GDP per capita against Life Ladder, colors based on the continent and size on population
Violin plot
The violin plot is a combination of a box plot and a kernel density estimate. It plays a similar role as a box plot. It shows the distribution of quantitative data across categorical variables such that those distributions can be compared.
sns.set(
rc={'figure.figsize':(18,6)},
style="white"
) sns.violinplot(
x='Continent',
y='Life Ladder',
hue='Mean Log GDP per capita',
data=data
) sns.despine()
Violin plot where we plot continents against Life Ladder, we use the Mean Log GDP per capita to group the data. It looks like a higher GDP per capita makes for higher happiness
Pair plot
The Seaborn pair plot plots all combinations of two-variable scatter plots in a large grid. I typically feel like this is a bit of information overload, but it can help to spot patterns.
sns.set(
style="white",
palette="muted",
color_codes=True
) sns.pairplot(
data[data.Year == 2018][[
'Life Ladder','Log GDP per capita',
'Social support','Healthy life expectancy at birth',
'Freedom to make life choices','Generosity',
'Perceptions of corruption', 'Positive affect',
'Negative affect','Confidence in national government',
'Mean Log GDP per capita'
]].dropna(),
hue='Mean Log GDP per capita'
)
Seaborn scatterplot grid where all selected variables a scattered against every other variable in the lower and upper part of the grid, the diagonal contains a kde plot.
Facet Grids
Seaborn’s FacetGrid, to me, is one of the most convincing arguments to use Seaborn as it makes creating multi-plots a breeze. With the pair plot, we already have seen an example of a FacetGrid. The FacetGrid allows creating multiple charts segmented by variables. For example, the rows could be one variable (category of GDP per capita) and the columns another one (continents).
It does require a bit more customization (i.e., using matplotlib) then I’d personally like, but it is nonetheless compelling.
FacetGrid — line plots
g = sns.FacetGrid(
data.groupby(['Mean Log GDP per capita','Year','Continent'])['Life Ladder'].mean().reset_index(),
row='Mean Log GDP per capita',
col='Continent',
margin_titles=True
)
g = (g.map(plt.plot, 'Year','Life Ladder'))
Life Ladder on the Y-axis, Year on the X-axis. The grid’s columns are the continent, and the grid’s rows are the different levels of Mean Log GDP per capita. Overall things seem to be getting better for the countries with a Low Mean Log GDP per Capita in North America and the countries with a Medium or High Mean Log GDP per Capita in Europe
FacetGrid — histograms
g = sns.FacetGrid(data, col="Continent", col_wrap=3,height=4)
g = (g.map(plt.hist, "Life Ladder",bins=np.arange(2,9,0.5)))
FacetGrid with a histogram of LifeLadder by continent
FacetGrid — annotated KDE plots
It is also possible to add facet specific notation to each chart in a grid. In the following example, we add the mean and the standard deviation and a vertical line drawn at the mean (code below).
Life Ladder kernel density estimation based on the continent, annotated with a mean and standard deviation
Draw a vertical mean line and annotation
FacetGrid — heatmap plots
One of my favorite plot types is a heatmap FacetGrid, i.e., a heatmap in every facet of the grid. This type of plot is useful to visualize four dimensions and a metric in one single plot. The code is a bit cumbersome but can be adjusted quickly to your needs. It is noteworthy that this kind of chart requires a relatively large amount of data or proper segmentation as it does not handle missing values very well.
Facet heatmap, visualizing on the outer rows a year range, outer columns the GDP per Capita, on the inner rows the level of perceived corruption and the inner columns the continents. We see that happiness increases towards the top right (i.e., high GDP per Capita and low perceived corruption). The effect of time is not definite, and some continents (Europe and North America) seem to be happier than others (Africa). | https://towardsdatascience.com/plotting-with-python-c2561b8c0f1f | ['Fabian Bosler'] | 2019-10-26 08:47:41.215000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Towards Data Science'] |
Five New Books to Get Your Hands On in 2020 | Five New Books to Get Your Hands On in 2020
The YA genre isn’t just for teenagers.
New year, new books. The first few months of 2020 hold many secret treasures for bookworms. Several well-loved authors like Becky Albertalli and Mackenzi Lee are releasing brand new books.
You don’t want to miss that!
I didn’t plan on limiting this list of 2020 releases to a specific genre. But as it turns out, many of the notable new releases belong in the young adult and middle-grade genres, so I decided to dedicate this list entirely to those.
No need to click away now if you don’t identify as a “young adult”. Being 26 myself, I don’t belong in the target audience for YA books anymore, yet I still enjoy reading them.
One of the reasons why I love YA literature is because the authors in the genre know the importance of diversity. YA books feature all kinds of characters — gay, black, gender fluid, introverted, autistic — like no other genre.
Many YA authors have a critical way of looking at the world just like many of the hyped contemporary authors do (I’m talking Dave Eggers or even Margaret Atwood here), they just convey it differently.
Give it a try if you don’t believe me. I have the five most exciting new releases in the genre listed for you. All of them will come out in the first half of 2020.
Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli
Release Date: 4 February 2020
Becky Albertalli’s name is well-known all over the world, even Swiss bookstores haven’t found a way around the queen of YA. She is the author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens’ Agenda and its sequel Leah on the Offbeat.
Simon was so popular he got his own movie (Love, Simon) and a ton of merch. Becky Albertalli knows what she is doing, which should be enough of a reason to be excited for her new book, Yes No Maybe So.
She has teamed up with Aisha Saeed to write this story about a group of teenagers who get tied up in political activism. Thanks to her co-author, readers can expect a slightly different cultural dimension than what they know from the Simonverse.
Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend
Release Date: 10 March 2020
March will be the month to dive into middle-grade books. If you think that’s not for you, let me remind you: Harry Potter is middle-grade, too. And Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend compares on a few different levels.
Hollowpox will be the third book in the Nevermoor series with our main character Morrigan Crow. Morrigan is a cursed girl whom everyone blames for everything until she is invited to compete for a place in the renowned Wundrous Society.
This magical elite school is bound to awake memories of Hogwarts, and so is Morrigan. Nevermoor is the perfect series if you want to feel those Harry Potter vibes again.
And since the book only comes out in March, there’s still plenty of time to read the first two books in the series, Nevermoor and Wundersmith.
Rick by Alex Gino
21 April 2020
I promised you diverse characters — Rick by genderqueer author Alex Gino offers just that. According to their website, Alex writes “queer and progressive middle-grade fiction”, which is a perfect description of her first children’s book about a transgender boy named George.
In their new book, little Rick is questioning many things. His identity, among others. Alex Gino has a very unique style and her books are accessible for both kids and adults.
This might be a great book to read to your kids in 2020!
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Release Date: 30 April
Alice Oseman is one of my favourite YA authors. I discovered one of her books, Radio Silence, by chance and only because I liked the narrator of the audiobook.
Now she is releasing a new YA novel about an 18-year-old girl struggling to come to terms with her being aromantic-asexual. As Alice confirmed in this tweet, she herself shares the main character’s sexual identity.
Therefore I expect Loveless to be authentic, fun, and beautiful at the same time — like all of her books usually are.
(Check the bottom of this article to enter my giveaway for Radio Silence!)
The Madness Blooms by Mackenzi Lee
Release Date: 24 November 2020
Mackenzi Lee will be releasing her long-awaited new book in November. It revolves around Dutch tulips and two orphaned siblings.
Mackenzi Lee likes to travel with her readers: Her earlier books, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Ladies’ Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, were both action-packed and involved a lot of traveling.
You can expect the same from her new book, The Madness Blooms.
Don’t Forget to Preorder
Whenever I hear about a new release coming up, I make a mental note and then forget about it until the book is already out. If that sounds familiar, I have good news for you:
All of these exciting new books are available for preorder already. I suggest you preorder them right now if you don’t want to forget. | https://karintaglang.medium.com/five-new-books-to-get-your-hands-on-in-2020-db788b58dca8 | ['Karin A. R. Taglang'] | 2019-12-25 10:56:21.352000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Literature', 'Reading', 'Fiction', 'New Year'] |
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