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1,200 | Mindful Design: What the UX World Can Learn from Yoga | This article is reprinted from the September 2013 issue of UXPA Magazine.
“Yoga will change your life.” I will never forget these words that my husband, who has practiced a tradition of meditation for 25 years, said to me when I told him I was signing up for yoga teacher training. My intention was not to become a yoga teacher, but to deepen my practice. I had practiced yoga at various times since I was a teenager, but it was only after I sought refuge from my hectic stressful life as an executive at Google and mother of two that I realized the benefits of yoga extended well beyond gaining flexibility and avoiding injury. Indeed, deepening my understanding of yogic philosophy and adopting a daily mindfulness practice were transformative in ways beyond my expectations. Most importantly, I gained a perspective that guides my ability to tend to what is ahead of me. Soon, I started to appreciate how this perspective permeates into everything I do in life.
Mindfulness Defined
Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to, and seeing clearly whatever is happening in our lives. The attention paid is purposeful, in the moment, without judgment. To those unfamiliar with mindfulness practices, consider what it feels like to be “not present,” perhaps when you’re on autopilot or multitasking. When we are “not present”, we fail to notice the good things about our lives, fail to hear what our bodies are telling us, or we poison ourselves with toxic criticism. Mindfulness is the opposite of that: it’s about having the time and space to attend to what is ahead of us, in spite of distractions competing for our attention and our past history that shapes how we think and perceive the world. This focused attention is a tremendous asset to designers throughout the design process and all its activities: from inspiration and ideation, to design and implementation.
Being Mindful When Seeking Inspiration
Design is for people; if you cannot understand people you cannot design. During early stages of design, designers often seek inspiration and stimulate innovation by building empathy with users. The act of combining empathy to understand a problem with creativity during the generation of insights and solutions is at the core of “design thinking.” By uncovering people’s latent needs, we can gain insight into ways our interactions with objects or surroundings can be made joyful.
The methods used to gain empathy in user experience work are by now well established. Field research, contextual inquiry, and usability studies are frequently used to bring attention and awareness to the actions we otherwise take for granted. These unconscious but ordinary acts reveal subtle but crucial ways we adapt to a world not perfectly tailored for our needs. The designer’s work as observer, not participant or judge, epitomizes the work of an empathic mind, not an analytical mind.
Empathic thinking is often easier said than done. Anthony Jack of Case Western University found that analytical thinking suppresses empathic thinking, and vice versa. There is a brain divide, so to speak, that prevents us from invoking the analytical mind and the empathic mind at the same time. As we are constantly surrounded by computers and immersed in company cultures increasingly focused on making decisions based on data, empathic thinking can become even harder to come by. Mindfulness practices such as yoga and meditation, which have been shown to increase empathy for others, offer a practical way for designers and team members to boost their ability to delve deeper into the mind, body, intuition, and feelings and integrate them into a creative expression that can be shared with the world. While mindfulness practices can be effective when engaging in design research and interacting with users, the best outcomes arise when there is a regular practice, as empathic thinking becomes a muscle that can be flexed when needed.
Being Mindful When Ideating
During the ideation phase, designers must embrace a divergent thinking mindset. The main goal during this phase is to generate as many ideas as possible, and we give ourselves permission to come up with a lot of bad ideas in order to generate a few good ones. Mindful design during this phase is about abandoning judgment and fear: letting go of judging ideas as “good” or “bad” while brainstorming, and letting go of the need to achieve the One Big Idea.
Yoga teaches us a lot about how to be playful and abandon judgment and fear, and illustrates how mindfulness practices impact outcomes in the physical body. When we stay in the present moment, we stop comparing ourselves to others. Without the ego in the way, we are able to be with ourselves without judgment and can more effectively sink into the poses that stretch the body. When we allow ourselves to be playful and not worry about falling or reaching for a goal, we allow ourselves to experiment and try things we didn’t think we could do. When the mind is present, the shapes we make with our bodies are beautiful. If we stress ourselves to contort into various shapes, the shapes would not be beautiful, but alarming. Similarly with brainstorming, when we let go of our ego and let go of judgment and fear, we become more playful and creative.
Stanford psychologists Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd found that people with an orientation toward the process of making — that is, staying focused on the act of creating, rather than the end product — develop more creative outcomes. “When we are concerned about the product of the process in which we are engaged, we worry about how it will be evaluated, judged, accepted, and rejected. Our ego is put on the line. Worries can then feed back and distort the process of creating new ideas, new visions, new products.”
Mindfulness practices help us focus on the present. When we’re not worried about judgment of ideas, which comes later in the process, we can more easily relax and the creative mind can flow. As ideation becomes fun, joyful, and playful, ideas generated are similarly creative and fun. Thus it’s extremely important for designers to recognize what kind of mindset is appropriate for the stage of design they’re in. During brainstorming and ideation, where divergent thinking dominates, designers should adopt a playful, non-judging mindset.
Being Mindful When Designing Solutions
The thinking mind is not the creative mind. When designers are co-located with cross-functional team members to collaborate on a project, the team benefits from increased camaraderie, rapport, and trust built through frequent informal interactions. Yet, when designers are interacting with team members, conversation and negotiation invoke the thinking mind. In addition to co-locating designers with development teams, providing separate studio space for designers is an ideal way for designers to achieve the quiet contemplation necessary to connect with their creative minds, which is equally important.
Designers need not only different physical space but also separate mental space to design. While engineering and marketing counterparts often seek ways to add more functionality and features into a product, designers need to strike the right balance between features and functionality without overwhelming the user. The secret of good design is knowing what to leave out. Thus mindful design during this phase is about achieving a Zen-like quality of not being particularly attached to anything, whether a feature, a specific design element or solution, or a desired outcome. Ironically, by distancing yourself from the outcome, it becomes more possible to create a great design. This notion of “non-attachment” is a fundamental yogic principle: it is a mindset where you do the best you can and what you think is right, but not allow your happiness to depend on the outcome. As a designer, when your happiness does not depend on whether a pet feature or design solution gets included or not, or whether it’s your idea or someone else’s idea that gets embraced, less is at stake, and the mind is free to be more creative, more open, and more apt to explore.
Once ideation is over and it’s time to design, convergent thinking replaces divergent thinking, and attention shifts towards prototyping a few ideas to test. Mindfulness practices give us the strength to let go of the need to be perfect. Striving for perfection, after all, is about ego: perfectionism comes from the need to avoid shame and blame from creating a less-than-perfect solution. The rise of agile development practices has proven that it’s far better to invest time and energy into prototyping, testing, and iterating, than to take a waterfall approach in which plenty of time is invested in planning and designing a solution that might not actually be what works best. Be OK with testing a less than perfect design, but commit to gathering feedback and iterating to continuously improve.
The Mind-Body Connection: Putting Into Practice
Practicing yoga teaches you to notice what is happening in the body and respond to those cues. Subtle shifts in the mind can lead to changes in posture, energy flow, and the way one carries oneself in the body. Conversely, physical postures impact the mind as well; specific poses can induce surges of hormones that increase confidence, joy, assertiveness, etc. The next time you run a design meeting, consider doing some yoga:
Help people shed their ego by having them be in the present moment. At the beginning of a design review or brainstorm, have everyone pause for a few moments to practice focusing their attention and awareness on the breath. It may seem daunting and odd to ask people to do this, but in my experience, having a few moments to pause and declutter the mind is always well received!
Movement and cognition are highly related. Get people to move during meetings. Have them stand and gather around to review design mockups. Give them pens to scribble on printouts when they give feedback.
When facilitating brainstorms, clearly delineate space for divergent thinking and allow all ideas to flow through, regardless of judgment. Help others overcome their fear of rejection by responding with “Yes” or “Yes, AND” instead of “Yes BUT” or “No”.
Adopting a regular personal practice can help boost your design skills:
Consider a daily practice of meditation to boost empathic thinking, adopt a playful attitude, and practice letting go of attachment and letting go of the fear of being judged by yourself and others. Meditation can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. Choose to meditate anywhere from 2 minutes to 1 hour per day. You can do this while lying down, walking, or sitting upright with the hips elevated above the knees. To help focus the mind, you can employ a variety of techniques: bring the attention back to the breath when the mind wanders; stare at a mandala, candle, or object of meditation; repeat a mantra. With practice, it becomes easier to quiet the mind and reach a calm, centered state.
It is not uncommon for people to report increased creativity when they practice yoga. When there is more openness in the body, there is more openness in the mind. Do a few stretches to open the chest and shoulders at the beginning of design sprints or hackathons; this helps prime the body and mind for receiving new ideas. The hips and psoas are often tight from too much sitting and standing, resulting in having us in a constant “fight or flight” posture; open this part of the body to enter a playful state of mind. Forward folds are introspective poses that are helpful for getting to a place of quiet contemplation.
We are most creative when we achieve a “relaxed but alert state”. A daily mindfulness practice, whether yoga or meditation or both, helps us practice putting the body and mind into such a state.
Most important of all is to recognize that you can choose your intention and to actively make that choice. In yoga, we begin each practice by setting an intention for how we are “being” in the present moment. Set your intentions based on what matters most to you and make a commitment to align your worldly actions with your inner values. As you gain insight from meditation and reflection, your ability to act from your intentions blossoms.
Similarly with design, be clear about what your intentions are with your offering, whether a product or service. Internalize your mission and values and let design be the expression of your intent. When your intentions are clear, so too are the fruits of your labor.
References:
1. Anthony I. Jack, Abigail Dawson, Katelyn Begany, Regina L. Leckie, Kevin Barry, Angela Ciccia, Abraham Snyder. fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains. NeuroImage, 2012; DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061
2. Lutz A, Brefczynski-Lewis J, Johnstone T, et al. Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of meditative expertise.PLoS ONE. 2008; 3(3):e1897.
3. Jennifer S. Mascaro, James K. Rilling, Lobsang Tenzin Negi, and Charles L. Raison. Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy and related neural activity. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci first published online September 5, 2012 doi:10.1093/scan/nss095
4. Zimbardo,P. G., & Boyd, J. N. (2008). The Time Paradox. New York: Free Press, Simon & Schuster. | https://medium.com/design-your-life/mindful-design-what-the-ux-world-can-learn-from-yoga-20146a763072 | ['Irene Au'] | 2016-08-17 16:53:02.364000+00:00 | ['Yoga', 'UX', 'Design', 'Creativity', 'Mindfulness'] | Title Mindful Design UX World Learn YogaContent article reprinted September 2013 issue UXPA Magazine “Yoga change life” never forget word husband practiced tradition meditation 25 year said told signing yoga teacher training intention become yoga teacher deepen practice practiced yoga various time since teenager sought refuge hectic stressful life executive Google mother two realized benefit yoga extended well beyond gaining flexibility avoiding injury Indeed deepening understanding yogic philosophy adopting daily mindfulness practice transformative way beyond expectation importantly gained perspective guide ability tend ahead Soon started appreciate perspective permeates everything life Mindfulness Defined Mindfulness way paying attention seeing clearly whatever happening life attention paid purposeful moment without judgment unfamiliar mindfulness practice consider feel like “not present” perhaps you’re autopilot multitasking “not present” fail notice good thing life fail hear body telling u poison toxic criticism Mindfulness opposite it’s time space attend ahead u spite distraction competing attention past history shape think perceive world focused attention tremendous asset designer throughout design process activity inspiration ideation design implementation Mindful Seeking Inspiration Design people cannot understand people cannot design early stage design designer often seek inspiration stimulate innovation building empathy user act combining empathy understand problem creativity generation insight solution core “design thinking” uncovering people’s latent need gain insight way interaction object surroundings made joyful method used gain empathy user experience work well established Field research contextual inquiry usability study frequently used bring attention awareness action otherwise take granted unconscious ordinary act reveal subtle crucial way adapt world perfectly tailored need designer’s work observer participant judge epitomizes work empathic mind analytical mind Empathic thinking often easier said done Anthony Jack Case Western University found analytical thinking suppresses empathic thinking vice versa brain divide speak prevents u invoking analytical mind empathic mind time constantly surrounded computer immersed company culture increasingly focused making decision based data empathic thinking become even harder come Mindfulness practice yoga meditation shown increase empathy others offer practical way designer team member boost ability delve deeper mind body intuition feeling integrate creative expression shared world mindfulness practice effective engaging design research interacting user best outcome arise regular practice empathic thinking becomes muscle flexed needed Mindful Ideating ideation phase designer must embrace divergent thinking mindset main goal phase generate many idea possible give permission come lot bad idea order generate good one Mindful design phase abandoning judgment fear letting go judging idea “good” “bad” brainstorming letting go need achieve One Big Idea Yoga teach u lot playful abandon judgment fear illustrates mindfulness practice impact outcome physical body stay present moment stop comparing others Without ego way able without judgment effectively sink pose stretch body allow playful worry falling reaching goal allow experiment try thing didn’t think could mind present shape make body beautiful stress contort various shape shape would beautiful alarming Similarly brainstorming let go ego let go judgment fear become playful creative Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo John Boyd found people orientation toward process making — staying focused act creating rather end product — develop creative outcome “When concerned product process engaged worry evaluated judged accepted rejected ego put line Worries feed back distort process creating new idea new vision new products” Mindfulness practice help u focus present we’re worried judgment idea come later process easily relax creative mind flow ideation becomes fun joyful playful idea generated similarly creative fun Thus it’s extremely important designer recognize kind mindset appropriate stage design they’re brainstorming ideation divergent thinking dominates designer adopt playful nonjudging mindset Mindful Designing Solutions thinking mind creative mind designer colocated crossfunctional team member collaborate project team benefit increased camaraderie rapport trust built frequent informal interaction Yet designer interacting team member conversation negotiation invoke thinking mind addition colocating designer development team providing separate studio space designer ideal way designer achieve quiet contemplation necessary connect creative mind equally important Designers need different physical space also separate mental space design engineering marketing counterpart often seek way add functionality feature product designer need strike right balance feature functionality without overwhelming user secret good design knowing leave Thus mindful design phase achieving Zenlike quality particularly attached anything whether feature specific design element solution desired outcome Ironically distancing outcome becomes possible create great design notion “nonattachment” fundamental yogic principle mindset best think right allow happiness depend outcome designer happiness depend whether pet feature design solution get included whether it’s idea someone else’s idea get embraced le stake mind free creative open apt explore ideation it’s time design convergent thinking replaces divergent thinking attention shift towards prototyping idea test Mindfulness practice give u strength let go need perfect Striving perfection ego perfectionism come need avoid shame blame creating lessthanperfect solution rise agile development practice proven it’s far better invest time energy prototyping testing iterating take waterfall approach plenty time invested planning designing solution might actually work best OK testing le perfect design commit gathering feedback iterating continuously improve MindBody Connection Putting Practice Practicing yoga teach notice happening body respond cue Subtle shift mind lead change posture energy flow way one carry oneself body Conversely physical posture impact mind well specific pose induce surge hormone increase confidence joy assertiveness etc next time run design meeting consider yoga Help people shed ego present moment beginning design review brainstorm everyone pause moment practice focusing attention awareness breath may seem daunting odd ask people experience moment pause declutter mind always well received Movement cognition highly related Get people move meeting stand gather around review design mockups Give pen scribble printout give feedback facilitating brainstorm clearly delineate space divergent thinking allow idea flow regardless judgment Help others overcome fear rejection responding “Yes” “Yes AND” instead “Yes BUT” “No” Adopting regular personal practice help boost design skill Consider daily practice meditation boost empathic thinking adopt playful attitude practice letting go attachment letting go fear judged others Meditation simple elaborate want Choose meditate anywhere 2 minute 1 hour per day lying walking sitting upright hip elevated knee help focus mind employ variety technique bring attention back breath mind wanders stare mandala candle object meditation repeat mantra practice becomes easier quiet mind reach calm centered state uncommon people report increased creativity practice yoga openness body openness mind stretch open chest shoulder beginning design sprint hackathons help prime body mind receiving new idea hip psoas often tight much sitting standing resulting u constant “fight flight” posture open part body enter playful state mind Forward fold introspective pose helpful getting place quiet contemplation creative achieve “relaxed alert state” daily mindfulness practice whether yoga meditation help u practice putting body mind state important recognize choose intention actively make choice yoga begin practice setting intention “being” present moment Set intention based matter make commitment align worldly action inner value gain insight meditation reflection ability act intention blossom Similarly design clear intention offering whether product service Internalize mission value let design expression intent intention clear fruit labor References 1 Anthony Jack Abigail Dawson Katelyn Begany Regina L Leckie Kevin Barry Angela Ciccia Abraham Snyder fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition social physical cognitive domain NeuroImage 2012 DOI101016jneuroimage201210061 2 Lutz BrefczynskiLewis J Johnstone et al Regulation neural circuitry emotion compassion meditation effect meditative expertisePLoS ONE 2008 33e1897 3 Jennifer Mascaro James K Rilling Lobsang Tenzin Negi Charles L Raison Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy related neural activity Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci first published online September 5 2012 doi101093scannss095 4 ZimbardoP G Boyd J N 2008 Time Paradox New York Free Press Simon SchusterTags Yoga UX Design Creativity Mindfulness |
1,201 | How Coronavirus Re-Crowned Corona Beer as the World’s Leading Lager | CORONAVIRUS
How Coronavirus Re-Crowned Corona Beer as the World’s Leading Lager
Corona lager sales are up 40% — looks like I’m not the only one who thought of the joke
Photo by Jirka Matousek on Flickr / CC-2.0
In July 2020, the city where I live eased lockdown restrictions. For the first time in months, I went to visit a friend. What did I take to his garden? A 4-pack of Corona lager.
It seems like I’m not the only one who thought of this joke.
Sales of the Mexican lager in the US surged by 28.8% in March 2020. Drink market analysts IWSR said this likely due to “tongue-in-cheek” social media memes linking the brand to the virus.
Meanwhile, in the UK, sales of Corona beer are up 40% this year — the second-biggest increase of any lager brand.
Why this increase?
It’s a familiar brand — Corona is globally the world’s biggest lager brand. Brand consultant Henry Farr explains: “When so much of people’s lives are uncertain, consumers will look to brands they are familiar with and trust.”
— Corona is globally the world’s biggest lager brand. Brand consultant Henry Farr explains: “When so much of people’s lives are uncertain, consumers will look to brands they are familiar with and trust.” It’s part of a wider trend . Sales of alcoholic beverages soared during the early stages of stay-at-home orders, and figures released in Britain show that’s continued through the year. Corona beer is leading the trend and is outperforming most of its competitors.
. Sales of alcoholic beverages soared during the early stages of stay-at-home orders, and figures released in Britain show that’s continued through the year. Corona beer is leading the trend and is outperforming most of its competitors. No publicity is bad publicity. While not always strictly true, that seems to apply in this case. As stated above, market experts believe social media memes ironically linking Corona lager with the coronavirus were one of the reasons the beer saw such a large spike in sales compared to other lager brands.
Sales went down at the start of the pandemic
It was never a given that the link between Corona lager and the virus would lead to more sales.
In the first three months of 2020, the brand had its worst quarter in decades as fears around the virus started to increase, and consumers spent less time in bars. Google search trends at the time showed that people linked the virus to the beer.
What’s more, production of the beer halted for a period due to lockdown restrictions.
Why do Corona beer and the coronavirus have similar names?
It’s in the crown.
“Corona” is both the Spanish and Latin for crown.
On the label of Corona beer is a crown.
Coronavirus is named because of the crown-like spikes that are seen on the virus.
The World Health Organisation advises that virus names not be linked to locations, people’s names, animal species, food, or anything else that could incite blame. That’s because, in the past, diseases were named after the places they were discovered, and that led to the stigma around that location.
If you’re still wondering — yes, it’s still safe to drink Corona beer (in moderation!). There’s no link to the virus other than the name. | https://medium.com/2-minute-madness/how-coronavirus-re-crowned-corona-beer-as-the-worlds-leading-lager-f5cbe2d6669f | ['David Majister'] | 2020-12-26 14:27:13.139000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Marketing', 'Pandemic', 'Business', 'Linguistics'] | Title Coronavirus ReCrowned Corona Beer World’s Leading LagerContent CORONAVIRUS Coronavirus ReCrowned Corona Beer World’s Leading Lager Corona lager sale 40 — look like I’m one thought joke Photo Jirka Matousek Flickr CC20 July 2020 city live eased lockdown restriction first time month went visit friend take garden 4pack Corona lager seems like I’m one thought joke Sales Mexican lager US surged 288 March 2020 Drink market analyst IWSR said likely due “tongueincheek” social medium meme linking brand virus Meanwhile UK sale Corona beer 40 year — secondbiggest increase lager brand increase It’s familiar brand — Corona globally world’s biggest lager brand Brand consultant Henry Farr explains “When much people’s life uncertain consumer look brand familiar trust” — Corona globally world’s biggest lager brand Brand consultant Henry Farr explains “When much people’s life uncertain consumer look brand familiar trust” It’s part wider trend Sales alcoholic beverage soared early stage stayathome order figure released Britain show that’s continued year Corona beer leading trend outperforming competitor Sales alcoholic beverage soared early stage stayathome order figure released Britain show that’s continued year Corona beer leading trend outperforming competitor publicity bad publicity always strictly true seems apply case stated market expert believe social medium meme ironically linking Corona lager coronavirus one reason beer saw large spike sale compared lager brand Sales went start pandemic never given link Corona lager virus would lead sale first three month 2020 brand worst quarter decade fear around virus started increase consumer spent le time bar Google search trend time showed people linked virus beer What’s production beer halted period due lockdown restriction Corona beer coronavirus similar name It’s crown “Corona” Spanish Latin crown label Corona beer crown Coronavirus named crownlike spike seen virus World Health Organisation advises virus name linked location people’s name animal specie food anything else could incite blame That’s past disease named place discovered led stigma around location you’re still wondering — yes it’s still safe drink Corona beer moderation There’s link virus nameTags Coronavirus Marketing Pandemic Business Linguistics |
1,202 | Getting Organised to Quickly Prototype Boto3 Automation Tools in Jupyter Notebooks | A little bit of organisation goes a long way. I would like to share with you some organisational practices I have evolved that in my experience make it quicker to move from a python/boto3 prototype to a production automation tool.
To demonstrate them I am going to walk through the creation of a python class that uses the AWS Cost Explorer API via Boto3 to return the total cost of an account. Maybe this particular use case is useful to you, maybe not in any event, it provides a good way to share some effective working practices.
Prototype Using Multiple Jupyter Notebooks
I am sure many of you are already using Jupyter Notebooks for prototyping automation tools. The way the output is shared dynamically in the notebook alongside your code makes it great for exploring functionality you may not be fully familiar with.
Something that may be new to you is you can run one notebook within another. The code to do this is:
%run another-notebook.ipynb
Now I am not suggesting you get carried away with this functionality but I am suggesting when developing a new automation tool you use a structure of three notebooks, namely:
A notebook for your functions and/or classes
A notebook to test your program with %run to include your classes/ function notebook
A notebook to run you program with %run to include your classes/ functions notebook
You could call the notebooks: “run”, “test” and “my-class”
Defining Our a Demo Tool (Application)
I consider myself a “Toolmaker” hence the use of the word tool rather than application but I am sure you get what I mean.
Our demonstration tool will accept:
A session (you could be using access keys or assuming a role to access a target account)
An end date
The number of days to go back from the end date
The tool will provide the total cost for the account identified in the profile for the time period defined by the inputs.
For this article, I have left it there. I have not extended the design to send the answer somewhere else. You could let your imagination run wild, providing your answer to the world through an API or SNS’ing it to a more select crowd.
Write a Failing Test
First, we need a use case to test against. I suggest using one month's costs. You can get the total cost for the target account from Cost Explorer via the console. You will hardcode the date of the first day of the next month, the number of days in the month, and the result i.e. the cost you get from Cost Explorer. Let's say you choose the month of October (with 31 days), your code in the “test” notebook will look like this:
%run my-class.ipynb ce_test_value=123.00 assert accountCost(mysession,'2020-11-01',-31).cost \
== ce_test_value,'FAILED total cost test'
As intended it will fail (in many ways). The value for ce_test_value is the cost you looked up via the console in cost explorer.
Put a message in to make it clear it’s the assertion that failed and which one it is in case you end up with more than one.
There are two main reasons that the current test is failing:
The “my-class.ipynb” notebook containing the definition of the class “accountCost” does not exist
You have not define any way for the program to connect to a target account
Connecting to the Target AWS Account
If you are running locally I am assuming everyone is familiar with using access keys that are defined in a local ~.aws/credentials file to access accounts. My suggestion when doing this is don’t create the keys for the user you normally use to login to the console. Rather create a user specifically for the tool you are creating, create access keys for it and use those access key to create a named profile in your ~.aws/credentials file along the lines of the following:
[default]
aws_access_key_id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
aws_secret_access_key=aaaaaaAAAAAAbbbbbbBBBBBB
[my-named-profile]
aws_access_key_id=YYYYYYYYYYYYYY
aws_secret_access_key=cccccccCCCCCCddddddDDDDDD
This will mean you can define the profile you want to use explicitly in your program rather than relying on the default. You will be able to switch between accounts within your program and if you later want to assume a role moving to this will be less disruptive to your code.
For the new user you have created you are going to have to define an access policy. I think sometimes “least privilege” seems like a lot of hard work to figure out exactly what actions you need to allow. It is easier than you maybe think to find out what action you must allow. Simply create a blank policy, don’t allow anything, run your program, and generally the error message will tell you exactly what action you need to allow.
In this case, I will put you out of your misery by giving you the policy you require which you can attach as an inline policy. Here it is:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ce:GetCostAndUsage"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}
Generally, I would prefer using an AWS-managed policy but in the case of using the Cost and Usage API, none of the obvious candidates do the job and are in fact overly permissive for this narrow use case.
So now we have a way to connect to the target AWS account we can amend the “test” code to accommodate this as follows:
import boto3 # set the profile to be used
profile_name='my-named-profile'
my_session = boto3.Session(profile_name=profile_name) %run my-class.ipynb ce_test_value=123.09 assert accountCost(my_session,'2020-11-01', 31).cost \
== ce_test_value,'FAILED total cost test'
The only thing left to do is to create the class notebook and define the class within it.
Class to Get Your Account Costs from Cost Explorer Via Boto3
The class assumes input of:
session
date until
days back
You can create the notebook “my-class” and add the following code:
import boto3
from dateutil import parser as p
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta as rd class accountCost:
def __init__(self,session,mydate,mydays):
# cost explorer requires region to us-east-1
client = session.client('ce', region_name='us-east-1')
#convert input end date from string
e_date=p.parse(mydate)
end_string= \
f'{e_date.year}-{e_date.month:02}-{e_date.day:02}'
#calculate start date
s_date = (e_date + rd(days=mydays))
#convert start date to string
start_string= \
f'{s_date.year}-{s_date.month:02}-{s_date.day:02}'
#get cost from cost explorer api
response = client.get_cost_and_usage(
TimePeriod={
'Start': start_string,
'End': end_string
},
Granularity="DAILY",
Metrics=[
"UnblendedCost",
]
)
#total up days between start and end date
total_cost=0.0
for day in response['ResultsByTime']:
total_cost=total_cost+float(day['Total']
['UnblendedCost']['Amount'])
#return result as string with two decimal points
self.cost=f'{total_cost:.2f}'
Parsing the date makes the solution a little more robust in that it will accept a variety of date formats, standardising them in the program.
Putting it all Together
Having saved the “my-class” notebook you can go back to the “test” notebook and now run you run it you should get no errors. Note you will need to take into account that in order accommodate the technique used to fix the float to two decimals your test value needs to be converted to a string ( f’{ce_test_value}’ ). If in fact, you get nothing this means the assertion passed with the result of instantiating your object equals that of the value you retrieved using the console from Cost Explorer.
Now you can create the “run” notebook and yes at this stage it will look suspiciously similar to the “test” notebook. Here is my version:
# set the profile to be used
profile_name='my-named-profile'
my_session = boto3.Session(profile_name=profile_name) %run my-class.ipynb print(accountCost(my_session,'2020-11-01', 31).cost)
The benefit you have gained is that not only have you tested your class but you can also try things out in the “test” notebook as you develop your prototype further before incorporating them into your “run” notebook.
I hope you found this approach useful in stimulating your own thoughts on how to approach your next tool building exercise. Any thoughts or suggestions please feel free to reach out to me. | https://stuart-heginbotham.medium.com/getting-organised-to-more-quickly-prototype-boto3-automation-tools-in-jupyter-notebooks-8c1850e53047 | ['Stuart Heginbotham'] | 2020-12-11 14:38:21.493000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Boto3', 'AWS'] | Title Getting Organised Quickly Prototype Boto3 Automation Tools Jupyter NotebooksContent little bit organisation go long way would like share organisational practice evolved experience make quicker move pythonboto3 prototype production automation tool demonstrate going walk creation python class us AWS Cost Explorer API via Boto3 return total cost account Maybe particular use case useful maybe event provides good way share effective working practice Prototype Using Multiple Jupyter Notebooks sure many already using Jupyter Notebooks prototyping automation tool way output shared dynamically notebook alongside code make great exploring functionality may fully familiar Something may new run one notebook within another code run anothernotebookipynb suggesting get carried away functionality suggesting developing new automation tool use structure three notebook namely notebook function andor class notebook test program run include class function notebook notebook run program run include class function notebook could call notebook “run” “test” “myclass” Defining Demo Tool Application consider “Toolmaker” hence use word tool rather application sure get mean demonstration tool accept session could using access key assuming role access target account end date number day go back end date tool provide total cost account identified profile time period defined input article left extended design send answer somewhere else could let imagination run wild providing answer world API SNS’ing select crowd Write Failing Test First need use case test suggest using one month cost get total cost target account Cost Explorer via console hardcode date first day next month number day month result ie cost get Cost Explorer Lets say choose month October 31 day code “test” notebook look like run myclassipynb cetestvalue12300 assert accountCostmysession2020110131cost cetestvalueFAILED total cost test intended fail many way value cetestvalue cost looked via console cost explorer Put message make clear it’s assertion failed one case end one two main reason current test failing “myclassipynb” notebook containing definition class “accountCost” exist define way program connect target account Connecting Target AWS Account running locally assuming everyone familiar using access key defined local awscredentials file access account suggestion don’t create key user normally use login console Rather create user specifically tool creating create access key use access key create named profile awscredentials file along line following default awsaccesskeyidXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX awssecretaccesskeyaaaaaaAAAAAAbbbbbbBBBBBB mynamedprofile awsaccesskeyidYYYYYYYYYYYYYY awssecretaccesskeycccccccCCCCCCddddddDDDDDD mean define profile want use explicitly program rather relying default able switch account within program later want assume role moving le disruptive code new user created going define access policy think sometimes “least privilege” seems like lot hard work figure exactly action need allow easier maybe think find action must allow Simply create blank policy don’t allow anything run program generally error message tell exactly action need allow case put misery giving policy require attach inline policy Version 20121017 Statement Effect Allow Action ceGetCostAndUsage Resource Generally would prefer using AWSmanaged policy case using Cost Usage API none obvious candidate job fact overly permissive narrow use case way connect target AWS account amend “test” code accommodate follows import boto3 set profile used profilenamemynamedprofile mysession boto3Sessionprofilenameprofilename run myclassipynb cetestvalue12309 assert accountCostmysession20201101 31cost cetestvalueFAILED total cost test thing left create class notebook define class within Class Get Account Costs Cost Explorer Via Boto3 class assumes input session date day back create notebook “myclass” add following code import boto3 dateutil import parser p dateutilrelativedelta import relativedelta rd class accountCost def initselfsessionmydatemydays cost explorer requires region useast1 client sessionclientce regionnameuseast1 convert input end date string edatepparsemydate endstring fedateyearedatemonth02edateday02 calculate start date sdate edate rddaysmydays convert start date string startstring fsdateyearsdatemonth02sdateday02 get cost cost explorer api response clientgetcostandusage TimePeriod Start startstring End endstring GranularityDAILY Metrics UnblendedCost total day start end date totalcost00 day responseResultsByTime totalcosttotalcostfloatdayTotal UnblendedCostAmount return result string two decimal point selfcostftotalcost2f Parsing date make solution little robust accept variety date format standardising program Putting Together saved “myclass” notebook go back “test” notebook run run get error Note need take account order accommodate technique used fix float two decimal test value need converted string f’cetestvalue’ fact get nothing mean assertion passed result instantiating object equal value retrieved using console Cost Explorer create “run” notebook yes stage look suspiciously similar “test” notebook version set profile used profilenamemynamedprofile mysession boto3Sessionprofilenameprofilename run myclassipynb printaccountCostmysession20201101 31cost benefit gained tested class also try thing “test” notebook develop prototype incorporating “run” notebook hope found approach useful stimulating thought approach next tool building exercise thought suggestion please feel free reach meTags Python Boto3 AWS |
1,203 | What is Production System in Artificial Intelligence? | A production system is based on a set of rules about behavior. These rules are a basic representation found helpful in expert systems, automated planning, and action selection. It also provides some form of artificial intelligence. In this article, we will talk about the production system in artificial intelligence in the following sequence:
What is Production System?
Features of Production System
Control/Search Strategies
Production System Rules
Classes of Production System
Advantages & Disadvantages
Production System in AI: Example
What is Production System?
Production system or production rule system is a computer program typically used to provide some form of artificial intelligence, which consists primarily of a set of rules about behavior but it also includes the mechanism necessary to follow those rules as the system responds to states of the world.
Components of Production System
The major components of the Production System in Artificial Intelligence are:
Global Database: The global database is the central data structure used by the production system in Artificial Intelligence.
The global database is the central data structure used by the production system in Artificial Intelligence. Set of Production Rules: The production rules operate on the global database. Each rule usually has a precondition that is either satisfied or not by the global database. If the precondition is satisfied, the rule is usually be applied. The application of the rule changes the database.
The production rules operate on the global database. Each rule usually has a precondition that is either satisfied or not by the global database. If the precondition is satisfied, the rule is usually be applied. The application of the rule changes the database. A Control System: The control system then chooses which applicable rule should be applied and ceases computation when a termination condition on the database is satisfied. If multiple rules are to fire at the same time, the control system resolves the conflicts.
Features of Production System in Artificial Intelligence
The main features of the production system include:
1. Simplicity: The structure of each sentence in a production system is unique and uniform as they use the “IF-THEN” structure. This structure provides simplicity in knowledge representation. This feature of the production system improves the readability of production rules.
2. Modularity: This means the production rule code the knowledge available in discrete pieces. Information can be treated as a collection of independent facts which may be added or deleted from the system with essentially no deleterious side effects.
3. Modifiability: This means the facility for modifying rules. It allows the development of production rules in a skeletal form first and then it is accurate to suit a specific application.
4. Knowledge-intensive: The knowledge base of the production system stores pure knowledge. This part does not contain any type of control or programming information. Each production rule is normally written as an English sentence; the problem of semantics is solved by the very structure of the representation.
Control/Search Strategies
How would you decide which rule to apply while searching for a solution for any problem? There are certain requirements for a good control strategy that you need to keep in mind, such as:
The first requirement for a good control strategy is that it should cause motion .
. The second requirement for a good control strategy is that it should be systematic .
. Finally, it must be efficient in order to find a good answer.
Production System Rules
Production System rules can be classified as:
You can represent the knowledge in a production system as a set of rules along with a control system and database. It can be written as:
Deductive Inference Rules
Abductive Inference Rules
If(Condition) Then (Condition)
The production rules are also known as condition-action, antecedent-consequent, pattern-action, situation-response, feedback-result pairs.
Classes of Production System in Artificial Intelligence
There are four major classes of Production System in Artificial Intelligence:
Monotonic Production System : It’s a production system in which the application of a rule never prevents the later application of another rule, that could have also been applied at the time the first rule was selected.
: It’s a production system in which the application of a rule never prevents the later application of another rule, that could have also been applied at the time the first rule was selected. Partially Commutative Production System : It’s a type of production system in which the application of a sequence of rules transforms state X into state Y, then any permutation of those rules that is allowable also transforms state x into state Y. Theorem proving falls under the monotonic partially communicative system.
: It’s a type of production system in which the application of a sequence of rules transforms state X into state Y, then any permutation of those rules that is allowable also transforms state x into state Y. Theorem proving falls under the monotonic partially communicative system. Non-Monotonic Production Systems : These are useful for solving ignorable problems. These systems are important from an implementation standpoint because they can be implemented without the ability to backtrack to previous states when it is discovered that an incorrect path was followed. This production system increases efficiency since it is not necessary to keep track of the changes made in the search process.
: These are useful for solving ignorable problems. These systems are important from an implementation standpoint because they can be implemented without the ability to backtrack to previous states when it is discovered that an incorrect path was followed. This production system increases efficiency since it is not necessary to keep track of the changes made in the search process. Commutative Systems: These are usually useful for problems in which changes occur but can be reversed and in which the order of operation is not critical. Production systems that are not usually not partially commutative are useful for many problems in which irreversible changes occur, such as chemical analysis. When dealing with such systems, the order in which operations are performed is very important, and hence correct decisions must be made at the first attempt itself.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Some of the advantages of the Production system in artificial intelligence are:
The system is highly modular because individual rules can be added, removed, or modified independently
because individual rules can be added, removed, or modified independently Separation of knowledge and Control-Recognises Act Cycle
and A natural mapping onto state-space research data or goal-driven
onto state-space research data or goal-driven The system uses pattern directed control which is more flexible than algorithmic control
than algorithmic control Provides opportunities for heuristic control of the search
of the search A good way to model the state-driven nature of intelligent machines
of intelligent machines Quite helpful in a real-time environment and applications.
Now, let’s have a look at some of the disadvantages:
It describes the operations that can be performed in a search for a solution to the problem.
There is an absence of learning due to a rule-based production system that does not store the result of the problem for future use.
due to a rule-based production system that does not store the result of the problem for future use. The rules in the production system should not have any type of conflict resolution as when a new rule is added to the database it should ensure that it does not have any conflict with any existing rule.
Production System in Artificial Intelligence: Example
Problem Statement:
We have two jugs of capacity 5l and 3l (liter), and a tap with an endless supply of water. The objective is to obtain 4 liters exactly in the 5-liter jug with the minimum steps possible.
Fill the 5-liter jug from the tap
Empty the 5-liter jug
Fill the 3-liter jug from the tap
Empty the 3-liter jug
Then, empty the 3-liter jug to 5 liter
Empty the 5-liter jug to 3 liter
Pour water from 3 liters to 5 liter
Pour water from 5 liters to 3 liters but do not empty
Solution:
It is possible to have other solutions as well but these are the shortest and the 1st sequence should be chosen as it has the minimum number of steps.
With this, we have come to the end of our article on the Production System in Artificial Intelligence. I hope you understood what is the production system and how it is used for controlling a global database easily.
If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, 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 Deep Learning. | https://medium.com/edureka/production-system-in-ai-7cc2b453aa47 | ['Sahiti Kappagantula'] | 2020-11-04 14:28:18.313000+00:00 | ['Production', 'Rules', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI'] | Title Production System Artificial IntelligenceContent production system based set rule behavior rule basic representation found helpful expert system automated planning action selection also provides form artificial intelligence article talk production system artificial intelligence following sequence Production System Features Production System ControlSearch Strategies Production System Rules Classes Production System Advantages Disadvantages Production System AI Example Production System Production system production rule system computer program typically used provide form artificial intelligence consists primarily set rule behavior also includes mechanism necessary follow rule system responds state world Components Production System major component Production System Artificial Intelligence Global Database global database central data structure used production system Artificial Intelligence global database central data structure used production system Artificial Intelligence Set Production Rules production rule operate global database rule usually precondition either satisfied global database precondition satisfied rule usually applied application rule change database production rule operate global database rule usually precondition either satisfied global database precondition satisfied rule usually applied application rule change database Control System control system chooses applicable rule applied cease computation termination condition database satisfied multiple rule fire time control system resolve conflict Features Production System Artificial Intelligence main feature production system include 1 Simplicity structure sentence production system unique uniform use “IFTHEN” structure structure provides simplicity knowledge representation feature production system improves readability production rule 2 Modularity mean production rule code knowledge available discrete piece Information treated collection independent fact may added deleted system essentially deleterious side effect 3 Modifiability mean facility modifying rule allows development production rule skeletal form first accurate suit specific application 4 Knowledgeintensive knowledge base production system store pure knowledge part contain type control programming information production rule normally written English sentence problem semantics solved structure representation ControlSearch Strategies would decide rule apply searching solution problem certain requirement good control strategy need keep mind first requirement good control strategy cause motion second requirement good control strategy systematic Finally must efficient order find good answer Production System Rules Production System rule classified represent knowledge production system set rule along control system database written Deductive Inference Rules Abductive Inference Rules IfCondition Condition production rule also known conditionaction antecedentconsequent patternaction situationresponse feedbackresult pair Classes Production System Artificial Intelligence four major class Production System Artificial Intelligence Monotonic Production System It’s production system application rule never prevents later application another rule could also applied time first rule selected It’s production system application rule never prevents later application another rule could also applied time first rule selected Partially Commutative Production System It’s type production system application sequence rule transforms state X state permutation rule allowable also transforms state x state Theorem proving fall monotonic partially communicative system It’s type production system application sequence rule transforms state X state permutation rule allowable also transforms state x state Theorem proving fall monotonic partially communicative system NonMonotonic Production Systems useful solving ignorable problem system important implementation standpoint implemented without ability backtrack previous state discovered incorrect path followed production system increase efficiency since necessary keep track change made search process useful solving ignorable problem system important implementation standpoint implemented without ability backtrack previous state discovered incorrect path followed production system increase efficiency since necessary keep track change made search process Commutative Systems usually useful problem change occur reversed order operation critical Production system usually partially commutative useful many problem irreversible change occur chemical analysis dealing system order operation performed important hence correct decision must made first attempt Advantages Disadvantages advantage Production system artificial intelligence system highly modular individual rule added removed modified independently individual rule added removed modified independently Separation knowledge ControlRecognises Act Cycle natural mapping onto statespace research data goaldriven onto statespace research data goaldriven system us pattern directed control flexible algorithmic control algorithmic control Provides opportunity heuristic control search search good way model statedriven nature intelligent machine intelligent machine Quite helpful realtime environment application let’s look disadvantage describes operation performed search solution problem absence learning due rulebased production system store result problem future use due rulebased production system store result problem future use rule production system type conflict resolution new rule added database ensure conflict existing rule Production System Artificial Intelligence Example Problem Statement two jug capacity 5l 3l liter tap endless supply water objective obtain 4 liter exactly 5liter jug minimum step possible Fill 5liter jug tap Empty 5liter jug Fill 3liter jug tap Empty 3liter jug empty 3liter jug 5 liter Empty 5liter jug 3 liter Pour water 3 liter 5 liter Pour water 5 liter 3 liter empty Solution possible solution well shortest 1st sequence chosen minimum number step come end article Production System Artificial Intelligence hope understood production system used controlling global database easily wish check article market’s trending technology like Artificial Intelligence DevOps Ethical Hacking refer Edureka’s official site look article series explain various aspect Deep LearningTags Production Rules Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence AI |
1,204 | Quantifying hard retinal exudates using Growing Neural Gas algorithms | Just as in the previous posts, I’ll leave the rigorous maths for the companion notebook, and stick to explaining the general idea. Just like Self-Organising Feature Maps, GNGs are iterative algorithms. However, unlike SOFMs, they do not require any initial specification of the number of neurons — as the name suggests, GNGs are growing, and new neurons keep getting added as long as the algorithm is running.
Each iteration begins by picking a data point from the training set. Because GNGs generalise very well to an arbitrary number of dimensions, it is common to speak of these in terms of 𝛿-length vectors v. The neuron nearest to v, called the best-performing unit (BPU) in analogy to SOFMs, is moved closer to v. All neurons directly connected to the BPU are also moved closer to v. Determine the second-best performing unit (SBPU). If the BPU and SBPU are connected, set the age of this connection to zero. If they are not connected, connect them. Then increment the age of all other edges emanating from the BPU. If an edge has an age larger than the maximum age Amax, delete the edge. If this results in ‘orphan neurons’ (neurons with no edges connecting them), these are also deleted. Every λ iterations, the neuron with the largest cumulative error (sum of distance from each data vector v over each iteration) is identified as the worst-performing unit (WPU). Insert a new neuron halfway between the WPU and its worst-performing neighbour and delete the original edge between the WPU and its worst-performing neighbour. Iterate until some boundary condition, such as maximum number of iterations is reached.
It’s simple to understand how this algorithm works, but it’s worth spending some time on thinking about why it works. As you might have noticed from the examples above, this method creates a partitioning of the space where the data is distributed, and does so by approximating a Delaunay triangulation (indeed, in his original paper, Fritzke referred to the graph generated by a GNG as an ‘induced Delaunay triangulation’). The idea of a growing neural gas algorithm is that unlike a SOFM, which requires some idea of how many neurons are required to represent the data, GNG determines where the model has been performing worst so far, and refines that area. This eventually results in a model that grows not uniformly but rather to expand the size of the graph where it can no longer cover (quantise) the data with the given resolution (number of neurons).
Using GNG to count clusters
In the first introductory Part to competitive neural networks, I have already introduced a use case for GNGs, namely as quick and efficient vector quantisation algorithms that create decent approximations of images. In the following, we’ll be looking at something slightly different, namely counting distinct objects and quantifying their sizes.
Hard and soft exudates on a fundoscopy image from the DIARETDB1 data set (Kauppi et al., 2007).
The DIARETDB1 data set by the research group of Kauppi et al. at Lappeenranta University of Technology contains 89 digital fundoscopy images, that is, images of the fundus of the eye, of five healthy volunteers and 84 people with some degree of diabetic retinopathy. In diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that affects the small blood vessels of the retina, long term inadequate blood glucose control leads to vascular damage, microaneurysms and exudates, where lipids (causing bright yellow hard exudates) or blood (resulting in pale, diffuse yellow soft exudates) have accumulated on the fundus. In the following, we’ll be using GNG to quantify these abnormalities. The DIARETDB1 data set contains ROI (Region of Interest) masks, but those merely outline areas that show a particular clinical feature. Can we use Growing Neural Gas to count how many clusters of hard exudates are present in the regions of interest? You bet!
Isolating the ROI using consensus masks: the consensus mask of at least two experts’ votes (bottom right) is generated from the original ROI annotations (bottom left). This mask is used to isolate the region of interest from the fundoscopy image (top left), resulting in a masked image (top right).
We begin with some image processing, namely by refining the area of interest. Each image was labelled by four experts, which created a mask. We can threshold the mask so as to require consensus by a given number of experts, a trick widely used in annotated research imagery (scroll to the bottom if you’re unfamiliar with it!). Then, we use the relatively prominent bright yellow colour of hard exudates to convert them to data points the GNG can begin to characterise (for the nitty-gritty, do refer to the companion notebook, where some of the added tricks, including some morphological transforms, are explained). | https://medium.com/starschema-blog/growing-neural-gas-models-theory-and-practice-b63e5bbe058d | ['Chris Von Csefalvay'] | 2019-01-30 19:31:16.403000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Computer Vision', 'Data Science'] | Title Quantifying hard retinal exudate using Growing Neural Gas algorithmsContent previous post I’ll leave rigorous math companion notebook stick explaining general idea like SelfOrganising Feature Maps GNGs iterative algorithm However unlike SOFMs require initial specification number neuron — name suggests GNGs growing new neuron keep getting added long algorithm running iteration begin picking data point training set GNGs generalise well arbitrary number dimension common speak term 𝛿length vector v neuron nearest v called bestperforming unit BPU analogy SOFMs moved closer v neuron directly connected BPU also moved closer v Determine secondbest performing unit SBPU BPU SBPU connected set age connection zero connected connect increment age edge emanating BPU edge age larger maximum age Amax delete edge result ‘orphan neurons’ neuron edge connecting also deleted Every λ iteration neuron largest cumulative error sum distance data vector v iteration identified worstperforming unit WPU Insert new neuron halfway WPU worstperforming neighbour delete original edge WPU worstperforming neighbour Iterate boundary condition maximum number iteration reached It’s simple understand algorithm work it’s worth spending time thinking work might noticed example method creates partitioning space data distributed approximating Delaunay triangulation indeed original paper Fritzke referred graph generated GNG ‘induced Delaunay triangulation’ idea growing neural gas algorithm unlike SOFM requires idea many neuron required represent data GNG determines model performing worst far refines area eventually result model grows uniformly rather expand size graph longer cover quantise data given resolution number neuron Using GNG count cluster first introductory Part competitive neural network already introduced use case GNGs namely quick efficient vector quantisation algorithm create decent approximation image following we’ll looking something slightly different namely counting distinct object quantifying size Hard soft exudate fundoscopy image DIARETDB1 data set Kauppi et al 2007 DIARETDB1 data set research group Kauppi et al Lappeenranta University Technology contains 89 digital fundoscopy image image fundus eye five healthy volunteer 84 people degree diabetic retinopathy diabetic retinopathy complication diabetes affect small blood vessel retina long term inadequate blood glucose control lead vascular damage microaneurysms exudate lipid causing bright yellow hard exudate blood resulting pale diffuse yellow soft exudate accumulated fundus following we’ll using GNG quantify abnormality DIARETDB1 data set contains ROI Region Interest mask merely outline area show particular clinical feature use Growing Neural Gas count many cluster hard exudate present region interest bet Isolating ROI using consensus mask consensus mask least two experts’ vote bottom right generated original ROI annotation bottom left mask used isolate region interest fundoscopy image top left resulting masked image top right begin image processing namely refining area interest image labelled four expert created mask threshold mask require consensus given number expert trick widely used annotated research imagery scroll bottom you’re unfamiliar use relatively prominent bright yellow colour hard exudate convert data point GNG begin characterise nittygritty refer companion notebook added trick including morphological transforms explainedTags Machine Learning Neural Networks Artificial Intelligence Computer Vision Data Science |
1,205 | Goku: Building a scalable and high performant time series database system | By Rui Zhang | Engineer, Storage & Caching
Co-authored by Jinghan Xu, Jian Wang & Tian-Ying Chang, Engineers
At Pinterest, developers rely on Statsboard to monitor their systems and discover issues. A reliable and efficient monitoring system is very important for development velocity. Historically, we’ve used OpenTSDB to ingest and serve metrics data. However, as Pinterest grows, the number of services have also increased from hundreds to thousands, generating millions of data points every second, and growing.
While OpenTSDB worked fine functionally, its performance became degraded as Pinterest grew, causing operational overhead (ex. serious GC issues and crashed HBase quite often). As a solution, developed Goku — our in-house time series database with OpenTSDB compliant APIs written in C++, to support efficient data ingestion and expensive time series queries.
Two-level sharding with Goku
Time Series Data Model
Time Series Data
Goku follows OpenTSDB’s time series data model. A time series is composed of a key and a series of numeric data points over time. key = metric name + a set of tag key value pairs. E.g., “tc.proc.stat.cpu.total.infra-goku-a-prod{host=infra-goku-a-prod-001,cell_id=aws-us-east-1}”. data point = key + value. Value is a timestamp and value pair. E.g, (1525724520, 174706.61), (1525724580, 173456.08).
Time Series Query
Each query consists of part/all of the following:, metric name, filters, aggregators, downsampler, rate option, in addition to start time and end time.
1) An example of a metric name is, “tc.proc.stat.cpu.total.infra-goku-a-prod”.
2) Filters are applied against tag values to reduce the number of times series are picked up in a query or group, and aggregated on various tags. Examples of filters Goku supports include: Exact match, Wildcard, Or, Not or, Regex.
3) Aggregator specifies the mathematical way of merging multiple time series into a single one. Examples of aggregators that Goku support include: Sum, Max/Min, Avg, Zimsum, Count, Dev. 4) Downsampler requires a time interval and an aggregator. The aggregator is used to compute a new data point across all of the data points in the specified interval.
4) Rate Option optionally calculates rate of change. For details, see OpenTSDB Data Model.
Challenges
Goku addresses many of limitations in OpenTSDB, including:
1) Unnecessary scan: Goku replaces OpenTSDB’s inefficient scan by an inverted index engine.
2) Data size: A data point in OpenTSDB is 20 byte. We adopted Gorilla compression to achieve 12x compression.
3) Single machine aggregation: OpenTSDB reads data onto one server and aggregates while Goku’s new query engine moves computation closer to storage layer that enables parallel processing on leaf nodes before aggregating partial results on root node.
4) Serialization: OpenTSDB uses JSON, which is slow when there are too many data points to return; Goku uses thrift binary instead.
Architecture
Storage Engine
Goku has employed Facebook Gorilla in memory Storage Engine to store the most recent data from the past 24 hours.
Brief introduction of the storage engine. If you want to know the details, please check the Gorilla paper and its GitHub repository.
As illustrated above, in the storage engine, Timeseries are divided into different shards called BucketMap. For one Timeseries, it’s also divided into buckets whose duration can be configured (internally we use a 2-hour bucket). In each BucketMap, every time series is assigned one unique id and linked to one BucketTimeSeries object. The BucketTimeSeries holds the most recent modifiable buffer bucket and storage ids to immutable data buckets in BucketStorage. After the configured bucket time, data in BucketTimeSeries will be written to BucketStorage and become immutable.
To achieve persistence, BucketData are written to disk as well. When Goku restarts, it will read data from disk into memory. We use an NFS to store the data which enables easy shard migration.
Sharding & Routing
We use a two-layer sharding strategy. First we do hashing on the metric name to determine which shard group one Time Series belongs to. We follow with hashing on the metric name + tag key value sets to determine which shard in that group the Time Series is in. This strategy ensures data will be balanced across shards. Meanwhile since each query only goes to one group, the fanout remains low to reduce network overhead and tail latency. In addition, we can scale each shard group independently.
Query Engine
Inverted Index
Goku supports query by specifying tag key and tag values. For example, if we want to know the CPU usage of one host host1, we can send a query cpu.usage{host=host1}. In order to support this kind of queries, we implemented an inverted index. (Internally it’s a hashmap from search term to a bitset.) The search term can be either the metric name like cpu.usage or tag key value pair like host=host1. Having this inverted index engine, we can quickly do AND, OR, NOT, WILDCARD and REGEX operations, which has also reduced many unnecessary lookups compared to original OpenTSDB scan based querying.
Aggregation
After retrieving data from storage engine, comes the step of aggregation and construction of final result.
We initially tried OpenTSDB, using its built-in query engine. The performance degraded heavily as all the raw data need to go on network and also those short lived objects cause a lot GC.
So we replicated OpenTSDB’s aggregation layer inside Goku. We also pushed the calculation as early as possible minimize the data on the wire.
A typical query flow is as follows:
A query from Statsboard client (Pinterest’s internal metric monitoring UI) goes to any proxy goku instance
The proxy goku fanout the query to related goku instances within the same group based on the sharding configuration
Each goku reads inverted index to get related time series ids and go on fetching their data
Each goku aggregates the data based on query, like aggregator, downsampler and etc
Proxy goku does the second round of aggregation after gathering results from each goku and returns to the client
Performance
Compared with previously used OpenTSDB/HBase solution, Goku performs much better in almost all aspects.
Here is another latency graph focusing on high cardinality queries before and after using Goku.
What’s next
Disk-based storage for long-term data
Goku ultimately will support queries longer than one day. For longer term queries like one year, we don’t put as much emphasis on what happened at one second, but rather look at the overall trend. Therefore, we’ll do downsampling and compaction to merge hourly buckets into longer term buckets, which reduces the data size and improves query performance.
Goku Phase #2 — Disk based: Data includes index data and time series data
Replication
Currently we have two goku clusters doing double writes. This setting gives us high availability: when there are issues in one cluster, we can easily switch traffic to another. However, because the two clusters are independent, it’s hard to ensure data consistency. E.g., if writes to one succeed while fail on the other, data will become inconsistent. Another drawback is failover is always cluster level granularity. We’re working on log based intra-cluster replication to support master slave shards. This will improve read availability, preserve data consistency and failover in shard level granularity.
Analytics Use Case
Analytics is widely needed for all industries and Pinterest is no exception. Questions like experiment results and ads campaign performance are being asked every minute. Currently we mainly use offline jobs and HBase for analytics purpose, which means no real-time data, and a lot of unnecessary pre-aggregations. Because of the time series data nature, Goku could easily fit it and provide not only real time data, but also on demand aggregation.
We’ll continue exploring the use cases for Goku. If projects like this are of interest to you, check out our Careers page!
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Brian Overstreet, Wei Zhu from visibility team and , Paul Bindels and Chiyoung Seo for helping rolling out Goku and the design advices. | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/goku-building-a-scalable-and-high-performant-time-series-database-system-a8ff5758a181 | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2018-09-14 21:37:53.010000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Engineering'] | Title Goku Building scalable high performant time series database systemContent Rui Zhang Engineer Storage Caching Coauthored Jinghan Xu Jian Wang TianYing Chang Engineers Pinterest developer rely Statsboard monitor system discover issue reliable efficient monitoring system important development velocity Historically we’ve used OpenTSDB ingest serve metric data However Pinterest grows number service also increased hundred thousand generating million data point every second growing OpenTSDB worked fine functionally performance became degraded Pinterest grew causing operational overhead ex serious GC issue crashed HBase quite often solution developed Goku — inhouse time series database OpenTSDB compliant APIs written C support efficient data ingestion expensive time series query Twolevel sharding Goku Time Series Data Model Time Series Data Goku follows OpenTSDB’s time series data model time series composed key series numeric data point time key metric name set tag key value pair Eg “tcprocstatcputotalinfragokuaprodhostinfragokuaprod001cellidawsuseast1” data point key value Value timestamp value pair Eg 1525724520 17470661 1525724580 17345608 Time Series Query query consists partall following metric name filter aggregator downsampler rate option addition start time end time 1 example metric name “tcprocstatcputotalinfragokuaprod” 2 Filters applied tag value reduce number time series picked query group aggregated various tag Examples filter Goku support include Exact match Wildcard Regex 3 Aggregator specifies mathematical way merging multiple time series single one Examples aggregator Goku support include Sum MaxMin Avg Zimsum Count Dev 4 Downsampler requires time interval aggregator aggregator used compute new data point across data point specified interval 4 Rate Option optionally calculates rate change detail see OpenTSDB Data Model Challenges Goku address many limitation OpenTSDB including 1 Unnecessary scan Goku replaces OpenTSDB’s inefficient scan inverted index engine 2 Data size data point OpenTSDB 20 byte adopted Gorilla compression achieve 12x compression 3 Single machine aggregation OpenTSDB read data onto one server aggregate Goku’s new query engine move computation closer storage layer enables parallel processing leaf node aggregating partial result root node 4 Serialization OpenTSDB us JSON slow many data point return Goku us thrift binary instead Architecture Storage Engine Goku employed Facebook Gorilla memory Storage Engine store recent data past 24 hour Brief introduction storage engine want know detail please check Gorilla paper GitHub repository illustrated storage engine Timeseries divided different shard called BucketMap one Timeseries it’s also divided bucket whose duration configured internally use 2hour bucket BucketMap every time series assigned one unique id linked one BucketTimeSeries object BucketTimeSeries hold recent modifiable buffer bucket storage id immutable data bucket BucketStorage configured bucket time data BucketTimeSeries written BucketStorage become immutable achieve persistence BucketData written disk well Goku restarts read data disk memory use NFS store data enables easy shard migration Sharding Routing use twolayer sharding strategy First hashing metric name determine shard group one Time Series belongs follow hashing metric name tag key value set determine shard group Time Series strategy ensures data balanced across shard Meanwhile since query go one group fanout remains low reduce network overhead tail latency addition scale shard group independently Query Engine Inverted Index Goku support query specifying tag key tag value example want know CPU usage one host host1 send query cpuusagehosthost1 order support kind query implemented inverted index Internally it’s hashmap search term bitset search term either metric name like cpuusage tag key value pair like hosthost1 inverted index engine quickly WILDCARD REGEX operation also reduced many unnecessary lookup compared original OpenTSDB scan based querying Aggregation retrieving data storage engine come step aggregation construction final result initially tried OpenTSDB using builtin query engine performance degraded heavily raw data need go network also short lived object cause lot GC replicated OpenTSDB’s aggregation layer inside Goku also pushed calculation early possible minimize data wire typical query flow follows query Statsboard client Pinterest’s internal metric monitoring UI go proxy goku instance proxy goku fanout query related goku instance within group based sharding configuration goku read inverted index get related time series id go fetching data goku aggregate data based query like aggregator downsampler etc Proxy goku second round aggregation gathering result goku return client Performance Compared previously used OpenTSDBHBase solution Goku performs much better almost aspect another latency graph focusing high cardinality query using Goku What’s next Diskbased storage longterm data Goku ultimately support query longer one day longer term query like one year don’t put much emphasis happened one second rather look overall trend Therefore we’ll downsampling compaction merge hourly bucket longer term bucket reduces data size improves query performance Goku Phase 2 — Disk based Data includes index data time series data Replication Currently two goku cluster double writes setting give u high availability issue one cluster easily switch traffic another However two cluster independent it’s hard ensure data consistency Eg writes one succeed fail data become inconsistent Another drawback failover always cluster level granularity We’re working log based intracluster replication support master slave shard improve read availability preserve data consistency failover shard level granularity Analytics Use Case Analytics widely needed industry Pinterest exception Questions like experiment result ad campaign performance asked every minute Currently mainly use offline job HBase analytics purpose mean realtime data lot unnecessary preaggregations time series data nature Goku could easily fit provide real time data also demand aggregation We’ll continue exploring use case Goku project like interest check Careers page Acknowledgements Huge thanks Brian Overstreet Wei Zhu visibility team Paul Bindels Chiyoung Seo helping rolling Goku design advicesTags Big Data Engineering |
1,206 | Create Interactive Dashboards with Panel & Python | Do you want to create flexible and powerful dashboards with Pure Python?
In this tutorial, I will go through creating a simple and interactive dashboard with Panel . We will use Jupyter notebook to develop the dashboard and will serve it locally.
Panel is an open-source Python library that lets you create custom interactive web apps and dashboards by connecting user-defined widgets to plots, images, tables, or text.
Basic Interactions in Panel
The easiest way to create interaction with any dataset or plots in Panel is to use the Interact function. It automatically creates an interactive control and also can be a flexible and powerful way to create dashboards.
Let us see a simple example using panel Interact . Here we create a function that returns the product of a number, and we call Panel to interact on the function.
import panel as pn def f(x):
return x * x pn.interact(f, x=10)
Panel Interact
Now, we have an interactive control, where we can drag a slider, and the product changes as we change the x values.
Panel interact function is easy to use and works well with controls, data tables, visualization, or any panel widget. As this is a high level, you do not see what is going on inside, and the dashboard layout's customization requires indexing. However, it is a clear and robust starting point.
If you want to have more control of your dashboards and customize it entirely, you can either use reactive functions or callbacks in Panel. In our dashboard, we will use depends more powerful function.
Panel Components
Before we go through creating the dashboard, let us see the three most essential components in Panel that we will use in this dashboard:
Pane: A Pane allows you to display and arrange plots, media, text, or any other external objects. You have almost all Python plotting libraries functionality here so that you can use your favorite plotting library (Matplotlib, Bokeh, Vega/Altair, HoloViews, Plotly, Folium). You can also use markup and embed images with Pane.
Widget: Panel provides a consistent and wide range of widgets . You have different types of widgets, including options selectors for single and multiple values (i,e. select, radio button, multi-select, etc.) and type based selectors (i.e., slider checkbox, dates, text, etc.).
Panel: A Panel provides flexible and responsive customization to dashboard layouts. You can have either fixed-size or responsive resizing layouts when you are building dashboards. In Panel, you have four main types:
Row — for horizontal layouts
Column — for vertical layouts
Tabs — selectable tabs layout
GridSpec: for grid layout.
In the next section, I will create a Dashboard with interactive controls, data visualizations, and customizing the dashboard layout.
Flood Dashboard with Panel
In this example, we will use a global flooding dataset — Global Active Archive of Large Flood Events — from the flood observatory unit in Dartmouth. Let us read the data and explore first before we begin constructing the dashboard. | https://medium.com/spatial-data-science/create-interactive-dashboards-with-panel-python-9ac13c84b227 | [] | 2020-12-15 16:58:57.154000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Dashboard', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Panel'] | Title Create Interactive Dashboards Panel PythonContent want create flexible powerful dashboard Pure Python tutorial go creating simple interactive dashboard Panel use Jupyter notebook develop dashboard serve locally Panel opensource Python library let create custom interactive web apps dashboard connecting userdefined widget plot image table text Basic Interactions Panel easiest way create interaction dataset plot Panel use Interact function automatically creates interactive control also flexible powerful way create dashboard Let u see simple example using panel Interact create function return product number call Panel interact function import panel pn def fx return x x pninteractf x10 Panel Interact interactive control drag slider product change change x value Panel interact function easy use work well control data table visualization panel widget high level see going inside dashboard layout customization requires indexing However clear robust starting point want control dashboard customize entirely either use reactive function callback Panel dashboard use depends powerful function Panel Components go creating dashboard let u see three essential component Panel use dashboard Pane Pane allows display arrange plot medium text external object almost Python plotting library functionality use favorite plotting library Matplotlib Bokeh VegaAltair HoloViews Plotly Folium also use markup embed image Pane Widget Panel provides consistent wide range widget different type widget including option selector single multiple value ie select radio button multiselect etc type based selector ie slider checkbox date text etc Panel Panel provides flexible responsive customization dashboard layout either fixedsize responsive resizing layout building dashboard Panel four main type Row — horizontal layout Column — vertical layout Tabs — selectable tab layout GridSpec grid layout next section create Dashboard interactive control data visualization customizing dashboard layout Flood Dashboard Panel example use global flooding dataset — Global Active Archive Large Flood Events — flood observatory unit Dartmouth Let u read data explore first begin constructing dashboardTags Python Dashboard Data Visualization Data Science Panel |
1,207 | Stop Filling Up All the Empty Space in Your Life | “Grace fills empty spaces.” -Simone Weil
I’ve been on a road trip with my son and his girlfriend. It’s been amazing and I’m glad I have a relationship with a young adult son who wants to spend double-digit hours in a car with his mom. Like all good vacations, it’s been filled with car music and reminiscing conversations, packed with things to do — this trip complete with an evening concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado.
Several bucket list items have been checked off and I am enjoying the foray from the beaten path. I’ve been overdue for some inspiration and a much needed time away from my daily routine. There is one part of my routine, however, that I miss and need daily.
It’s my quiet time.
I live in a season in my life where I have the luxury of extended periods of time and quiet — a luxury I never had working full time or caring for young children. I work for myself so I choose the times I want to interact and guard the times I set aside to be isolated and alone.
On a typical day, I spend at least half of it in silence other than the tapping on my keyboard as I write like I am now or the barking beagle who spots a barn cat where she shouldn’t be. I do not turn on the television, radio, news shows, or background music.
I need silence because I need to listen.
Silence provides the gaps in life and the stillness my mind craves.
The spaces matter too
When I am bombarded with constant input my head feels full and stuffed from ear to ear. Thoughts are not my own (and certainly not my muse’s) and my thinking is muddled. The act of receiving good words to write is not about seeking them but listening to them.
I listen, I pay attention to a sentence that shoots fully formed into my mind, I take it down and then listen for where it wants to go next. It’s margin. it’s empty space.
It’s white space, whatever you want to call it, but what I’ve found is that grace fills those empty spaces.
I have no editorial calendar. I have ideas and story starters, but in between the ideas and a finished written product that connects with readers is a vast open space that only grace can fill.
When you think about it, grace is the filler for all we lack. It fills when relationships sustain hurt and a gap is created. Invited, grace can bridge the folded arms and hurt hearts and bring us back to each other. Grace fills the space between the love of a child and parent where words are difficult and perspectives are so polarized they seem almost insurmountable. Grace tethers us without words. It keeps us from floating away from each other.
But grace requires space in which to manifest itself. It’s a lot like letting go. When we refuse to figure out our next step, it is revealed to us.
I once heard a preacher explain theological grace as what fills the gap between God’s ideal for mankind (love without judgment, forgive without measure, and give without reluctance) and our feeble attempts to be like Him.
Wherever you fall short, grace fills the gap — no matter how wide or deep or how far you feel you’ve fallen from the ideal. It is fluid, it is changing, it is versatile, connecting dots and hearts when language cannot match up.
Grace is a love language that cannot be perfected, only received and practiced.
Grace needs empty spaces to show up and so often we lack grace because we try to fill the gaps on our own. We pour in pride — I am right you are wrong, move toward me. We try to bridge with nagging, coercing, manipulating and controlling but the gap only widens, creating unbreachable chasms. We despair and forget to ask for grace.
There is a reason Jesus always asked anyone who approached him with a variation of the question, “What do you want?” Not because he was making them beg, and not to embarrass them, but to reveal that on their own they could not undo the wrong, or tip justice in their favor, or fix a broken body.
By asking for grace we reveal the truth that grace is always what we all need.
Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash
I believe that the reason we are a noise-filled, driven society that constantly pumps words into our ears and images into our eyes is because the oldest trick of life still drives us. We’re too proud to sit with gaps.
We believe, beyond the obvious evidence we face daily, that we can fix what’s broken, master our inadequacies, and control our lives. It’s a chimera we stubbornly cling to with boastful words and try to show up when what we need to do is shut up and sit down.
Maybe the reason we’re so afraid of empty spaces, silence, unanswered questions, and blocks of unproductive time is because we still can’t receive grace.
Let grace be enough
Grace is bantered about in certain circles but unless we take time to allow it into our lives it’s just a thing we say without real application. If grace is enough to fill the empty spaces why do we stuff and cram so much into all areas of our lives?
Words, opinions, activities — we surround ourselves with energies that in the long run drain instead of fill and lift. We see any moment of downtime as a lapse in productivity and productivity is just a fancy word for life on the hamster wheel. But it’s addictive and shiny at first and fills our need to think we are important and, well, important people don’t need grace.
The closets are full, calendars crammed, mental space stuffed with nonstop stimulation and information. We’ve forgotten how to be still, our children never experience the freedom of boredom, we book from end to end and write in all the margins. Where can grace live?
“I think we need to learn how to tolerate more empty spaces.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach
Maybe we don’t really need grace if we can fill all the gaps on our own. The be more, hustle-to-get-there lifestyle doesn’t account for grace, does it? It screams you were made for more, set more goals, raise the bar.
You don’t need grace when you’re the craftswoman of your own life.
You do need grace when you’re allowing yourself to be transformed and shaped into the image of a holy God. Grace and space are prerequisites and ongoing requirements in the journey of transformation. God isn’t impressed with resumes.
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 NIV)
Check your gaps, cracks, and spaces. Instead of trying to fill and caulk them, explore what it would be like to acknowledge them and then invite Grace to fill them. | https://medium.com/koinonia/stop-filling-up-all-the-empty-space-in-your-life-56c14a9be1b | ['Mary Gallagher'] | 2019-06-25 01:27:09.895000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing Tips', 'Intentional Living', 'Self-awareness', 'Life Lessons'] | Title Stop Filling Empty Space LifeContent “Grace fill empty spaces” Simone Weil I’ve road trip son girlfriend It’s amazing I’m glad relationship young adult son want spend doubledigit hour car mom Like good vacation it’s filled car music reminiscing conversation packed thing — trip complete evening concert Red Rocks Amphitheater Colorado Several bucket list item checked enjoying foray beaten path I’ve overdue inspiration much needed time away daily routine one part routine however miss need daily It’s quiet time live season life luxury extended period time quiet — luxury never working full time caring young child work choose time want interact guard time set aside isolated alone typical day spend least half silence tapping keyboard write like barking beagle spot barn cat shouldn’t turn television radio news show background music need silence need listen Silence provides gap life stillness mind craves space matter bombarded constant input head feel full stuffed ear ear Thoughts certainly muse’s thinking muddled act receiving good word write seeking listening listen pay attention sentence shoot fully formed mind take listen want go next It’s margin it’s empty space It’s white space whatever want call I’ve found grace fill empty space editorial calendar idea story starter idea finished written product connects reader vast open space grace fill think grace filler lack fill relationship sustain hurt gap created Invited grace bridge folded arm hurt heart bring u back Grace fill space love child parent word difficult perspective polarized seem almost insurmountable Grace tether u without word keep u floating away grace requires space manifest It’s lot like letting go refuse figure next step revealed u heard preacher explain theological grace fill gap God’s ideal mankind love without judgment forgive without measure give without reluctance feeble attempt like Wherever fall short grace fill gap — matter wide deep far feel you’ve fallen ideal fluid changing versatile connecting dot heart language cannot match Grace love language cannot perfected received practiced Grace need empty space show often lack grace try fill gap pour pride — right wrong move toward try bridge nagging coercing manipulating controlling gap widens creating unbreachable chasm despair forget ask grace reason Jesus always asked anyone approached variation question “What want” making beg embarrass reveal could undo wrong tip justice favor fix broken body asking grace reveal truth grace always need Photo juan pablo rodriguez Unsplash believe reason noisefilled driven society constantly pump word ear image eye oldest trick life still drive u We’re proud sit gap believe beyond obvious evidence face daily fix what’s broken master inadequacy control life It’s chimera stubbornly cling boastful word try show need shut sit Maybe reason we’re afraid empty space silence unanswered question block unproductive time still can’t receive grace Let grace enough Grace bantered certain circle unless take time allow life it’s thing say without real application grace enough fill empty space stuff cram much area life Words opinion activity — surround energy long run drain instead fill lift see moment downtime lapse productivity productivity fancy word life hamster wheel it’s addictive shiny first fill need think important well important people don’t need grace closet full calendar crammed mental space stuffed nonstop stimulation information We’ve forgotten still child never experience freedom boredom book end end write margin grace live “I think need learn tolerate empty spaces” — Sarah Ban Breathnach Maybe don’t really need grace fill gap hustletogetthere lifestyle doesn’t account grace scream made set goal raise bar don’t need grace you’re craftswoman life need grace you’re allowing transformed shaped image holy God Grace space prerequisite ongoing requirement journey transformation God isn’t impressed resume “Do consider appearance height rejected Lord look thing people look People look outward appearance Lord look heart” 1 Samuel 167 NIV Check gap crack space Instead trying fill caulk explore would like acknowledge invite Grace fill themTags Creativity Writing Tips Intentional Living Selfawareness Life Lessons |
1,208 | Keeping the Heat On | When it comes to emissions and energy use, we have a tendency to point the finger at large companies and governments to make changes, often falling back on the argument that there is no point in us changing until they do.
The importance of individual actions is typically overlooked in the climate conversation but the choices we make in areas like transport, diet and household energy use have enormous impacts. In order to facilitate true societal transformations, individuals need to be at the heart of it.
How we use energy in the home contributes significantly to global emissions. In the UK, 40% of total emissions come from households and around half of household emissions are from electricity and heating.
Although these choices are so important, they remain an area that lags behind. Switching to green energy providers, installing smart meters to monitor consumption, and upgrading current technologies are all ways to reduce our individual footprints.
However, this is easier said than done. Many net-zero plans by towns, cities and countries rely on the assumption that buildings will be retrofitted. A 2015 study in Michigan focused on offering to retrofit 7,000 eligible households. The process was beneficial to energy efficiency and free, yet less than 1% of households accepted the offer. Even after significant efforts to inform households of the benefits and zero costs, acceptance of the offer only increased to 6%.
These results are interesting because they introduce doubt about useful incentives to drive behaviour change. In some circumstances — like subsidies for electric vehicles in Norway — financial benefits act as a useful incentive, but it’s not always the most important factor.
Another US energy efficiency study illustrates this point. Researchers tested the use of different messaging strategies on energy consumption over a year. Some households were sent messages that gave insights into how much money could be saved, others were sent messages about the impact of energy usage on the environment and children’s health.
Those that received messages about monetary benefits consumed the same amount of energy. Meanwhile, households receiving messages about how the pollutants from energy consumption could lead to respiratory illness in kids reduced their consumption by 18 to 30%. Again, this legitimises the view that making climate change a personal and emotional issue helps to facilitate behavioural change.
A similar approach was taken by research in the UK. In 2008, energy performance certificates (EPC) were introduced across the EU whenever a building was built, sold, or rented. Buildings were given grades (A-G) based upon a score between 1–100. Energy efficiency labels followed a colour-coded system that showed the current efficiency compared with potential, as well as the given grade.
When the researchers analysed 16,000 homes, they found that many properties were clustered at the lowest score of certain categories rather than having a normal distribution as expected. For example, they noticed many buildings had a score of 55, the lowest possible score for the D grade. This was especially prominent in homes that had recently been on the market. They concluded that many sellers had made small energy efficiency changes to move from an E grade to a D, with the expectation this would be reflected in higher property value.
In all these studies, it shows that better education is required to understand energy efficiency and this should certainly be a major focus. They also give psychological insights into how incentives drive behaviour. Whether that’s an immediate financial benefit, higher expected returns in the future from selling your house or learning how health can be improved. It’s very useful to know why people make the choices they make and what would entice them to change.
Having said that, it’s especially difficult to influence people’s home energy use. It’s much easier to understand the impact of your behaviour when you drive or fly, or when you eat certain foods, compared with when you heat or cool a building. They are much more tangible. We can see the smoke from car exhaust pipes and the fuel tank being filled when we sit on the runway, and we can touch the foods we eat.
With heating, we flick a switch or turn a dial, and the temperature changes via pipes we almost never see. To improve this, some have suggested providing showrooms to introduce consumers to smart heating, developing a database to show real-world energy performance and creating tools to compare up-front and running costs to better inform the public.
Regardless, we can’t turn our back on individuals as changemakers. The control we have over our habits is enough to make a significant global change. Taking the initiative in these areas could open the door for larger changes at the corporate and government level to follow our lead. | https://medium.com/swlh/keeping-the-heat-on-51d32d79bfdb | ['Marcus Arcanjo'] | 2020-04-05 18:33:30.375000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'World', 'Psychology', 'Climate Change', 'Environment'] | Title Keeping Heat OnContent come emission energy use tendency point finger large company government make change often falling back argument point u changing importance individual action typically overlooked climate conversation choice make area like transport diet household energy use enormous impact order facilitate true societal transformation individual need heart use energy home contributes significantly global emission UK 40 total emission come household around half household emission electricity heating Although choice important remain area lag behind Switching green energy provider installing smart meter monitor consumption upgrading current technology way reduce individual footprint However easier said done Many netzero plan town city country rely assumption building retrofitted 2015 study Michigan focused offering retrofit 7000 eligible household process beneficial energy efficiency free yet le 1 household accepted offer Even significant effort inform household benefit zero cost acceptance offer increased 6 result interesting introduce doubt useful incentive drive behaviour change circumstance — like subsidy electric vehicle Norway — financial benefit act useful incentive it’s always important factor Another US energy efficiency study illustrates point Researchers tested use different messaging strategy energy consumption year household sent message gave insight much money could saved others sent message impact energy usage environment children’s health received message monetary benefit consumed amount energy Meanwhile household receiving message pollutant energy consumption could lead respiratory illness kid reduced consumption 18 30 legitimises view making climate change personal emotional issue help facilitate behavioural change similar approach taken research UK 2008 energy performance certificate EPC introduced across EU whenever building built sold rented Buildings given grade AG based upon score 1–100 Energy efficiency label followed colourcoded system showed current efficiency compared potential well given grade researcher analysed 16000 home found many property clustered lowest score certain category rather normal distribution expected example noticed many building score 55 lowest possible score grade especially prominent home recently market concluded many seller made small energy efficiency change move E grade expectation would reflected higher property value study show better education required understand energy efficiency certainly major focus also give psychological insight incentive drive behaviour Whether that’s immediate financial benefit higher expected return future selling house learning health improved It’s useful know people make choice make would entice change said it’s especially difficult influence people’s home energy use It’s much easier understand impact behaviour drive fly eat certain food compared heat cool building much tangible see smoke car exhaust pipe fuel tank filled sit runway touch food eat heating flick switch turn dial temperature change via pipe almost never see improve suggested providing showroom introduce consumer smart heating developing database show realworld energy performance creating tool compare upfront running cost better inform public Regardless can’t turn back individual changemakers control habit enough make significant global change Taking initiative area could open door larger change corporate government level follow leadTags Energy World Psychology Climate Change Environment |
1,209 | 5 Great MLOps Tools to Launch Your Next Machine Learning Model | 5 Great Tools for MLOps
1. MLflow
Photo from MLflow.
With tools such as MLflow, data professionals can now automate sophisticated model tracking with ease. MLflow debuted at the 2018 Spark + AI Summit and is yet another Apache project. MLflow allows data scientists to automate model development. Through MLflow, the optimal model can be selected with greater ease using a tracking server. Parameters, attributes, and performance metrics can all be logged to this server and can then be used to quickly quarry for models that fit particular criteria. Airflow and MLflow are quickly becoming industry staples for automating the implementation, integration, and development of machine learning models.
Although MLflow is a powerful tool for sorting through logged models, it does little to answer the question of what models should be made. This is a bit more of a difficult question because depending on your model, training may take a sizable amount of resources, hyper-parameters could be unintuitive, or both. Even these problems can, in part, be automated away.
2. Pachyderm
Photo from Pachyderm.
Managing your data pipelines, models, and data sets is a complex process with a lot of moving parts. Pachyderm aims to simplify that process and make it both traceable and reproducible.
Pachyderm is a data science platform that combines end-to-end pipelines with data lineage on Kubernetes. This platform works on enterprise-scale to add the foundation for any project. The process starts with data versioning combined with data pipelining, which results in data lineage and ends with deploying machine learning models.
It not only tracks your data revisions but also the associated transformations. Furthermore, Pachyderm clarifies the transformation dependencies as well as data lineage. It delivers version control for data using data pipelines that keep all your data up to date.
3. Kubeflow
Photo from Kubeflow.
Kubeflow is a machine learning platform that manages deployments of ML workflows on Kubernetes. The best part of Kubeflow is that it offers a scalable and portable solution.
This platform works best for data scientists who wish to build and experiment with their data pipelines. Kubeflow is also great for deploying machine learning systems to different environments in order to carry out testing, development, and production-level service.
Kubeflow was started by Google as an open source platform for running TensorFlow. So it began as a way to run TensorFlow jobs via Kubernetes but has since expanded to become a multi-cloud, multi-architecture framework that runs entire ML pipelines. With Kubeflow, data scientists don’t need to learn new platforms or concepts to deploy their application or deal with networking certificates, etc. They can deploy their applications simply like on TensorBoard.
4. DataRobot
Photo from DataRobot.
DataRobot is a very useful AI automation tool that allows data scientists to automate the end-to-end process for deploying, maintaining, or building AI at scale. This framework is powered by open source algorithms that are not only available on the cloud but also on-premise. DataRobot allows users to empower their AI applications easily and quickly in just ten steps. This platform includes enablement models that focus on delivering value.
DataRobot not only works for data scientists but also non-technical people who wish to maintain AI without having to learn the traditional methods of data science. So, instead of having to spend loads of time developing or testing machine learning models, data scientists can now automate the process with DataRobot.
The best part of this platform is its ubiquitous nature. You can access DataRobot anywhere via any device in multiple ways according to your business needs.
5. Algorithmia
Photo from TechLeer.
Lastly, one of the most popular MLOps tools is definitely Algorithmia. This framework uses artificial intelligence to productionize a different set of IT architectures. This service enables the creation of applications to use of community-contributed machine learning models. Besides that, Algorithmia offers accessibility to the advanced development of algorithmic intelligence.
Currently, this platform has over 60,000 developers with 4,500 algorithms.
Founded in 2014 by two Washington-based developers, Algorithmia currently employs 70 people and is growing rapidly.
This platform not only allows you to deploy models from any framework or language but also connect to most of the data sources. It is available on both cloud and on-premises infrastructures. Algorithmia enables users to continuously manage their machine learning lifecycles with testing, securing, and governing.
The main goal is to achieve a frictionless route to deployment, serving, and management of machine learning models. | https://medium.com/better-programming/5-great-mlops-tools-to-launch-your-next-machine-learning-model-3e403d0c97d3 | [] | 2020-10-14 16:09:05.304000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Big Data', 'DevOps', 'AI', 'Programming'] | Title 5 Great MLOps Tools Launch Next Machine Learning ModelContent 5 Great Tools MLOps 1 MLflow Photo MLflow tool MLflow data professional automate sophisticated model tracking ease MLflow debuted 2018 Spark AI Summit yet another Apache project MLflow allows data scientist automate model development MLflow optimal model selected greater ease using tracking server Parameters attribute performance metric logged server used quickly quarry model fit particular criterion Airflow MLflow quickly becoming industry staple automating implementation integration development machine learning model Although MLflow powerful tool sorting logged model little answer question model made bit difficult question depending model training may take sizable amount resource hyperparameters could unintuitive Even problem part automated away 2 Pachyderm Photo Pachyderm Managing data pipeline model data set complex process lot moving part Pachyderm aim simplify process make traceable reproducible Pachyderm data science platform combine endtoend pipeline data lineage Kubernetes platform work enterprisescale add foundation project process start data versioning combined data pipelining result data lineage end deploying machine learning model track data revision also associated transformation Furthermore Pachyderm clarifies transformation dependency well data lineage delivers version control data using data pipeline keep data date 3 Kubeflow Photo Kubeflow Kubeflow machine learning platform manages deployment ML workflow Kubernetes best part Kubeflow offer scalable portable solution platform work best data scientist wish build experiment data pipeline Kubeflow also great deploying machine learning system different environment order carry testing development productionlevel service Kubeflow started Google open source platform running TensorFlow began way run TensorFlow job via Kubernetes since expanded become multicloud multiarchitecture framework run entire ML pipeline Kubeflow data scientist don’t need learn new platform concept deploy application deal networking certificate etc deploy application simply like TensorBoard 4 DataRobot Photo DataRobot DataRobot useful AI automation tool allows data scientist automate endtoend process deploying maintaining building AI scale framework powered open source algorithm available cloud also onpremise DataRobot allows user empower AI application easily quickly ten step platform includes enablement model focus delivering value DataRobot work data scientist also nontechnical people wish maintain AI without learn traditional method data science instead spend load time developing testing machine learning model data scientist automate process DataRobot best part platform ubiquitous nature access DataRobot anywhere via device multiple way according business need 5 Algorithmia Photo TechLeer Lastly one popular MLOps tool definitely Algorithmia framework us artificial intelligence productionize different set architecture service enables creation application use communitycontributed machine learning model Besides Algorithmia offer accessibility advanced development algorithmic intelligence Currently platform 60000 developer 4500 algorithm Founded 2014 two Washingtonbased developer Algorithmia currently employ 70 people growing rapidly platform allows deploy model framework language also connect data source available cloud onpremises infrastructure Algorithmia enables user continuously manage machine learning lifecycles testing securing governing main goal achieve frictionless route deployment serving management machine learning modelsTags Machine Learning Big Data DevOps AI Programming |
1,210 | 4 Lessons Running Taught Me About Myself | Photo by Andrea Leopardi on Unsplash
“Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down.”
That’s an oft-repeated line in the book “The Long Walk” by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman.
For the unfamiliar, the book is set in a Hunger Games-esque society where all boys, from the age of 16, can enter into The Long Walk. There’s a generous prize for doing so, but the punishment for failure is death.
How long is the walk?
Until there’s only one walker left.
Let me be clear, I’m under no illusions that my runs are comparable. After all, I can stop and go home whenever I like. That’s precisely what makes my runs challenging — by having no external motivation to keep going, the decision to push on or call it a day is entirely mine.
So, I think of that line regularly: pick ‘em up, put ‘em down.
Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down.
One foot in front of the other. Again and again.
I like this little mantra. First, it’s instructional — one foot in front of the other, repeat.
Second, it’s easy — I can put one foot in front of the other with no thought, and hey, am I actually tired, or am I just a little bored and want to quit?
Third, it’s a reminder that I’m in control.
The commitments we make to ourselves are often the ones we’re the quickest to break. The new diet, waking up early, reading more books, all are rapidly discarded at the slightest hurdle — real or perceived.
I’m guilty of this. I have broken many a promise to myself. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be today if I’d stuck with them, which can be demoralising or motivation to stick with what I’m doing now.
How running is changing that
I’m in the early stages of training for my first marathon.
This is an interesting time for me because, on the one hand, I’ve got no choice but to train. On the other hand, it’s almost 10 months away, so the pressure to execute the plan perfectly isn’t really there.
I’m operating on the basis that the earlier I start, the better off I’ll be. So, I do have a plan, and I’m following it.
On my last run, as I was in my third and final mile for that day, I had a sudden realisation. Running wasn’t just giving me physical health benefits, it was teaching me who I am, too.
1. I like to quit. Motivation porn, self-help books, inspirational stories, all of these are around us 24/7 and as we consume them, it’s easy for us to believe that we, too, have what it takes to succeed. That like the author or speaker delivering their story of courage, we would also rise up to a challenge, or in the face of adversity, becoming who we are destined to be.
Alas, no. In my case, when my legs start to ache, I slow down. Maybe I’ll walk. Is that the start of a stitch in my side? Better take it easy. Ugh, another half mile? I’ll just take a breather now.
But those motivational books and videos can be helpful. I draw on some of the more powerful lessons and say to myself, “Each of these moments is an opportunity for me to improve or stagnate. If I push on, I grow.” So, with the ache growing in my quads, I keep going.
Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down.
2. I have more to give. In his autobiography Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins talks about The Governor. He explains that this is our brain’s way of keeping us comfortable, and it does it by telling us we’re maxed out, to stop, in order to avoid injury. But, he says, the Governor raises its head when we’re only at 40% of our capacity — or in other words, when we think we’ve done all we can, we haven’t even dug half of our well.
This instantly became one of the most profound lessons for me. It seared itself into my brain, and I recall it almost every time I’m exercising. I was in the gym the very next day after reading it, performing an uncomfortable exercise called a banded hip ladder. You take a resistance band, step on it and pull the other end up to your chin. Then you take 10 large steps to the right, and 10 large steps to the left. Then 9, 8, 7, all the way down to 1. There is no rest until you’ve finished that final 1. My governor used to start complaining when I was on 8, so I’d rest, pause, and shake out my legs. Following Goggins’ advice, I simply told myself, “This is my governor. I have plenty left.”
And what do you know? I plowed right through that ladder, going from 10 to 1 straight through with no breaks.
I now do the same thing on my runs.
3. The blocks are mental. I’m aware that boredom plays a huge part in my desire to give up. For example, sometimes if I’m running a loop that requires me to do the same street twice, I’ll think, “Oh no, I can’t do that road again.” Or everything will feel like a huge effort. “I’ve still got a mile and a half left?” “I’m only halfway?! To hell with this.”
Again, I have a choice in these moments: stagnate, or grow. Running makes this decision very stark because it’s literally in the moment. Of course, we’d all choose to grow over time. To read more books in a year. To move the needle a little bit. But in the actual moment, right now, keep going or give up, do you truly want to get better or do you want to wimp out? Given that our only real competition is ourselves, this question fires me up. I will not give up and lose to myself. I’ll keep going, thank you very much. And as the legs keep moving like determined pistons, I realise that I could do this extra distance all along — my mind was just telling me otherwise.
4. Growth is addictive. Except for injury, nobody gets home from a run wishing they hadn’t done it, feeling worse than before, or like they wasted their time. On the contrary, we feel great and accomplished. And for me, as my lungs feel cleansed and my legs feel thoroughly used, I check my stats. A little further than last time, or a little quicker, or a simple reflection on how fun it was.
And then? Well, I start looking forward to the next run, of course.
Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down. Repeat. | https://medium.com/runners-life/4-lessons-running-taught-me-about-myself-1f8e71d3f07b | ['Richard White'] | 2020-12-14 19:22:24.475000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'Running', 'Health', 'Inspiration', 'Motivation'] | Title 4 Lessons Running Taught MyselfContent Photo Andrea Leopardi Unsplash “Pick ‘em put ‘em down” That’s oftrepeated line book “The Long Walk” Stephen King writing Richard Bachman unfamiliar book set Hunger Gamesesque society boy age 16 enter Long Walk There’s generous prize punishment failure death long walk there’s one walker left Let clear I’m illusion run comparable stop go home whenever like That’s precisely make run challenging — external motivation keep going decision push call day entirely mine think line regularly pick ‘em put ‘em Pick ‘em put ‘em One foot front like little mantra First it’s instructional — one foot front repeat Second it’s easy — put one foot front thought hey actually tired little bored want quit Third it’s reminder I’m control commitment make often one we’re quickest break new diet waking early reading book rapidly discarded slightest hurdle — real perceived I’m guilty broken many promise Sometimes wonder I’d today I’d stuck demoralising motivation stick I’m running changing I’m early stage training first marathon interesting time one hand I’ve got choice train hand it’s almost 10 month away pressure execute plan perfectly isn’t really I’m operating basis earlier start better I’ll plan I’m following last run third final mile day sudden realisation Running wasn’t giving physical health benefit teaching 1 like quit Motivation porn selfhelp book inspirational story around u 247 consume it’s easy u believe take succeed like author speaker delivering story courage would also rise challenge face adversity becoming destined Alas case leg start ache slow Maybe I’ll walk start stitch side Better take easy Ugh another half mile I’ll take breather motivational book video helpful draw powerful lesson say “Each moment opportunity improve stagnate push grow” ache growing quad keep going Pick ‘em put ‘em 2 give autobiography Can’t Hurt David Goggins talk Governor explains brain’s way keeping u comfortable telling u we’re maxed stop order avoid injury say Governor raise head we’re 40 capacity — word think we’ve done haven’t even dug half well instantly became one profound lesson seared brain recall almost every time I’m exercising gym next day reading performing uncomfortable exercise called banded hip ladder take resistance band step pull end chin take 10 large step right 10 large step left 9 8 7 way 1 rest you’ve finished final 1 governor used start complaining 8 I’d rest pause shake leg Following Goggins’ advice simply told “This governor plenty left” know plowed right ladder going 10 1 straight break thing run 3 block mental I’m aware boredom play huge part desire give example sometimes I’m running loop requires street twice I’ll think “Oh can’t road again” everything feel like huge effort “I’ve still got mile half left” “I’m halfway hell this” choice moment stagnate grow Running make decision stark it’s literally moment course we’d choose grow time read book year move needle little bit actual moment right keep going give truly want get better want wimp Given real competition question fire give lose I’ll keep going thank much leg keep moving like determined piston realise could extra distance along — mind telling otherwise 4 Growth addictive Except injury nobody get home run wishing hadn’t done feeling worse like wasted time contrary feel great accomplished lung feel cleansed leg feel thoroughly used check stats little last time little quicker simple reflection fun Well start looking forward next run course Pick ‘em put ‘em RepeatTags Fitness Running Health Inspiration Motivation |
1,211 | How Good Is Amazon Translate? | As part of my Medium article An Overview of Amazon Translate, one of the questions is how good is Amazon Translate? It isn’t possible without a lot of time to check all 55 supported languages, so I am focusing on
English to Spanish;
Spanish to English;
English to French; and,
French to English.
I used one of the paragraphs in this article for this text. The paragraph reads:
"Another example is real-time translation for support and help-desk services. Users are not limited by their knowledge of the language your corporation uses. A Spanish speaking user (for example) can type in Spanish, the text is translated to English using Amazon Translate and displayed to the support agent. The support agent can then respond in English and the text is then translated to Spanish. Any text communication could be processed using Amazon Translate before sending it to the desired audience."
This text was translated to both French and Spanish and provided the reviewers.
English to French
The French text as translated by Amazon Translate reads:
"Un autre exemple est la traduction en temps réel pour les services d'assistance et d'assistance. Les utilisateurs ne sont pas limités par leur connaissance de la langue utilisée par votre entreprise. Un utilisateur parlant espagnol (par exemple) peut taper en espagnol, le texte est traduit en anglais à l'aide d'Amazon Translate et affiché à l'agent de support. L'agent de support peut alors répondre en anglais et le texte est ensuite traduit en espagnol. Toute communication textuelle peut être traitée à l'aide d'Amazon Translate avant de l'envoyer à l'audience souhaitée."
This text was provided to the translator to translate to English. This way we can compare how close the translation is to the original English text.
The translated text was provided to the reviewer who provided this English translation:
"Another example is translation in real time for the assistance services and assistance. Users are not limited by their knowledge of the language used by your business. A user that speaks Spanish (for example) can type in Spanish, the text is translated to English with the help of Amazon Translate and displayed to the support agent. The support agent can then respond in English and the text is then translated to Spanish. All text communication can be processed with the help of Amazon Translate before being sent to the desired audience."
If we create a visual comparison of the original and translated English, we can see the differences.
Comparing the English to French Translation
If you read both the original and the translated versions, you will see they read about the same, despite the highlighted differences. The translator had the following observation about the English to French translation:
“I find that the translation service did quite a good job. In terms of general understanding, it translated the meaning of the English passage well and a French speaker is able to understand the general idea of the paragraph and know what is being talked about. Certain technical terms (like assistance services which I’m assuming was meant to be Help Desk?) did not translate correctly. Usually in French we use the term “centre de soutien” or “centre d’assistance” is also used. Other than this, I found that the translation was quite accurate and easy to understand.” [1]
This highlights an important point. When writing to translate into a different language, it is important to be clear and concise. It is also important to validate the translation of specific terms like “help-desk”, can translate to another language, but may not be as effective as using the term appropriate for that language (which is where the Custom Terminology feature of Amazon Translate can be valuable).
French to English
This test involves having the reviewer create a sample paragraph in their language and provide the English translation. The source language text was translated into English and compared against the provided translation.
The provided French text is:
Bonjour, j’ai acheté un abonnement à votre site web la semaine passé et j’ai quelques problèmes avec mon compte. Je ne me souviens pas de mon mot de passe. Existe-t-il un moyen de réinitialiser mon mot de passe et de récupérer accès à mon compte?
After processing this text through Amazon Translate, the English text reads:
"Hello, I bought a subscription to your website last week and I have some problems with my account. I don't remember my password. Is there a way to reset my password and recover access to my account?"
The English version provided by the translator is:
"Hello, I bought a subscription to your website last week and I have some problems with my account. I do not remember my password. Is there a way to reset my password and regain access to my account?"
There is a very high degree of similarity between these two translations. The visual comparison showing the highlighted differences is here.
Comparing the French to English Translation
The differences between the two are almost insignificant. Using “don’t” instead of “do not”, and “recover” instead of “regain” are good examples of how the translation can be different, but the actual communication would be very efficient.
English to Spanish
After processing by Amazon Translate the Spanish text reads:
Otro ejemplo es la traducción en tiempo real para servicios de soporte y asistencia. Los usuarios no están limitados por su conocimiento del idioma que usa su empresa. Un usuario que habla español (por ejemplo) puede escribir en español, el texto se traduce al inglés mediante Amazon Translate y se muestra al agente de soporte. El soporte puede responder en inglés y el texto se traduce al español. Cualquier comunicación de texto podría procesarse con amazon Translate antes de enviarla a la audiencia deseada.
I sent the translated text to the translator for her to translate back to English. Her translation reads as:
Another example is real-time translation for support and assistance services. Users are not limited by their knowledge of the language your company uses. For example, a Spanish speaking user can write in Spanish, the text is translated to English using Amazon Translate and shown to the support agent. The support agent can respond in English and the text is then translated into Spanish. Any text communication could be processed via Amazon Translate before sending it to the desired audience.
If we put the two English paragraphs beside each other, we can highlight the words which differ.
Differences between Amazon Translate and the Translator
There are a few differences between the original English version and the translation from Spanish as indicated by the highlighted words. The translated text has 5 different words, 1 in the wrong place (“for example”), and one word which existed in the original text, but missing from the translation.
Spanish to English
This test involves having the translator create a sample paragraph in their language and provide the English translation. The source language text was translated into English and compared against the provided translation.
The translator provided this Spanish text for processing through Amazon Translate:
Como parte de sus sesiones temáticas, el CIDI definió temas estratégicos que incluyeron experiencias de alianzas público privadas; los desafíos y las oportunidades de alcanzar una educación de calidad; experiencias para reducir la pobreza y promover la inclusión social; la implementación del Marco de Sendai y del Plan Regional en la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres; y el papel que puede jugar la OEA para apoyar a los Estados a alcanzar una energía asequible, confiable y sustentable. Asimismo, se exploraron alianzas con la Fundación Panamericana para el Desarrollo y la Fundación para las Américas.
The English text after translation is:
As part of its thematic sessions, CIDI defined strategic themes that included experiences of private public partnerships; challenges and opportunities to achieve quality education; experiences to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion; implementation of the Sendai Framework and the Regional Plan for Reducing the Disaster Risk; and the role that the OAS can play in supporting States to achieve affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. Partnerships were also explored with the Pan American Development Foundation and the Foundation for the Americas.
I provided the English text back to Victoria for comparison with her translation. The translator’s version of the Spanish paragraph provided is:
As part of its thematic meetings, CIDI identified strategic topics, which included experiences with public-private partnerships; challenges and opportunities in ensuring quality education; experiences in poverty reduction and fostering social inclusion; implementation of the Sendai Framework and the Regional Plan of Action for Disaster Risk Reduction; and the potential role of the OAS in assisting states in ensuring access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. Partnerships were also explored with the Pan American Development Foundation and the Trust for the Americas.
If we put the two English paragraphs beside each other, we can highlight the words which differ.
Differences between Amazon Translate and the Translator
It looks from the highlighted words like Amazon Translate didn’t do a great job at translating the sample paragraph from Spanish to English. There are 22 different words in the translated Spanish than what was provided by the translator. If you read the translator’s version first and then read the Amazon Translate version, you will see they are closer in meaning than it would appear.
Conclusion
Amazon Translate did pretty well in the translation samples we examined. This was by no means an exhaustive study of the capabilities of amazon Translate. The intent was to demonstrate that while there are syntactic differences in the translated text, the message appears to be presented.
That being said, whether or not to use Amazon Translate for any specific project should depend on your unique situation. These factors should be considered in your decision:
When you need near real-time translation, it is appropriate to use Amazon Translate. When 100% accuracy is less important than ”getting the point across”, Amazon Translate makes sense. For long, complex documents where accuracy is more important, the use of a professional translator is more appropriate. Text involving cultural specific language, events, or history, may be more appropriate for a professional translator. Text which is ”short-lived”, such as a chat session or e-mail, is suitable for Amazon Translate. It is important to consider that issues could arise because people may not always type what they mean. Text which is intended for storage in an archival system or used for reference by others may benefit from a professional translator. Be careful of redundant phrases. Be clear and concise. Validate the translation of specific terms like “help-desk”, can translate to another language, but may not be as effective as using the term appropriate for that language.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Chanelle Dupuis, for her assistance with the English-French part of this evaluation. Ms. Dupuis is currently working toward her Ph.D. in French Studies at Brown University, and is fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
Thank you to Victoria Martinez Adalid, for her assistance with the English-Spanish part of the evaluation. Ms. Adalid is a Professional English-Spanish Translator.
The contributions made by these professionals helped greatly with the content in this research.
References
[1]: Email Conversation with Chanelle Dupuis, July 2020.
A Deep Dive into Amazon Polly
A Five Overview of AWS Transcribe
Amazon Comprehend
Amazon Polly: Bringing Audio to my Medium Articles
Amazon Translate Overview
Introduction to Amazon Translate Digital Training
What is Machine Translation? Rule Based Machine Translation vs. Statistical Machine Translation
About the Author
Chris is a highly-skilled Information Technology, AWS Cloud, Training and Security Professional bringing cloud, security, training, and process engineering leadership to simplify and deliver high-quality products. He is the co-author of seven books and author of more than 70 articles and book chapters in technical, management, and information security publications. His extensive technology, information security, and training experience make him a key resource who can help companies through technical challenges.
Copyright
This article is Copyright © 2020, Chris Hare. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-good-is-amazon-translate-8e9f08b41789 | ['Chris Hare'] | 2020-10-23 14:03:13.976000+00:00 | ['Translation', 'Machine Learning', 'AWS', 'Artificial Intelligence'] | Title Good Amazon TranslateContent part Medium article Overview Amazon Translate one question good Amazon Translate isn’t possible without lot time check 55 supported language focusing English Spanish Spanish English English French French English used one paragraph article text paragraph read Another example realtime translation support helpdesk service Users limited knowledge language corporation us Spanish speaking user example type Spanish text translated English using Amazon Translate displayed support agent support agent respond English text translated Spanish text communication could processed using Amazon Translate sending desired audience text translated French Spanish provided reviewer English French French text translated Amazon Translate read Un autre exemple est la traduction en temp réel pour le service dassistance et dassistance Les utilisateurs ne sont pa limités par leur connaissance de la langue utilisée par votre entreprise Un utilisateur parlant espagnol par exemple peut taper en espagnol le texte est traduit en anglais à laide dAmazon Translate et affiché à lagent de support Lagent de support peut alors répondre en anglais et le texte est ensuite traduit en espagnol Toute communication textuelle peut être traitée à laide dAmazon Translate avant de lenvoyer à laudience souhaitée text provided translator translate English way compare close translation original English text translated text provided reviewer provided English translation Another example translation real time assistance service assistance Users limited knowledge language used business user speaks Spanish example type Spanish text translated English help Amazon Translate displayed support agent support agent respond English text translated Spanish text communication processed help Amazon Translate sent desired audience create visual comparison original translated English see difference Comparing English French Translation read original translated version see read despite highlighted difference translator following observation English French translation “I find translation service quite good job term general understanding translated meaning English passage well French speaker able understand general idea paragraph know talked Certain technical term like assistance service I’m assuming meant Help Desk translate correctly Usually French use term “centre de soutien” “centre d’assistance” also used found translation quite accurate easy understand” 1 highlight important point writing translate different language important clear concise also important validate translation specific term like “helpdesk” translate another language may effective using term appropriate language Custom Terminology feature Amazon Translate valuable French English test involves reviewer create sample paragraph language provide English translation source language text translated English compared provided translation provided French text Bonjour j’ai acheté un abonnement à votre site web la semaine passé et j’ai quelques problèmes avec mon compte Je ne souviens pa de mon mot de passe Existetil un moyen de réinitialiser mon mot de passe et de récupérer accès à mon compte processing text Amazon Translate English text read Hello bought subscription website last week problem account dont remember password way reset password recover access account English version provided translator Hello bought subscription website last week problem account remember password way reset password regain access account high degree similarity two translation visual comparison showing highlighted difference Comparing French English Translation difference two almost insignificant Using “don’t” instead “do not” “recover” instead “regain” good example translation different actual communication would efficient English Spanish processing Amazon Translate Spanish text read Otro ejemplo e la traducción en tiempo real para servicios de soporte asistencia Los usuarios están limitados por su conocimiento del idioma que usa su empresa Un usuario que habla español por ejemplo puede escribir en español el texto se traduce al inglés mediante Amazon Translate se muestra al agente de soporte El soporte puede responder en inglés el texto se traduce al español Cualquier comunicación de texto podría procesarse con amazon Translate ante de enviarla la audiencia deseada sent translated text translator translate back English translation read Another example realtime translation support assistance service Users limited knowledge language company us example Spanish speaking user write Spanish text translated English using Amazon Translate shown support agent support agent respond English text translated Spanish text communication could processed via Amazon Translate sending desired audience put two English paragraph beside highlight word differ Differences Amazon Translate Translator difference original English version translation Spanish indicated highlighted word translated text 5 different word 1 wrong place “for example” one word existed original text missing translation Spanish English test involves translator create sample paragraph language provide English translation source language text translated English compared provided translation translator provided Spanish text processing Amazon Translate Como parte de sus sesiones temáticas el CIDI definió temas estratégicos que incluyeron experiencias de alianzas público privadas los desafíos la oportunidades de alcanzar una educación de calidad experiencias para reducir la pobreza promover la inclusión social la implementación del Marco de Sendai del Plan Regional en la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres el papel que puede jugar la OEA para apoyar los Estados alcanzar una energía asequible confiable sustentable Asimismo se exploraron alianzas con la Fundación Panamericana para el Desarrollo la Fundación para la Américas English text translation part thematic session CIDI defined strategic theme included experience private public partnership challenge opportunity achieve quality education experience reduce poverty promote social inclusion implementation Sendai Framework Regional Plan Reducing Disaster Risk role OAS play supporting States achieve affordable reliable sustainable energy Partnerships also explored Pan American Development Foundation Foundation Americas provided English text back Victoria comparison translation translator’s version Spanish paragraph provided part thematic meeting CIDI identified strategic topic included experience publicprivate partnership challenge opportunity ensuring quality education experience poverty reduction fostering social inclusion implementation Sendai Framework Regional Plan Action Disaster Risk Reduction potential role OAS assisting state ensuring access affordable reliable sustainable energy Partnerships also explored Pan American Development Foundation Trust Americas put two English paragraph beside highlight word differ Differences Amazon Translate Translator look highlighted word like Amazon Translate didn’t great job translating sample paragraph Spanish English 22 different word translated Spanish provided translator read translator’s version first read Amazon Translate version see closer meaning would appear Conclusion Amazon Translate pretty well translation sample examined mean exhaustive study capability amazon Translate intent demonstrate syntactic difference translated text message appears presented said whether use Amazon Translate specific project depend unique situation factor considered decision need near realtime translation appropriate use Amazon Translate 100 accuracy le important ”getting point across” Amazon Translate make sense long complex document accuracy important use professional translator appropriate Text involving cultural specific language event history may appropriate professional translator Text ”shortlived” chat session email suitable Amazon Translate important consider issue could arise people may always type mean Text intended storage archival system used reference others may benefit professional translator careful redundant phrase clear concise Validate translation specific term like “helpdesk” translate another language may effective using term appropriate language Acknowledgments Thank Chanelle Dupuis assistance EnglishFrench part evaluation Ms Dupuis currently working toward PhD French Studies Brown University fluent French Spanish Portuguese English Thank Victoria Martinez Adalid assistance EnglishSpanish part evaluation Ms Adalid Professional EnglishSpanish Translator contribution made professional helped greatly content research References 1 Email Conversation Chanelle Dupuis July 2020 Deep Dive Amazon Polly Five Overview AWS Transcribe Amazon Comprehend Amazon Polly Bringing Audio Medium Articles Amazon Translate Overview Introduction Amazon Translate Digital Training Machine Translation Rule Based Machine Translation v Statistical Machine Translation Author Chris highlyskilled Information Technology AWS Cloud Training Security Professional bringing cloud security training process engineering leadership simplify deliver highquality product coauthor seven book author 70 article book chapter technical management information security publication extensive technology information security training experience make key resource help company technical challenge Copyright article Copyright © 2020 Chris HareTags Translation Machine Learning AWS Artificial Intelligence |
1,212 | There Are Only Two Reasons Writers Struggle to Build an Audience | I used to write guest posts for a personal coach in Hawaii. We’d talk on the phone every week. “Touching base” is the buzzword, but those calls gave me great stories and anecdotes to add to the stuff I wrote for her.
The pay was great, but you know what sucked?
The crickets.
Because once money becomes a non-issue, we want to feel pride. I don’t mean Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, because that’s been debunked years ago, but there’s a pecking order to things. You know?
Top of the list is food and shelter. Which means money. But once we have enough money to exist? Other things come into play.
Like pride in our work.
There’s people who can do work they’re not proud of day after day, but I think it eventually eats your soul. Something inside you dies if you wake up every day and do work you feel absolutely no pride in.
I was writing these great stories, but I was writing to crickets and it was ticking me off. Yes, it was nice to get paid. But I wanted to be read, too.
One day I asked for her login to Google analytics.
And then I got kind of mad at her.
So I phoned.
I asked her why I’m writing guest posts at a site that gets almost no conversion when she’s a writer for another site that converts at 10x the rate?
She said because the site I’m writing for has 250K readers and the other site only has 30K. I laughed like a crazy person. She was the crazy person.
Are you serious?
Does it matter if they have 250K readers if you get 5 reads? Isn’t it smarter to write for the site with 30K readers, where you get 100 or more reads?
Since I had login to Google anyway, I set up goal tracking. Know what else we discovered? All the people that became clients came from the little site. Not the big one. Win win. She got clients. I got people reading my writing.
No writer wants to publish to crickets.
When push comes to shove, there’s only 2 reasons writers struggle to build an audience. If you’re struggling to build an audience, it’s one or both of these.
There Are Only Two Reasons Writers Struggle to Build an Audience
Doesn’t matter where you’re writing. Doesn’t matter if it’s your blog or Medium, some other writing site or even guest posting. If you’re struggling to build an audience, it’s one of these two things.
1. Lack of reach
People can’t read your post if they don’t see it. If a tree falls in the forest, you know? If you want to build an audience the first thing you need is reach.
You can’t build an audience if people aren’t seeing your writing in the first place. They can’t read what they don’t even see.
Circulation doesn’t promise reach
Sometimes, we make the mistake of thinking lots of followers means good reach. Of course we think that — that’s how advertising has been sold forever. Like when magazines say “reach 250K readers” and stuff like that.
On the internet, the number of readers/followers means nothing. Whether they’re responsive is far more important.
That was the mistake my client made. She thought it was smarter to write for the site with bigger circulation. Except, they weren’t reading.
When I dug in, I could see why. People had to “sign up” to be able to submit stories. It was just a giant aggregator and all those people weren’t there to read. They were there to submit. Wow, that sucks.
Same happens here. There are publications with 100K readers or more. Some of them mass publish posts, which means you scroll off the homepage so fast you might as well not have been there. When a story published in those pubs does get reads, it’s usually because the writer has a strong following.
Topic might be an issue, too
People read what interests them. If you write about the mating habits of Abyssinian rabbits, the audience might not be very big. But on the other hand, they might be avid readers, which really helps.
Hey — another weirdo that likes that thing I like! You know?
If you write about self growth or relationships, there’s a bigger audience for your writing, but also more competition.
Know what else kills? When you write about so many topics that some of them alienate people that would like some of your writing. For example, if you write about a topic that appeals to more men, but then you write feminist posts that tick off the men that would like your other posts.
That’s probably a lame example. The point is that it’s worth thinking about how our topics intersect.
It’s a bit of a juggle to find your own sweet spot. Mostly, the issue is that we’re afraid to let our freak flag fly. We’re worried about “fitting in” and not being perceived as strange. Which is a shame, because it’s the things that make you different than everyone else that make you stand out from the crowd.
Titles, people. Titles!
It’s easy to say a publication or site doesn’t get good response, but the real trouble might be that your titles just suck. Maybe they “are” seeing it, and you “are” getting reach, but you don’t know it. Because they don’t click.
I mean, honestly. One day I saw two posts. One was called “The Tree. A Poem” (or something like that)
Underneath it was a post called My Husband Left Me For Another Woman. She Can Have Him. I Just Want My Dress Back.”
You want to put money on which got more clicks?
I’m not voting for clickbait. But interest. You know? You at least have to be interesting. Make a promise your story will deliver on for gosh sakes.
2. Lack of connection
This one is easiest to see at Medium, but it happens everywhere. People are seeing your stuff. You have reach. They might even be clicking.
But then you lose them. And you’re not sure why. Well duh. Why do you think? Oh, they left because it was so good? Come on.
On Medium, that shows up as a low read rate. Like, your piece has a 75% click rate, but 39% read rate. What does that tell you? Easy.
The title got them. The writing lost them.
Weak opening is the biggest reason you don’t connect
If you watch comedy, you’ll know that sometimes a comedian is facing a tough audience. An audience that doesn’t laugh easy. On the internet, it’s always a tough audience. At least until you find your people.
Your people will read anything you write.
But finding your people? It’s hard.
Even harder if you start weak or boring.
Lots of writers sort of “build up” to the good part. That doesn’t work. You need to cut all the build up. Get right to the good part. Because if you don’t, most people won’t stick around long enough to get there.
Did the writing deliver what the title promised?
Most people have no clue what clickbait really is. They think interesting titles are clickbait. lol. Nope. Guess again.
Real clickbait is when the title grabs your interest, but the article is a total letdown. Great title, crap read. That’s where clickbait got the name.
It’s like — oh, you just wrote an awesome title to get the click, but the piece was total crap. Buzzfeed used to do that. But they figured out it was hurting them long term, because people got wise to it.
Think of your title as an interesting synopsis of the content, ideally with a promise to the reader. Here’s what you get if you read this. And then keep the promise.
Weak writing skills
Having a great story and telling it well aren’t remotely the same.
Some people think talking about writing skills means the kind your teacher approved of. lol. No.
As the quote says — easy reading is damn hard writing.
It’s not about prepositions and sentence structure or any of that. It’s about being interesting. It’s about grabbing interest and hanging on to it.
People love to say we should write how we talk.
Except most of us have some weird tics when we talk. We stuff in extra words. We drag things out. We get off track. Add fluff and filler. You can get away with that in person. People don’t turn around and leave if your story is boring. On the internet, they do.
Slow pace, fluff words and rambling are the most common mistakes.
Click. Gone. Hell, they already have 5 other tabs waiting.
The solution isn’t to write more. It’s to read more. We’re kind of like sponges. We soak up stuff we’re repeatedly exposed to. If you read stuff that keeps you reading, eventually you’ll learn to improve your own writing.
Can I tell you a dirty little secret?
If you’re looking for an easy way to make money, writing isn’t it. Go sell something. I promise you, it’s easier.
People who write? They write because they can’t not write. It’s in their blood. As Gaga said — we’re born this way.
Truth is, if you’re struggling to build an audience, it’s probably a bit of both. It helps to know that. Yes, there are likely places you can become stronger. But don’t forget to look at how the places you’re writing factor in, too.
If you can improve reach just a bit, and get a little better at your craft, the growth does happen. That’s a promise. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/there-are-only-two-reasons-writers-struggle-to-build-an-audience-15868eea87c4 | ['Linda Caroll'] | 2020-12-04 18:47:05.261000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing Tips', 'Self', 'Advice', 'Writing'] | Title Two Reasons Writers Struggle Build AudienceContent used write guest post personal coach Hawaii We’d talk phone every week “Touching base” buzzword call gave great story anecdote add stuff wrote pay great know sucked cricket money becomes nonissue want feel pride don’t mean Maslow’s hierarchy need that’s debunked year ago there’s pecking order thing know Top list food shelter mean money enough money exist thing come play Like pride work There’s people work they’re proud day day think eventually eats soul Something inside dy wake every day work feel absolutely pride writing great story writing cricket ticking Yes nice get paid wanted read One day asked login Google analytics got kind mad phoned asked I’m writing guest post site get almost conversion she’s writer another site convert 10x rate said site I’m writing 250K reader site 30K laughed like crazy person crazy person serious matter 250K reader get 5 read Isn’t smarter write site 30K reader get 100 read Since login Google anyway set goal tracking Know else discovered people became client came little site big one Win win got client got people reading writing writer want publish cricket push come shove there’s 2 reason writer struggle build audience you’re struggling build audience it’s one Two Reasons Writers Struggle Build Audience Doesn’t matter you’re writing Doesn’t matter it’s blog Medium writing site even guest posting you’re struggling build audience it’s one two thing 1 Lack reach People can’t read post don’t see tree fall forest know want build audience first thing need reach can’t build audience people aren’t seeing writing first place can’t read don’t even see Circulation doesn’t promise reach Sometimes make mistake thinking lot follower mean good reach course think — that’s advertising sold forever Like magazine say “reach 250K readers” stuff like internet number readersfollowers mean nothing Whether they’re responsive far important mistake client made thought smarter write site bigger circulation Except weren’t reading dug could see People “sign up” able submit story giant aggregator people weren’t read submit Wow suck happens publication 100K reader mass publish post mean scroll homepage fast might well story published pub get read it’s usually writer strong following Topic might issue People read interest write mating habit Abyssinian rabbit audience might big hand might avid reader really help Hey — another weirdo like thing like know write self growth relationship there’s bigger audience writing also competition Know else kill write many topic alienate people would like writing example write topic appeal men write feminist post tick men would like post That’s probably lame example point it’s worth thinking topic intersect It’s bit juggle find sweet spot Mostly issue we’re afraid let freak flag fly We’re worried “fitting in” perceived strange shame it’s thing make different everyone else make stand crowd Titles people Titles It’s easy say publication site doesn’t get good response real trouble might title suck Maybe “are” seeing “are” getting reach don’t know don’t click mean honestly One day saw two post One called “The Tree Poem” something like Underneath post called Husband Left Another Woman Want Dress Back” want put money got click I’m voting clickbait interest know least interesting Make promise story deliver gosh sake 2 Lack connection one easiest see Medium happens everywhere People seeing stuff reach might even clicking lose you’re sure Well duh think Oh left good Come Medium show low read rate Like piece 75 click rate 39 read rate tell Easy title got writing lost Weak opening biggest reason don’t connect watch comedy you’ll know sometimes comedian facing tough audience audience doesn’t laugh easy internet it’s always tough audience least find people people read anything write finding people It’s hard Even harder start weak boring Lots writer sort “build up” good part doesn’t work need cut build Get right good part don’t people won’t stick around long enough get writing deliver title promised people clue clickbait really think interesting title clickbait lol Nope Guess Real clickbait title grab interest article total letdown Great title crap read That’s clickbait got name It’s like — oh wrote awesome title get click piece total crap Buzzfeed used figured hurting long term people got wise Think title interesting synopsis content ideally promise reader Here’s get read keep promise Weak writing skill great story telling well aren’t remotely people think talking writing skill mean kind teacher approved lol quote say — easy reading damn hard writing It’s preposition sentence structure It’s interesting It’s grabbing interest hanging People love say write talk Except u weird tic talk stuff extra word drag thing get track Add fluff filler get away person People don’t turn around leave story boring internet Slow pace fluff word rambling common mistake Click Gone Hell already 5 tab waiting solution isn’t write It’s read We’re kind like sponge soak stuff we’re repeatedly exposed read stuff keep reading eventually you’ll learn improve writing tell dirty little secret you’re looking easy way make money writing isn’t Go sell something promise it’s easier People write write can’t write It’s blood Gaga said — we’re born way Truth you’re struggling build audience it’s probably bit help know Yes likely place become stronger don’t forget look place you’re writing factor improve reach bit get little better craft growth happen That’s promiseTags Creativity Writing Tips Self Advice Writing |
1,213 | Pattern Recognition With Machine Learning | Components of a Pattern Recognition System
A pattern recognition system needs some input from the real world that it perceives with sensors. Such a system can work with any type of data: images, videos, numbers, or texts.
Having received some information as the input, the algorithm performs preprocessing. That is segmenting something interesting from the background. For example, when you are given a group photo and a familiar face attracts your attention, this is preprocessing.
Preprocessing is tightly connected with enhancement. By this term, researchers understand an increase in the ability of a human or a system to recognize patterns even when they are vague. Imagine you are still looking at the same group photo but it is 20 years old. To make sure that the familiar face in the photo is really the person you know, you start comparing their hair, eyes, and mouth. This is when enhancement steps into the game.
The next component is feature extraction. The algorithm uncovers some characteristic traits that are similar to more than one data sample.
The result of a pattern recognition system will be either a class assignment (if we used classification), or cluster assignment (in case of clustering), or predicted values (if you apply regression). | https://medium.com/better-programming/pattern-recognition-with-machine-learning-49de621426b6 | [] | 2020-10-30 15:09:31.101000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Speech Recognition', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Programming'] | Title Pattern Recognition Machine LearningContent Components Pattern Recognition System pattern recognition system need input real world perceives sensor system work type data image video number text received information input algorithm performs preprocessing segmenting something interesting background example given group photo familiar face attracts attention preprocessing Preprocessing tightly connected enhancement term researcher understand increase ability human system recognize pattern even vague Imagine still looking group photo 20 year old make sure familiar face photo really person know start comparing hair eye mouth enhancement step game next component feature extraction algorithm uncovers characteristic trait similar one data sample result pattern recognition system either class assignment used classification cluster assignment case clustering predicted value apply regressionTags Machine Learning Speech Recognition Artificial Intelligence AI Programming |
1,214 | 5 Minute Writing Exercise Part 2 | Have you ever tried writing in the dark? I like it because it helps me to not edit while I am writing. Writing and editing work best when done separately.
When I was taking art classes in college, our professor had us start each class by doing two 5 minute drawing exercises.
The first was to spend five minutes continuous contour line drawing. The second was blind continuous contour line drawing.
Continuous contour line drawing means to draw the outside edge, the contour, of something without lifting the pencil.
Blind continuous contour line drawing is the same but without looking at the page.
Our professor explained how important it was to warm up before starting a drawing; how important it was to keep your hand moving.
Writing exercises are just as important as drawing exercises. The goal is the same: keep your hand moving.
Another important lesson I learned in drawing class was to first sketch my drawing without erasing. To erase when my sketch was complete.
These writing exercises are teaching you to first draft your story without editing. To edit when your draft is complete.
In lesson 1 you learned about lizard brain and monkey mind. In lesson two, we are going to (temporarily) blind monkey and let lizard roam free.
In this lesson, I would like to challenge you to write in the dark. It is also acceptable to write in the dim. It just needs to be dark enough so that you cannot easily see the words you have written. It can be light enough to see the lines on your paper.
The tools you will need for this exercise are the same as in lesson 1:
Notebook Ink pen Timer Blindfold or dark room
If you are very disciplined (I am not) you could forgo the blindfold and just close your eyes. My eyes always creep open seemingly of their own accord. So I sit in a darkened room or use a blindfold.
It is important to remember that this exercise is about writing without editing. It isn’t about what you write. It is about how you write it. You may not even be able to read all of what you have written. I often cover words with other words getting to the end of the line and beginning a new line under the first is a challenge when you can’t see. It ends up being an illegible mess.
Those line drawings, and especially the blind line drawings looked nothing like the subject being drawn. But the uninterrupted contour drawing isn’t about the picture. It’s about the process.
This exercise is about keeping your hand moving. If you can’t see what you’ve written you can’t go back and erase, cross out, or in any way change it. You will get in the habit of writing this way (without simultaneously editing, you don’t need to get in the habit of writing in the dark!)
Blind writing is about practicing. Practice makes perfect. Except, I do not believe any artist truly achieves perfection. Every successful artist continues to learn and grow, continues to hone their craft.
I recommend doing three 5 minute blind writing exercises before you begin your writing project.
Just as with lesson 1, between 5-minute sessions, get some circulation going. Clap your hands, jump up and down, sing lalalala, whatever you need to do to get oxygen flowing to your brain.
After you have taken your three deep breaths, open your eyes and set your timer. You may want to set the timer for 6 or 7 minutes, depending on how long it will take you to get blindfolded or turn off the light.
Next, all you have to do is begin writing. If you find it hard to start, you can start with a repeating phrase.
“In the dark” or “I am in the dark”
Write this phrase without looking over and over until something else pops up.
This is what my blind writing exercise looked like this morning (what I could read of it, anyway):
I am in the dark I am writing in the dark my nose itches this blindfold is weird. I used to believe I could make myself completely flat under the covers. I would hide from my mother and get very upset when she found me. I thought she must be a witch. In the dark in the dark My mind wanders in the dark. Tell me what you don’t know. what don’t I know?it is too dark.
As you see from the example above, when I got stuck I simply went back to the phrase “in the dark.” What you can’t see are the lines that I wrote one on top of the other. Something about hide and seek, a closet, and Bloody Mary.
Do blind writing two or three times and then do an “I am” exercise. And remember, these are warm-ups. It can be fun to focus on these 5-minute exercises, but you DO still have a writing project to get to.
Again, please don’t throw away your exercises. We will come back to them for later exercises.
If the darkness and writing take you to a painful place, please do not force yourself to continue. Take a break. Take your time. This is your rodeo. Let’s make it the best rodeo ever.
One more quick note before you get started: I would love to hear how you are doing with the writing exercise/warm-up lessons. Feel free to leave a response here when you are finished.
Are you ready?
Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly three times. Open your eyes. Set your timer. Blindfold your self or turn out the light. And…GO! Write for 5 minutes, get up, and jump around.
Rinse, repeat. | https://medium.com/the-writers-bookcase/5-minute-writing-exercise-part-2-f29b7f9538c8 | ['Jonica Bradley'] | 2019-11-08 11:53:30.729000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Work', 'Editing', 'Self', 'Creativity'] | Title 5 Minute Writing Exercise Part 2Content ever tried writing dark like help edit writing Writing editing work best done separately taking art class college professor u start class two 5 minute drawing exercise first spend five minute continuous contour line drawing second blind continuous contour line drawing Continuous contour line drawing mean draw outside edge contour something without lifting pencil Blind continuous contour line drawing without looking page professor explained important warm starting drawing important keep hand moving Writing exercise important drawing exercise goal keep hand moving Another important lesson learned drawing class first sketch drawing without erasing erase sketch complete writing exercise teaching first draft story without editing edit draft complete lesson 1 learned lizard brain monkey mind lesson two going temporarily blind monkey let lizard roam free lesson would like challenge write dark also acceptable write dim need dark enough cannot easily see word written light enough see line paper tool need exercise lesson 1 Notebook Ink pen Timer Blindfold dark room disciplined could forgo blindfold close eye eye always creep open seemingly accord sit darkened room use blindfold important remember exercise writing without editing isn’t write write may even able read written often cover word word getting end line beginning new line first challenge can’t see end illegible mess line drawing especially blind line drawing looked nothing like subject drawn uninterrupted contour drawing isn’t picture It’s process exercise keeping hand moving can’t see you’ve written can’t go back erase cross way change get habit writing way without simultaneously editing don’t need get habit writing dark Blind writing practicing Practice make perfect Except believe artist truly achieves perfection Every successful artist continues learn grow continues hone craft recommend three 5 minute blind writing exercise begin writing project lesson 1 5minute session get circulation going Clap hand jump sing lalalala whatever need get oxygen flowing brain taken three deep breath open eye set timer may want set timer 6 7 minute depending long take get blindfolded turn light Next begin writing find hard start start repeating phrase “In dark” “I dark” Write phrase without looking something else pop blind writing exercise looked like morning could read anyway dark writing dark nose itch blindfold weird used believe could make completely flat cover would hide mother get upset found thought must witch dark dark mind wanders dark Tell don’t know don’t knowit dark see example got stuck simply went back phrase “in dark” can’t see line wrote one top Something hide seek closet Bloody Mary blind writing two three time “I am” exercise remember warmups fun focus 5minute exercise still writing project get please don’t throw away exercise come back later exercise darkness writing take painful place please force continue Take break Take time rodeo Let’s make best rodeo ever One quick note get started would love hear writing exercisewarmup lesson Feel free leave response finished ready Close eye Breathe deeply slowly three time Open eye Set timer Blindfold self turn light And…GO Write 5 minute get jump around Rinse repeatTags Writing Work Editing Self Creativity |
1,215 | Three Types of Business Opportunities with Machine Learning | In practice, of course, a given ML application may fit more than one of the above impact categories. An ML algorithm that can analyze documents, for instance, might be reasonably said to increase employee efficiency by helping them process documents faster. But it might also be viewed as a breakthrough since it allows the company to offer new document analysis products it never could before.
Or consider a machine learning algorithm that detects security threats (like guns or knives) in an image generated by a baggage scanner. It may reduce costs by reducing the need for a person to watch a screen constantly. It may increase efficiency by finding more threats. And it may represent a breakthrough by finding threats that humans may have never been able to detect.
Furthermore, “breakthroughs” need not necessarily be associated with new products. What if the breakthrough enables a new kind of insight for the C-suite? Such reporting may lead to strategic choices that ultimately lead to increased revenue or lower costs, even if the immediate impact is not as clear.
Business impact thinking is not meant to rigidly constrain the way you think about machine learning projects. Think of it instead as a useful guide. You should certainly be aiming in the direction of at least one business impact — but you should be flexible enough to know when you need to change the way you communicate your goals and frame your success.
It’s not unheard of for a machine learning project to begin with a goal of reducing costs by automating away entire jobs. But this isn’t always easy. Even if 80% of an employee’s work can be eliminated, the remaining 20% may be stubbornly un-automatable. This doesn’t mean the project was a failure. If the humans can focus on their 20% of the task while being free of the other 80%, they can take on new business. This could represent a massive business efficiency gain — a huge win when the business impact is viewed properly. | https://medium.com/machine-learning-in-practice/three-types-of-business-opportunities-with-machine-learning-2a73c92f9056 | ['Robbie Allen'] | 2019-11-25 14:12:38.854000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Technology'] | Title Three Types Business Opportunities Machine LearningContent practice course given ML application may fit one impact category ML algorithm analyze document instance might reasonably said increase employee efficiency helping process document faster might also viewed breakthrough since allows company offer new document analysis product never could consider machine learning algorithm detects security threat like gun knife image generated baggage scanner may reduce cost reducing need person watch screen constantly may increase efficiency finding threat may represent breakthrough finding threat human may never able detect Furthermore “breakthroughs” need necessarily associated new product breakthrough enables new kind insight Csuite reporting may lead strategic choice ultimately lead increased revenue lower cost even immediate impact clear Business impact thinking meant rigidly constrain way think machine learning project Think instead useful guide certainly aiming direction least one business impact — flexible enough know need change way communicate goal frame success It’s unheard machine learning project begin goal reducing cost automating away entire job isn’t always easy Even 80 employee’s work eliminated remaining 20 may stubbornly unautomatable doesn’t mean project failure human focus 20 task free 80 take new business could represent massive business efficiency gain — huge win business impact viewed properlyTags Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Business Entrepreneurship Technology |
1,216 | Flutter vs React Native vs Native: Deep Performance Comparison | Flutter vs React Native vs Native: Deep Performance Comparison
Let’s compare FPS, CPU, Memory, and GPU performance of popular mobile development tools on everyday life tasks.
The story behind the research
inVerita and its mobile development team continuously dig into the performance of cross-platform mobile solutions available on the market to answer the question which technology is best Flutter or React Native(or Native) for your product, maybe even career, that’s how Flutter vs React Native vs Native Part I emerged. Yes, it was quite controversial as one can state we weren’t using React Native to perform multiple calculations daily — that might be the case — but in this case, CPU heavy tasks are better performed by Flutter or Native apps.
That’s why in this article we decided to research the performance of UI which has a much bigger impact on a daily user of mobile apps.
Measuring UI performance is complex and it requires an engineer to implement the same functionality in the same way across every platform. We went with a GameBench as a global testing tool to leave no doubts and make sure we stay objective (it doesn’t change the fact that we truly love Flutter in most aspects:) and still run lots of React Native and Native projects ). GameBench has a lot of space for improvements, but we managed to put every app into a single testing environment with its help which was our goal.
Source code is open so please experiment and share your thoughts with us if you wish. UI animations mostly use different tools across different platforms so we narrowed everything to libraries supported by every platform (but one case) or at least we did everything we could to accomplish that. Test results can be different and depend on your approaches to the implementation, we believe that you, as a potentially true expert of specific technology can push your specific set of tools to the limits where it outperforms our numbers and we are happy if you do. Now, let’s have a look at the cases.
Hardware info:
For our testing purposes, we were using an affordable Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and iPhone 6s.
Repo link:
Source code
Use case 1 — List view benchmarking
We implemented the same UI on Android and iOS with the use of Native, React Native, and Flutter. We also automated scroll velocity with the use of RecyclerView.SmoothScroller on Android. On iOS and React Native we used an approach with timer and programmatically scrolling to position. On Flutter, we used ScrollController to smoothly scroll over the list. In each case, we had 1000 items in the list view and the same scrolling time to reach the last list element. In each of these cases, we used image caching with different libs per platform. More details could be revealed in the source code.
Third-party libraries used in this case:
iOS
Loading and caching images — Nuke
Android
Loading and caching images — Glide
React Native
Loading and caching images — React-native-fast-image
Android — GPU tests results are not supported by the benchmark (unfortunately, with the devices we have, and we have many:)) )
Test results
All tests have shown approximately the same FPS. Android Native uses half as much memory compared to Flutter and React Native. React Native requires the most significant CPU exploitation. The reason is the use of JSBridge between JS and Native code that incites the waste of resources on serialization and deserialization. Regarding battery exploitation, Android Native has the best outcome. React-native is lagging behind both Android and Flutter. Running continuous animations consume more battery power on React Native.
iPhone 6s test
Test results
FPS. React Native results are worse than those of Flutter and Swift. The reason is the inability to use IoT compilation on iOS. Memory. Flutter almost matches native in Memory consumption but is still heavier on CPU. React Native falls far behind Flutter and native in this test. Difference between Flutter and Swift. Flutter is actively using CPU when iOS Native is actively using GPU. Reconciliation in Flutter increases the load on the CPU.
Use case 2 — Heavy animations test
Nowadays most phones running on Android and iOS have powerful hardware. In most cases using usual business apps, no fps drops could be noticed. That’s why we decided to do some tests with heavy animations. Heavy enough to get fps drops. We used vector animations animated with Lottie on Android, iOS, React Native and adopted the same animations to use with Flare on Flutter.
Testing animation with Lottie for Android, iOS, React Native, and Flare for Flutter.
Lottie for Android
Test results
Test results
Android
Android and React Native have similarities in their performance. It’s obvious because Lottie for React Native uses Native means (16–19% CPU, 30–29 FPS). Flutter’s outcome is such a surprise, though it screwed up a bit during a performance. (12% CPU and 9 FPS).
We discovered that removing one specific animation from the grid increases FPS up to 40% on Flutter. We suppose Flare is heavier and not optimized for this kind of task that’s why Flutter got such an FPS drop.
Blame this one:
Lottie for Android
3. Android requires the least amount of memory (205 Mb); React Native needs 280 Mb and Flutter requires 266 Mb.
4. Cold app start. According to this indicator, Flutter is the leader (2 seconds). For Android Native and React Native, it takes around 4 seconds.
iOS
iOS and React Native outcomes on this test are almost the same as Lottie for React Native uses native means. Flare and Flutter are not going to stop surprising. Flare definitely has a way to go :D iOS Native requires the least amount of memory (48 Mb). React Native needs 135 Mb and Flutter requires 117 Mb; Cold app start. According to this indicator, Flutter is the leader (2 seconds). For iOS and React Native it takes around 10 seconds;
Take note: we used a different library for this case with Flutter which is much heavier compared to those we used for other platforms and it might be the reason for fps drops.
Use case 3 — Even heavier animations test with rotations, scaling and fade.
In this test, we compared performance while animating 200 images. Scale rotating and fade animations are executed at the same time.
200 images
Test results
Android
Native showed top performance and most efficient memory consumption. Flutter showed just enough performance to work comfortably but twice more memory expenses comparing to Native. React Native —showed a low performance on this case.
Test results
iOS
iPhone 6s is powerful enough to not drop fps in all 3 cases. Native used fewer resources and GPU was used mostly. React Native used mostly CPU for rendering while Flutter used GPU. React Native used a bit more memory.
Summary
For usual business apps with minor animations and shiny looks, technology does not matter at all. But if you’ll do some heavy animations keep in mind that Native has the most performance power to do it. Next, come Flutter and React Native. We would definitely not recommend using React Native in a very CPU heavy operation, while Flutter is a great fit for such tasks from both CPU and Memory standpoint.
The tool you pick depends on your specific product and business case. In case you are looking to develop a single-platform MVP — use native means, but keep in mind that Flutter apps can be built both for mobile, web and desktop environments and it feels like Flutter might become a King of cross-platform development in not too distant future, as even today Flutter created a very decent competition for native development tools, especially if your development budget is not too stretched but you are still looking for the decent performance of yours app across different platforms.
We face the fact that there might be many factors impacting implementation and benchmarks of each technology, and many of you who might be true experts of a specific platform can squeeze much more out of the beloved set of tools. We tried to bring as much transparency into the process as we could by creating a single environment for each app to get tested and a single set of tools to measure the performance, and I hope you liked the result. Yet again our mobile and Flutter teams are happy to receive and carry all the burden of your feedback and suggestions.
You can also check out this article here. | https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-vs-react-native-vs-native-deep-performance-comparison-990b90c11433 | [] | 2020-08-30 08:36:27.896000+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Startup', 'Mobile App Development'] | Title Flutter v React Native v Native Deep Performance ComparisonContent Flutter v React Native v Native Deep Performance Comparison Let’s compare FPS CPU Memory GPU performance popular mobile development tool everyday life task story behind research inVerita mobile development team continuously dig performance crossplatform mobile solution available market answer question technology best Flutter React Nativeor Native product maybe even career that’s Flutter v React Native v Native Part emerged Yes quite controversial one state weren’t using React Native perform multiple calculation daily — might case — case CPU heavy task better performed Flutter Native apps That’s article decided research performance UI much bigger impact daily user mobile apps Measuring UI performance complex requires engineer implement functionality way across every platform went GameBench global testing tool leave doubt make sure stay objective doesn’t change fact truly love Flutter aspect still run lot React Native Native project GameBench lot space improvement managed put every app single testing environment help goal Source code open please experiment share thought u wish UI animation mostly use different tool across different platform narrowed everything library supported every platform one case least everything could accomplish Test result different depend approach implementation believe potentially true expert specific technology push specific set tool limit outperforms number happy let’s look case Hardware info testing purpose using affordable Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 iPhone 6 Repo link Source code Use case 1 — List view benchmarking implemented UI Android iOS use Native React Native Flutter also automated scroll velocity use RecyclerViewSmoothScroller Android iOS React Native used approach timer programmatically scrolling position Flutter used ScrollController smoothly scroll list case 1000 item list view scrolling time reach last list element case used image caching different libs per platform detail could revealed source code Thirdparty library used case iOS Loading caching image — Nuke Android Loading caching image — Glide React Native Loading caching image — Reactnativefastimage Android — GPU test result supported benchmark unfortunately device many Test result test shown approximately FPS Android Native us half much memory compared Flutter React Native React Native requires significant CPU exploitation reason use JSBridge JS Native code incites waste resource serialization deserialization Regarding battery exploitation Android Native best outcome Reactnative lagging behind Android Flutter Running continuous animation consume battery power React Native iPhone 6 test Test result FPS React Native result worse Flutter Swift reason inability use IoT compilation iOS Memory Flutter almost match native Memory consumption still heavier CPU React Native fall far behind Flutter native test Difference Flutter Swift Flutter actively using CPU iOS Native actively using GPU Reconciliation Flutter increase load CPU Use case 2 — Heavy animation test Nowadays phone running Android iOS powerful hardware case using usual business apps fps drop could noticed That’s decided test heavy animation Heavy enough get fps drop used vector animation animated Lottie Android iOS React Native adopted animation use Flare Flutter Testing animation Lottie Android iOS React Native Flare Flutter Lottie Android Test result Test result Android Android React Native similarity performance It’s obvious Lottie React Native us Native mean 16–19 CPU 30–29 FPS Flutter’s outcome surprise though screwed bit performance 12 CPU 9 FPS discovered removing one specific animation grid increase FPS 40 Flutter suppose Flare heavier optimized kind task that’s Flutter got FPS drop Blame one Lottie Android 3 Android requires least amount memory 205 Mb React Native need 280 Mb Flutter requires 266 Mb 4 Cold app start According indicator Flutter leader 2 second Android Native React Native take around 4 second iOS iOS React Native outcome test almost Lottie React Native us native mean Flare Flutter going stop surprising Flare definitely way go iOS Native requires least amount memory 48 Mb React Native need 135 Mb Flutter requires 117 Mb Cold app start According indicator Flutter leader 2 second iOS React Native take around 10 second Take note used different library case Flutter much heavier compared used platform might reason fps drop Use case 3 — Even heavier animation test rotation scaling fade test compared performance animating 200 image Scale rotating fade animation executed time 200 image Test result Android Native showed top performance efficient memory consumption Flutter showed enough performance work comfortably twice memory expense comparing Native React Native —showed low performance case Test result iOS iPhone 6 powerful enough drop fps 3 case Native used fewer resource GPU used mostly React Native used mostly CPU rendering Flutter used GPU React Native used bit memory Summary usual business apps minor animation shiny look technology matter you’ll heavy animation keep mind Native performance power Next come Flutter React Native would definitely recommend using React Native CPU heavy operation Flutter great fit task CPU Memory standpoint tool pick depends specific product business case case looking develop singleplatform MVP — use native mean keep mind Flutter apps built mobile web desktop environment feel like Flutter might become King crossplatform development distant future even today Flutter created decent competition native development tool especially development budget stretched still looking decent performance app across different platform face fact might many factor impacting implementation benchmark technology many might true expert specific platform squeeze much beloved set tool tried bring much transparency process could creating single environment app get tested single set tool measure performance hope liked result Yet mobile Flutter team happy receive carry burden feedback suggestion also check article hereTags Flutter Software Development Programming Startup Mobile App Development |
1,217 | Understanding Cosine Similarity And Its Application | Utilisation
Cosine similarity has its place in several applications and algorithms.
From the world of computer vision to data mining, there is lots of usefulness to comparing a similarity measurement between two vectors represented in a higher-dimensional space.
Let’s go through a couple of scenarios and applications where the cosine similarity measure is leveraged.
1. Document Similarity
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
A scenario that involves the requirement of identifying the similarity between pairs of a document is a good use case for the utilisation of cosine similarity as a quantification of the measurement of similarity between two objects.
Quantification of the similarity between two documents can be obtained by converting the words or phrases within the document or sentence into a vectorised form of representation.
The vector representations of the documents can then be used within the cosine similarity formula to obtain a quantification of similarity.
In the scenario described above, the cosine similarity of 1 implies that the two documents are exactly alike and a cosine similarity of 0 would point to the conclusion that there are no similarities between the two documents.
Here’s an example:
Document 1: Deep Learning can be hard
Document 2: Deep Learning can be simple
Step 1: First we obtain a vectorised representation of the texts
Document 1: [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0] let’s refer to this as A
Document 2: [1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1] let’s refer to this as B
Above we have two vectors (A and B) that are in a 6 dimension vector space
Step 2: Find the cosine similarity
cosine similarity (CS) = (A . B) / (||A|| ||B||)
Calculate the dot product between A and B: 1.1 + 1.1 + 1.1 + 1.1 + 1.0 + 0.1 = 4
Calculate the magnitude of the vector A: √1² + 1² + 1² + 1² + 1² + 0² = 2.2360679775
Calculate the magnitude of the vector A: √1² + 1² + 1² + 1² + 0²+ 1² = 2.2360679775
Calculate the cosine similarity: (4) / (2.2360679775*2.2360679775) = 0.80 (80% similarity between the sentences in both document)
Let’s explore another application where cosine similarity can be utilised to determine a similarity measurement bteween two objects.
2. Pose Matching
Gif from https://github.com/CMU-Perceptual-Computing-Lab/openpose
Pose matching involves comparing the poses containing key points of joint locations.
Pose estimation is a computer vision task, and it’s typically solved using Deep Learning approaches such as Convolutional Pose Machine, Stacked hourglass, PoseNet etc.
Pose estimation is the process where the position and orientation of the vital body parts and joints of a body are derived from an image or sequence of images.
In a scenario where there is a requirement to quantify the similarity between two poses in Image A and Image B, here is the process that would be taken: | https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-cosine-similarity-and-its-application-fd42f585296a | ['Richmond Alake'] | 2020-09-15 03:16:51.844000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Education', 'Computer Vision', 'Data Science'] | Title Understanding Cosine Similarity ApplicationContent Utilisation Cosine similarity place several application algorithm world computer vision data mining lot usefulness comparing similarity measurement two vector represented higherdimensional space Let’s go couple scenario application cosine similarity measure leveraged 1 Document Similarity Photo Annie Spratt Unsplash scenario involves requirement identifying similarity pair document good use case utilisation cosine similarity quantification measurement similarity two object Quantification similarity two document obtained converting word phrase within document sentence vectorised form representation vector representation document used within cosine similarity formula obtain quantification similarity scenario described cosine similarity 1 implies two document exactly alike cosine similarity 0 would point conclusion similarity two document Here’s example Document 1 Deep Learning hard Document 2 Deep Learning simple Step 1 First obtain vectorised representation text Document 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 let’s refer Document 2 1 1 1 1 0 1 let’s refer B two vector B 6 dimension vector space Step 2 Find cosine similarity cosine similarity CS B B Calculate dot product B 11 11 11 11 10 01 4 Calculate magnitude vector √1² 1² 1² 1² 1² 0² 22360679775 Calculate magnitude vector √1² 1² 1² 1² 0² 1² 22360679775 Calculate cosine similarity 4 2236067977522360679775 080 80 similarity sentence document Let’s explore another application cosine similarity utilised determine similarity measurement bteween two object 2 Pose Matching Gif httpsgithubcomCMUPerceptualComputingLabopenpose Pose matching involves comparing pose containing key point joint location Pose estimation computer vision task it’s typically solved using Deep Learning approach Convolutional Pose Machine Stacked hourglass PoseNet etc Pose estimation process position orientation vital body part joint body derived image sequence image scenario requirement quantify similarity two pose Image Image B process would takenTags Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Education Computer Vision Data Science |
1,218 | 5 Things To Know About The Future Of Jobs | Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash
The COVID-19 global economic recession is deepening existing inequalities across global labour markets and reversing the gains in employment made since the Global Financial Crisis of a decade ago. Emerging technologies continue to reshape labour markets, and those trends have only accelerated with the onset of a new recession.
Millions of workers worldwide are facing significant job uncertainty. Data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) has shown that during the first half of 2020, real unemployment figures jumped to an average of 6.6%, with an estimated loss of working hours equivalent to 495 million jobs in Q2 2020. The OECD predicts that unemployment rates could double by the end of the year.
Now in its third edition, the Future of Jobs Report 2020 maps the jobs and skills of the future, tracking the pace of change and direction of travel. Here are some of the key findings:
1. COVID-19 has had a lasting effect
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the arrival of the future of work. The Future of Jobs Survey finds that 50% of employers will accelerate the automation of their work, while over 80% are set to expand the digitization of their work processes. That means that some jobs that have been lost will never come back, and those that do will require new ways of working and new skills
2. Automation continues to increase
The Future of Jobs Report projects that by 2025, the hours of work performed by machines and people will be equal. Around 85 million roles are set to be displaced by automation — primarily across manual or repetitive roles spanning both blue-collar and white-collar jobs — from assembly factory workers and accountants.
3. New jobs will emerge
Despite the accelerated disruption to jobs, the report also predicts that 97 million new jobs of tomorrow will emerge by 2025. The most in-demand roles in future job markets include Data Analysts and Scientists, AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Robotics Engineers, Software and Application developers as well as Digital Transformation Specialists, Information Security Analysts and Internet of Things Specialists which can be broadly clustered in 10 emerging jobs clusters explored in the report.
4. The most in-demand skills are a mix of hard and soft skills
The most in-demand skills of the future will include working with people, problem-solving and self-management skills such as resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. This increase in required self-management skills is clear as workers face a range of pressures to adapt to new, more digital ways of working. Product Management, Digital Marketing and Software Development Lifecycle are among the core set of specialized skills required for emerging professions. Reskilling for the roles of the future will require a time investment ranging from three weeks to five months.
5. Human capital is increasingly important
Employers are convinced in the value of building human capital — with 66% believing they will get a return on investment from training employees within a year. Data from the past five years shows that workers often actually don’t need the perfect skill set to transition into new roles. The scale of the challenge is significant, with employers looking to internally redeploy half of their workers. Meanwhile, some 40% of the average worker’s skills will need to be updated to meet the demands of future labour markets. Employers are facing this challenge broadly on their own — only 21% can tap into government funding to deliver training programmes.
The Future of Jobs Report 2020 is a call to action to accelerate a Reskilling Revolution across economies. It highlights the increasing urgency of supporting displaced and at-risk workers as they navigate paths towards the “jobs of tomorrow.” The current moment provides an opportunity for leaders in business, government, and public policy to focus common efforts on allowing workers to thrive in the new economy. | https://iamibrahim.medium.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-future-of-jobs-20430ea4c2d4 | [] | 2020-12-28 15:21:53.126000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Covid 19', 'Future', 'Startups', 'Jobs'] | Title 5 Things Know Future JobsContent Photo Alex Knight Unsplash COVID19 global economic recession deepening existing inequality across global labour market reversing gain employment made since Global Financial Crisis decade ago Emerging technology continue reshape labour market trend accelerated onset new recession Millions worker worldwide facing significant job uncertainty Data International Labour Organization ILO shown first half 2020 real unemployment figure jumped average 66 estimated loss working hour equivalent 495 million job Q2 2020 OECD predicts unemployment rate could double end year third edition Future Jobs Report 2020 map job skill future tracking pace change direction travel key finding 1 COVID19 lasting effect COVID19 pandemic accelerated arrival future work Future Jobs Survey find 50 employer accelerate automation work 80 set expand digitization work process mean job lost never come back require new way working new skill 2 Automation continues increase Future Jobs Report project 2025 hour work performed machine people equal Around 85 million role set displaced automation — primarily across manual repetitive role spanning bluecollar whitecollar job — assembly factory worker accountant 3 New job emerge Despite accelerated disruption job report also predicts 97 million new job tomorrow emerge 2025 indemand role future job market include Data Analysts Scientists AI Machine Learning Specialists Robotics Engineers Software Application developer well Digital Transformation Specialists Information Security Analysts Internet Things Specialists broadly clustered 10 emerging job cluster explored report 4 indemand skill mix hard soft skill indemand skill future include working people problemsolving selfmanagement skill resilience stress tolerance flexibility increase required selfmanagement skill clear worker face range pressure adapt new digital way working Product Management Digital Marketing Software Development Lifecycle among core set specialized skill required emerging profession Reskilling role future require time investment ranging three week five month 5 Human capital increasingly important Employers convinced value building human capital — 66 believing get return investment training employee within year Data past five year show worker often actually don’t need perfect skill set transition new role scale challenge significant employer looking internally redeploy half worker Meanwhile 40 average worker’s skill need updated meet demand future labour market Employers facing challenge broadly — 21 tap government funding deliver training programme Future Jobs Report 2020 call action accelerate Reskilling Revolution across economy highlight increasing urgency supporting displaced atrisk worker navigate path towards “jobs tomorrow” current moment provides opportunity leader business government public policy focus common effort allowing worker thrive new economyTags Entrepreneurship Covid 19 Future Startups Jobs |
1,219 | My Life Has Been Derailed by my Health. I Want to Get it Back. | My Life Has Been Derailed by my Health. I Want to Get it Back.
But everything feels so slow.
How I’ve spent the better part of three months, except less artfully. Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash
The headache started on a Friday night.
It was different from my usual headaches. More sudden, for one, and spread out from in front of my right ear to the back of my skull, when I typically get migraines centered over my eyes. Being an anxious person, I immediately assumed the worst, but the pain wasn’t bad enough for me to truly believe something was Really Wrong. I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.
The pain was still there the next day, and the next. I went to the doctor, then I went to the doctor again. New symptoms started to emerge: the right side of my face felt a little numb. I was getting more headaches all over my head. My neck and shoulders hurt.
Theories were thrown around: Your ear is too clogged with wax, and it’s causing a headache; your Eustachian tubes are blocked, that’s what’s making your face numb; maybe you have a specific kind of migraine, try this medication.
Nothing worked and no diagnosis felt right.
Then I started getting pain on my left side too, in the same area, in front of my ear. My headaches were daily and often got in the way of functioning normally.
I ended up in the emergency room at one pint, where I had a CT scan. They found an unspecified “anomaly.”
I thought that must be the source of the pain, but then I had an MRI. Great news, your brain looks fine! There’s nothing abnormal! You’re not dying!
Then why do I feel so awful? | https://medium.com/swlh/my-life-has-been-derailed-by-my-health-i-want-to-get-it-back-19b973aaec1a | ['Grace Moore'] | 2019-08-04 01:03:42.815000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Health', 'Chronic Pain', 'Chronic Illness', 'Life'] | Title Life Derailed Health Want Get BackContent Life Derailed Health Want Get Back everything feel slow I’ve spent better part three month except le artfully Photo Yuris Alhumaydy Unsplash headache started Friday night different usual headache sudden one spread front right ear back skull typically get migraine centered eye anxious person immediately assumed worst pain wasn’t bad enough truly believe something Really Wrong took ibuprofen went bed pain still next day next went doctor went doctor New symptom started emerge right side face felt little numb getting headache head neck shoulder hurt Theories thrown around ear clogged wax it’s causing headache Eustachian tube blocked that’s what’s making face numb maybe specific kind migraine try medication Nothing worked diagnosis felt right started getting pain left side area front ear headache daily often got way functioning normally ended emergency room one pint CT scan found unspecified “anomaly” thought must source pain MRI Great news brain look fine There’s nothing abnormal You’re dying feel awfulTags Mental Health Health Chronic Pain Chronic Illness Life |
1,220 | How to build a Computer Vision Game in Python? | I grew up in the (19)90’s. Before the internet, smartphones, next generation game consoles. Hell, before augmented and virtual reality. I Know, I’m old… At least I got to experience the physical world. Snap! (No, we didn’t have Snapchat either…). We would just communicate an approximate location, time for re-entrance and we were ready for takeoff.
That was fun. But you know what else was fun? A Master System II.
Brief history of gaming consoles
A long, long, looooong time ago, gaming consoles looked like this:
Games were cartridges that you had to insert in the console. Well… Not all of them. One game came pre-installed (thank G.od they didn’t open an inquiry for abuse of dominant position). A game that captured hours of my life.
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
This game was a master piece. Indeed a true miracle world. You were playing a small character, Alex, on a mission to defeat an illegitimate tyrant (plot). No impeachment, just tons of different levels.
What was particularly amazing in this game, was the diversity of its gameplay. You were jumping around breaking bricks, collecting money, swimming under water trying to avoid the fish and octopus’ tentacles. Why not taking a boat? Well you could buy one. Or a helicopter, a motorbike, a flying cape… Instagram life before Instragram!
Let’s play Rock Paper Scissors…
Alex Kidd was afraid of nothing. Except rock, paper and scissors…
At the end of almost every level, you had to play a game of Rock Paper Scissors. I have never played more intense games of RPS than in Alex Kidd. But that was before.
… on live video…
Technology is amazing. While I reminisce hours of games played on a TV that weighted probably more than me, “nowadays kids” are playing in virtual worlds, without cables. Let’s meet in the middle.
The program I created uses computer vision and deep learning to play a game of rock paper scissors on a live video stream (in this case from a webcam). Sounds impressive… It’s not. In fact, it is really simple!
… using OpenCV and Python
OpenCV is a very complete computer vision library that pretty much lets you do everything you need. Plenty of tutorials are available online to get you started (I can recommend some if needed — hit me up in the comments). That’s what I used to capture and process the images. I used Tensorflow and Keras for the deep learning part.
The workflow
What do you need to play this game? A hand. And that’s it. The program simply needs to recognize the gesture from the hand, compare it against the opponent and output the result (win, loss, draw).
1 — Identifying the hand
You could come up with a hand tracking algorithm, but I like simplicity. So I created a region of interest which is where the user has to put its hand and do the gesture. It is less flexible and “idiot proof”, but it has the merit of simplifying the code.
We have narrowed down where the action is going to take place. But we still need to “capture the action” (meaning identify the hand). For that, there are several different approaches. The first one that I tried was to use a histogram of oriented gradients. If you don’t know what that is, no worries, this is not the approach I ended up with. I just wanted to brag a little.
I used a simple ‘‘background subtraction’’. If you subtract the background of an image you are left with the foreground. And this is what we want here: the hand is (supposed to be) the only thing moving in the region of interest.
2 — Recognizing the gesture
Once we have isolated the hand, we can start thinking of strategies to recognize what gesture it is making. I decided to use deep learning, because it is cool to use deep learning for everything and anything.
And it is also incredibly easy. Count with me: I recorded a few hundred images of each hand gesture (20 seconds), augmented that dataset (20 seconds) and trained the model (5 minutes). Deep learning in under 6 minutes!
NB: data augmentation consists of randomly modifying the images I created to create new ones, a little bit different (rotated by some angle, zoomed in or out by some percentage etc.). You can do that directly when training the model but I like to do it separately so 1/ I can visualize the modification that I’ve generated, 2/ keep track of the pictures (for reproduction) and 3/ memory space was not an issue here.
3 — Output the results
Once the program has recognized what gesture the person is doing, you just need to implement the rules (paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper). I hard-coded the logic because it is much simpler.
Because nobody wanted to play with me, I simulated an opponent. At the end, this is what you get.
Look at how much fun I’m having!!
How does it work?
Let’s break it down:
1 — The program takes the first image coming from the stream and consider it as the background (we hypothesize that only the hand will be moving in the region of interest);
2 — Then takes each frame and subtracts the background (this approach also works for diverse skin tone);
3 — Takes the result of 2/ and feeds it to the deep learning model in order to identify the gesture;
4 — Compares the gesture to the opponent’s according to the rules;
5 — Outputs the image and results information (win, draw, loss).
How can it be improved?
If that game doesn’t get me a job as a developer at Blizzard, I dont know what will! But if I wanted to spend more time and really improve it, I would:
1 — Use a hand tracking system to remove the need of a preset region of interest;
2 — Improve the deep learning model (design, but also the training data — including additional hand gestures);
3 — Improve the opponent (either by creating a reinforcement learning agent or by creating more logic like “if player played two X in a row, play Y” — the best strategy is to play randomly, but it is more exciting to build an opponent that seemingly has a strategy that you try to guess);
4 — Improve the graphics and effects of the play screen (count down for each new game, celebratory confetti when winning etc.);
5 — Other ideas you have!
Have fun!
If you made it until here, congratulations, you defeated all the bosses (Boredominus, NotFuninator and ObviousItIs). As a reward, you can find the code on my github. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, but the code is very simple so I’m sure you’ll be fine!
Ok, here’s your real reward: play Alex Kidd in Miracle World on PC for free.
See you on the other side! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/how-to-build-a-computer-vision-game-in-python-a6b064ce72be | ['Thomas Taieb'] | 2019-10-12 06:11:30.341000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Gaming', 'Deep Learning', 'Computer Vision'] | Title build Computer Vision Game PythonContent grew 1990’s internet smartphones next generation game console Hell augmented virtual reality Know I’m old… least got experience physical world Snap didn’t Snapchat either… would communicate approximate location time reentrance ready takeoff fun know else fun Master System II Brief history gaming console long long looooong time ago gaming console looked like Games cartridge insert console Well… One game came preinstalled thank God didn’t open inquiry abuse dominant position game captured hour life Alex Kidd Miracle World game master piece Indeed true miracle world playing small character Alex mission defeat illegitimate tyrant plot impeachment ton different level particularly amazing game diversity gameplay jumping around breaking brick collecting money swimming water trying avoid fish octopus’ tentacle taking boat Well could buy one helicopter motorbike flying cape… Instagram life Instragram Let’s play Rock Paper Scissors… Alex Kidd afraid nothing Except rock paper scissors… end almost every level play game Rock Paper Scissors never played intense game RPS Alex Kidd … live video… Technology amazing reminisce hour game played TV weighted probably “nowadays kids” playing virtual world without cable Let’s meet middle program created us computer vision deep learning play game rock paper scissors live video stream case webcam Sounds impressive… It’s fact really simple … using OpenCV Python OpenCV complete computer vision library pretty much let everything need Plenty tutorial available online get started recommend needed — hit comment That’s used capture process image used Tensorflow Keras deep learning part workflow need play game hand that’s program simply need recognize gesture hand compare opponent output result win loss draw 1 — Identifying hand could come hand tracking algorithm like simplicity created region interest user put hand gesture le flexible “idiot proof” merit simplifying code narrowed action going take place still need “capture action” meaning identify hand several different approach first one tried use histogram oriented gradient don’t know worry approach ended wanted brag little used simple ‘‘background subtraction’’ subtract background image left foreground want hand supposed thing moving region interest 2 — Recognizing gesture isolated hand start thinking strategy recognize gesture making decided use deep learning cool use deep learning everything anything also incredibly easy Count recorded hundred image hand gesture 20 second augmented dataset 20 second trained model 5 minute Deep learning 6 minute NB data augmentation consists randomly modifying image created create new one little bit different rotated angle zoomed percentage etc directly training model like separately 1 visualize modification I’ve generated 2 keep track picture reproduction 3 memory space issue 3 — Output result program recognized gesture person need implement rule paper beat rock rock beat scissors scissors beat paper hardcoded logic much simpler nobody wanted play simulated opponent end get Look much fun I’m work Let’s break 1 — program take first image coming stream consider background hypothesize hand moving region interest 2 — take frame subtracts background approach also work diverse skin tone 3 — Takes result 2 feed deep learning model order identify gesture 4 — Compares gesture opponent’s according rule 5 — Outputs image result information win draw loss improved game doesn’t get job developer Blizzard dont know wanted spend time really improve would 1 — Use hand tracking system remove need preset region interest 2 — Improve deep learning model design also training data — including additional hand gesture 3 — Improve opponent either creating reinforcement learning agent creating logic like “if player played two X row play Y” — best strategy play randomly exciting build opponent seemingly strategy try guess 4 — Improve graphic effect play screen count new game celebratory confetti winning etc 5 — idea fun made congratulation defeated boss Boredominus NotFuninator ObviousItIs reward find code github Please feel free reach question code simple I’m sure you’ll fine Ok here’s real reward play Alex Kidd Miracle World PC free See sideTags Machine Learning Python Gaming Deep Learning Computer Vision |
1,221 | Aphantasia: My Mind’s Eye is Blind, But I Dream in Ideas | My son Nicholas was thirteen when I read Temple Grandin’s autobiography Thinking in Pictures and learned two things that changed my life.
The first was that Nick was autistic. He didn’t have ADHD, which he’d been misdiagnosed with at age six. He didn’t have bipolar disorder, which he’d been misdiagnosed with at age nine, after three months in a mental hospital.
I put down Thinking in Pictures and knew my kid had autism. And that he was going to be okay.
And I also learned that there was something very, very strange about me.
Gradin talks in her book about thinking in pictures to the extent that words are her second language.
I THINK IN PICTURES. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand, but in my job as an equipment designer for the livestock industry, visual thinking is a tremendous advantage.
— Temple Grandin
I am a language-based thinker, alright. I’m so language-based that I don’t think visually at all. I don’t have a mind’s eye. Or, I do, but it doesn’t see. It — I don’t know. It conceives. My mind’s eye ideates; it’s not a movie projector.
The realization of just how different that is from other people was mind blowing.
I’m not huge on labels, but there’s a newish term for the kind of extreme language-based thinking I’m talking about. Aphantasia. I don’t like it, because it ‘a’ means lacking and ‘phantasia’ means imagination and that’s not right. On lots of levels.
I don’t lack an imagination. It just operates non-visually.
When I close my eyes and try to remember my mother, for example, here are strong sensory memories and there are words. And feelings. But I don’t get a picture.
So, I asked my husband, and he thought I was being ridiculous. You know what your mother looked like.
I do, of course. I look like her. Only she was blonder and I have brown eyes. I know that I’m built like her, my face has the same shape. I can bring up very brief flashes of very specific details. A pair of jeans she liked to wear that had belonged to my brother. The way her pale blue eyes sometimes shifted back an forth rapidly, a little tick that she didn’t know she had.
I remember them so strongly that they feel like they’re just on the edge of visual memory, but I can’t bring them all the way up.
I’ll remember something very, very specific like that — the yellow rose with the pink edges that my daughter and my sister and I saw at the rose garden in Portland a couple of weeks ago — and for a few seconds it’s almost there. I’ll almost see the inside of the gift shop.
I’ll certainly smell it, overpoweringly rosey. And I can feel the silk scarves between my fingers. Taste that rose-smell on the back of my tongue. But I can’t see it.
I can’t see my mother. It doesn’t upset me, because I haven’t lost the ability. I have never been able to visualize anything. So I don’t miss it.
Other sensory memories are stronger. I can still hear her voice, for instance. I remember exactly what she smelled like. She wore Charlie Perfume all her life, and face powder always makes me remember her. I made shepherd’s pie last night and it tasted just like the recipe she used to make it for me every year on my birthday. It doesn’t matter that I don’t actually have the recipe. I just know.
I do make visual connections. For some reason, I constantly see women who remind me of my sister. I’m not sure if that’s some under-developed part of my brain trying to fire off or what. But it’s always some small detail, not an overall appearance. The shape of the bridge of a nose or the way someone holds themselves will make me see her in someone who otherwise doesn’t look anything like her.
I don’t even dream in pictures.
This is the hardest thing to explain.
A friend once asked me if I just dream of the words. Like do I just see them scroll past? Well. No. That would be a picture of the words, wouldn’t it? It’s not auditory, either. It’s not like someone reading to me or narrating my dream. Although I wake up with a memory of the words.
It’s more like I dream in story.
My dreams are fully formed, and I often remember them vividly. Like the one where I opened my washing machine and my great-grandmother’s head was sitting on the agitator. We had a coversation about life.
I didn’t see it. I just — knew it. The idea of it. It wasn’t a nightmare. I wasn’t scared. Maybe I would have been, if I’d seen my Nana’s head on a washing machine agitator instead of just had the idea of it.
After I watched a documentary about a woman whose teenage son murdered her toddler daughter, I spent two nights having intense dreams about being caught in impossible situations.
It isn’t uncommon for me to have dreams that continue on for several nights.
I often dream of being chased. It’s my one recurring nightmare. And in dreams, I know that I’m riding a bicycle that won’t go fast enough or I’m running down a hall that keeps stretching.
I can’t see those things, anymore than I can see what’s happening when I read a book. But I feel them. I wake up knowing they happened, the same way I know that I know that went to Wal-Mart yesterday.
Maybe because I don’t dream in pictures, I tend to remember my dreams more than anyone else I know. I wonder sometimes if my brain is like a hard drive. Because I’m not filling it up with video all night long, there’s more space to record.
Strangely, the only time I ever dream in pictures is if I fall back to sleep in the morning, after a night where I didn’t sleep well. Very rarely, I’ll have a few minutes of crazy, visual dreams that completely freak me out. They unsettle me enough that I try not to let it happen.
I have a hard time connecting names with faces.
I read, and adored, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby a couple of years ago. It’s about a boy who has face blindness. I don’t have face blindness, but I recognized myself in that character.
I have a terrible time connecting a face to a name. It’s embarrassing. People I absolutely should recognize, whom I’ve had significant experiences with, I can’t recognize visually if enough time has passed for me to have lost the connection between their faces and their names.
The second I hear their names, everything snaps into place like a rubber band. Because I’m a language-based thinker and their name, not their face, is what I need to make the connection.
I have lots of information about the people I’ve come in contact with on file in my mind. There’s nothing really wrong with my memory. It’s just that I don’t have a visual file. So I know what they look like and I have words like brunette, dark eyes, freckles, glasses, tall, round face — but lots of people fit that description. I need their name to unlock the file.
My husband, on the other hand, can see an 80-year-old in a movie and instantly place them as a child actor. It’s like his superpower. He never forgets a face or a name.
We moved last year to the little town where he grew up. He moved away after he graduated from high school, but there are dozens of people still here who he hasn’t seen in thirty years and he’s in his glory, seeing people on the street that he instantly recognizes and waiting for them to place him.
Just like the boy in Bone Gap, if someone has a very distinguishing feature, I have an easier time. For instance, when my daughter starts with a new soccer team there are always a few girls I can remember more easily.
They stand out for some reason. Maybe one girl has red hair. Or one is much taller than the rest. Maybe someone wears a knee brace or has a birthmark. A couple might be friends with my daughter and I know them already. I’m able to attach their names to them fairly quickly.
And there are always some girls I never can distinguish from each other. My brain just sees a gaggle of brownish ponytails, all the same height and build, wearing the same uniform. They’re too similar to each other in appearance for me to make a visual connection between them and their names unless I really get to know them. I have to use their uniform number to know who they are, sometimes for years.
My creative work is language based.
I’m a novelist, which requires me to create a world for other people.
For the most part, I don’t actually have to work too hard to write description. I’ve certainly read enough of them, so maybe that helps. I’ve just learned how to do it.
I know what I want a setting to feel like and that’s my starting point. I focus on what I want my reader to feel.
I don’t struggle to see things when they’re in front of me, of course. And I know what things look like. If I want to describe something specific, sometimes I’ll look up photographs.
The one problem I have is with remembering which details I’ve included in my work. I have to write them down. I keep a sort of story bible where I can keep those notes. Otherwise, I’m likely to forget the details I’ve written.
Both of my daughters are artists. So is my sister, my aunt, my grandmother. I am spectacularly non-artistic. I think I have a decent eye for things like design and style, but I struggle to create anything.
Mostly, because I don’t have the patience for it. I can’t picture the end result. It’s impossible to create something when you can’t imagine what you’re creating. Or at least it feels impossible.
Stories are different. Grandin talks about visual and language-based thinkers. Maybe the flip side of not being able to think visually is that I’ve got a hyper-developed ability to be a language-based thinker.
My mother taught me to read when I was three, because my need for stories was insatiable and she couldn’t keep up. I learned quickly. I went into school with standard five-year-old skills — except that I could already read.
I have a very vivid memory of standing on my grandmother’s back patio when I was eight or nine years old and having an epiphany. I could read anything. All of the words in the whole world were mine. They belonged to me. Even weird, long scientific words that I didn’t understand, I could sound out. I could read them and they were mine. I was filled with such an intense feeling of my own personal power.
There’s nothing wrong with my imagination.
It works just fine, thank you.
I sometimes think it’s too big for my body, actually. I am often overwhelmed by ideas. Bowled over by them. I get so excited about them — mine, other people’s, it doesn’t even matter.
Because I have no problem talking about my ideas, I can tell you all about how I think they’ll play out. How I imagine they’ll culminate. And, oh man, if you give me the chance, I’ll go on and on about your ideas, too.
I have a much harder time figuring out all the little steps between here and there. I get lost in them. I can usually manage the next step. If I’m lucky.
I have to have a kind of crazy number of strategies and systems in place to keep me on track, or I would never (I mean never, ever) finish anything. It’s hard for me to even realize sometimes that I’ve gone off track.
I’m sometimes taken by surprise when other people are shocked by my productivity. It isn’t that I’m such a go-getter. It’s that I have two modes. Either I don’t get anything done or I get everything done.
Because either I’m using my systems that bypass the fact that I can’t visualize anything, or I’m not.
I usually chalk that up to being extremely right brained, but maybe I’m extremely right brained because I can’t actually visualize my path.
You know how Olympic athletes talk about visualizing themselves going through their event, step-by-step, and winning? I can’t do something like that. At least, not literally.
I’m good with concepts and ideas, but I can’t close my eyes and meditate on an actual picture of myself doing anything.
In fact, meditation is almost painfully impossible for me. At least the kind where you close your eyes and visualize — I don’t know, your happy place or a quite meadow or something.
I only see black and my brain starts swimming with thoughts and ideas that have nothing to focus them. They batter me. If I’m going to focus, I need to open my eyes and actually see something.
Because I can’t visualize, I actually have to do it.
I can learn by reading. And I can learn by doing. But I can’t learn by listening at all, unless I also take extensive notes. Sometimes my husband will try to explain something to me. Give me directions, maybe. Or tell me how to do something he’d like me to do for him.
I can get maybe two turns in and then I just shake my head and hold up my hand to make him stop. It’s useless to go any further. I won’t remember. And if I let him keep going, it will only confuse me.
If I’m going to remember something, I have to write it down. I don’t usually have to go back to my notes, interestingly. But I have to actually write them down. Somehow the physical act of writing them transcribes them into the language center of my brain, and then they’re there and I can access them.
We moved to Pennsylvania in November and it took me months to not need my GPS to get home from the grocery store or to take my daughter to school. It got to the point of ridiculousness and I know that people thought I was doing it on purpose.
And I get it. It seemed like there was no possible way I couldn’t find my way home from the grocery store — it’s half a mile. But I couldn’t. I turned the wrong damned way every single time.
I struggled with the sudden change from desert sun to lake-effect gloom and spent a lot of that winter as a passenger. Plus, I didn’t have the few visual cues I’d gotten used to after years of living in the same place. It wasn’t until I pulled out of my funk and started driving myself that I was able to finally figure out my way around.
We live in a visual world.
And I guess it’s a little weird to be wired in such a way that I just don’t function very well within it. Here are some things that I’ve found that help me navigate our visual world a little more easily.
My kids think it’s hilarious that I’m so low tech. I need almost everything to be analog if it’s going to work for me. I can’t visualize how something will work out, so I have to write it down, sketch it out, plan it first. With a pencil on paper. Old school.
Step-by-step directions work best for me. If I want to learn how to do something, I seek out someone who teaches in a way that doesn’t skip steps, expecting me to be able to make a leap that my non-visual mind might completely miss.
I capitalize on the things that I’m good at. I’ve built an entire life, including a thriving career, around being a language-based thinker. Temple Grandin, incidentally, did the same thing with her extreme visual thinking. She turned her ability to intensely visualize into a career building livestock equipment that revolutionized that industry. | https://shauntagrimes.medium.com/aphantasia-my-minds-eye-is-blind-84d98be6d249 | ['Shaunta Grimes'] | 2019-09-16 16:33:00.308000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Life Lessons'] | Title Aphantasia Mind’s Eye Blind Dream IdeasContent son Nicholas thirteen read Temple Grandin’s autobiography Thinking Pictures learned two thing changed life first Nick autistic didn’t ADHD he’d misdiagnosed age six didn’t bipolar disorder he’d misdiagnosed age nine three month mental hospital put Thinking Pictures knew kid autism going okay also learned something strange Gradin talk book thinking picture extent word second language THINK PICTURES Words like second language translate spoken written word fullcolor movie complete sound run like VCR tape head somebody speaks word instantly translated picture Languagebased thinker often find phenomenon difficult understand job equipment designer livestock industry visual thinking tremendous advantage — Temple Grandin languagebased thinker alright I’m languagebased don’t think visually don’t mind’s eye doesn’t see — don’t know conceives mind’s eye ideates it’s movie projector realization different people mind blowing I’m huge label there’s newish term kind extreme languagebased thinking I’m talking Aphantasia don’t like ‘a’ mean lacking ‘phantasia’ mean imagination that’s right lot level don’t lack imagination operates nonvisually close eye try remember mother example strong sensory memory word feeling don’t get picture asked husband thought ridiculous know mother looked like course look like blonder brown eye know I’m built like face shape bring brief flash specific detail pair jean liked wear belonged brother way pale blue eye sometimes shifted back forth rapidly little tick didn’t know remember strongly feel like they’re edge visual memory can’t bring way I’ll remember something specific like — yellow rose pink edge daughter sister saw rose garden Portland couple week ago — second it’s almost I’ll almost see inside gift shop I’ll certainly smell overpoweringly rosey feel silk scarf finger Taste rosesmell back tongue can’t see can’t see mother doesn’t upset haven’t lost ability never able visualize anything don’t miss sensory memory stronger still hear voice instance remember exactly smelled like wore Charlie Perfume life face powder always make remember made shepherd’s pie last night tasted like recipe used make every year birthday doesn’t matter don’t actually recipe know make visual connection reason constantly see woman remind sister I’m sure that’s underdeveloped part brain trying fire it’s always small detail overall appearance shape bridge nose way someone hold make see someone otherwise doesn’t look anything like don’t even dream picture hardest thing explain friend asked dream word Like see scroll past Well would picture word wouldn’t It’s auditory either It’s like someone reading narrating dream Although wake memory word It’s like dream story dream fully formed often remember vividly Like one opened washing machine greatgrandmother’s head sitting agitator coversation life didn’t see — knew idea wasn’t nightmare wasn’t scared Maybe would I’d seen Nana’s head washing machine agitator instead idea watched documentary woman whose teenage son murdered toddler daughter spent two night intense dream caught impossible situation isn’t uncommon dream continue several night often dream chased It’s one recurring nightmare dream know I’m riding bicycle won’t go fast enough I’m running hall keep stretching can’t see thing anymore see what’s happening read book feel wake knowing happened way know know went WalMart yesterday Maybe don’t dream picture tend remember dream anyone else know wonder sometimes brain like hard drive I’m filling video night long there’s space record Strangely time ever dream picture fall back sleep morning night didn’t sleep well rarely I’ll minute crazy visual dream completely freak unsettle enough try let happen hard time connecting name face read adored Bone Gap Laura Ruby couple year ago It’s boy face blindness don’t face blindness recognized character terrible time connecting face name It’s embarrassing People absolutely recognize I’ve significant experience can’t recognize visually enough time passed lost connection face name second hear name everything snap place like rubber band I’m languagebased thinker name face need make connection lot information people I’ve come contact file mind There’s nothing really wrong memory It’s don’t visual file know look like word like brunette dark eye freckle glass tall round face — lot people fit description need name unlock file husband hand see 80yearold movie instantly place child actor It’s like superpower never forgets face name moved last year little town grew moved away graduated high school dozen people still hasn’t seen thirty year he’s glory seeing people street instantly recognizes waiting place like boy Bone Gap someone distinguishing feature easier time instance daughter start new soccer team always girl remember easily stand reason Maybe one girl red hair one much taller rest Maybe someone wear knee brace birthmark couple might friend daughter know already I’m able attach name fairly quickly always girl never distinguish brain see gaggle brownish ponytail height build wearing uniform They’re similar appearance make visual connection name unless really get know use uniform number know sometimes year creative work language based I’m novelist requires create world people part don’t actually work hard write description I’ve certainly read enough maybe help I’ve learned know want setting feel like that’s starting point focus want reader feel don’t struggle see thing they’re front course know thing look like want describe something specific sometimes I’ll look photograph one problem remembering detail I’ve included work write keep sort story bible keep note Otherwise I’m likely forget detail I’ve written daughter artist sister aunt grandmother spectacularly nonartistic think decent eye thing like design style struggle create anything Mostly don’t patience can’t picture end result It’s impossible create something can’t imagine you’re creating least feel impossible Stories different Grandin talk visual languagebased thinker Maybe flip side able think visually I’ve got hyperdeveloped ability languagebased thinker mother taught read three need story insatiable couldn’t keep learned quickly went school standard fiveyearold skill — except could already read vivid memory standing grandmother’s back patio eight nine year old epiphany could read anything word whole world mine belonged Even weird long scientific word didn’t understand could sound could read mine filled intense feeling personal power There’s nothing wrong imagination work fine thank sometimes think it’s big body actually often overwhelmed idea Bowled get excited — mine people’s doesn’t even matter problem talking idea tell think they’ll play imagine they’ll culminate oh man give chance I’ll go idea much harder time figuring little step get lost usually manage next step I’m lucky kind crazy number strategy system place keep track would never mean never ever finish anything It’s hard even realize sometimes I’ve gone track I’m sometimes taken surprise people shocked productivity isn’t I’m gogetter It’s two mode Either don’t get anything done get everything done either I’m using system bypass fact can’t visualize anything I’m usually chalk extremely right brained maybe I’m extremely right brained can’t actually visualize path know Olympic athlete talk visualizing going event stepbystep winning can’t something like least literally I’m good concept idea can’t close eye meditate actual picture anything fact meditation almost painfully impossible least kind close eye visualize — don’t know happy place quite meadow something see black brain start swimming thought idea nothing focus batter I’m going focus need open eye actually see something can’t visualize actually learn reading learn can’t learn listening unless also take extensive note Sometimes husband try explain something Give direction maybe tell something he’d like get maybe two turn shake head hold hand make stop It’s useless go won’t remember let keep going confuse I’m going remember something write don’t usually go back note interestingly actually write Somehow physical act writing transcribes language center brain they’re access moved Pennsylvania November took month need GPS get home grocery store take daughter school got point ridiculousness know people thought purpose get seemed like possible way couldn’t find way home grocery store — it’s half mile couldn’t turned wrong damned way every single time struggled sudden change desert sun lakeeffect gloom spent lot winter passenger Plus didn’t visual cue I’d gotten used year living place wasn’t pulled funk started driving able finally figure way around live visual world guess it’s little weird wired way don’t function well within thing I’ve found help navigate visual world little easily kid think it’s hilarious I’m low tech need almost everything analog it’s going work can’t visualize something work write sketch plan first pencil paper Old school Stepbystep direction work best want learn something seek someone teach way doesn’t skip step expecting able make leap nonvisual mind might completely miss capitalize thing I’m good I’ve built entire life including thriving career around languagebased thinker Temple Grandin incidentally thing extreme visual thinking turned ability intensely visualize career building livestock equipment revolutionized industryTags Health Life Mental Health Self Life Lessons |
1,222 | You Wash Your Hands. Can Washing Your Nose Help Fight Covid-19? | You Wash Your Hands. Can Washing Your Nose Help Fight Covid-19?
Learn an easy technique that scientists are testing in the fight against coronavirus.
Executive summary: Soap is effective in killing the coronavirus. You wash your hands to stay safe. Maybe washing your nose, where the virus lives, is something we should be doing. This essay explores that idea, shows how to do it, and reviews some science behind it.
Credibility info: I am a head and neck surgeon, and I have a degree in physics. My understanding of these topics is above average. I use the techniques described below at least once daily.
The rationale
The CDC recommends hand washing as one good way of protecting yourself from the coronavirus. They recommend plain soap and water! The CDC says to use hand sanitizer if you don’t have access to soap and water! The reason is the same as the reason that you put dishwashing soap in a greasy frying pan: soap breaks apart the grease. The coronavirus’s shell is a “lipid layer,” which is grease. Soap breaks apart the shell of the virus and promptly kills it.
When the virus gains entry into your body, it’s usually through the nose, and the virus lives and replicates in the back of the nose and behind the nose. Why not wash that part of your body with soap, too?!
Interlude: the basics of how to wash your nose
Many people who suffer from sinusitis know that they get some relief by doing “nasal rinses,” which is washing the internal nose with salt water. The salt water is put in a small plastic squeeze bottle. You squeeze the water into one nostril, and the water drains out the other nostril. Take 60 seconds to watch this video from a company that makes a convenient nasal rinse bottle.
I know, it looks bizarre, but the technique is thousands of years old, and it’s not uncomfortable, even the very first time you do it. You can pick up that rinse bottle at any drug store.
Now back to the science
The idea of washing the inside of the nose with soap made so much sense, that researchers at Vanderbilt University began a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health to see whether washing the nose could provide some benefit to coronavirus patients.
In the clinical trial, the soap is Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, one-half teaspoon, mixed in the plastic nasal rinse bottle. Participants in the trial use the nasal wash the same way you saw in the NeilMed video.
Where does the water go, and how does it get out the other side?!
First, let’s get oriented to this diagram:
This person is looking to the right. You see the nose, lips, and chin. The palate separates your mouth from your nasal cavity. If you press up, with your tongue, on the roof of your mouth, you can feel your palate. The back part of the palate is called the “soft” palate, because it can move, and the very back end of the soft palate is the uvula, the little thingie that hangs down in the middle, when you look in the back of your mouth.
You have two separate sides inside your nose, left side and right side, generally outlined in black in the diagram. Behind the nasal cavity area, outlined in green, is a room where the air from the two nasal sides can mix together — there’s no divider between the two sides back there. Picture the green room as a big closet, with two separate hallways opening into the closet side-by-side.
When you start pouring water in one side of your nose, the water will flow back toward the closet, and start to fill the closet behind the nose. When the water level gets high enough, a bit above the floor of the closet, the water will start to flow back out of the closet, down the hallway that is not dumping the water in, and the water comes out of the other side of your nose.
The “closet” behind the nasal cavities is called the nasopharynx, pronounced “nay-zoh-fair-inks.” In this diagram, I have shaded it in blue.
We think that the virus typically first enters the body through the nose. Further, it is in the nasopharynx, and in the back of the nasal cavities, that the virus is thought to hole up and replicate when you first get infected. That’s why we put the Q-tip in soooo far when you get a coronavirus test: we want to get the Q-tip way back to sample fluid in the nasopharynx.
That’s also why we’re washing this area of your body with soap, in addition to washing your hands.
An improvement on the technique
We want the soapy water to touch all parts of your nasopharynx. So, instead of leaning over the sink as you saw in the video, do your nasal rinses with your head tilted up from a neutral standing position, about ten or fifteen degrees up, as if you’re tilting your head a bit to see something on the ceiling.
Why does tilting up work, you ask? The explanation is nerd heaven, and I’ll give it to you, along with a few other improvements, in the optional-to-read bottom section of this essay.
More on mixing up the washing solution
The NeilMed video talks about using distilled water (cleaner than tap water), and putting NeilMed’s powdered salt preparation into the bottle. Your body’s fluids are salty; the inside of your nose likes it better if your washing solution is salty. Here’s what I do: get a gallon of distilled water and put in eight teaspoons of table salt. Make sure it mixes completely. Use that water for your nasal rinses. If you want to do it one rinse bottle at a time, it’s one-half teaspoon of salt in the rinse bottle.
NeilMed suggests heating the water a bit. Room temperature is about 72 and your body is about 98. I’ve tried heating and not, and I don’t notice much difference. Don’t make the water hot and hurt yourself!
The clinical trial suggests one-half teaspoon of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo for each bottle. That works out to about two pumps of a typical 27-ounce baby shampoo pump dispenser. You can measure it for yourself.
After you pump in the shampoo, put your thumb on the top of the bottle and swirl it around to mix the shampoo in. Get the water swirling like a little tornado. Don’t shake it: you’ll just foam things up. If you swirl for only a couple of seconds, and then hold the bottle up to a light, you’ll see strings of shampoo still swirling and dissolving. You have to swirl for about thirty seconds to get the shampoo to dissolve all the way. (Interestingly, if you heat the water to ninety degrees, the shampoo dissolves in about five seconds.)
At first, I found the baby shampoo a touch irritating. So for a week or so I only used one-quarter teaspoon of shampoo — one pump — instead of the recommended one-half teaspoon. Now it doesn’t bother at all.
More on doing the rinse
You can lean over the sink to wash and not spill a drop, even on your first try. But if you do it with your head tilted back ten degrees, all of the water will run down your shirt. You can do it in the shower, or fold a thick bath towel and push it under your chin and in front of your neck to catch the drain-off.
Don’t squeeze the bottle hard. You don’t need a high flow rate. Just squeeze slowly, and let the chore take longer. That way, you’ll spend more time with the soap solution bathing your tissues. | https://medium.com/carre4/you-wash-your-hands-can-washing-your-nose-help-fight-covid-19-48398536e14c | ['Steven Denenberg'] | 2020-12-23 17:54:25.302000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Life', 'Covid 19', 'Self Improvement', 'Science'] | Title Wash Hands Washing Nose Help Fight Covid19Content Wash Hands Washing Nose Help Fight Covid19 Learn easy technique scientist testing fight coronavirus Executive summary Soap effective killing coronavirus wash hand stay safe Maybe washing nose virus life something essay explores idea show review science behind Credibility info head neck surgeon degree physic understanding topic average use technique described least daily rationale CDC recommends hand washing one good way protecting coronavirus recommend plain soap water CDC say use hand sanitizer don’t access soap water reason reason put dishwashing soap greasy frying pan soap break apart grease coronavirus’s shell “lipid layer” grease Soap break apart shell virus promptly kill virus gain entry body it’s usually nose virus life replicates back nose behind nose wash part body soap Interlude basic wash nose Many people suffer sinusitis know get relief “nasal rinses” washing internal nose salt water salt water put small plastic squeeze bottle squeeze water one nostril water drain nostril Take 60 second watch video company make convenient nasal rinse bottle know look bizarre technique thousand year old it’s uncomfortable even first time pick rinse bottle drug store back science idea washing inside nose soap made much sense researcher Vanderbilt University began clinical trial National Institutes Health see whether washing nose could provide benefit coronavirus patient clinical trial soap Johnson’s Baby Shampoo onehalf teaspoon mixed plastic nasal rinse bottle Participants trial use nasal wash way saw NeilMed video water go get side First let’s get oriented diagram person looking right see nose lip chin palate separate mouth nasal cavity press tongue roof mouth feel palate back part palate called “soft” palate move back end soft palate uvula little thingie hang middle look back mouth two separate side inside nose left side right side generally outlined black diagram Behind nasal cavity area outlined green room air two nasal side mix together — there’s divider two side back Picture green room big closet two separate hallway opening closet sidebyside start pouring water one side nose water flow back toward closet start fill closet behind nose water level get high enough bit floor closet water start flow back closet hallway dumping water water come side nose “closet” behind nasal cavity called nasopharynx pronounced “nayzohfairinks” diagram shaded blue think virus typically first enters body nose nasopharynx back nasal cavity virus thought hole replicate first get infected That’s put Qtip soooo far get coronavirus test want get Qtip way back sample fluid nasopharynx That’s also we’re washing area body soap addition washing hand improvement technique want soapy water touch part nasopharynx instead leaning sink saw video nasal rinse head tilted neutral standing position ten fifteen degree you’re tilting head bit see something ceiling tilting work ask explanation nerd heaven I’ll give along improvement optionaltoread bottom section essay mixing washing solution NeilMed video talk using distilled water cleaner tap water putting NeilMed’s powdered salt preparation bottle body’s fluid salty inside nose like better washing solution salty Here’s get gallon distilled water put eight teaspoon table salt Make sure mix completely Use water nasal rinse want one rinse bottle time it’s onehalf teaspoon salt rinse bottle NeilMed suggests heating water bit Room temperature 72 body 98 I’ve tried heating don’t notice much difference Don’t make water hot hurt clinical trial suggests onehalf teaspoon Johnson’s Baby Shampoo bottle work two pump typical 27ounce baby shampoo pump dispenser measure pump shampoo put thumb top bottle swirl around mix shampoo Get water swirling like little tornado Don’t shake you’ll foam thing swirl couple second hold bottle light you’ll see string shampoo still swirling dissolving swirl thirty second get shampoo dissolve way Interestingly heat water ninety degree shampoo dissolve five second first found baby shampoo touch irritating week used onequarter teaspoon shampoo — one pump — instead recommended onehalf teaspoon doesn’t bother rinse lean sink wash spill drop even first try head tilted back ten degree water run shirt shower fold thick bath towel push chin front neck catch drainoff Don’t squeeze bottle hard don’t need high flow rate squeeze slowly let chore take longer way you’ll spend time soap solution bathing tissuesTags Health Life Covid 19 Self Improvement Science |
1,223 | I’ve Gone from Skinny, Sick and Nearly Dead to Vibrant and Energetic | I’ve Gone from Skinny, Sick and Nearly Dead to Vibrant and Energetic
Here are the 6 energy lessons I learned that you can implement.
Image supplied by author
In my mid-20s I was stuck in bed for six months straight. The doctors had no idea what was wrong with me.
When I finally recovered from whatever it was, I went back to eating junk food and consuming large amounts of alcohol. I had to have a nap before going out on Saturday night. Even with a nap I’d start falling asleep at the nightclub while my friends danced the night away. Nothing made sense.
In 2015 I had a near-miss with cancer. Again, the doctors had no idea what was going on. The tumor the size of a golf ball lodged in my guts, scared the shit out of me. I decided to choose health and energy.
Now, this wasn’t some desire to eat healthy food and brag about it on Instagram by taking glorious filtered photos of every bowl of food I ate, inspired by Buddha, to make people feel terrible about their own lives.
What I wanted above all else was to have energy again. The kind of energy you have as a kid that allows you to run around the playground for hours as if it’s nothing.
Here’s what I did to go from anorexic, sick, and nearly dead to full of life and energy again.
Take a Walk like You’re Living in Japan
In 2011, I became incredibly frustrated with life. I’d tried everything to get my energy back and stop the destructive thoughts floating around my head.
The only thing I intuitively did was went for daily walks.
They didn’t help… at first. One night, before I left the startup behind that I loved very much (forever), I grabbed my old school iPod and went for a walk. I started listening to what became the first dose of self-help I’d ever consume.
The walk was supposed to last 30 minutes. I ended up walking late into the night, past midnight. I walked down the main road. I walked down the side of the highway. I was yelling loudly and chanting like the audiobook told me to. People came out of their homes half asleep and told me to shut up. I couldn’t hear them. I kept walking.
These late night walks became a thing. I used them to walk and listen to self-help stories. It wasn’t a success habit. It was a survival mechanism. Walking led me to new insights. Walks became a way to escape my reality and reflect. Walking became an activity to listen to someone else’s wisdom. Walking led me to the insights that saved my life.
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said: “Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
Writer, Kaki Okumura, says Japanese people don’t go to the gym and exercise or do super cool CrossFit. They just walk. Walking created a different kind of life-changing magic for me.
Use walks to think.
Use walks to escape the voice inside your head that won’t shut up.
Experiment with a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet
The three keys to this diet are:
Natural sugar (honey/dates) instead of refined sugar
Less salt
No oil (including Olive Oil)
I originally tried a vegan diet and realized most of my friends that were doing the same were kidding themselves. They’d think they were healthy, and they’d then go and eat a bucket of fried chips with high-fructose tomato sauce from Lord of the Fries and lie to themselves some more. They still felt sick, and many of them remained overweight.
I learned that the food you put into your body creates your energy levels. A whole food plant-based diet allows you to recreate your childlike energy levels.
Your taste buds change
Many people try and switch their diet and find it hard to do. Things don’t taste the same. I had the same problem. I learned that you have to allow your taste buds time to adapt. When your tastebuds are jazzed up on years of sugary drinks and fried food, a sudden change to healthy food tastes bland.
Now I’ve been off processed food for so long, a mango tastes better than any type of ice cream ever could. Even carrots taste sweet.
Restaurants are accommodating
People close to me have been reluctant to try a whole food plant-based diet because they go out to restaurants a lot. They’re worried there will be no menu options.
This is going to blow your mind: you can just ask the kitchen to meet your dietary requirements.
You may think asking the kitchen to cook you something that is whole food/plant-based would be annoying.
You know what chefs tell me? They love it when they get requests from customers like me. It forces them to think on the fly and come up with entirely new ways of doing things.
An ‘ask’ to cook a dish a different way is a chef’s dream. It gives them an excuse to improvise rather than follow the rules of the menu.
A lot of restaurants will help you stick to your diet. All you have to do is ask. You can even ring before your booking and negotiate what options they can cook for you if you want certainty.
Eat at home
Salt and sugar are how restaurants make food taste good. It’s every chef’s secret weapon.
If you want to eat better, all you have to do is eat at home. When you eat out you have no idea what’s in your food. When you eat at home you control the ingredients. And you save lots of money too. One meal out buys you like three home-cooked meals.
Eat for energy, not for pleasure
This was a subtle change to how I approached food. Your default way to eat is to eat for pleasure. You get pleasure through the taste of your food. A simple way to change your eating habits is to change why you eat.
If you select food based on how it makes you feel, everything changes.
You select food based on the energy it can give you, not the short-term pleasure of taste.
Get More Sleep than You Need
I was a serial under-sleeper. Getting enough rest will change your energy levels. I tried adding 30 minutes more to however much sleep I was getting.
I prioritized rest rather than let whatever time I had left over determine the length of time spent sleeping.
You need more sleep than you think.
You may be awake for 16 hours, but how energetic are you during those hours? It’s better to have hours where you feel alive, than lots of hours awake where you feel tired and like a zombie.
Give up Alcohol at All Costs
Alcohol dehydrates you. If there’s one thing you don’t want to do it’s be dehydrated. Alcohol is a great way to screw up your body. It silently ruins your insides and messes with your mental state. I was a tired, depressed little boy on alcohol. Marketing has lied to us and told us to drink alcohol to relax.
The truth is alcohol is poison. There are much better ways to relax and seek pleasure than alcohol which destroys your energy levels.
Drinking Water Stops You Being Dehydrated (Which Takes Away Your Energy)
75% of Americans are dehydrated. I, too, didn’t drink enough water.
When you’re dehydrated you lack energy and get headaches. All I did was replace canned drinks and alcohol with water.
Water is the liquid of life. Drink more of it.
Plug Everyday Energy Leaks
In 2011, I was full of energy leaks. I was like a walking, talking Titanic with a hole in my head, leaking energy all over the place.
Anger, frustration, shame, revenge, and things you can’t control in life will rob you of your precious energy.
I started focusing on what I could control. I chose to forgive those who wronged me even though they didn’t deserve it, so I could gain back my mental clarity and peace of mind again.
It’s not worth giving up your energy for petty things. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/ive-gone-from-skinny-sick-and-nearly-dead-to-vibrant-and-energetic-244d1c019920 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2020-11-29 00:12:55.632000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Fitness', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Food'] | Title I’ve Gone Skinny Sick Nearly Dead Vibrant EnergeticContent I’ve Gone Skinny Sick Nearly Dead Vibrant Energetic 6 energy lesson learned implement Image supplied author mid20s stuck bed six month straight doctor idea wrong finally recovered whatever went back eating junk food consuming large amount alcohol nap going Saturday night Even nap I’d start falling asleep nightclub friend danced night away Nothing made sense 2015 nearmiss cancer doctor idea going tumor size golf ball lodged gut scared shit decided choose health energy wasn’t desire eat healthy food brag Instagram taking glorious filtered photo every bowl food ate inspired Buddha make people feel terrible life wanted else energy kind energy kid allows run around playground hour it’s nothing Here’s go anorexic sick nearly dead full life energy Take Walk like You’re Living Japan 2011 became incredibly frustrated life I’d tried everything get energy back stop destructive thought floating around head thing intuitively went daily walk didn’t help… first One night left startup behind loved much forever grabbed old school iPod went walk started listening became first dose selfhelp I’d ever consume walk supposed last 30 minute ended walking late night past midnight walked main road walked side highway yelling loudly chanting like audiobook told People came home half asleep told shut couldn’t hear kept walking late night walk became thing used walk listen selfhelp story wasn’t success habit survival mechanism Walking led new insight Walks became way escape reality reflect Walking became activity listen someone else’s wisdom Walking led insight saved life Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said “Every day walk state wellbeing walk away every illness walked best thought know thought burdensome one cannot walk away sitting still one sits still closer one come feeling ill Thus one keep walking everything right” Writer Kaki Okumura say Japanese people don’t go gym exercise super cool CrossFit walk Walking created different kind lifechanging magic Use walk think Use walk escape voice inside head won’t shut Experiment Whole Food PlantBased Diet three key diet Natural sugar honeydates instead refined sugar Less salt oil including Olive Oil originally tried vegan diet realized friend kidding They’d think healthy they’d go eat bucket fried chip highfructose tomato sauce Lord Fries lie still felt sick many remained overweight learned food put body creates energy level whole food plantbased diet allows recreate childlike energy level taste bud change Many people try switch diet find hard Things don’t taste problem learned allow taste bud time adapt tastebud jazzed year sugary drink fried food sudden change healthy food taste bland I’ve processed food long mango taste better type ice cream ever could Even carrot taste sweet Restaurants accommodating People close reluctant try whole food plantbased diet go restaurant lot They’re worried menu option going blow mind ask kitchen meet dietary requirement may think asking kitchen cook something whole foodplantbased would annoying know chef tell love get request customer like force think fly come entirely new way thing ‘ask’ cook dish different way chef’s dream give excuse improvise rather follow rule menu lot restaurant help stick diet ask even ring booking negotiate option cook want certainty Eat home Salt sugar restaurant make food taste good It’s every chef’s secret weapon want eat better eat home eat idea what’s food eat home control ingredient save lot money One meal buy like three homecooked meal Eat energy pleasure subtle change approached food default way eat eat pleasure get pleasure taste food simple way change eating habit change eat select food based make feel everything change select food based energy give shortterm pleasure taste Get Sleep Need serial undersleeper Getting enough rest change energy level tried adding 30 minute however much sleep getting prioritized rest rather let whatever time left determine length time spent sleeping need sleep think may awake 16 hour energetic hour It’s better hour feel alive lot hour awake feel tired like zombie Give Alcohol Costs Alcohol dehydrates there’s one thing don’t want it’s dehydrated Alcohol great way screw body silently ruin inside mess mental state tired depressed little boy alcohol Marketing lied u told u drink alcohol relax truth alcohol poison much better way relax seek pleasure alcohol destroys energy level Drinking Water Stops Dehydrated Takes Away Energy 75 Americans dehydrated didn’t drink enough water you’re dehydrated lack energy get headache replace canned drink alcohol water Water liquid life Drink Plug Everyday Energy Leaks 2011 full energy leak like walking talking Titanic hole head leaking energy place Anger frustration shame revenge thing can’t control life rob precious energy started focusing could control chose forgive wronged even though didn’t deserve could gain back mental clarity peace mind It’s worth giving energy petty thingsTags Health Fitness Self Improvement Productivity Food |
1,224 | AWS Lambda Event Validation — from Zero to Hero | So, you’ve started your serverless journey. It’s new and exciting and there’s lots to learn. You begin with your first AWS Lambda function. Everything looks fine and it just works, your Lambda gets an input event and produces output.
However, problems tend to arise when unhandled exceptions and failures are encountered. These prove to be rather expensive, when not dealt with properly, as they can cause unexpected bugs, security issues and costly Lambda retries.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how to parse event schemas correctly and how to handle event validation exceptions. I’ll focus on Python, but these guidelines & tips are applicable to any other programming language.
Problems? What problems?
Let’s observe the Lambda handler below.
The Lambda receives the event parameter, which is a Python dictionary.
If at this stage you access the dictionary without checking its validity, for the majority of Lambda invocations you will be fine. However, in some cases, the event dictionary might not have the ‘input’ key or a list, or the list won’t have at least 2 items (we check for index #1). An exception will be raised, and it won’t be caught.
The first problem is when an exception isn’t caught in Lambda, AWS triggers Lambda retries by default (5 times by default), which will fail again and again. Since you pay for execution times, this can really add up.
The second problem is in cases where an exception isn’t thrown, but the values are invalid. Your program could suffer from “minor” side effects, like invalid program integrity, undefined or invalid behavior bugs and even security issues.
The third problem is that events are updated or changed by services regularly (especially AWS services) and the event dictionary can contain values which your Lambda didn’t expect.
Your code will fail, and that’s ok, but it should fail in the “right” way.
What if I told you that you can solve all three problems by combining validation and input constraint checks with one simple library? | https://medium.com/cyberark-engineering/aws-lambda-event-validation-from-zero-to-hero-2ca950acd2ea | ['Ran Isenberg'] | 2020-08-09 06:10:26.992000+00:00 | ['AWS Lambda', 'Python', 'Validation', 'Software', 'AWS'] | Title AWS Lambda Event Validation — Zero HeroContent you’ve started serverless journey It’s new exciting there’s lot learn begin first AWS Lambda function Everything look fine work Lambda get input event produce output However problem tend arise unhandled exception failure encountered prove rather expensive dealt properly cause unexpected bug security issue costly Lambda retries blog we’ll discus parse event schema correctly handle event validation exception I’ll focus Python guideline tip applicable programming language Problems problem Let’s observe Lambda handler Lambda receives event parameter Python dictionary stage access dictionary without checking validity majority Lambda invocation fine However case event dictionary might ‘input’ key list list won’t least 2 item check index 1 exception raised won’t caught first problem exception isn’t caught Lambda AWS trigger Lambda retries default 5 time default fail Since pay execution time really add second problem case exception isn’t thrown value invalid program could suffer “minor” side effect like invalid program integrity undefined invalid behavior bug even security issue third problem event updated changed service regularly especially AWS service event dictionary contain value Lambda didn’t expect code fail that’s ok fail “right” way told solve three problem combining validation input constraint check one simple libraryTags AWS Lambda Python Validation Software AWS |
1,225 | Using pyspark with Jupyter on a local computer | Installing Spark on Linux
This manual was tested on version 2.2.0 but should work on all versions. I’m assuming you already have Python and Java installed. In order to install Spark on your machine, follow the next steps:
Download the tar.gz file from Apache website (I’m assuming you are downloading to /opt):
wget https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.lua/spark/spark-2.2.1/spark-2.2.1-bin-hadoop2.7.tgz extract the file and create a soft link to the folder:
tar -xvzf spark-2.2.1-bin-hadoop2.7.tgz
ln -s spark-2.2.1-bin-hadoop2.7 spark Verify the py4j version (we’ll need it to connect Spark and Jupyter):
ls -1 /opt/spark/python/lib/py4j* | awk -F "-" '{print $2}'
The output I got was 0.10.4, we will use it later as <<PY4J_VERSION>> Verify the Python path you use:
which python
The output I got was /home/nimrod/miniconda/envs/compass/bin/python2, We’ll use this as <<PYTHON_HOME>>
After completing the above, create a kernel json file:
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/spark2-local
Edit the file:
vim ~/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/spark2-local/kernel.json
And add the following content (don’t forget to replace the two placeholders):
{
"display_name": "spark2-local-compass",
"language": "python",
"argv": [
"<<PYTHON_HOME>>",
"-m",
"IPython.kernel",
"-f",
"{connection_file}"
],
"env": {
"SPARK_HOME": "/opt/spark/",
"PYTHONPATH": "/home/Nimrod/dev/theGarage/:/opt/spark/python/:/opt/spark/python/lib/py4j-<<PY4J_VERSION>>-src.zip",
"PYTHONSTARTUP": "/opt/spark/python/pyspark/shell.py",
"PYSPARK_SUBMIT_ARGS": "--master local[*] --driver-memory 3g --executor-memory 2g pyspark-shell",
"PYSPARK_PYTHON": "<<PYTHON_HOME>>"
}
}
Now, you should be able to observe the new kernel listed in jupyter kernelspec list or in the jupyter UI under the new notebook types.
Example of The new kernel in the Jupyter UI
The current problem with the above is that using the --master local[*] argument is working with Derby as the local DB, this results in a situation that you can’t open multiple notebooks under the same directory.
For most users theses is not a really big issue, but since we started to work with the Data science Cookiecutter the logical structure of the file system puts all the notebooks under the same directory. This will cause an issue every time we want to work simultaneously on multiple notebooks.
I’ve looked for a very long time on finding a solution and finally after a very long time Amit Wolfenfeld found the solution quite fast. The first step is to install postgresql and make sure it runs !
In order to allow pySpark to use postgresql we need the JDBC drivers, download them from here and save them into /opt/spark/jars/.
Next, change the user to the postgres ( sudo su postgres ) and run psql :
CREATE USER hive;
ALTER ROLE hive WITH PASSWORD 'mypassword';
CREATE DATABASE hive_metastore;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE hive_metastore TO hive;
\q
After you ran the command, make sure to restart the postgreql service. The last step is to create a file under the config directory in Spark (Assuming you followed my suggested paths above, the command should be: vim /opt/spark/conf/hive-site.xml
Add the following content to the file:
<configuration>
<property>
<name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL</name>
<value>jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/hive_metastore</value>
</property> <property>
<name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName</name>
<value>org.postgresql.Driver</value>
</property> <property>
<name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionUserName</name>
<value>hive</value>
</property> <property>
<name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionPassword</name>
<value>mypassword</value>
</property> </configuration>
That’s it ! now you can start as many pyspark notebooks you may want. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-pyspark-with-jupyter-on-a-local-computer-edca6ae64bb6 | ['Nimrod Milo'] | 2017-12-21 16:19:53.188000+00:00 | ['Spark', 'Python', 'Data Engineering'] | Title Using pyspark Jupyter local computerContent Installing Spark Linux manual tested version 220 work version I’m assuming already Python Java installed order install Spark machine follow next step Download targz file Apache website I’m assuming downloading opt wget httpswwwapacheorgdyncloserluasparkspark221spark221binhadoop27tgz extract file create soft link folder tar xvzf spark221binhadoop27tgz ln spark221binhadoop27 spark Verify py4j version we’ll need connect Spark Jupyter l 1 optsparkpythonlibpy4j awk F print 2 output got 0104 use later PY4JVERSION Verify Python path use python output got homenimrodminicondaenvscompassbinpython2 We’ll use PYTHONHOME completing create kernel json file mkdir p localsharejupyterkernelsspark2local Edit file vim localsharejupyterkernelsspark2localkerneljson add following content don’t forget replace two placeholder displayname spark2localcompass language python argv PYTHONHOME IPythonkernel f connectionfile env SPARKHOME optspark PYTHONPATH homeNimroddevtheGarageoptsparkpythonoptsparkpythonlibpy4jPY4JVERSIONsrczip PYTHONSTARTUP optsparkpythonpysparkshellpy PYSPARKSUBMITARGS master local drivermemory 3g executormemory 2g pysparkshell PYSPARKPYTHON PYTHONHOME able observe new kernel listed jupyter kernelspec list jupyter UI new notebook type Example new kernel Jupyter UI current problem using master local argument working Derby local DB result situation can’t open multiple notebook directory user thesis really big issue since started work Data science Cookiecutter logical structure file system put notebook directory cause issue every time want work simultaneously multiple notebook I’ve looked long time finding solution finally long time Amit Wolfenfeld found solution quite fast first step install postgresql make sure run order allow pySpark use postgresql need JDBC driver download save optsparkjars Next change user postgres sudo su postgres run psql CREATE USER hive ALTER ROLE hive PASSWORD mypassword CREATE DATABASE hivemetastore GRANT PRIVILEGES DATABASE hivemetastore hive q ran command make sure restart postgreql service last step create file config directory Spark Assuming followed suggested path command vim optsparkconfhivesitexml Add following content file configuration property namejavaxjdooptionConnectionURLname valuejdbcpostgresqllocalhost5432hivemetastorevalue property property namejavaxjdooptionConnectionDriverNamename valueorgpostgresqlDrivervalue property property namejavaxjdooptionConnectionUserNamename valuehivevalue property property namejavaxjdooptionConnectionPasswordname valuemypasswordvalue property configuration That’s start many pyspark notebook may wantTags Spark Python Data Engineering |
1,226 | Dystopian ≠ Realistic | Pessimism’s easier to sell these days. Boomers are the last generation to have witnessed an extended period of growth in quality of life. Millennials have watched their world be overtaken by wave after wave of technology (some of it helpful), information (some of it accurate), and political warfare (some of it lethal), all accompanied by levels of income inequality not seen since medieval times, against the lowering final curtain of the climate apocalypse.
Small wonder they are more inclined to trust those who describe a future in which our creations have, like Dr. Frankenstein’s, become our nemesis.
Those of us who have lived somewhat longer know how many ways our world is cleaner, safer, and more just than what we had not all that many years ago. Yet we also, worn down by the increasingly brazen predations — and dictatorial ambitions — of a “president” who mocks the very concept of good breeding, may be tempted to succumb to cynicism and despair.
Why not climb onto the bandwagon of dystopia? Is that not the only realistic way to view the coming times?
Some say yes, but this pandemic scares me, and I want to fight it any way I can.
No, not the COVID-45 pandemic. I’m talking about the mental viruses, the pandemic of malignant myth that has been spreading largely unchecked now for several decades.
We are meaning makers. That more than any other thing defines us. Human beings are the stories that we tell ourselves and one another.
Science fiction gave us tales of people solving problems. Typically, the hero was presented with a challenge so new that his scientific gadgetry was useless and he had to fall back on the first and greatest of all human tools: his mind. More specifically, his imagination. His ability to think outside the box. To survive, he had to overcome his old assumptions.
But he was from a race of problem solvers, dreamers who had beaten all the odds to rise beyond the limits of a world oppressed by gravity and air pollution. Homo Sapiens took on all comers, bug-eyed monsters from beyond the Milky Way with unknown weapons and technologies. We were boldly going where no one had gone before, confident that whatever might be out there, we were equal to the challenge.
Our adversary now is more insidious than Asimov’s or Roddenberry’s villains. It is dystopia itself, the absolutely unsupportable conviction that my greatest enemy is you.
Instead of telling one another stories of how people work together, now we practice sneering cynically at jokes whose punchlines all remind us that what matters is the bottom line. We have bought into the notion that the game is zero-sum — no one can win unless somebody loses. We’ve been sold a bill of goods that tells us might makes right, and only fools look out for anyone but number one.
We’ve been conned into believing that the problems of humanity cannot be solved because the problem IS humanity. They tell us we have no choice but compete for all of the resources necessary just to stay alive, because there’s not enough of everything to go around.
Bull. Shit.
We aren’t the problem. We are the solution. We are — all of us — resources, value generators. We are capable of feeding all of us, clothing all of us, providing healthcare, education, and opportunities for all of us. The only scarcity is artificial, the scarcity produced by 90% of the planet’s resources being held by 1% of its people.
That’s who wants us to believe the reason we can’t have nice things is because our neighbors had too many babies. That’s who wants us to give up our dreams of real prosperity for everyone. And that’s who’s being served by writers who waste their imagination telling stories proving why we shouldn’t bother using ours.
If we want to build a better future, we must first imagine one. Better yet, imagine many.
My MFA thesis is going to be about a man who builds a single-structure habitatation for 3000 people. He invests in them, providing them with food and education, helping them start businesses, enabling a community to grow and thrive together. No glassy-eyed collectivists, but individuals who know their neighbors are their friends. That first arcology becomes the model for many more, which are the means by which humanity prepares for the inevitable climate disaster, and after cleansing centuries emerges with new wisdom and a new conception of what “human” beings are.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Maybe you can write a better one. I hope you will.
But I believe that writers are the ones who can and must reclaim our future. And the only way to do it is to tell some better stories. | https://medium.com/technology-hits/dystopian-realistic-1ddb066bfc13 | ['Edward Robson'] | 2020-12-13 18:29:59.688000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Philosophy', 'Humanity', 'Science Fiction', 'Writing'] | Title Dystopian ≠ RealisticContent Pessimism’s easier sell day Boomers last generation witnessed extended period growth quality life Millennials watched world overtaken wave wave technology helpful information accurate political warfare lethal accompanied level income inequality seen since medieval time lowering final curtain climate apocalypse Small wonder inclined trust describe future creation like Dr Frankenstein’s become nemesis u lived somewhat longer know many way world cleaner safer many year ago Yet also worn increasingly brazen predation — dictatorial ambition — “president” mock concept good breeding may tempted succumb cynicism despair climb onto bandwagon dystopia realistic way view coming time say yes pandemic scare want fight way COVID45 pandemic I’m talking mental virus pandemic malignant myth spreading largely unchecked several decade meaning maker thing defines u Human being story tell one another Science fiction gave u tale people solving problem Typically hero presented challenge new scientific gadgetry useless fall back first greatest human tool mind specifically imagination ability think outside box survive overcome old assumption race problem solver dreamer beaten odds rise beyond limit world oppressed gravity air pollution Homo Sapiens took comer bugeyed monster beyond Milky Way unknown weapon technology boldly going one gone confident whatever might equal challenge adversary insidious Asimov’s Roddenberry’s villain dystopia absolutely unsupportable conviction greatest enemy Instead telling one another story people work together practice sneering cynically joke whose punchlines remind u matter bottom line bought notion game zerosum — one win unless somebody loses We’ve sold bill good tell u might make right fool look anyone number one We’ve conned believing problem humanity cannot solved problem humanity tell u choice compete resource necessary stay alive there’s enough everything go around Bull Shit aren’t problem solution — u — resource value generator capable feeding u clothing u providing healthcare education opportunity u scarcity artificial scarcity produced 90 planet’s resource held 1 people That’s want u believe reason can’t nice thing neighbor many baby That’s want u give dream real prosperity everyone that’s who’s served writer waste imagination telling story proving shouldn’t bother using want build better future must first imagine one Better yet imagine many MFA thesis going man build singlestructure habitatation 3000 people invests providing food education helping start business enabling community grow thrive together glassyeyed collectivist individual know neighbor friend first arcology becomes model many mean humanity prepares inevitable climate disaster cleansing century emerges new wisdom new conception “human” being That’s story I’m sticking Maybe write better one hope believe writer one must reclaim future way tell better storiesTags Society Philosophy Humanity Science Fiction Writing |
1,227 | The Infection Connection: Vitamin D, Cold Exposure, and the Immune Response. | The Infection Connection: Vitamin D, Cold Exposure, and the Immune Response.
Why our flu is seasonal and what we can do about it
Why do we get sick in winter? Because our immune systems are compromised by Vitamin D deficiency.
by Thomas P Seager, PhD and A.J. Kay
Everyone knows that winter is “flu season,” and most people think we are predisposed to sickness because the outdoor temperatures get cold.
But cold temperatures are not directly responsible for the annual swath of infections. In fact, the opposite is true.
Exposure to cold is a huge boost to the human immune system.
A study conducted jointly by the US and Canadian Armies illustrates this phenomenon by describing how deliberate cold exposure can double the number of natural killer (NK) cells in the bloodstream (Figure 1, Castellani et al, 2002). Natural Killer cells are a critical type of white blood cell that act as our bodies’ ‘first responders’ to all kinds of cell damage, including that from viruses, bacterial infections, and even cancer.
Figure 1, Castellani et al, 2002
Given the immune system’s ramped-up response to cold exposure, the question remains ‘What is the underlying mechanism for the “seasonal stimulus” (Cannel et al. 2006) on the rates of influenza infection?’
According to Dr. John Campbell, a physician in the United Kingdom with a popular video blog about coronavirus, the answer is ‘Vitamin D deficiency’.
The best available science agrees with him.
Current dietary recommendations for Vitamin D were established back in the 1960s at levels just above those required to prevent rickets (Papadimitriou, 2017). At that time, when combined with the then-typical lifestyle rife with sun exposure and a diet of whole, unprocessed foods, the recommendation of a lower supplemental dose was sufficient for most people. Today, our lives are different. We live primarily indoors, wear sunscreen when we do go outside, and our highly processed diets are insufficient to provide us with dietary levels of Vitamin D that we actually need — especially in the winter.
And we do need them. Increased levels of Vitamin D confer a myriad of benefits (Holick, 2007) including:
- reversal of metabolic syndrome
- increased bone density
- prevention of Type 1 diabetes
- protection against common cancers, and
- reduced risk of infectious disease
The evidence with regard to infectious disease is particularly strong — and timely (Adams & Hewison, 2008).
For example, Figure 2 below highlights the inverse relationship between influenza deaths and levels of sun (UVB) exposure in Norway (Juzeniene et al., 2010). The more sun people get (and more Vitamin D is synthesized by their bodies), the fewer people die of the flu.
Juzeniene et al., 2010
Even more compelling is the fact that populations in tropical latitudes show no such seasonality in flu infections — because they don’t experience the same variance in levels of sunshine.
Figure 3: Temperate latitudes show seasonal variation in viral infection rates that correspond to changes in solar irradiance. Tropical latitudes do not, because the solar variation is minimal (Cannel et al 2006).
At Northern latitudes, when the sun is at its lowest angles in the sky and the days are shortest, the UVB solar radiation that reaches the surface of the Earth is insufficient to initiate Vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Consequently, most people in the United States suffer from a Vitamin D deficiency in their bloodstream, especially during winter months.
To make matters (immunologically) worse, the colder temperatures that prevail in winter cause people to cover more of their skin and stay indoors more often, which deprives them of the immune-boosting exposure to the cold winter weather. Our modern environments have created a comfortable existence away from the prophylactic powers of the natural environment by encouraging indoor habitation during the winter months.
In addition, clustering people in close quarters with warm, moist air — the conditions we contrive in order to maximize comfort and minimize exposure to the cold of the winter — also maximize the survivability and transmissibility of the influenza virus.
It’s no wonder we get sick in the winter given that we
are deprived of the Vitamin D that our immune systems depend on to stay active, and limit our exposure to the cold that the winter months confer, and then we enclose ourselves indoors, giving pathogens access to countless vulnerable hosts.
Unfortunately, our susceptibility extends to all kinds of pathogens, not just the flu.
Deaths from the flu are not primarily attributable to the flu itself, but from secondary infections like bronchitis or pneumonia or from systemic complications due to underlying disease processes. One of the great clinical advantages of cold exposure is that the immune-boosting benefits extend to the opportunistic infections that can accompany influenza infection (Gruber-Bzura 2018).
Given the simplicity and affordability of Vitamin D supplements and deliberate cold exposure, there’s no reason why we should have to experience a “flu season” at all.
Getting enough Vitamin D in the winter months, as well as practicing intentional and repeated cold exposure, can give your immune system the boost it needs to minimize your susceptibility to bacterial and viral infections — as well as other types of cell damage — year-round. | https://medium.com/morozko-method/the-infection-connection-vitamin-d-cold-exposure-and-the-immune-response-51a0dc76a685 | ['Morozko Forge'] | 2020-05-03 13:24:30.179000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Infectious Disease', 'Cold Water Immersion', 'Cryotherapy', 'Wellness'] | Title Infection Connection Vitamin Cold Exposure Immune ResponseContent Infection Connection Vitamin Cold Exposure Immune Response flu seasonal get sick winter immune system compromised Vitamin deficiency Thomas P Seager PhD AJ Kay Everyone know winter “flu season” people think predisposed sickness outdoor temperature get cold cold temperature directly responsible annual swath infection fact opposite true Exposure cold huge boost human immune system study conducted jointly US Canadian Armies illustrates phenomenon describing deliberate cold exposure double number natural killer NK cell bloodstream Figure 1 Castellani et al 2002 Natural Killer cell critical type white blood cell act bodies’ ‘first responders’ kind cell damage including virus bacterial infection even cancer Figure 1 Castellani et al 2002 Given immune system’s rampedup response cold exposure question remains ‘What underlying mechanism “seasonal stimulus” Cannel et al 2006 rate influenza infection’ According Dr John Campbell physician United Kingdom popular video blog coronavirus answer ‘Vitamin deficiency’ best available science agrees Current dietary recommendation Vitamin established back 1960s level required prevent rickets Papadimitriou 2017 time combined thentypical lifestyle rife sun exposure diet whole unprocessed food recommendation lower supplemental dose sufficient people Today life different live primarily indoors wear sunscreen go outside highly processed diet insufficient provide u dietary level Vitamin actually need — especially winter need Increased level Vitamin confer myriad benefit Holick 2007 including reversal metabolic syndrome increased bone density prevention Type 1 diabetes protection common cancer reduced risk infectious disease evidence regard infectious disease particularly strong — timely Adams Hewison 2008 example Figure 2 highlight inverse relationship influenza death level sun UVB exposure Norway Juzeniene et al 2010 sun people get Vitamin synthesized body fewer people die flu Juzeniene et al 2010 Even compelling fact population tropical latitude show seasonality flu infection — don’t experience variance level sunshine Figure 3 Temperate latitude show seasonal variation viral infection rate correspond change solar irradiance Tropical latitude solar variation minimal Cannel et al 2006 Northern latitude sun lowest angle sky day shortest UVB solar radiation reach surface Earth insufficient initiate Vitamin synthesis skin Consequently people United States suffer Vitamin deficiency bloodstream especially winter month make matter immunologically worse colder temperature prevail winter cause people cover skin stay indoors often deprives immuneboosting exposure cold winter weather modern environment created comfortable existence away prophylactic power natural environment encouraging indoor habitation winter month addition clustering people close quarter warm moist air — condition contrive order maximize comfort minimize exposure cold winter — also maximize survivability transmissibility influenza virus It’s wonder get sick winter given deprived Vitamin immune system depend stay active limit exposure cold winter month confer enclose indoors giving pathogen access countless vulnerable host Unfortunately susceptibility extends kind pathogen flu Deaths flu primarily attributable flu secondary infection like bronchitis pneumonia systemic complication due underlying disease process One great clinical advantage cold exposure immuneboosting benefit extend opportunistic infection accompany influenza infection GruberBzura 2018 Given simplicity affordability Vitamin supplement deliberate cold exposure there’s reason experience “flu season” Getting enough Vitamin winter month well practicing intentional repeated cold exposure give immune system boost need minimize susceptibility bacterial viral infection — well type cell damage — yearroundTags Health Infectious Disease Cold Water Immersion Cryotherapy Wellness |
1,228 | The Literal Pain Of Working From Home | PHOTOGRAPHED BY JESSICA GARCIA.
By: WHIZY KIM
Complaining about work is normal. In fact, it’s an utterly ordinary thing to do even if you generally enjoy your job. We might groan about a tough project on a tight deadline, an incompetent coworker or an unempathetic manager, low pay, and long hours. But there’s a kind of work-related reality that hasn’t been grumbled about enough: the physical pain of working a desk job, which has only intensified during these long months of working from home.
Some of this silence might have to do with the fact that we feel lucky to be able to work from home at all. You may wonder if it’s insensitive to be talking about the pain from working a cushy white-collar job while other workers are actively facing danger. The great COVID work-from-home era has, however, only highlighted how unhealthy our work habits and setups are.
We’ve read the many detailed breakdowns of why sitting for prolonged periods of time is unhealthy, but it’s another thing to actually combat that on a daily basis when you have a million tasks to complete and barely enough time to scarf down lunch. Our homes never asked to be offices and many of our cramped apartments were ill-prepared to serve as a workspace, but we’ve made do, whether by purchasing new office furniture out of pocket or by using the bar cart as a desk. We’ve noted that the typical stiffness from a long day of work has evolved into pulsing, radiating pain and wondered, Is this normal? Can I just keep ignoring it and hope it’ll go away? Why do I feel like such a cave-dwelling, vitamin D-deprived fleshbag these days?
What follows is not medical advice of any kind. It’s simply a space to vent and share the very real ways sitting and working can lead to chronic pain that you struggle with long-term. As two weeks turned into two months turned into almost a whole year, the makeshift nature of our WFH setups has underscored the fact that crouching over a desk and squinting at a screen for over eight hours a day is no way to live. Ahead, R29 readers share their range of WFH ailments, and what they’ve done to address them.
Tamar, 27
Boston
“I have a sore lower back and back spasms. The pain feels like I have a metal spike inserted into my lower back. A few weeks ago while bending over to pick something up off the floor, I felt a spasm followed by pain,” Tamar says. “It lasted for a few days and I couldn’t bend down, drive, or sit or stand comfortably. I had to cancel a meeting that was supposed to be in-person, and I had difficulty sitting at my desk to type up reports.”
Tamar has switched up her work locations quite a bit while remote. “I used to work at the dining room table, then switched to the couch,” she says. “After my back pain, I started sitting in an office chair that I already owned. I try to minimize sitting for long periods of time on the couch or at a dining table. I use a heating/ice pack if I start to feel any pain. I also learned a few exercises from a friend who is a physical therapist.”
“[Before WFH], I already owned a cheap Target desk that I’ve used occasionally with a dining chair. After experiencing the back pain, I went to my parents’ house and brought back a pristine, barely-used desk chair from high school. I had to buy risers for my desk out-of-pocket because the chair didn’t fit under the desk. I use a random book to prop up my laptop so that it’s at a good typing and eye level.”
Lori, 38
New York
“I’ve always had a tight neck and shoulders from the desk job I’ve worked the last 15 years. Since I started working from home, that’s gotten worse, and I’ve started having tension headaches almost daily around my eyes and the base of my neck,” says Lori. “The largest issue is the pain I’m experiencing in my right hip. At first, it only bothered me later in the day, but now it hurts while I’m sitting at my desk, throughout the day, and on weekends. It’s kind of a dull ache that never goes away. I find myself stretching out my workday so I can take longer breaks while still getting my work done, which makes the day drag on. It’s also affecting my quality of sleep. I’m waking up if I’ve been on my right side too long.”
“I work at a table I have set up in my spare bedroom,” she continues. “I went into my office and snagged my desk chair and a small rolling table — not sure they know about the table, but they know where I live and I’m not going anywhere! Since we might be home until next fall, I’m considering buying a standing desk that I’ll pay for out of pocket.”
“I work for the state, so even if we weren’t in a bad budget situation, they wouldn’t pay for that kind of thing,” Lori says. “I was at my sister’s for almost a week and noticed the pain was almost gone even after sleeping on a couch and carrying around a heavy baby, so it’s definitely my desk setup. I need to change it or I worry I’ll do permanent damage. I’m an active person — biking, snowboarding, hiking — and don’t want this to prevent me from doing the things I love outside of work.”
“I’ve gone to my chiropractor for adjustments and we did a session of pilates on the machine to stretch my hips,” she shares. “I’ve been given physical therapy exercises too, but I’m not great at doing them at home on my own. I also use over-the-counter pain meds, apply heat, and CBD cream.”
Max, 32
Mexico
“I get headaches and dry eyes in the afternoon but keep working until night — not daily, but when I need to work on a project instead of routine work,” says Max. “I have stomach issues because sometimes I forget to eat if I’m really inspired or busy.” She notes that she already suffers from gastritis, esophagitis, and colitis.
Max’s also noticed that her neck is stiff as soon as she wakes up these days, but it becomes worse around late afternoon. “Most of this doesn’t really affect my work, but when the headaches get too intense, I need to stop earlier,” she says.
She usually works from her home office. “It’s a corner desk that came with the house we’re renting, smaller than I’d like but functional,” Max says. “My husband is making me a new one but hasn’t had the time.” She does admit that sometimes she works from her sofa and “a very few times from bed.”
“For the stomach issues, I try to eat better and also take my medication. For the headaches, I sometimes take something for the pain, but not frequently since my stomach is very sensitive. For the neck and back I do nothing, really — I sometimes massage my neck and shoulders during the day or in the shower.”
Alexandra, 31
Pennsylvania
“I have pain in my neck, mid back, low back, hips,” says Alexandra. She says she suffers from sciatica and piriformis syndrome. “Sitting all the time has really messed me up. Being at home means I move around less and don’t take breaks to walk for coffee or lunch — my office is downtown so I’d usually take advantage of that.”
“I’ve always had neck and shoulder issues, but never lower back — and now my lower back is a mess from lack of proper posture and a proper office chair. I didn’t want to splurge,” she says. “My eyes also get incredibly tired and dry because it’s all screens, all the time. I’m an attorney, and my days used to be broken up with walking to court or other offices for depositions, and now it’s all on Zoom. I also find that just sitting on my pelvic area hurts.”
“I do switch up locations depending on how I’m feeling,” Alexandra says, but adds that she’s currently 19 weeks pregnant. “I go from my desk to the bed to the couch and back to my desk again. I go to a chiropractor once a week and I try to stretch through the day.”
“I paid out of pocket sometime in June or July for a desk that folds up, so it can be stored out of the way when needed. It’s currently in our guest room, which will be a nursery,” she shares. “I did expense an extra monitor so I could double screen with my laptop, but that was recent.”
Christy, 37
Georgia
“I have neck pain and stiffness, as well as lower and mid back pain,” says Christy. “My coccyx bone also hurts despite having a super thick chair cushion. My eyes also get dry and hurt from staring at the computer screen all day.”
“I recently moved to a new home and now have an entire room devoted to my home office. I bought a new desk and a new office chair, but the chair isn’t really comfortable — and I bought all of it out of pocket,” she says.
“I’ve been to the chiropractor, take ibuprofen daily, and went to my doctor recently and received steroid injections and a steroid pack for inflammation. She also gave me a prescription for low-dose Flexeril,” Christy says. “I also have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I already have a lot of chronic joint pain and medical issues. But I’m very thankful to be able to work from home full-time.”
Kaajal, 24
New York
“I have lower back pain and stiff hips. The hip pain has been the most challenging, as it’s often painful to even sit. Sometimes the hip pain radiates into my butt and lower back, making it difficult to walk,” says Kaajal.
“I work mostly on my kitchen table, as this is where I’ve set up a second monitor but will move to a desk in my childhood bedroom, or the bed when I feel like I need to lie down,” she says. “I chose the kitchen table because I felt too isolated being in my room all day, and there’s an island in the kitchen with bar stools that can function as a standing desk. I’ve been working mostly there and trying to stand two to three hours a day to help with the pain.”
Kaajal was both surprised and not surprised by the pain. “I was aware that sitting for extended periods of time shortens hamstrings and hip flexors, which can contribute to lower back pain, but as someone who is young, active, and in good health, I didn’t expect this to impact me as much as it did.”
“I didn’t have the money to splurge on a high-end desk chair that I may not be able to use when I move back to a New York City apartment, so instead I got an ergonomic back pillow to attach to my chair, which has been helping me sit up straighter,” she shares. “I also found walking and being active helps so I wake up at 7 a.m. to walk for 60 to 90 minutes — I’m trying to get 10,000 steps. I also do 20 to 30 minutes of stretching or yoga or foam rolling at night while watching TV, just to work the kinks out.”
“Unfortunately, my company has confirmed no stipend or reimbursement for office furniture and supplies,” she says.
Tami, 23
Nigeria
Tami has been working from home since April when her area went into lockdown. “After I lost my job, I started freelancing and found a remote job, so I’ve been at a makeshift desk/office at my parents’ since then,” she says.
“I fell down a flight of stairs three years ago, and my back has never been the same,” she continues. “The combination of on/off back pain from that and sitting at a desk for hours on end has probably made my condition worse. I feel the pain mostly in my lower back, and it almost feels like it’s coming from my spine. There are days when my back will seize and I’ll be unable to walk upright, sometimes having to crawl just to get to the bathroom.”
She says this particular pain has eased a little bit lately. “My dad also bought me an ergonomic chair, which has helped. I feel back pain most acutely after two hours at a desk, so I have a set of alarms on my phone that remind me to stretch,” she says.
“I also have recurring knee pain from a childhood illness, and having my knees hang over the chair but not quite reaching the floor has been causing discomfort. The pain feels like my knee is being pulled out of its socket, and my knees start aching after a couple of hours. I elevate my leg on a stool to help with this.”
“I work in my parents’ study most often and switch between the sofa and bed on slower days,” she continues. “I’m currently renovating the basement into an apartment, so I’m designating a proper work area there as well as investing in proper work furniture.”
She says she wasn’t really surprised by the worsening WFH-related pain. “I thought I would be better about taking breaks,” she says. “I have pretty bad posture from all the phone usage and watching Netflix in bed, but with work, I’m even worse because once I get ‘in the zone’ I can be at my desk for up to three hours.”
“There have been quite a few mentions of home office stipends at different team meetings, but there are some constraints that have made management put it off,” Tami says.
“A lot of my friends are in school or back in physical offices, so they’re a lot more physically active than I am,” she says, noting that because of this, it’s harder for them to understand her pain. “With those that I can complain about this to, the ones who get it, they usually just remind me that I’m a workaholic — and everyone else is good at taking breaks.”
***
Originally published at http://www.refinery29.com | https://medium.com/refinery29/the-literal-pain-of-working-from-home-96cb2183cc8c | [] | 2020-12-16 23:30:26.499000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Working From Home', 'Jobs', 'Wellness', 'Covid 19'] | Title Literal Pain Working HomeContent PHOTOGRAPHED JESSICA GARCIA WHIZY KIM Complaining work normal fact it’s utterly ordinary thing even generally enjoy job might groan tough project tight deadline incompetent coworker unempathetic manager low pay long hour there’s kind workrelated reality hasn’t grumbled enough physical pain working desk job intensified long month working home silence might fact feel lucky able work home may wonder it’s insensitive talking pain working cushy whitecollar job worker actively facing danger great COVID workfromhome era however highlighted unhealthy work habit setup We’ve read many detailed breakdown sitting prolonged period time unhealthy it’s another thing actually combat daily basis million task complete barely enough time scarf lunch home never asked office many cramped apartment illprepared serve workspace we’ve made whether purchasing new office furniture pocket using bar cart desk We’ve noted typical stiffness long day work evolved pulsing radiating pain wondered normal keep ignoring hope it’ll go away feel like cavedwelling vitamin Ddeprived fleshbag day follows medical advice kind It’s simply space vent share real way sitting working lead chronic pain struggle longterm two week turned two month turned almost whole year makeshift nature WFH setup underscored fact crouching desk squinting screen eight hour day way live Ahead R29 reader share range WFH ailment they’ve done address Tamar 27 Boston “I sore lower back back spasm pain feel like metal spike inserted lower back week ago bending pick something floor felt spasm followed pain” Tamar say “It lasted day couldn’t bend drive sit stand comfortably cancel meeting supposed inperson difficulty sitting desk type reports” Tamar switched work location quite bit remote “I used work dining room table switched couch” say “After back pain started sitting office chair already owned try minimize sitting long period time couch dining table use heatingice pack start feel pain also learned exercise friend physical therapist” “Before WFH already owned cheap Target desk I’ve used occasionally dining chair experiencing back pain went parents’ house brought back pristine barelyused desk chair high school buy riser desk outofpocket chair didn’t fit desk use random book prop laptop it’s good typing eye level” Lori 38 New York “I’ve always tight neck shoulder desk job I’ve worked last 15 year Since started working home that’s gotten worse I’ve started tension headache almost daily around eye base neck” say Lori “The largest issue pain I’m experiencing right hip first bothered later day hurt I’m sitting desk throughout day weekend It’s kind dull ache never go away find stretching workday take longer break still getting work done make day drag It’s also affecting quality sleep I’m waking I’ve right side long” “I work table set spare bedroom” continues “I went office snagged desk chair small rolling table — sure know table know live I’m going anywhere Since might home next fall I’m considering buying standing desk I’ll pay pocket” “I work state even weren’t bad budget situation wouldn’t pay kind thing” Lori say “I sister’s almost week noticed pain almost gone even sleeping couch carrying around heavy baby it’s definitely desk setup need change worry I’ll permanent damage I’m active person — biking snowboarding hiking — don’t want prevent thing love outside work” “I’ve gone chiropractor adjustment session pilate machine stretch hips” share “I’ve given physical therapy exercise I’m great home also use overthecounter pain med apply heat CBD cream” Max 32 Mexico “I get headache dry eye afternoon keep working night — daily need work project instead routine work” say Max “I stomach issue sometimes forget eat I’m really inspired busy” note already suffers gastritis esophagitis colitis Max’s also noticed neck stiff soon wake day becomes worse around late afternoon “Most doesn’t really affect work headache get intense need stop earlier” say usually work home office “It’s corner desk came house we’re renting smaller I’d like functional” Max say “My husband making new one hasn’t time” admit sometimes work sofa “a time bed” “For stomach issue try eat better also take medication headache sometimes take something pain frequently since stomach sensitive neck back nothing really — sometimes massage neck shoulder day shower” Alexandra 31 Pennsylvania “I pain neck mid back low back hips” say Alexandra say suffers sciatica piriformis syndrome “Sitting time really messed home mean move around le don’t take break walk coffee lunch — office downtown I’d usually take advantage that” “I’ve always neck shoulder issue never lower back — lower back mess lack proper posture proper office chair didn’t want splurge” say “My eye also get incredibly tired dry it’s screen time I’m attorney day used broken walking court office deposition it’s Zoom also find sitting pelvic area hurts” “I switch location depending I’m feeling” Alexandra say add she’s currently 19 week pregnant “I go desk bed couch back desk go chiropractor week try stretch day” “I paid pocket sometime June July desk fold stored way needed It’s currently guest room nursery” share “I expense extra monitor could double screen laptop recent” Christy 37 Georgia “I neck pain stiffness well lower mid back pain” say Christy “My coccyx bone also hurt despite super thick chair cushion eye also get dry hurt staring computer screen day” “I recently moved new home entire room devoted home office bought new desk new office chair chair isn’t really comfortable — bought pocket” say “I’ve chiropractor take ibuprofen daily went doctor recently received steroid injection steroid pack inflammation also gave prescription lowdose Flexeril” Christy say “I also fibromyalgia chronic fatigue syndrome EhlersDanlos syndrome already lot chronic joint pain medical issue I’m thankful able work home fulltime” Kaajal 24 New York “I lower back pain stiff hip hip pain challenging it’s often painful even sit Sometimes hip pain radiates butt lower back making difficult walk” say Kaajal “I work mostly kitchen table I’ve set second monitor move desk childhood bedroom bed feel like need lie down” say “I chose kitchen table felt isolated room day there’s island kitchen bar stool function standing desk I’ve working mostly trying stand two three hour day help pain” Kaajal surprised surprised pain “I aware sitting extended period time shortens hamstring hip flexor contribute lower back pain someone young active good health didn’t expect impact much did” “I didn’t money splurge highend desk chair may able use move back New York City apartment instead got ergonomic back pillow attach chair helping sit straighter” share “I also found walking active help wake 7 walk 60 90 minute — I’m trying get 10000 step also 20 30 minute stretching yoga foam rolling night watching TV work kink out” “Unfortunately company confirmed stipend reimbursement office furniture supplies” say Tami 23 Nigeria Tami working home since April area went lockdown “After lost job started freelancing found remote job I’ve makeshift deskoffice parents’ since then” say “I fell flight stair three year ago back never same” continues “The combination onoff back pain sitting desk hour end probably made condition worse feel pain mostly lower back almost feel like it’s coming spine day back seize I’ll unable walk upright sometimes crawl get bathroom” say particular pain eased little bit lately “My dad also bought ergonomic chair helped feel back pain acutely two hour desk set alarm phone remind stretch” say “I also recurring knee pain childhood illness knee hang chair quite reaching floor causing discomfort pain feel like knee pulled socket knee start aching couple hour elevate leg stool help this” “I work parents’ study often switch sofa bed slower days” continues “I’m currently renovating basement apartment I’m designating proper work area well investing proper work furniture” say wasn’t really surprised worsening WFHrelated pain “I thought would better taking breaks” say “I pretty bad posture phone usage watching Netflix bed work I’m even worse get ‘in zone’ desk three hours” “There quite mention home office stipend different team meeting constraint made management put off” Tami say “A lot friend school back physical office they’re lot physically active am” say noting it’s harder understand pain “With complain one get usually remind I’m workaholic — everyone else good taking breaks” Originally published httpwwwrefinery29comTags Health Working Home Jobs Wellness Covid 19 |
1,229 | How to Master the Art of Storytelling as a Data Scientist? | How to tell a story?
We do hear and see a lot of stories around us. More or less, stories have 3 things in common. You have characters, conflict, and conclusion in every story.
For a data scientist, there are 3 fundamental parts of a story:
Identifying the problem:
First of all, it’s necessary to identify the problem for your audience. You need to tell them how you are going to collect your data, what are the different sources for that, or maybe you need to check that if there are some ready-made data that you can use to experiment with.
Alongside that, you need to make sure that your data is not skewed or biased or something like that. Also, you must have documented strategies to remove bias or remove other anomalies in the actual collected data.
“Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.” — Charles Babbage
It is necessary for you to outline a clear line-of-action for the audience at this stage so that they can actually understand both the problem and a roadmap for the solution.
Presenting the solution:
After you’ve identified and explained the problem to your audience and stakeholders, you’ll need to present the solution.
Your audience may ask you different questions about the data collection process, exploration or how did you model the problem depending on the competency level of the audience.
“Invite your Data Science team to ask questions and assume any system, rule, or way of doing things is open to further consideration.” — Damian Mingle
If they are technical they will be more focused on the engineering side of things. However, if they are non-technical they might be interested in knowing the solution which is more cheap, quick, and easy to understand.
Impact of the solution:
One of the important part of the storytelling as a data scientist is the ability to relate your solution to the final impact.
There can be various impacts of a solution. It may be some predictions that can save revenue for a company, or it can be finding an optimal path for a user to reach a certain place. It can also be an analysis of a climate change issue using Machine Learning that can help in the conservation of the environment.
“Hiding within those mounds of data is knowledge that could change the life of a patient, or change the world.” — Atul Butte
Actually, it depends on the type of problem that you are solving and the impact it can have on the life of different actors in the scenario. Actors are the people who are directly or indirectly impacted by your solution in one or more ways. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/how-to-master-the-art-of-storytelling-as-a-data-scientist-1a72eda10f54 | ['Saeed Ahmad'] | 2020-12-24 15:57:01.542000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Careers'] | Title Master Art Storytelling Data ScientistContent tell story hear see lot story around u le story 3 thing common character conflict conclusion every story data scientist 3 fundamental part story Identifying problem First it’s necessary identify problem audience need tell going collect data different source maybe need check readymade data use experiment Alongside need make sure data skewed biased something like Also must documented strategy remove bias remove anomaly actual collected data “Errors using inadequate data much le using data all” — Charles Babbage necessary outline clear lineofaction audience stage actually understand problem roadmap solution Presenting solution you’ve identified explained problem audience stakeholder you’ll need present solution audience may ask different question data collection process exploration model problem depending competency level audience “Invite Data Science team ask question assume system rule way thing open consideration” — Damian Mingle technical focused engineering side thing However nontechnical might interested knowing solution cheap quick easy understand Impact solution One important part storytelling data scientist ability relate solution final impact various impact solution may prediction save revenue company finding optimal path user reach certain place also analysis climate change issue using Machine Learning help conservation environment “Hiding within mound data knowledge could change life patient change world” — Atul Butte Actually depends type problem solving impact life different actor scenario Actors people directly indirectly impacted solution one waysTags Data Science Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence AI Careers |
1,230 | A Look at the Long-Lasting Java and Big Data Relationship (With a List of Resources Data Scientists Can Use for Java Learning) | Photo by ev on Unsplash
Data science is one of the hottest (if not the hottest) jobs of the XXI century. The number of CS students and business science majors who want to know how to analyze insights is growing at a wild rate.
Right now, “Intro to Data Science” is the fastest-growing class at Berkeley. When it comes to Harvard, “Introduction to Statistics” was another hot pick among undergraduates — a change stimulated by the growth of big data and data science.
We all understand that there’s no end in sight when it comes to data production. Since the 2000s, we have been creating terabytes of data contributing to the worldwide data deluge.
In 2021, the need for people who could make sense of all this accessible information is drier than ever. That’s why the demand for data scientists has spiked dramatically.
If you are a computer science enthusiast eager to brand yourself as a big data analyst, you might be confused about what the right starting point is. In this post, I’ll explain why I believe that learning Java is one of the most reasonable decisions a data scientist can make and share some helpful resources to fuel your learning.
Data Science Is Here to Stay: 10 Reasons to Learn Big Data
Unfortunately, if you come by a tech forum or data science-related Reddit thread, it’s painfully common to hear claims like “Data science will become obsolete in 20 years”. I’d say, there’s no empirical evidence of this happening anytime soon — rather, as BD and data analytics advance, new applications of these technologies emerge.
Here are ten applications for big data that can be an excellent motivation to start learning it even if you work in a field with no direct connection to engineering or computer science.
Targeting customers . Brands and corporations have long discovered the power of BD and aim to make the most out of the information customers share on websites and social media. As for the political world, big data emerged as a killer weapon in reaching out to voters and promoting senate or office candidates.
. Brands and corporations have long discovered the power of BD and aim to make the most out of the information customers share on websites and social media. As for the political world, big data emerged as a killer weapon in reaching out to voters and promoting senate or office candidates. Optimizing corporate internal processes . The growing number of company and talent managers rely on big data to work productively. They use tracking tools and sensors to get access to employee efficiency insights and rely on ML and BD algorithms to make sense of this information.
. The growing number of company and talent managers rely on big data to work productively. They use tracking tools and sensors to get access to employee efficiency insights and rely on ML and BD algorithms to make sense of this information. Personal life and socialization . The power of big data in online dating has been a hot topic throughout the last decade. Apps like Tinder, OkCupid, and eHarmony proved that it’s possible to break matchmaking down to a series of algorithms and predictable scenarios. In the future, the impact of BD in the dating market will likely be even more widespread, helping love-seekers fulfill desires they never knew they had.
. The power of big data in online dating has been a hot topic throughout the last decade. Apps like Tinder, OkCupid, and eHarmony proved that it’s possible to break matchmaking down to a series of algorithms and predictable scenarios. In the future, the impact of BD in the dating market will likely be even more widespread, helping love-seekers fulfill desires they never knew they had. Healthcare and effective treatment . There is a sea of BD applications in the healthcare sector — from leveraging the power of sensors and trackers in wellness to improving the precision of diagnosis and laying the groundwork to facilitate life-or-death decision-making for physicians.
. There is a sea of BD applications in the healthcare sector — from leveraging the power of sensors and trackers in wellness to improving the precision of diagnosis and laying the groundwork to facilitate life-or-death decision-making for physicians. Increasing the relevance of science and the efficiency of academic research . Top research institutions like CERN heavily invest in data centers for a reason — the insights data analysts provide come in handy in making accurate predictions, identifying research areas, relevant to the general public, and broadening a scientist’s perspective.
. Top research institutions like CERN heavily invest in data centers for a reason — the insights data analysts provide come in handy in making accurate predictions, identifying research areas, relevant to the general public, and broadening a scientist’s perspective. Improving the performance of athletes . Big data tools have been officially implemented in tennis and soccer to make sure referees don’t make a blind rule on a player’s mistakes. The NFL uses big data as well to help team managers make calculated decisions regarding scouting, running stadiums, or interacting with fans. Team managers and coaches, too, rely on BD and data analytics to plan athlete training and make sure they don’t harm players with excessive or strenuous training.
. Big data tools have been officially implemented in tennis and soccer to make sure referees don’t make a blind rule on a player’s mistakes. The NFL uses big data as well to help team managers make calculated decisions regarding scouting, running stadiums, or interacting with fans. Team managers and coaches, too, rely on BD and data analytics to plan athlete training and make sure they don’t harm players with excessive or strenuous training. Optimizing living conditions . Big data is a frontrunner in improving the quality of urban life. City councils rely on BD tools to monitor the flow of traffic and predict road congestion. Electricity and water consumption sensors help communities use resources efficiently and spend less of the taxpayers’ money on maintaining a comfortable living environment in smart cities.
. Big data is a frontrunner in improving the quality of urban life. City councils rely on BD tools to monitor the flow of traffic and predict road congestion. Electricity and water consumption sensors help communities use resources efficiently and spend less of the taxpayers’ money on maintaining a comfortable living environment in smart cities. Trading and finance . Big data brought about a revolution in the world of trading. Right now, most equity trading processes rely on ML algorithms — these help track stock market fluctuations, predict the variations of stock prices, and allow investors to make smart, data-backed decisions. Other than that, big data is widely used to discover promising investment and trading opportunities.
. Big data brought about a revolution in the world of trading. Right now, most equity trading processes rely on ML algorithms — these help track stock market fluctuations, predict the variations of stock prices, and allow investors to make smart, data-backed decisions. Other than that, big data is widely used to discover promising investment and trading opportunities. Education . The usage of big data at schools and universities is progressively becoming the new normal. Smart progress tracking systems (like the one implemented at the University of Tasmania in Australia) allow students and professors to keep track of classwork, collect behavioral insights to help learners develop an effective study method, and help teachers to fine-tune their performance in class.
. The usage of big data at schools and universities is progressively becoming the new normal. Smart progress tracking systems (like the one implemented at the University of Tasmania in Australia) allow students and professors to keep track of classwork, collect behavioral insights to help learners develop an effective study method, and help teachers to fine-tune their performance in class. Entertainment and media. Netflix and Spotify are leading the way in big data implementation in entertainment. The latter relies on Hadoop (a set of Java-based tools) to collect and process user insights. The ability to analyze user data comes in handy, as it allows creating curated track feeds and promotes higher audience engagement.
Case For Java in Big Data
There’s no tip-toeing around the fact that Python and R are the standard languages of modern big data. I won’t deny the fact that most BD tools have APIs for Python and R so not knowing Java will rarely be indispensable for a data scientist.
However, there are a ton of Big Data use cases when Java should be one of the languages in your tech stack.
You should learn Java for big data if:
You want to implement a theoretical model developed in Python. In most teams, Java is a preferred programming language for writing production code that allows you to use and scale BD algorithms.
You want to integrate your project with enterprise tools. In the world of enterprise tools, Java is huge. There are plenty of tools that use the language — so, if you want to integrate your big data with any of those, learning the basics of Java will spare you a ton of stress.
You want to scale BD projects. Java helps data scientists process more data, support a higher prediction load, and scale complex ecosystems.
You want to adapt existing Enterprise-Grade tools to a particular use case.
Why Data Scientists Use Java
Java isn’t the newest and hottest language of the market — so it makes sense to wonder why it still has so much impact in Big Data, despite the appearance of newer, more concise technologies.
Personally, I (and many of my peers) am drawn to Java both in application and big data development for the following reasons:
Broad user base . Simply put, Java is popular among my clients so knowing how to leverage its tools lands me jobs I’d otherwise get “passed” on.
. Simply put, Java is popular among my clients so knowing how to leverage its tools lands me jobs I’d otherwise get “passed” on. A lot of learning tools . There are a lot of books, video tutorials, and learning platforms for learning Java. Compared to newer languages, I feel like Java learners have a clearer sense of direction and can create an effective study method relatively easily. Thus, learning Java is worth it even if you will not be using it as a primary language in day-to-day BD tasks.
. There are a lot of books, video tutorials, and learning platforms for learning Java. Compared to newer languages, I feel like Java learners have a clearer sense of direction and can create an effective study method relatively easily. Thus, learning Java is worth it even if you will not be using it as a primary language in day-to-day BD tasks. Java is the base for the majority of big data tools — Hadoop, Spark, Storm, Mahout, and more. Since the Hadoop ecosystem is so widely used in BD, some developers go as far as to say that “Java IS Big Data”.
— Hadoop, Spark, Storm, Mahout, and more. Since the Hadoop ecosystem is so widely used in BD, some developers go as far as to say that “Java IS Big Data”. Scala is a relative of Java . The backbone of Apache Spark — is essentially a language designed using JVM. That’s why learning Java helps developers smoothen the transition to Scala (for most it’s still rough, however) and become confident Spark users.
. The backbone of Apache Spark — is essentially a language designed using JVM. That’s why learning Java helps developers smoothen the transition to Scala (for most it’s still rough, however) and become confident Spark users. Java is flexible, allowing developers to build a practically limitless tech stack on top of it. I also believe that Java gets bonus points thanks to its support of scalability and multithreading.
Closer Look At Java-Based Big Data Tools: Hadoop, Spark, and more
Hadoop
Hadoop is a framework that helps data scientists process large datasets. Companies use the tool to aggregate all external data in one system, group, and categorize it.
These are the tool’s main features:
Failover support: ensures safe data transfer between slave machines in case one of them shuts down.
Scalability: each new machine can easily become part of the Hadoop ecosystem.
Low intensity on hardware: compared to other large-scale BD solutions, Hadoop can run on lower-tier machines allowing company managers and data scientists to cut hardware costs.
Local data processing: saves bandwidth and increases the speed of information processing.
Is there a flipside? Plenty: Hadoop is hard to learn and to implement so a growing number of data scientists prefer to move on to other tools (according to statistics, 11% of Gartner survey respondents said that they plan to invest in Hadoop).
Having said that, the demand for Hadoop is still outmatching the supply. At the time of writing, there are nearly 2,500 Hadoop developer job openings on Indeed. The salaries of Hadoop engineers are worth considering as well — according to ZipRecruiter, the national average is at $125,000.
Spark
Spark is a multi-purpose tool data scientists use for just about everything: stream processing, machine learning analytics, and many other processes. By flexibility, speed, and the smoothness of the learning curve, the framework is a huge cut above Hadoop.
It’s worth noting that Spark is built in Scala, not Java (there’s a Java API you can integrate to be fully comfortable). Even if you set your sights on learning Scala, the good news is, there are plenty of similarities between Java and Scala — I outlined the main ones below.
Both languages are based on JVM.
Commonly used Java IDEs (e.g. Eclipse, IntelliJ) support Scala.
Both are OOP languages (with Scala going a step further and extending its tools to functional programming as well).
Developers can reuse Java libraries in Scala and vice versa.
Storm
Storm is another handy tool used to process real-time data streams. The framework approaches streaming similarly to the way Hadoop handles batch processing.
Storm has a wide range of applications in big data: ETL, continuous computation, machine learning, and many more.
Main features of the framework:
Flexibility
Fault-tolerance
Scalability
Ease of setup.
To understand the range of Storm adoption, it’s enough to take a look at some of its adopters: Twitter, Spotify, Alibaba, and many more.
“Spotify serves streaming music to over 10 million subscribers and 40 million active users. Storm powers a wide range of real-time features at Spotify, including music recommendation, monitoring, analytics, and ad targeting. Together with Kafka, memcached, Cassandra, and netty-zmtp based messaging, Storm enables us to build low-latency fault-tolerant distributed systems with ease.”
Spotify team on using Storm
Learning Java For Big Data: Where to Start
If you can’t wait to start learning Java to improve your versatility as a data scientist, it’s helpful to have a resource deck for reference.
While I am not a huge fan of using multiple learning tools at once, I put together a deck of useful books, courses, video tutorials, and forum threads for those eager to learn Java and use it in BD.
Best Books for Learning Java:
Introduction to Java Programming and Data Structures — gives a concise overview of algorithms, data structures, networking, and almost every other Java concept. It’s one of the fullest and useful programming resources I have ever read.
Spring in Action — although Spring isn’t Java, developers deal with it in most daily tasks. Reading this guide will help you get a clear and up-to-day understanding of Spring programming and save developers a ton of workplace stress.
Head First Java — often used as a textbook at programming classes, it’s a top choice for students since the book mirrors most university curriculums.
Effective Java.
Clean Code: A Handbook For Agile Programming — it’s not a Java textbook per se, but it’s beneficial for getting to know best coding practices.
Best Courses for Learning Java:
Codegym: a well-structured, engaging Java course that covers both the fundamentals of syntax and its more advanced aspects (parallelism and multithreading).
MOOC course on Java programming. The MOOC method makes up for thought-provoking discussions among developers — however, a lot of Java learners still find a ton of luck with this Java course so I am putting it on the list.
Java For Complete Beginners — in a little over 16 hours, this Udemy course gives a solid grasp of the fundamentals of the programming language.
Reddit threads
r/java
r/learnjava
r/hadoop
r/learnprogramming
r/javahelp
Conclusion
Describing the evolution of big data, Pearl Zhu said: “We are moving slowly into an era where big data is the starting point, not the end.” The growth rate of the field, indeed, suggests that data scientists will be at the core of every project in the future. So, programmers want to make sure that, when the time comes to jump on the BD wagon, they have the skills necessary to stay relevant.
The good news is, Java is a programming language a data scientist will not regret learning. Its widespread use to support the big data ecosystem, dominance in writing production code, and popularity at the enterprise level all suggest that Java is here to stay — that’s why more developers should start learning it as soon as possible. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-look-at-the-long-lasting-java-and-big-data-relationship-with-a-list-of-resources-data-123d41668836 | ['John Selawsky'] | 2020-12-28 17:56:02.496000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Java', 'Coding', 'Programming', 'Big Data Analytics'] | Title Look LongLasting Java Big Data Relationship List Resources Data Scientists Use Java LearningContent Photo ev Unsplash Data science one hottest hottest job XXI century number CS student business science major want know analyze insight growing wild rate Right “Intro Data Science” fastestgrowing class Berkeley come Harvard “Introduction Statistics” another hot pick among undergraduate — change stimulated growth big data data science understand there’s end sight come data production Since 2000s creating terabyte data contributing worldwide data deluge 2021 need people could make sense accessible information drier ever That’s demand data scientist spiked dramatically computer science enthusiast eager brand big data analyst might confused right starting point post I’ll explain believe learning Java one reasonable decision data scientist make share helpful resource fuel learning Data Science Stay 10 Reasons Learn Big Data Unfortunately come tech forum data sciencerelated Reddit thread it’s painfully common hear claim like “Data science become obsolete 20 years” I’d say there’s empirical evidence happening anytime soon — rather BD data analytics advance new application technology emerge ten application big data excellent motivation start learning even work field direct connection engineering computer science Targeting customer Brands corporation long discovered power BD aim make information customer share website social medium political world big data emerged killer weapon reaching voter promoting senate office candidate Brands corporation long discovered power BD aim make information customer share website social medium political world big data emerged killer weapon reaching voter promoting senate office candidate Optimizing corporate internal process growing number company talent manager rely big data work productively use tracking tool sensor get access employee efficiency insight rely ML BD algorithm make sense information growing number company talent manager rely big data work productively use tracking tool sensor get access employee efficiency insight rely ML BD algorithm make sense information Personal life socialization power big data online dating hot topic throughout last decade Apps like Tinder OkCupid eHarmony proved it’s possible break matchmaking series algorithm predictable scenario future impact BD dating market likely even widespread helping loveseekers fulfill desire never knew power big data online dating hot topic throughout last decade Apps like Tinder OkCupid eHarmony proved it’s possible break matchmaking series algorithm predictable scenario future impact BD dating market likely even widespread helping loveseekers fulfill desire never knew Healthcare effective treatment sea BD application healthcare sector — leveraging power sensor tracker wellness improving precision diagnosis laying groundwork facilitate lifeordeath decisionmaking physician sea BD application healthcare sector — leveraging power sensor tracker wellness improving precision diagnosis laying groundwork facilitate lifeordeath decisionmaking physician Increasing relevance science efficiency academic research Top research institution like CERN heavily invest data center reason — insight data analyst provide come handy making accurate prediction identifying research area relevant general public broadening scientist’s perspective Top research institution like CERN heavily invest data center reason — insight data analyst provide come handy making accurate prediction identifying research area relevant general public broadening scientist’s perspective Improving performance athlete Big data tool officially implemented tennis soccer make sure referee don’t make blind rule player’s mistake NFL us big data well help team manager make calculated decision regarding scouting running stadium interacting fan Team manager coach rely BD data analytics plan athlete training make sure don’t harm player excessive strenuous training Big data tool officially implemented tennis soccer make sure referee don’t make blind rule player’s mistake NFL us big data well help team manager make calculated decision regarding scouting running stadium interacting fan Team manager coach rely BD data analytics plan athlete training make sure don’t harm player excessive strenuous training Optimizing living condition Big data frontrunner improving quality urban life City council rely BD tool monitor flow traffic predict road congestion Electricity water consumption sensor help community use resource efficiently spend le taxpayers’ money maintaining comfortable living environment smart city Big data frontrunner improving quality urban life City council rely BD tool monitor flow traffic predict road congestion Electricity water consumption sensor help community use resource efficiently spend le taxpayers’ money maintaining comfortable living environment smart city Trading finance Big data brought revolution world trading Right equity trading process rely ML algorithm — help track stock market fluctuation predict variation stock price allow investor make smart databacked decision big data widely used discover promising investment trading opportunity Big data brought revolution world trading Right equity trading process rely ML algorithm — help track stock market fluctuation predict variation stock price allow investor make smart databacked decision big data widely used discover promising investment trading opportunity Education usage big data school university progressively becoming new normal Smart progress tracking system like one implemented University Tasmania Australia allow student professor keep track classwork collect behavioral insight help learner develop effective study method help teacher finetune performance class usage big data school university progressively becoming new normal Smart progress tracking system like one implemented University Tasmania Australia allow student professor keep track classwork collect behavioral insight help learner develop effective study method help teacher finetune performance class Entertainment medium Netflix Spotify leading way big data implementation entertainment latter relies Hadoop set Javabased tool collect process user insight ability analyze user data come handy allows creating curated track feed promotes higher audience engagement Case Java Big Data There’s tiptoeing around fact Python R standard language modern big data won’t deny fact BD tool APIs Python R knowing Java rarely indispensable data scientist However ton Big Data use case Java one language tech stack learn Java big data want implement theoretical model developed Python team Java preferred programming language writing production code allows use scale BD algorithm want integrate project enterprise tool world enterprise tool Java huge plenty tool use language — want integrate big data learning basic Java spare ton stress want scale BD project Java help data scientist process data support higher prediction load scale complex ecosystem want adapt existing EnterpriseGrade tool particular use case Data Scientists Use Java Java isn’t newest hottest language market — make sense wonder still much impact Big Data despite appearance newer concise technology Personally many peer drawn Java application big data development following reason Broad user base Simply put Java popular among client knowing leverage tool land job I’d otherwise get “passed” Simply put Java popular among client knowing leverage tool land job I’d otherwise get “passed” lot learning tool lot book video tutorial learning platform learning Java Compared newer language feel like Java learner clearer sense direction create effective study method relatively easily Thus learning Java worth even using primary language daytoday BD task lot book video tutorial learning platform learning Java Compared newer language feel like Java learner clearer sense direction create effective study method relatively easily Thus learning Java worth even using primary language daytoday BD task Java base majority big data tool — Hadoop Spark Storm Mahout Since Hadoop ecosystem widely used BD developer go far say “Java Big Data” — Hadoop Spark Storm Mahout Since Hadoop ecosystem widely used BD developer go far say “Java Big Data” Scala relative Java backbone Apache Spark — essentially language designed using JVM That’s learning Java help developer smoothen transition Scala it’s still rough however become confident Spark user backbone Apache Spark — essentially language designed using JVM That’s learning Java help developer smoothen transition Scala it’s still rough however become confident Spark user Java flexible allowing developer build practically limitless tech stack top also believe Java get bonus point thanks support scalability multithreading Closer Look JavaBased Big Data Tools Hadoop Spark Hadoop Hadoop framework help data scientist process large datasets Companies use tool aggregate external data one system group categorize tool’s main feature Failover support ensures safe data transfer slave machine case one shuts Scalability new machine easily become part Hadoop ecosystem Low intensity hardware compared largescale BD solution Hadoop run lowertier machine allowing company manager data scientist cut hardware cost Local data processing save bandwidth increase speed information processing flipside Plenty Hadoop hard learn implement growing number data scientist prefer move tool according statistic 11 Gartner survey respondent said plan invest Hadoop said demand Hadoop still outmatching supply time writing nearly 2500 Hadoop developer job opening Indeed salary Hadoop engineer worth considering well — according ZipRecruiter national average 125000 Spark Spark multipurpose tool data scientist use everything stream processing machine learning analytics many process flexibility speed smoothness learning curve framework huge cut Hadoop It’s worth noting Spark built Scala Java there’s Java API integrate fully comfortable Even set sight learning Scala good news plenty similarity Java Scala — outlined main one language based JVM Commonly used Java IDEs eg Eclipse IntelliJ support Scala OOP language Scala going step extending tool functional programming well Developers reuse Java library Scala vice versa Storm Storm another handy tool used process realtime data stream framework approach streaming similarly way Hadoop handle batch processing Storm wide range application big data ETL continuous computation machine learning many Main feature framework Flexibility Faulttolerance Scalability Ease setup understand range Storm adoption it’s enough take look adopter Twitter Spotify Alibaba many “Spotify serf streaming music 10 million subscriber 40 million active user Storm power wide range realtime feature Spotify including music recommendation monitoring analytics ad targeting Together Kafka memcached Cassandra nettyzmtp based messaging Storm enables u build lowlatency faulttolerant distributed system ease” Spotify team using Storm Learning Java Big Data Start can’t wait start learning Java improve versatility data scientist it’s helpful resource deck reference huge fan using multiple learning tool put together deck useful book course video tutorial forum thread eager learn Java use BD Best Books Learning Java Introduction Java Programming Data Structures — give concise overview algorithm data structure networking almost every Java concept It’s one fullest useful programming resource ever read Spring Action — although Spring isn’t Java developer deal daily task Reading guide help get clear uptoday understanding Spring programming save developer ton workplace stress Head First Java — often used textbook programming class it’s top choice student since book mirror university curriculum Effective Java Clean Code Handbook Agile Programming — it’s Java textbook per se it’s beneficial getting know best coding practice Best Courses Learning Java Codegym wellstructured engaging Java course cover fundamental syntax advanced aspect parallelism multithreading MOOC course Java programming MOOC method make thoughtprovoking discussion among developer — however lot Java learner still find ton luck Java course putting list Java Complete Beginners — little 16 hour Udemy course give solid grasp fundamental programming language Reddit thread rjava rlearnjava rhadoop rlearnprogramming rjavahelp Conclusion Describing evolution big data Pearl Zhu said “We moving slowly era big data starting point end” growth rate field indeed suggests data scientist core every project future programmer want make sure time come jump BD wagon skill necessary stay relevant good news Java programming language data scientist regret learning widespread use support big data ecosystem dominance writing production code popularity enterprise level suggest Java stay — that’s developer start learning soon possibleTags Big Data Java Coding Programming Big Data Analytics |
1,231 | A Weary Nightingale | My heart sings like a weary nightingale
with a rhythm I can never refine,
but I carry within a mournful tale
and yearning for dreams that were never mine.
By the mountains, in search of peace to grieve,
I seek respite from the years filled with scorn,
yet no one had a reason to believe
I could ever fulfill what I had sworn.
But it is the calling of the sublime
that leads me to search for rapturous heights,
even against the bitter foe of time,
I will not lower where I set my sights.
But against all odds, can my soul ascend
or am I stuck with wings I cannot mend? | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/a-weary-nightingale-717ab2fae547 | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-12-17 19:53:13.938000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Spirituality', 'Future', 'Poetry', 'Sonnet'] | Title Weary NightingaleContent heart sings like weary nightingale rhythm never refine carry within mournful tale yearning dream never mine mountain search peace grieve seek respite year filled scorn yet one reason believe could ever fulfill sworn calling sublime lead search rapturous height even bitter foe time lower set sight odds soul ascend stuck wing cannot mendTags Mental Health Spirituality Future Poetry Sonnet |
1,232 | Evangelicalism Makes People “Stupid.” That’s Why They Won’t Care About Trump’s Taxes. | I don’t think that anyone can claim that evangelicals today have true political power. As The Atlantic said back in July, evangelicals don’t have much to show for their betrayal of Christ as they steadfastly hold onto Trump. They took a gamble and they lost, or to be fair, they won a cruel prize of chaos.
Regardless of anything they say, is anybody truly happy in 2020? Do everyday people feel a happiness or peace about politics, the economy, racism, policing, or COVID-19?
To say there is a great deal of unrest is, of course, an understatement. But it’s not just the Left that’s been left unhappy. Evangelicals are unhappy too. They think they’re fighting in some holy war against evils like socialism. They turn on Netflix and fear they’re losing a cultural war.
Trump’s poor leadership has impacted us all. Further divided us. I daresay it’s even served as the devastatingly perfect experiment for some of the issues discussed in the recent docudrama, The Social Dilemma. Director Jeff Orlowski says the internet is undermining democracy, and that lies spread six times faster online than truth.
As it turns out, Trump’s presidency and evangelicalism’s blind spots have converged at this frighteningly ideal point with social media where the facts no longer matter because everybody’s perception of the facts have been clouded by what they want those facts to mean.
I wish like hell that I could tell you the solution here is easy, but it’s not. There’s a saying that “You can’t fix stupid but you can vote it out.” Even that is too simplistic, though. Americans are wrestling with mental illness, social media influence, and frankly, stupidity, in a way we’ve never done before.
Problems in the world are nothing new. Racism, inequality, and all sorts of political unrest are not issues exclusive to 2020. We shouldn’t be surprised by struggles and unrest, but we should recognize no generation gets through life unscathed.
And when we think about American history, not to mention world history, we need to remind ourselves that we are in it. We are making history every damn day. Our actions and errors have consequences with the power to reverberate for generations.
It reminds me of the Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
After all, we didn’t start the fire. So much of what is happening right now was put into motion long before any of us were old enough to make our own choices. Like me, some of you were raised in an evangelical bubble that stunted your cognitive growth. Maybe it made you more gullible or even “stupid” about certain things.
Ironically, there’s no shame (or sin) in being stupid. It’s very human and natural to take the path of least resistance and believe what we’ve been taught when we were very young. And in addition to stunting critical thinking, evangelicalism has had a hand in teaching folks to respond, well, positively to authoritarian parenting and leadership. Of course, authoritarian parenting isn’t limited to evangelicals, but it’s quite common among them and Christians in general.
As research professor Peter Gray, Ph.D. writes:
“People with an authoritarian mindset believe, first and foremost, in obedience to authority. So, of course, obedience is high on their list of ideal traits for a child; but obedience is also high on their list of ideal traits for people in general. Leaders, especially strong, confident leaders, are to be followed. Authoritarians also tend toward simplistic ways of thinking; things are black or white, right or wrong. If something is right for one person, it should be right for everyone and everyone should see it as right. They don’t tolerate ambiguity and have little taste for subtlety or dissenting opinions. To an authoritarian, the way to solve problems is to find a powerful, confident leader—a sort of superhero who claims in unambiguous language that he can solve your problems—and then follow that person.”
I see this weird sort of lust for authoritarian rule a lot, lately. Arguments supporting Trump aren’t debates at all. They’re generally just screaming matches to “get with the program.”
For the Trump-supporting, authoritarian-loving person, the President’s critics are just grasping at straws to bring up taxes. They paint any reasonable and valid criticism against Trump as biased or “fake news,” because those are the only options when you lack appropriate critical thinking skills.
While it’s no one’s fault to be raised this way, it is up to each individual to not remain stunted in their ability to think critically. Furthermore, we have a responsibility to ensure that younger generations are equipped with the tools they need to think for themselves and acquire the critical thinking skills they will need to make this world a healthier place.
This is a big ask. This is going to take work. There’s a reason why evangelicals so often complain about indoctrination from the Left, like this “lovely” rant my friend ran into on social media about evil… teachers:
Screenshot shared to Facebook
Image text:
teachers!! Teachers are thoroughly indoctrinated by the enemies of America. This started a long time ago, 1930s, when atheist Marxists like John Dewey took over the TEACHER COLLEGES and warped them with lies, taught them to use methods of teaching reading that just confused children (“Look-Say”), and turned the classroom into a psych lab to eliminate the independent thinkers. I have the documentation to prove every word. Why TEACHERS? Because they have the souls of children in their hands. Teachers are “God” to young people, a source of truth, strength, love, and courage -- teachers mold the character as well as give skills for the future. So, teachers are a primary target for being unwitting useful idiots in the grinding down of America. The Marxists knew they could not conquer us with bullets, so they had to be sneaky, sly, and dirty and deceive teachers -- who are mostly women, and women are more easily deceived because their hearts are designed to trust. I don’t know how to fix it. How do we undo the lies that have affected so many? That have caused so many bright, talented people to abandon the living water of liberty and jump into a stinking sewer? I wish God Himself would come down and tell these young folks the truth, but I guess for now, all they get is the “bigots” down the street.
This is the sort of stupidity we’re fighting against, people. Evangelical Trump supporters believe they are independent thinkers. Adherence to the narrative that Trump is good all the time and that the Left is out to lead their children astray runs deep and it’s rooted in their fight against critical thinking.
As The Social Dilemma points out, social media has allowed us to dig deep into our perception of reality without any regard for its accuracy, or if that perception is even good for us.
Only one thing is certain right now. We’ve got a helluva lot of work to do. And Trump’s taxes aren’t enough to break his thrall over evangelicals. Americans have to learn how to be critical thinkers first. | https://medium.com/honestly-yours/evangelicalism-makes-people-stupid-thats-why-they-won-t-care-about-trump-s-taxes-e1c294a08009 | ['Shannon Ashley'] | 2020-09-28 19:07:56.878000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Psychology', 'Christianity', 'Society', 'Politics'] | Title Evangelicalism Makes People “Stupid” That’s Won’t Care Trump’s TaxesContent don’t think anyone claim evangelicals today true political power Atlantic said back July evangelicals don’t much show betrayal Christ steadfastly hold onto Trump took gamble lost fair cruel prize chaos Regardless anything say anybody truly happy 2020 everyday people feel happiness peace politics economy racism policing COVID19 say great deal unrest course understatement it’s Left that’s left unhappy Evangelicals unhappy think they’re fighting holy war evil like socialism turn Netflix fear they’re losing cultural war Trump’s poor leadership impacted u divided u daresay it’s even served devastatingly perfect experiment issue discussed recent docudrama Social Dilemma Director Jeff Orlowski say internet undermining democracy lie spread six time faster online truth turn Trump’s presidency evangelicalism’s blind spot converged frighteningly ideal point social medium fact longer matter everybody’s perception fact clouded want fact mean wish like hell could tell solution easy it’s There’s saying “You can’t fix stupid vote out” Even simplistic though Americans wrestling mental illness social medium influence frankly stupidity way we’ve never done Problems world nothing new Racism inequality sort political unrest issue exclusive 2020 shouldn’t surprised struggle unrest recognize generation get life unscathed think American history mention world history need remind making history every damn day action error consequence power reverberate generation reminds Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start Fire” didn’t start fire much happening right put motion long u old enough make choice Like raised evangelical bubble stunted cognitive growth Maybe made gullible even “stupid” certain thing Ironically there’s shame sin stupid It’s human natural take path least resistance believe we’ve taught young addition stunting critical thinking evangelicalism hand teaching folk respond well positively authoritarian parenting leadership course authoritarian parenting isn’t limited evangelicals it’s quite common among Christians general research professor Peter Gray PhD writes “People authoritarian mindset believe first foremost obedience authority course obedience high list ideal trait child obedience also high list ideal trait people general Leaders especially strong confident leader followed Authoritarians also tend toward simplistic way thinking thing black white right wrong something right one person right everyone everyone see right don’t tolerate ambiguity little taste subtlety dissenting opinion authoritarian way solve problem find powerful confident leader—a sort superhero claim unambiguous language solve problems—and follow person” see weird sort lust authoritarian rule lot lately Arguments supporting Trump aren’t debate They’re generally screaming match “get program” Trumpsupporting authoritarianloving person President’s critic grasping straw bring tax paint reasonable valid criticism Trump biased “fake news” option lack appropriate critical thinking skill it’s one’s fault raised way individual remain stunted ability think critically Furthermore responsibility ensure younger generation equipped tool need think acquire critical thinking skill need make world healthier place big ask going take work There’s reason evangelicals often complain indoctrination Left like “lovely” rant friend ran social medium evil… teacher Screenshot shared Facebook Image text teacher Teachers thoroughly indoctrinated enemy America started long time ago 1930s atheist Marxists like John Dewey took TEACHER COLLEGES warped lie taught use method teaching reading confused child “LookSay” turned classroom psych lab eliminate independent thinker documentation prove every word TEACHERS soul child hand Teachers “God” young people source truth strength love courage teacher mold character well give skill future teacher primary target unwitting useful idiot grinding America Marxists knew could conquer u bullet sneaky sly dirty deceive teacher mostly woman woman easily deceived heart designed trust don’t know fix undo lie affected many caused many bright talented people abandon living water liberty jump stinking sewer wish God would come tell young folk truth guess get “bigots” street sort stupidity we’re fighting people Evangelical Trump supporter believe independent thinker Adherence narrative Trump good time Left lead child astray run deep it’s rooted fight critical thinking Social Dilemma point social medium allowed u dig deep perception reality without regard accuracy perception even good u one thing certain right We’ve got helluva lot work Trump’s tax aren’t enough break thrall evangelicals Americans learn critical thinker firstTags Education Psychology Christianity Society Politics |
1,233 | A Doooodle A Day: 9 Months, 2 Sketchbooks and 40K Words Later… | It’s time to look back and appreciate all the effort I invested in this personal project and of course, my accomplishments so far.
Start — “Try it for a month”
After I transitioned from engineering to design, I always heard people (from the design world) talk about storytelling: tell compelling stories to pitch clients; tell stories of users when design a website; and tell stories when communicate with teams.
What did they mean by “tell stories”?
Well, I never thought that stories can live in places other than movies, novels and storybooks. Therefore, I found it very confusing when someone asked me to communicate with others by “telling stories” — “Huh? Are you asking me to write a novel or something?”
Maybe I’m just slow-minded, but I struggled hard for so long but just can’t grasp the gist. This was probably the original motive that eventually led me to this project.
I dug up books, learning about stories and techniques to make good ones. I joined Toastmasters, a public speaking club that lets me practice communication skills, including storytelling. They have given me good clues on storytelling in general — provide clear main points and context, talk about them in a way (mostly narrative) that your audience can follow along, and depending on occasions, make your stories more exciting by having special setups, adding twists and turns and using role play or other techniques.
I think it would be fun if I can do something, as a routine, to keep the practice going.
A Learning A Day, a blog I’m subscribed to, was a big inspiration. For years, Rohan Rajiv the blogger, has been posting daily thoughts on business, technology and a variety of other topics. I decided to do the same — start with daily writing. After all, writing helps organize thoughts and plots, which are important for story crafting.
I was able to write for two consecutive days, before gave up. I found out that, as a non-native English speaker, this was really hard for me: On one hand, I didn’t know what to write about; on the other hand, I just didn’t have the desire to write in English every day (I don’t even do much writing in Chinese! It’s my native language). My daily writing project went nowhere. I felt defeated and sick of writing just for the sake of writing.
After that, I took a long break. Then, another idea struck me.
I’ve been loving doodling ever since I was a kid. I used to copy characters from comics, draw my own characters, and make up stories among them. I never went deep into it. Over time, doodling has degraded to a hobby that I can occasionally only think of.
I thought, hey, how about daily doodles with writing — doodle interesting things, thoughts, or whatever, and write about behind-the-doodle stories? Doodles can be a great tool to help me visualize what to write.
So the experiment began, with a name “A Doooodle A Day”, a sketchbook and a black pen. I cleaned up my abandoned Instagram account, and started posting there every day.
I was afraid of not being able to do it long enough, so I stuck a note onto the sketchbook cover — “Try it for a month”.
I knew from past experience that, if I take this project too serious and stress myself out, I would not be able to do it for very long. So, I’m very flexible about the project workload: If I have plenty of time, I will doodle nicer and write more; if not, a simple doodle and one line will do. At the beginning of the project, action was most important, not necessarily how well I drew or how long I wrote. I was satisfied as long as I did it. I still stick to this principle till this day.
Every day, I captured at least one interesting topic, doodled it and did some writing in English. 30 days passed without notice. I won!!!
My first doodle on 07/19/2015 (view story):
Wedding ring shopping kick-off (view story):
Another month passed, then another and another. Finished my first sketchbook. I was on fire. More months passed.
Level up
Starting out, I didn’t have any particular topics or themes to doodle, mostly just capturing interesting things in life.
After my first sketchbook was done, I felt like writing about other topics, such as observations and thoughts on designs, work, tech and others. Of course, life happenings were still important, but I began only capturing the ones that were interesting enough and worth memorizing. My topic coverage expanded, a lot — I even used it for book reading notes. Now, this is still the direction that I’m going with.
Thoughts on a housing kit (view story)
Thoughts on Tesla’s new Model 3 (view story)
Since writing is my major focus, typically I’m not willing to spend more than 30 minutes on the “doodle” part. But, once in a while, I’d like to take some time to draw a topic I love. I feel great when I flip pages and see my old cool doodles.
Millennium Falcon from Star Wars (view story)
A doodle to celebrate Vincent van Gogh’s birthday (view story)
Interesting learnings on how a perfect food shot is done (view story)
Am I ever out of topics?
You bet. My brains are drained pretty often. If I have nothing to draw, I browse news to find interesting topics. Going to news places and attending interesting events, like museums, also feed juices to my brains.
Connect the “dots”
My diligent work in the past 9 months has brought me close to 300 doodles, as well as more than 40K words in writing. I can tell that I’m getting better at both doodling and English writing. Most importantly, when I approach a topic, I can better organize my thoughts and articulate.
Steve Jobs said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Right after I started A Doooodle A Day, I can’t help but think more than once: Is this thingy really gonna be helpful to me?
The answer was always: “I don’t know. I’ll see how it goes”.
Recently, I’ve been working on designing an enterprise application. At one point, I needed to write how each potential user type will use the application in high-level idealistic scenarios. Only after I put together draft scenarios of 3000+ words (and on target) in one day, did I realize how much my doodle project has helped me — I can’t even imagine I can write that much English that fast.
My doodles about life happenings made their marks, too. I picked some memorable ones, and printed them into magnets and cute photo books. How nice that I can keep them in such tangible ways! By the way, I highly recommend Social Print Studio and Chatbooks for their excellent products!
Magnets:
Photo books:
Other than that, I doodled as I read books. After reading two books “Articulating Design Decisions” and “Essentialism”, I had a nice collection of 15 doodles. I strongly recommend Articulating Design Decisions to any designer who wants to take your communication skills to the next level, and recommend Essentialism to people who are looking to achieve more in life.
Book reading doodles for “Essentialism”:
On to the next sketchbook
A few days ago, I started my third sketchbook.
One of the reasons why I’m able to keep “A Doooodle A Day” going, is that I’ve found a method that works out for me: doodling + writing. I feel very lucky.
So far, it is one of the few things I can proudly say that I do persistently. Most others ended up nowhere. When I was a kid, I learned playing electric piano and formal painting, it didn’t take long before I stopped. Last year, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to do 20 push-ups everyday, well, I did maybe for a week and totally forgot about it after that. I tried doing diaries, but I haven’t been able to do it day by day for more than a week, even though I started writing diaries many times. I had many personal projects that I was not able to keep on doing.
Sometimes, I feel really sad for not being able to continue those projects: What if I could have finished off some of them and even mastered some skills that I used to learn but stopped — if those “what-ifs” were not just “what-ifs”, what big accomplishments would I have achieved already!
However, another thought hits me: Shouldn’t we just keep exploring, experimenting and looking for what we love and can do? That’s the real life, right? A Doooodle A Day has been so much fun. For now, it’s my way to leave some marks in my life.
Follow my A Doooodle A Day at instagram.com/yingyingzux | https://medium.com/the-100-day-project/a-doooodle-a-day-9-months-2-sketchbooks-and-40k-words-later-ea1f417085b2 | ['Yingying Zhang'] | 2016-04-13 16:22:59.582000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Storytelling', 'Art'] | Title Doooodle Day 9 Months 2 Sketchbooks 40K Words Later…Content It’s time look back appreciate effort invested personal project course accomplishment far Start — “Try month” transitioned engineering design always heard people design world talk storytelling tell compelling story pitch client tell story user design website tell story communicate team mean “tell stories” Well never thought story live place movie novel storybook Therefore found confusing someone asked communicate others “telling stories” — “Huh asking write novel something” Maybe I’m slowminded struggled hard long can’t grasp gist probably original motive eventually led project dug book learning story technique make good one joined Toastmasters public speaking club let practice communication skill including storytelling given good clue storytelling general — provide clear main point context talk way mostly narrative audience follow along depending occasion make story exciting special setup adding twist turn using role play technique think would fun something routine keep practice going Learning Day blog I’m subscribed big inspiration year Rohan Rajiv blogger posting daily thought business technology variety topic decided — start daily writing writing help organize thought plot important story crafting able write two consecutive day gave found nonnative English speaker really hard one hand didn’t know write hand didn’t desire write English every day don’t even much writing Chinese It’s native language daily writing project went nowhere felt defeated sick writing sake writing took long break another idea struck I’ve loving doodling ever since kid used copy character comic draw character make story among never went deep time doodling degraded hobby occasionally think thought hey daily doodle writing — doodle interesting thing thought whatever write behindthedoodle story Doodles great tool help visualize write experiment began name “A Doooodle Day” sketchbook black pen cleaned abandoned Instagram account started posting every day afraid able long enough stuck note onto sketchbook cover — “Try month” knew past experience take project serious stress would able long I’m flexible project workload plenty time doodle nicer write simple doodle one line beginning project action important necessarily well drew long wrote satisfied long still stick principle till day Every day captured least one interesting topic doodled writing English 30 day passed without notice first doodle 07192015 view story Wedding ring shopping kickoff view story Another month passed another another Finished first sketchbook fire month passed Level Starting didn’t particular topic theme doodle mostly capturing interesting thing life first sketchbook done felt like writing topic observation thought design work tech others course life happening still important began capturing one interesting enough worth memorizing topic coverage expanded lot — even used book reading note still direction I’m going Thoughts housing kit view story Thoughts Tesla’s new Model 3 view story Since writing major focus typically I’m willing spend 30 minute “doodle” part I’d like take time draw topic love feel great flip page see old cool doodle Millennium Falcon Star Wars view story doodle celebrate Vincent van Gogh’s birthday view story Interesting learning perfect food shot done view story ever topic bet brain drained pretty often nothing draw browse news find interesting topic Going news place attending interesting event like museum also feed juice brain Connect “dots” diligent work past 9 month brought close 300 doodle well 40K word writing tell I’m getting better doodling English writing importantly approach topic better organize thought articulate Steve Jobs said “You can’t connect dot looking forward connect looking backwards trust dot somehow connect future” Right started Doooodle Day can’t help think thingy really gonna helpful answer always “I don’t know I’ll see goes” Recently I’ve working designing enterprise application one point needed write potential user type use application highlevel idealistic scenario put together draft scenario 3000 word target one day realize much doodle project helped — can’t even imagine write much English fast doodle life happening made mark picked memorable one printed magnet cute photo book nice keep tangible way way highly recommend Social Print Studio Chatbooks excellent product Magnets Photo book doodled read book reading two book “Articulating Design Decisions” “Essentialism” nice collection 15 doodle strongly recommend Articulating Design Decisions designer want take communication skill next level recommend Essentialism people looking achieve life Book reading doodle “Essentialism” next sketchbook day ago started third sketchbook One reason I’m able keep “A Doooodle Day” going I’ve found method work doodling writing feel lucky far one thing proudly say persistently others ended nowhere kid learned playing electric piano formal painting didn’t take long stopped Last year one New Year’s Resolutions 20 pushup everyday well maybe week totally forgot tried diary haven’t able day day week even though started writing diary many time many personal project able keep Sometimes feel really sad able continue project could finished even mastered skill used learn stopped — “whatifs” “whatifs” big accomplishment would achieved already However another thought hit Shouldn’t keep exploring experimenting looking love That’s real life right Doooodle Day much fun it’s way leave mark life Follow Doooodle Day instagramcomyingyingzuxTags Writing Storytelling Art |
1,234 | Can’t Sleep? This Tech Could Put You in Sync with the Sun | Can’t Sleep? This Tech Could Put You in Sync with the Sun
A new device claims to go beyond sleep tracking to reset your circadian rhythm.
I’m dreaming too much. That’s what Fares Siddiqui, cofounder of the company Circadia, tells me after its sleep tracker spends several nights perched at my bedside. When I first saw the long stretches of REM sleep — the stage of sleep when dreaming happens — in my data, I romanticized the results. I dream big, I thought. But Siddiqui says the pattern is a result of being either sleep-deprived or anxious. Oh.
Circadia is a startup focused on circadian rhythms, and the promise that if you can understand and control your daily patterns, you’ll sleep better: “a sleep lab on your bedside table,” pledges its marketing material. Most sleep trackers — devices on your wrist, on your mattress, or at your bedside — track your tossing and turning along with functions like your heart rate to tell you how much and how well you’ve slept. But typically, they don’t tell you what to do about it.
Siddiqui’s company, funded by healthy Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns, is developing a connected tracker, lamp, and app. It aims to set itself apart from the current wave of sleep trackers by offering both information on your own personal rhythm, and customized advice. “We want to tell you what time it is inside of your body,” Siddiqui says. He became passionate about the topic after dealing with his own insomnia and learning about NASA’s light experiments to help astronauts’ circadian rhythms.
Your circadian rhythm, your body’s natural 24-hour cycle, affects everything from sleep and jet lag to hormones and how well your drugs work. But different people’s internal clocks may run a little ahead or behind — maybe it’s midnight in your body when the clock says it’s only 10 pm. For me, I’m hoping some circadian insight can help me feel more refreshed in the mornings. Other circadian-curious people might need to adjust to jet lag or shift work, or identify bad bedtime habits that are keeping them awake.
To learn about my own circadian biology, I let a premarket version of Circadia’s tracking device watch me sleep, I breakfasted by the glow of its lamp, and I gave personal details to its sleep-coaching app. I got an intriguing glimpse into the functioning of my body. But when it came to understanding the significance of my personal patterns, I was mostly left in the dark.
Surfing the wavelengths
In December, if all goes as planned, you’ll be able to buy Circadia’s $129 sleep tracker, which will be integrated with its lamp and app. For now, a rudimentary version of the app is free, and the lamp sells as a standalone for $79 — but it is a very handsome lamp, a sleek cylinder of blue light that morphs to red when you flip it over.
Those wavelengths are intended to reinforce my 24-hour rhythm, helping me sleep at night and be more alert during the day. When I lie down in bed, I’m supposed to leave that dim red light on for half an hour (even though my eyes are closed) to help myself fall asleep. The instructions also say 30 minutes of blue light in the morning will alleviate grogginess, so I eat a few breakfasts with the lamp lighting up my raisin bran.
Groggy mornings? Flip the lamp for blue light, which may help you wake up. Courtesy of Circadia
I can’t tell if it makes me feel more awake, but according to Sabra Abbott, a neurologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the ability of blue light to promote wakefulness and adjust our body clocks is well established. Blue wavelengths in sunlight naturally help our brains calibrate our clocks by preventing production of melatonin, a hormone that makes us sleepy. That’s why experts tell us not to stare at our phones, which emit blue light, at night in bed.
Abbott uses blue-wavelength light therapy and melatonin to treat patients with circadian disorders, who might naturally fall asleep very late or wake long before dawn. Light therapy is powerful enough that those with circadian disorders should be cautious with its timing, she adds. Someone whose clock is so shifted that they only fall asleep near dawn, for example, could make things worse by using blue light in the morning.
“We want to tell you what time it is inside of your body,” Siddiqui says.
That said, she doesn’t know of any reason to turn on a red lamp while you’re falling asleep. “It’s not so much the presence of red light that’s helpful, but the absence of blue light,” she says. Siddiqui says red light prevents melatonin suppression, which is true — but it’s no better than being in the dark. If you really wanted to take advantage of red light (and didn’t mind the creepiness factor), you could do all your evening activities by red light only. But Circadia’s red light, by design, is too dim for that.
I got yellow-zoned
The second part of Circadia’s setup is a sleep tracker, an elegantly designed hand-sized disc that snaps magnetically onto a stand. Siddiqui says it scans my body with radar looking for tiny movements to infer my heart rate and breathing. From that, it figures out which parts of the night I spent in wakefulness, light sleep, deep sleep, or REM sleep. In the company’s own comparison testing, Circadia outperformed wearable devices like the Fitbit.
I follow directions to set it roughly an arm’s length away from my bed and aim it at my torso. After some fussing on my phone to connect the tracker and app over wifi (so much for avoiding blue light), I hit “start” and lie down.
A radar-based device tracks heart rate and breathing. Courtesy of Circadia
The first night, I feel self-conscious with the tracker staring at me. In the morning the app — a beta version that isn’t yet publicly available — says it took me 43 minutes to fall asleep.
Even after I get used to the tracker, the app seems to chastise me every morning, displaying a circle about half-filled with yellow and a middling “sleep index” score. The app also shows a timeline of my night that seems generally correct: It takes me a while to fall asleep. I sleep deeply at first, then shift into REM sleep in the early morning. As my husband gets ready for work, I alternate between dreaming and dozing.
Siddiqui says that later versions of the app will tell users how their circadian clocks align with the outside world. It will deliver personal recommendations for using the lamp and for changes to habits and sleep environments, so that people can recalibrate their internal clocks, sleep better, or combat jet lag. In the spring, users will also be able to sign up for advice from a human sleep coach or therapist.
For now, my only feedback comes from Siddiqui, who notices me waking up often. He also tells me that while an average person spends about a quarter of the night in REM sleep, for me it topped 40 percent on some nights, and 57 percent on one especially dreamy night. My body may be trying to catch up on missed rest by sacrificing deep and light sleep for extra REM.
But Abbott doesn’t think I should read too much into my results. Sleep tracking is an imperfect way to tell the time on someone’s internal clock; the best way is to measure melatonin production. In its most recent lab tests, Circadia was about 67 percent accurate at telling what sleep stage a person was in. So far, those lab tests have included only a small number of young, healthy males — not anyone with an actual sleep disorder.
Besides, people spend different amounts of time in certain sleep stages for many reasons, including normal variation and drug side effects — antidepressants reduce REM, for example. Circadia claims 1 in 3 people have rhythms that are out of sync, but Abbott says this is hard to know. Everyone falls somewhere on a spectrum from early bird to night owl, she says, which isn’t a disorder unless it interferes with life. But being told by an app that their sleep is abnormal might make people needlessly anxious. | https://medium.com/neodotlife/cant-sleep-this-tech-could-put-you-in-sync-with-the-sun-d8125c4a0a3c | ['Elizabeth Preston'] | 2020-07-13 20:35:40.711000+00:00 | ['Wellness', 'Self Improvement', 'Technology', 'Sleep', 'Health'] | Title Can’t Sleep Tech Could Put Sync SunContent Can’t Sleep Tech Could Put Sync Sun new device claim go beyond sleep tracking reset circadian rhythm I’m dreaming much That’s Fares Siddiqui cofounder company Circadia tell sleep tracker spends several night perched bedside first saw long stretch REM sleep — stage sleep dreaming happens — data romanticized result dream big thought Siddiqui say pattern result either sleepdeprived anxious Oh Circadia startup focused circadian rhythm promise understand control daily pattern you’ll sleep better “a sleep lab bedside table” pledge marketing material sleep tracker — device wrist mattress bedside — track tossing turning along function like heart rate tell much well you’ve slept typically don’t tell Siddiqui’s company funded healthy Kickstarter Indiegogo campaign developing connected tracker lamp app aim set apart current wave sleep tracker offering information personal rhythm customized advice “We want tell time inside body” Siddiqui say became passionate topic dealing insomnia learning NASA’s light experiment help astronauts’ circadian rhythm circadian rhythm body’s natural 24hour cycle affect everything sleep jet lag hormone well drug work different people’s internal clock may run little ahead behind — maybe it’s midnight body clock say it’s 10 pm I’m hoping circadian insight help feel refreshed morning circadiancurious people might need adjust jet lag shift work identify bad bedtime habit keeping awake learn circadian biology let premarket version Circadia’s tracking device watch sleep breakfasted glow lamp gave personal detail sleepcoaching app got intriguing glimpse functioning body came understanding significance personal pattern mostly left dark Surfing wavelength December go planned you’ll able buy Circadia’s 129 sleep tracker integrated lamp app rudimentary version app free lamp sell standalone 79 — handsome lamp sleek cylinder blue light morphs red flip wavelength intended reinforce 24hour rhythm helping sleep night alert day lie bed I’m supposed leave dim red light half hour even though eye closed help fall asleep instruction also say 30 minute blue light morning alleviate grogginess eat breakfast lamp lighting raisin bran Groggy morning Flip lamp blue light may help wake Courtesy Circadia can’t tell make feel awake according Sabra Abbott neurologist Northwestern University Feinberg School Medicine ability blue light promote wakefulness adjust body clock well established Blue wavelength sunlight naturally help brain calibrate clock preventing production melatonin hormone make u sleepy That’s expert tell u stare phone emit blue light night bed Abbott us bluewavelength light therapy melatonin treat patient circadian disorder might naturally fall asleep late wake long dawn Light therapy powerful enough circadian disorder cautious timing add Someone whose clock shifted fall asleep near dawn example could make thing worse using blue light morning “We want tell time inside body” Siddiqui say said doesn’t know reason turn red lamp you’re falling asleep “It’s much presence red light that’s helpful absence blue light” say Siddiqui say red light prevents melatonin suppression true — it’s better dark really wanted take advantage red light didn’t mind creepiness factor could evening activity red light Circadia’s red light design dim got yellowzoned second part Circadia’s setup sleep tracker elegantly designed handsized disc snap magnetically onto stand Siddiqui say scan body radar looking tiny movement infer heart rate breathing figure part night spent wakefulness light sleep deep sleep REM sleep company’s comparison testing Circadia outperformed wearable device like Fitbit follow direction set roughly arm’s length away bed aim torso fussing phone connect tracker app wifi much avoiding blue light hit “start” lie radarbased device track heart rate breathing Courtesy Circadia first night feel selfconscious tracker staring morning app — beta version isn’t yet publicly available — say took 43 minute fall asleep Even get used tracker app seems chastise every morning displaying circle halffilled yellow middling “sleep index” score app also show timeline night seems generally correct take fall asleep sleep deeply first shift REM sleep early morning husband get ready work alternate dreaming dozing Siddiqui say later version app tell user circadian clock align outside world deliver personal recommendation using lamp change habit sleep environment people recalibrate internal clock sleep better combat jet lag spring user also able sign advice human sleep coach therapist feedback come Siddiqui notice waking often also tell average person spends quarter night REM sleep topped 40 percent night 57 percent one especially dreamy night body may trying catch missed rest sacrificing deep light sleep extra REM Abbott doesn’t think read much result Sleep tracking imperfect way tell time someone’s internal clock best way measure melatonin production recent lab test Circadia 67 percent accurate telling sleep stage person far lab test included small number young healthy male — anyone actual sleep disorder Besides people spend different amount time certain sleep stage many reason including normal variation drug side effect — antidepressant reduce REM example Circadia claim 1 3 people rhythm sync Abbott say hard know Everyone fall somewhere spectrum early bird night owl say isn’t disorder unless interferes life told app sleep abnormal might make people needlessly anxiousTags Wellness Self Improvement Technology Sleep Health |
1,235 | The Seduction of Perfect Memory | Did you forget anything recently?
Your keys maybe. Or someone’s name.
You’re in good company. A typical person forgets about 4 things a day. Most are minor lapses but then there are the big ones: a third of us have forgotten a partner’s birthday, and 1 in 5 Dads has forgotten to pick up the kids from school.
A couple years ago, I experienced one of the big ones. I forgot to call my Dad on his birthday. We live in different countries so that call is really important. He expected me to call. And I didn’t. If I close my eyes I can see the disappointment on his face when he went to sleep that night wondering why his eldest child had forgotten about him on his birthday.
Makes me nauseous just thinking about it. The thing is that I had been making constant mental notes about his birthday in the days before, but on the day itself my brain just took a holiday. There was a complete erase of the most dominant thought in my mind.
This act of forgetting, no matter how unintended, feels like a betrayal of the bond between father and son. | https://medium.com/descripter/the-seduction-of-perfect-memory-4921159d2fa5 | ['Craig Brett'] | 2020-11-11 23:21:57.494000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Technology', 'Future', 'Self', 'Science'] | Title Seduction Perfect MemoryContent forget anything recently key maybe someone’s name You’re good company typical person forgets 4 thing day minor lapse big one third u forgotten partner’s birthday 1 5 Dads forgotten pick kid school couple year ago experienced one big one forgot call Dad birthday live different country call really important expected call didn’t close eye see disappointment face went sleep night wondering eldest child forgotten birthday Makes nauseous thinking thing making constant mental note birthday day day brain took holiday complete erase dominant thought mind act forgetting matter unintended feel like betrayal bond father sonTags Life Technology Future Self Science |
1,236 | Running and Blisters: Coping | Fitness
Running and Blisters: Coping
Most runners have had a painful foot blister. Today we look at risk reduction and management.
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
I walk a lot. And occasionally do some running (typically alternating with walking). Today, I have a small blister on the underside of my foot. Being ever curious, I began to explore the available literature about foot blister risk reduction and management. Have you ever had a blister that ruined a run or a race? Or that just nagged at you at a low level for a couple of days?
What causes a foot blister?
If you have formed a small pocket of fluid on some part of your body, you may have had a blister. These bubbles vary in size and have many causes. For example, you may get one after infection, trauma, or even an insect bite. The location of it can influence the effects on your quality of life. For example, foot blisters may lead to challenges in walking, standing, or exercising.
Let’s turn to some of the causes of blisters. For ones on foot, friction is often the causative agent. Walk or stand for hours, and you put pressure on various parts of your feet, including the heels, toes, and soles. Poorly fitted shoes may result in fluid-filled bubbles, whether the shoes are too tight or too loose. The resultant friction causes a fluid buildup just beneath the upper layer of the skin.
Other potential causes include:
an allergic reaction
chemical exposure (for example, to cosmetics or detergents)
chickenpox
eczema
frostbite
infection (fungal, bacterial, or herpes)
Photo by Gabby Orcutt on Unsplash
How do you know if you have a blister?
Usually, blisters on the feet that result from friction will spontaneously resolve after a few days. If they don’t heal over time or in response to treatment, please see a valued healthcare professional, particularly if you have severe pain, fever, nausea, or chills. You may have an infection. A doctor or other healthcare professional may drain the blister using a sterile needle. If she suspects an infection, the fluid can be examined to get to the root causes.
Got any home remedies?
Why yes. First, don’t pick at the blister or burst it. If you do so, you may cause an infection. First, may blisters that are left alone will eventually harden and go away. However, in the interval, you may experience discomfort, depending on the size and location of the lesion. Instead of bursting it, Healthline suggest these steps to properly train a blister at home:
Wash your hands with warm water and antibacterial soap. Using a cotton swab, disinfect a needle with rubbing alcohol. Clean the blister with antiseptic. Take the needle and make a small puncture in the blister. Allow fluid to completely drain from the blister. Apple antibacterial ointment or cream to the blister. Cover the blister with a bandage of gauze. Clean and reapply antibacterial ointment daily. Keep the blister covered until it heals.
Blister risk-reduction
If you are in a race, check-in at a medical station.
Make sure you have properly fitted shoes. If your feet rub along with a certain area of your shoe, wearing an insole may provide extra padding and reduce friction. Leave a bit of room in the toebox, and learn what amount of lacing is optimal for you.
If your feet rub along with a certain area of your shoe, wearing an insole may provide extra padding and reduce friction. Leave a bit of room in the toebox, and learn what amount of lacing is optimal for you. Check your socks. Many prefer ones made specifically for running, including WrightSocks or synthetic-fiber (non-cotton) brands such as CoolMax to reduce moisture. Running socks are often shaped better for those who jog or run. Try some smooth socks with no seams or even double-layer socks.
Many prefer ones made specifically for running, including WrightSocks or synthetic-fiber (non-cotton) brands such as CoolMax to reduce moisture. Running socks are often shaped better for those who jog or run. Try some smooth socks with no seams or even double-layer socks. Keep your feet dry. Some apply foot powder, while others wear moisture-wicking socks designed for sports.
Some apply foot powder, while others wear moisture-wicking socks designed for sports. Keep your calluses. Don’t remove them with an emery board, for example.
Don’t remove them with an emery board, for example. Consider tape or pads. You may wish to try moleskin or athletic tape over high-risk areas that are prone to blisters. If you try this approach, avoid wrinkles, and don’t apply it too tightly.
You may wish to try moleskin or athletic tape over high-risk areas that are prone to blisters. If you try this approach, avoid wrinkles, and don’t apply it too tightly. Use lubricant. Substances such as BodyGlide or vaseline on high-risk areas may help, but keep the amount small. We don’t want your foot slip-sliding around.
Substances such as BodyGlide or vaseline on high-risk areas may help, but keep the amount small. We don’t want your foot slip-sliding around. If powders, lotions, or soaps trigger blisters, stop using them.
If a medical condition triggers the blisters, consult a valued healthcare professional.
References | https://medium.com/beingwell/running-and-blisters-coping-7073f8320730 | ['Michael Hunter Md'] | 2020-12-26 17:18:40.958000+00:00 | ['Wellness', 'Fitness', 'Lifestyle', 'Health', 'Exercise'] | Title Running Blisters CopingContent Fitness Running Blisters Coping runner painful foot blister Today look risk reduction management Photo Bruno Nascimento Unsplash walk lot occasionally running typically alternating walking Today small blister underside foot ever curious began explore available literature foot blister risk reduction management ever blister ruined run race nagged low level couple day cause foot blister formed small pocket fluid part body may blister bubble vary size many cause example may get one infection trauma even insect bite location influence effect quality life example foot blister may lead challenge walking standing exercising Let’s turn cause blister one foot friction often causative agent Walk stand hour put pressure various part foot including heel toe sol Poorly fitted shoe may result fluidfilled bubble whether shoe tight loose resultant friction cause fluid buildup beneath upper layer skin potential cause include allergic reaction chemical exposure example cosmetic detergent chickenpox eczema frostbite infection fungal bacterial herpes Photo Gabby Orcutt Unsplash know blister Usually blister foot result friction spontaneously resolve day don’t heal time response treatment please see valued healthcare professional particularly severe pain fever nausea chill may infection doctor healthcare professional may drain blister using sterile needle suspect infection fluid examined get root cause Got home remedy yes First don’t pick blister burst may cause infection First may blister left alone eventually harden go away However interval may experience discomfort depending size location lesion Instead bursting Healthline suggest step properly train blister home Wash hand warm water antibacterial soap Using cotton swab disinfect needle rubbing alcohol Clean blister antiseptic Take needle make small puncture blister Allow fluid completely drain blister Apple antibacterial ointment cream blister Cover blister bandage gauze Clean reapply antibacterial ointment daily Keep blister covered heals Blister riskreduction race checkin medical station Make sure properly fitted shoe foot rub along certain area shoe wearing insole may provide extra padding reduce friction Leave bit room toebox learn amount lacing optimal foot rub along certain area shoe wearing insole may provide extra padding reduce friction Leave bit room toebox learn amount lacing optimal Check sock Many prefer one made specifically running including WrightSocks syntheticfiber noncotton brand CoolMax reduce moisture Running sock often shaped better jog run Try smooth sock seam even doublelayer sock Many prefer one made specifically running including WrightSocks syntheticfiber noncotton brand CoolMax reduce moisture Running sock often shaped better jog run Try smooth sock seam even doublelayer sock Keep foot dry apply foot powder others wear moisturewicking sock designed sport apply foot powder others wear moisturewicking sock designed sport Keep callus Don’t remove emery board example Don’t remove emery board example Consider tape pad may wish try moleskin athletic tape highrisk area prone blister try approach avoid wrinkle don’t apply tightly may wish try moleskin athletic tape highrisk area prone blister try approach avoid wrinkle don’t apply tightly Use lubricant Substances BodyGlide vaseline highrisk area may help keep amount small don’t want foot slipsliding around Substances BodyGlide vaseline highrisk area may help keep amount small don’t want foot slipsliding around powder lotion soap trigger blister stop using medical condition trigger blister consult valued healthcare professional ReferencesTags Wellness Fitness Lifestyle Health Exercise |
1,237 | Letter to My Body | To my chronically ill Body,
For too long, my love for you was only skin deep. I saw you purely as an aesthetic object — a poor one at that — and you were valued only as far as my self-criticism allowed.
I am ashamed to say that for most of my life, I haven’t been kind to you. I have not always given you the love you deserve. In fact, I have been downright cruel to you, in thoughts, words, and deeds.
I have spent so much of my life at war with you, disgusted that you don’t contort yourself into molds that don’t belong to you. At various times, I have cursed the fat on my stomach, hips, thighs, and arms; the hormonal blemishes on my face; the stretch marks and cellulite constellations spreading under my skin; the frizz and waves in my hair; my seeming lack of symmetry.
For too many years, I hated mirrors because when I looked in one, I couldn’t help but tally all the ways in which you disappoint me — all the ways in which I disappoint myself. So I avoided my reflection, staking claim to a strange disassociation from you. I ignored you — and you were so easy to ignore you unless something was wrong.
But you were determined to be heard: to show me the unnecessary ugliness I felt about you and myself, you asked me to pay attention every time I got a skull-crushing migraine, every time my allergies made it difficult to breathe, every time I had a painful IBS episode, every time the neuropathy in my hands stung, every time I felt discombobulated by hidden depression and anxiety.
Then the biggest “something wrong” happened three years ago: trigeminal neuralgia (TN). There was no way for me to prepare for how my life would change, especially how TN would change my relationship to you.
Forgive me, Body, because I didn’t see all that you have done for me and all that you do for me. I didn’t accept you for what you are. It took undeniable chronic illness for all that to change.
You see, Body, chronic illness showed me that you are a proud warrior. You are magnificent, strong, and resilient in ways I was too blind to before. Every second of every day, you fight for me. Using your inherent intelligence, you are constantly regenerating yourself. You keep entire galaxies of cells and systems alive within your borders. You do your best to protect me from the relentless pain TN assaults my body with, sometimes while also fighting the other wrongs you’ve been afflicted by. And when it all becomes too much, you tell me you’re tired — so, so tired — and that you need rest.
With all the compassion you can muster, you remind me that it’s okay to rest.
Today, I look in the mirror and see my home. The home that I was born into and the one I will someday die in. I’m more able to find the beauty and humor in your imperfections because I see how you are ever-changing. You are never just one thing at any given time.
There is freedom in that, even within the walls of pain.
You may be a defective model, but you’re my defective model. It’s taken me too long, but I will never again take this truth for granted: you will always look out for me. I know you will never stop reminding me to look after myself, to focus on feeling good, to trust the wisdom etched in your cellular makeup, to love who I am in this moment and in the next.
I will build shrines to you daily. We are both works-in-progress, but that doesn’t mean we’re unworthy of respect and worship. There is no more war between us; there is just the peaceful flow of gently co-existing, of supporting and loving each other for all the days of this life.
All there’s left to say is thank you, thank you, thank you.
Love, always, from your ride-or-die tenant.
Note: A version of this piece was first published on my blog on August 5th, 2020. | https://medium.com/curious/letter-to-my-body-a780932b23c3 | ['Nisha Kumar Kulkarni'] | 2020-08-24 18:13:17.405000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Chronic Illness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Love', 'Body Image'] | Title Letter BodyContent chronically ill Body long love skin deep saw purely aesthetic object — poor one — valued far selfcriticism allowed ashamed say life haven’t kind always given love deserve fact downright cruel thought word deed spent much life war disgusted don’t contort mold don’t belong various time cursed fat stomach hip thigh arm hormonal blemish face stretch mark cellulite constellation spreading skin frizz wave hair seeming lack symmetry many year hated mirror looked one couldn’t help tally way disappoint — way disappoint avoided reflection staking claim strange disassociation ignored — easy ignore unless something wrong determined heard show unnecessary ugliness felt asked pay attention every time got skullcrushing migraine every time allergy made difficult breathe every time painful IBS episode every time neuropathy hand stung every time felt discombobulated hidden depression anxiety biggest “something wrong” happened three year ago trigeminal neuralgia TN way prepare life would change especially TN would change relationship Forgive Body didn’t see done didn’t accept took undeniable chronic illness change see Body chronic illness showed proud warrior magnificent strong resilient way blind Every second every day fight Using inherent intelligence constantly regenerating keep entire galaxy cell system alive within border best protect relentless pain TN assault body sometimes also fighting wrong you’ve afflicted becomes much tell you’re tired — tired — need rest compassion muster remind it’s okay rest Today look mirror see home home born one someday die I’m able find beauty humor imperfection see everchanging never one thing given time freedom even within wall pain may defective model you’re defective model It’s taken long never take truth granted always look know never stop reminding look focus feeling good trust wisdom etched cellular makeup love moment next build shrine daily worksinprogress doesn’t mean we’re unworthy respect worship war u peaceful flow gently coexisting supporting loving day life there’s left say thank thank thank Love always rideordie tenant Note version piece first published blog August 5th 2020Tags Health Chronic Illness Mental Health Self Love Body Image |
1,238 | The Race To Find A Cure For Aging | The Race To Find A Cure For Aging
Learn about three pioneers working to turn back the clock
We want to look & feel young again, and every year we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on beauty serums, cosmetic surgery, and exotic supplements in the hopes of appearing more vibrant, healthy, and desirable.
All of those products, procedures & pills only cover up the symptoms of aging — they do nothing to address the cause. While medicine does help us to live longer, at best it has only slowed the ravages of time, and an aging population is driving demand for alternatives to the gradual decline into senescence.
Aging, once thought to be inevitable, is being challenged. For the first time in history, biomedical innovators are starting to view it in a disease model, and not as an inevitability of life — and medical science is working to find a cure.
Here are three stories of people from different walks of life who share a singular goal — they’re actively working to extend their own lifespans, and sharing what they’ve learned on how to achieve it:
David Sinclair & NAD+
Dr. David Sinclair says the solution is to get your NAD+ levels up — and he’s offering detailed, practical advice on how to do it. In lengthy interviews with Joe Rogan & Rich Roll, as well as his recent book, he discusses the health benefits of intermittent fasting, limiting sugar & red meat, and eating plenty of vegetables — but for Sinclair, that’s only the beginning.
Sinclair is an award-winning Australian biologist, professor of genetics, and Founding Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratory for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard University.
His team of 30+ scientists is deeply engaged in studying the mechanisms involved with aging & senescence, and treatments to potentially reverse them. One of the promising life-extension supplements they’ve identified is Metformin — an inexpensive blood sugar medication that may extend the human lifespan by as much as 10%.
In addition to Metformin, Sinclair is bullish on the prospects of NMN (nicotinamide monomucleotide) for life extension. This vitamin B-3 derivative converts easily into NAD+ inside your cells, which is claimed to improve cellular function and offer rejuvenating effects seen in human clinical trials.
Sinclair claims to have reversed aging in lab mice, and also claims to have “knocked more than two decades off his biological age”, as well as boasting online that he has the lung capacity, cholesterol and blood pressure of a “young adult” and the “heart rate of an athlete.”
If he’s right, aging can reversed with NAD+ boosting supplements — and that’s a big step in a cure for aging and the diseases that come with it.
Elizabeth Parrish & Telomeres
Others, like Elizabeth Parrish, the CEO of BioViva Sciences, have taken a different route: she underwent experimental gene therapy to lengthen her telomeres & reduce muscle wasting back in 2016, and claims her health has improved since the treatment.
According to Wikipedia, “independent testing by SpectraCell Laboratories had revealed Elizabeth Parrish’s leukocyte telomere length had been extended from 6.71kb to 7.33kb” — but in 2018, she reported further lengthening in her telomeres up to 8.12kb, along with an overall growth in muscle mass.
A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at the end of each chromosome that protects it from damage — and telomeres get shorter as we age, leading to a variety of aging-related diseases. The initial 10% increase of Parrish’s telomeres has been roughly compared to her cells becoming 20 years younger.
However, critics such as Dr. Bradley Johnson at the University of Pennsylvania have questioned her results, stating, “Telomere length measurements typically have low precision with variation in measurements of around 10 percent, which is in the range of the reported telomere lengthening apparently experienced by Elizabeth Parrish.”
Jim Green in 2007 (on left) and in 2019 (on right)
Jim Green & TA-65
Meet Jim Green, patient zero in a “one man experiment in radical anti-aging”. He lacks the Sinclair team’s funding and can’t bioengineer retroviral delivery systems like the Parrish team, but what he lacks in budget he makes up for in courage, innovation & perseverance.
A few years back, Jim decided to tackle aging head-on, and started doing intense research into published scientific papers on aging, cellular senescence, and supplements that led him to a rigorous health regime that he claims has literally reversed his aging.
Jim’s published a collection of links and notes to all of his papers online, and from talking with him personally several times I can tell you that he’s been more than diligent about his research. Josh Mitteldorf also interviewed him recently, and in that interview Jim talked at length about his use of first a nutraceutical called TA-65 and later Astragalus Root Extract as a telomerase activator to “give new life” to old cells.
Jim has taken the hard road: consuming copious amounts of Astragalus extract along with countless other supplements and a daily exercise routine that’s visibly reversed most signs of his aging — including his seeing his gray hair regain it’s youthful color (no, he doesn’t dye it, that’s natural).
Conclusion
Rather than trying to hide the signs of aging with makeup or plastic surgery, innovators like Sinclair, Parrish & Green have taken action to turn back the clock in the hopes of not only living longer — but also living better.
Sinclair has spoken numerous times about aging leading to a “tragic loss of human capital & potential that up until now we’ve taken for granted”, but if the research that these innovators are pursuing bears fruit, then it may no longer be our inevitable fate.
Whatever the results of their experiments may ultimately be, their research alone is a testament to our shared desire to stop the sands of time from passing & make the most of every moment that we have. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-race-to-find-a-cure-for-aging-98676b0318dc | ['Tim Ventura'] | 2019-12-26 18:18:13.683000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Futurism', 'Aging', 'Science', 'Medicine'] | Title Race Find Cure AgingContent Race Find Cure Aging Learn three pioneer working turn back clock want look feel young every year spend hundred billion dollar beauty serum cosmetic surgery exotic supplement hope appearing vibrant healthy desirable product procedure pill cover symptom aging — nothing address cause medicine help u live longer best slowed ravage time aging population driving demand alternative gradual decline senescence Aging thought inevitable challenged first time history biomedical innovator starting view disease model inevitability life — medical science working find cure three story people different walk life share singular goal — they’re actively working extend lifespan sharing they’ve learned achieve David Sinclair NAD Dr David Sinclair say solution get NAD level — he’s offering detailed practical advice lengthy interview Joe Rogan Rich Roll well recent book discus health benefit intermittent fasting limiting sugar red meat eating plenty vegetable — Sinclair that’s beginning Sinclair awardwinning Australian biologist professor genetics Founding Director Paul F Glenn Laboratory Biological Mechanisms Aging Harvard University team 30 scientist deeply engaged studying mechanism involved aging senescence treatment potentially reverse One promising lifeextension supplement they’ve identified Metformin — inexpensive blood sugar medication may extend human lifespan much 10 addition Metformin Sinclair bullish prospect NMN nicotinamide monomucleotide life extension vitamin B3 derivative convert easily NAD inside cell claimed improve cellular function offer rejuvenating effect seen human clinical trial Sinclair claim reversed aging lab mouse also claim “knocked two decade biological age” well boasting online lung capacity cholesterol blood pressure “young adult” “heart rate athlete” he’s right aging reversed NAD boosting supplement — that’s big step cure aging disease come Elizabeth Parrish Telomeres Others like Elizabeth Parrish CEO BioViva Sciences taken different route underwent experimental gene therapy lengthen telomere reduce muscle wasting back 2016 claim health improved since treatment According Wikipedia “independent testing SpectraCell Laboratories revealed Elizabeth Parrish’s leukocyte telomere length extended 671kb 733kb” — 2018 reported lengthening telomere 812kb along overall growth muscle mass telomere region repetitive nucleotide sequence end chromosome protects damage — telomere get shorter age leading variety agingrelated disease initial 10 increase Parrish’s telomere roughly compared cell becoming 20 year younger However critic Dr Bradley Johnson University Pennsylvania questioned result stating “Telomere length measurement typically low precision variation measurement around 10 percent range reported telomere lengthening apparently experienced Elizabeth Parrish” Jim Green 2007 left 2019 right Jim Green TA65 Meet Jim Green patient zero “one man experiment radical antiaging” lack Sinclair team’s funding can’t bioengineer retroviral delivery system like Parrish team lack budget make courage innovation perseverance year back Jim decided tackle aging headon started intense research published scientific paper aging cellular senescence supplement led rigorous health regime claim literally reversed aging Jim’s published collection link note paper online talking personally several time tell he’s diligent research Josh Mitteldorf also interviewed recently interview Jim talked length use first nutraceutical called TA65 later Astragalus Root Extract telomerase activator “give new life” old cell Jim taken hard road consuming copious amount Astragalus extract along countless supplement daily exercise routine that’s visibly reversed sign aging — including seeing gray hair regain it’s youthful color doesn’t dye that’s natural Conclusion Rather trying hide sign aging makeup plastic surgery innovator like Sinclair Parrish Green taken action turn back clock hope living longer — also living better Sinclair spoken numerous time aging leading “tragic loss human capital potential we’ve taken granted” research innovator pursuing bear fruit may longer inevitable fate Whatever result experiment may ultimately research alone testament shared desire stop sand time passing make every moment haveTags Health Futurism Aging Science Medicine |
1,239 | What You Should Know About High Blood Pressure | What You Should Know About High Blood Pressure
Despite a new understanding of the largely preventable disease, deaths from the ‘silent killer’ are steadily climbing
Photo: annebaek/Getty Images
High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer” because its first symptoms are typically serious: a heart attack or stroke. Deaths related to the disease, also called hypertension, are on the rise in the United States at a time when the scientific understanding of the condition — and the very definition of it — is changing dramatically.
Hypertension’s death rate, adjusted for age, increased by 45% from 1999 to 2017, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds. And total deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes — for which hypertension is a significant risk factor — are rising as the population grows and ages. Collectively, these four so-called cardiometabolic diseases make up the single leading cause of preventable death in this country.
Between 1999 and 2011, advances in diagnosis and treatment contributed to a decline in death rates for cardiometabolic diseases. But they are no longer enough to combat the rise, the researchers say in the new study — arguing that the focus must now shift more to prevention. “Our findings make it clear that we are losing ground in the battle against cardiovascular disease,” says study leader Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine and assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The root causes of high blood pressure, Khan says, are physical inactivity, poor diet, and the obesity epidemic — factors that feed off each other and which have become part of life as we know it in a world of desk jobs, extensive screen time, and junk food diets.
Redefining “high blood pressure”
With hypertension, blood pushes too hard against vessel walls. There are two measures:
Systolic pressure, the upper number, is the peak of blood pressure reached when the heart muscle contracts. It’s a measure of how hard the heart works. As arteries become hardened or constricted, the pressure increases and the heart struggles to nourish the body.
Diastolic pressure, the lower number, is the lowest pressure reached in the arteries as the heart rests between beats. Similarly, a higher diastolic reading indicates less efficient arteries.
In 2017, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association announced new, lower numbers for the hypertension threshold: 130/80 versus the previous minimum of 140/90. In other words, the new guidelines put you in the high blood pressure category if your numbers are 130/80 and higher. The shift, based on a review of hundreds of studies and clinical trials, was profound, resulting in nearly half the country being put on watch. The number of U.S. adults with high blood pressure instantly jumped from 32% to 46%.
Another important shift in thinking occurred last year.
Health experts had long thought that it was normal for blood pressure to rise as a person ages. But a study in JAMA, drawing from data on 1,252 people who’d had their blood pressure checked every two years from 1948 to 2005, found that regardless of age, blood pressure tends to be stable, unless the top number creeps up to around 120 to 125. At that apparent threshold, some sort of “vascular remodeling” seems to happen, says the study’s senior author, Susan Cheng, a physician in the division of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
The arteries adapt until they “may eventually reach a point at which they give way to the pressures, the arterial walls stiffen in their efforts to compensate, a tipping point is reached, and blood pressure starts to rise,” Cheng explains. The rise can then be rapid, the study found, to 140/90 and beyond. And the rate of rise is the same for everyone, regardless of how old they are when they reach the tipping point.
Cheng attributes the rapid rise to the same old things: poor diet, lack of physical activity, and the everyday stresses of modern life. She notes that in remote tribes in the Amazon, where people live without any of these risk factors, blood pressures remain mostly low and stable as people age.
The earlier a person’s rising blood pressure is noticed and addressed, “the more reversible it may be,” Cheng says, stressing however that this possibility hasn’t been proven yet by research.
Both numbers matter now
Meanwhile, health care professionals have long told people to be concerned mostly with the upper blood-pressure number. You can now worry about both.
In what’s billed as the largest study of its kind, researchers recently examined more than 36 million blood-pressure readings from 1.3 million people, along with their health outcomes over time, detailing the results in July in the New England Journal of Medicine. Each measurement, when higher, predicts an increased risk of heart attack or stroke, the researchers say.
Lead author Alexander Flint, a stroke specialist and adjunct researcher at Kaiser Permanente, gives this example from the results: A modestly elevated systolic measurement of 136 conveys an additional 1.9% risk of heart attack or stroke. A similarly modest elevated diastolic reading of 81 also conveys an additional 1.9% risk. A blood pressure of 160/96 packs increased risks of 4.8% and 3.6%, respectively.
These risks might seem small, but that’s because they were calculated only for the general adult population. Among older people or people who smoke or have diabetes along with high blood pressure, “the risks caused by hypertension are much higher,” the study found. Broadly, other research reveals that for every 20 points of systolic pressure increase or 10 points of diastolic pressure increase, the risk of death from heart disease and stroke doubles.
“The take-home message is that both blood pressure numbers — both the top [systolic] and bottom [diastolic] values — matter when it comes to diagnosing and treating hypertension,” Flint says.
What you can do
Experts at Harvard, the Mayo Clinic, and elsewhere offer much the same advice for preventing or treating high blood pressure: engage in moderate physical activity, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, maintain a healthy weight, cut down on salt and booze, avoid processed meat, and don’t smoke.
“We can’t feel high blood pressure, so we need to get our blood pressure measured periodically in order to determine our risks.”
Deep breathing and other relaxation techniques have been shown to lower blood pressure, too. A set of studies earlier this year suggests a daily cup (eight ounces) of blueberries can help lower blood pressure and improve heart health. Flint suggests something else:
“There are no valuable generalizations about which specific medications or interventions are best for managing hypertension,” he says. “The single most important thing that a person with high blood pressure can do is to have an ongoing therapeutic relationship with a primary care provider.”
Treatment must be individualized, Flint says.
“Of all of the factors assessed in general physical exam, particularly in a routine screening visit in an otherwise healthy person, blood pressure is one of the most important data points,” he says. “We can’t feel high blood pressure, so we need to get our blood pressure measured periodically in order to determine our risks.” And the risks of hypertension “can be managed over time with medications and other interventions,” he said. | https://elemental.medium.com/what-you-should-know-about-high-blood-pressure-bdb349f0807f | ['Robert Roy Britt'] | 2019-09-04 11:01:01.896000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Hypertension', 'Death', 'Blood Pressure', 'Science'] | Title Know High Blood PressureContent Know High Blood Pressure Despite new understanding largely preventable disease death ‘silent killer’ steadily climbing Photo annebaekGetty Images High blood pressure often called “silent killer” first symptom typically serious heart attack stroke Deaths related disease also called hypertension rise United States time scientific understanding condition — definition — changing dramatically Hypertension’s death rate adjusted age increased 45 1999 2017 new study Journal American Medical Association JAMA find total death heart disease stroke diabetes — hypertension significant risk factor — rising population grows age Collectively four socalled cardiometabolic disease make single leading cause preventable death country 1999 2011 advance diagnosis treatment contributed decline death rate cardiometabolic disease longer enough combat rise researcher say new study — arguing focus must shift prevention “Our finding make clear losing ground battle cardiovascular disease” say study leader Sadiya Khan cardiologist Northwestern Medicine assistant professor Northwestern University Feinberg School Medicine root cause high blood pressure Khan say physical inactivity poor diet obesity epidemic — factor feed become part life know world desk job extensive screen time junk food diet Redefining “high blood pressure” hypertension blood push hard vessel wall two measure Systolic pressure upper number peak blood pressure reached heart muscle contract It’s measure hard heart work artery become hardened constricted pressure increase heart struggle nourish body Diastolic pressure lower number lowest pressure reached artery heart rest beat Similarly higher diastolic reading indicates le efficient artery 2017 American College Cardiology American Heart Association announced new lower number hypertension threshold 13080 versus previous minimum 14090 word new guideline put high blood pressure category number 13080 higher shift based review hundred study clinical trial profound resulting nearly half country put watch number US adult high blood pressure instantly jumped 32 46 Another important shift thinking occurred last year Health expert long thought normal blood pressure rise person age study JAMA drawing data 1252 people who’d blood pressure checked every two year 1948 2005 found regardless age blood pressure tends stable unless top number creep around 120 125 apparent threshold sort “vascular remodeling” seems happen say study’s senior author Susan Cheng physician division cardiovascular medicine Brigham Women’s Hospital artery adapt “may eventually reach point give way pressure arterial wall stiffen effort compensate tipping point reached blood pressure start rise” Cheng explains rise rapid study found 14090 beyond rate rise everyone regardless old reach tipping point Cheng attribute rapid rise old thing poor diet lack physical activity everyday stress modern life note remote tribe Amazon people live without risk factor blood pressure remain mostly low stable people age earlier person’s rising blood pressure noticed addressed “the reversible may be” Cheng say stressing however possibility hasn’t proven yet research number matter Meanwhile health care professional long told people concerned mostly upper bloodpressure number worry what’s billed largest study kind researcher recently examined 36 million bloodpressure reading 13 million people along health outcome time detailing result July New England Journal Medicine measurement higher predicts increased risk heart attack stroke researcher say Lead author Alexander Flint stroke specialist adjunct researcher Kaiser Permanente give example result modestly elevated systolic measurement 136 conveys additional 19 risk heart attack stroke similarly modest elevated diastolic reading 81 also conveys additional 19 risk blood pressure 16096 pack increased risk 48 36 respectively risk might seem small that’s calculated general adult population Among older people people smoke diabetes along high blood pressure “the risk caused hypertension much higher” study found Broadly research reveals every 20 point systolic pressure increase 10 point diastolic pressure increase risk death heart disease stroke double “The takehome message blood pressure number — top systolic bottom diastolic value — matter come diagnosing treating hypertension” Flint say Experts Harvard Mayo Clinic elsewhere offer much advice preventing treating high blood pressure engage moderate physical activity eat lot fruit vegetable maintain healthy weight cut salt booze avoid processed meat don’t smoke “We can’t feel high blood pressure need get blood pressure measured periodically order determine risks” Deep breathing relaxation technique shown lower blood pressure set study earlier year suggests daily cup eight ounce blueberry help lower blood pressure improve heart health Flint suggests something else “There valuable generalization specific medication intervention best managing hypertension” say “The single important thing person high blood pressure ongoing therapeutic relationship primary care provider” Treatment must individualized Flint say “Of factor assessed general physical exam particularly routine screening visit otherwise healthy person blood pressure one important data points” say “We can’t feel high blood pressure need get blood pressure measured periodically order determine risks” risk hypertension “can managed time medication interventions” saidTags Health Hypertension Death Blood Pressure Science |
1,240 | You’re more creative than you think | For most of my life I denounced my personality as analytical and logical, without a creative bone in my body.
I suppose I put this blind acceptance down to my inability to produce anything remotely lifelike in art lessons, but I guess I will never know.
What I do know, though, is that creativity is about more than just the ability to draw.
What I also know is that I AM creative, but it manifests itself differently than it does in, say, my artist housemate.
It has taken me starting a career as a copywriter at the ripe old age of 25 to realise that being incapable of drawing does not mean that I am uncreative.
I no longer panic when I have to come up with my own ideas, writing off my ability to come up with anything interesting or unique.
And neither will you, if you remember these 5 things:
1. Be open to inspiration from the most unexpected places
I am literally now that person who writes down ideas as soon as they come to my mind, no matter where I am.
We all know that sitting outside under a tree is where the best ideas are supposed to come from, but in reality every single place you go can inspire creativity — if you let it.
It is also not cheating to take inspiration from the people that you admire. Obviously, I am not condoning copying in any way, but even Picasso had his mentors, probably.
Taking inspiration from experiences you have and leaders in your field is by far the best way to grow. So:
· If you notice someone else doing something amazingly, let it inspire you.
· If you suddenly wonder why an animal is acting a certain way, keep wondering — and take notes.
· If you get into an argument with a stranger, be inspired by their different way of thinking.
2. Creativity can be learned
As Steve Jobs once said: “Creativity is just connecting things.”
We all make sense of things differently, so embracing that fact is a simple way to think creatively.
My train of thought will be hugely different from yours, even when we both look at the same object, so we will gain two very different, equally creative ideas from it.
We are constantly learning, so the potential for new ideas is always ongoing! Even if you have two awful ideas, the result of their connection might be incredible!
So, practise connecting the things around you in weird and wonderful ways, and creativity will become second nature.
3. Create in the morning
This might go against the routine of the night owl, as I know that many people work better at other times, but there is actually a scientific reason behind the early-birds-are-more-creative philosophy.
It has something to do with the fact that our prefrontal cortex (creative brain) is most active in the morning, and that its activity deteriorates throughout the day.
I use the first few hours of every day to come up with the most difficult ideas that will need the most creativity, because that finite amount of prefrontal cortex activity I have during the day makes it much easier to connect my ideas in creative ways early on.
4. The more you come up with new ideas, the better they are
It took me about 2 months to come up with an idea for something to write on here.
I knew I wanted to write, but I never felt particularly taken by any idea, and was also waiting for my lightbulb moment.
I tried random noun generators (as suggested by someone) but soon gave up on that idea when I reminded myself that “I am just not creative”.
But, when I finally decided to just write something, anything, (and stopped thinking it had to be the next Macbeth), I found that each idea led to another, and suddenly I was actually finding some creativity inside me!
The best thing I have discovered is that creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it becomes.
I had always had an ongoing list of ideas, but none of them seemed great enough to spend time on, until I actually tried.
Which brings me on to my most important point:
5. Your ideas are GOOD
Perhaps they aren’t, obviously I have no idea. But they are most likely better than you think they are.
Just stop thinking and start DOING. Whether you want to paint, write or invent new tech, creativity won’t happen if your imposter syndrome stops you even trying.
And, if the ideas aren’t that good, you will soon find out, and then you can move onto the next one!
And the next one will be bigger and better, guaranteed.
So, go get creative!
We don’t all have to be Big-C creatives, with Nobel prize winning ideas. In fact, we can’t all be, because then the award would mean nothing.
But even the most analytical of mindsets can unlock their creativity by being constantly inquisitive, connecting unique ideas together and actually starting to create. | https://medium.com/bulletproof-writers/youre-more-creative-than-you-think-335b0e126bba | ['Felicity Thompson'] | 2020-09-24 04:56:14.997000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Creative Writing', 'Mind', 'Thinking', 'Productivity'] | Title You’re creative thinkContent life denounced personality analytical logical without creative bone body suppose put blind acceptance inability produce anything remotely lifelike art lesson guess never know know though creativity ability draw also know creative manifest differently say artist housemate taken starting career copywriter ripe old age 25 realise incapable drawing mean uncreative longer panic come idea writing ability come anything interesting unique neither remember 5 thing 1 open inspiration unexpected place literally person writes idea soon come mind matter know sitting outside tree best idea supposed come reality every single place go inspire creativity — let also cheating take inspiration people admire Obviously condoning copying way even Picasso mentor probably Taking inspiration experience leader field far best way grow · notice someone else something amazingly let inspire · suddenly wonder animal acting certain way keep wondering — take note · get argument stranger inspired different way thinking 2 Creativity learned Steve Jobs said “Creativity connecting things” make sense thing differently embracing fact simple way think creatively train thought hugely different even look object gain two different equally creative idea constantly learning potential new idea always ongoing Even two awful idea result connection might incredible practise connecting thing around weird wonderful way creativity become second nature 3 Create morning might go routine night owl know many people work better time actually scientific reason behind earlybirdsaremorecreative philosophy something fact prefrontal cortex creative brain active morning activity deteriorates throughout day use first hour every day come difficult idea need creativity finite amount prefrontal cortex activity day make much easier connect idea creative way early 4 come new idea better took 2 month come idea something write knew wanted write never felt particularly taken idea also waiting lightbulb moment tried random noun generator suggested someone soon gave idea reminded “I creative” finally decided write something anything stopped thinking next Macbeth found idea led another suddenly actually finding creativity inside best thing discovered creativity like muscle use stronger becomes always ongoing list idea none seemed great enough spend time actually tried brings important point 5 idea GOOD Perhaps aren’t obviously idea likely better think stop thinking start Whether want paint write invent new tech creativity won’t happen imposter syndrome stop even trying idea aren’t good soon find move onto next one next one bigger better guaranteed go get creative don’t BigC creatives Nobel prize winning idea fact can’t award would mean nothing even analytical mindset unlock creativity constantly inquisitive connecting unique idea together actually starting createTags Creativity Creative Writing Mind Thinking Productivity |
1,241 | Will human-centered design leave the human designers behind? | A.I. is sort of a peanut butter you can spread across [multiple industries]. With a precise idea of the conditions this thing I’m designing will see in real life, I can design it better. — Maurice Conti
DESIGN THINKING IN THE MACHINE AGE
Thanks to design thinking advocates, designers have emerged to be taking over all sorts of founding and managerial roles in quite a few Big Tech players over the last couple of decades. At the same time, the advent of machine learning didn’t succeed in challenging the design trade per se. Or did it? When artificial intelligence is taking over every other industry at this sweeping pace, there is an array of lingering questions arising in design and tech communities alike. How do we tame the machines to produce compelling graphics inducing human emotion and thought? How do we restrain from feeding AI with biased data by amateur non-designers? Will the exquisite Adobe software finally evolve into robotic tools taking over a human hand? Feelings and thought are very mixed, so let me reserve a piece of personal stance in this blog.
Ai-Da: the first ever robot artist who can draw without any human input.
DITCHING HUMAN DESIGNERS?
In the mid last century, probably the most celebrated commercial designer of the time, Paul Rand, noticed that the majority of ‘professionals’ in ads business
‘…not even discriminating enough to distinguish between good and bad, between trendy and original, nor can they always recognize talent or specialized skills. In the field of design theirs is the dichotomy of being privileged but not necessarily being qualified — after all, design is not their business’.
Some fifty years in, and the situation has aggravated immensely. The abundance of tools and design assets available online is striking giving everyone having some basic Photoshop skills a chance to create graphics of dubious quality. Ditch the years of design training / self-learning — all you need is a Macbook and Adobe Suite (side note — you’d better get a Wacom too).
Now, with robot-designers this design education gap will get completely out of control. On the flip-side though, machines have to be heavily trained, and preferably by top-notch designers to make sure the output is adequate. Sounds like a pricey endeavour to me, however, could be another alternate career pathway for graphic design graduates, and consolation to those thinking that humans will be kicked out of the profession entirely. I do believe that this sort of facilitator / teacher role can prove to be most viable, if not exciting, for evolving artistic trades. Collaborating and sharing knowledge while building #ML tools — I’m down for that.
AI TOOLS — DESIGNERS’ LITTLE HELPERS
In the wake of the recent news of the world’s first machine-artist, a reasonable angle to look at AI is like another tool for artists, like the camera, or the drum machine. Creators are adept to playing with devices and all sorts of collaboration, which is a great way to get those juices flowing, ain’t it so?
More so, with AI extensively taking over the niche of affordable freebee design-tools, it seems logical to exploit the ‘little helper’ further to speed up the flow and automate some tedious tasks like preparing, sorting or unifying design assets. Because no one likes to spend hours cropping / retouching hundreds of jpegs. From creating instant pattern variations and legit UI tools to pretty basic logo generators; to more exquisite design tools like Adobe Sensei and Intelligent Alerts — all these are great time savers loved by designers and businesses. Robotic intelligence is also a great way to help making design decisions bringing complex data analysis to the table to iterate faster and consider multiple options otherwise not available to a human eye.
WHAT’S INHERENTLY WRONG WITH AI DESIGN-GENERATORS?
Well, to my mind, they’re entirely missing the ‘metaphor-behind-the-design point. And if the task of exerting any meaningful emotion resonating with the human audience seems plausible for further robo-generations, that of designing a poster in a way to provoke human brain to ‘close the Gestalt’ will hardly ever be. And of course there is barely a machine (at least, for now) capable of constructing a logo that would satisfy this timeless criterion by Sir Paul Rand: ‘A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it means is more important than what it looks like’.
Another danger inferred by placing human bias and design illiteracy into machine brain. Design amateurs should steer clear, and it’s responsibility of forward-thinking design community to rely on high-class design educators when feeding artistic data to robobrain. ‘Lack of humility and originality … the absence of restraint, the equation of simplicity with shallowness, complexity with depth of understanding, and obscurity with innovation, distinguishes the quality of work of these times’, — applied to our new realia means ‘do not let engineers with bad taste ever approach the machine.
Cam robodesigners be that exquisite?
More complex AI solutions are still pricey, so the majority design newbies hoping to get some exceptional result with the help of ‘advanced tech’ still have access only to the elementary online generators like. My fellow designers, have you noticed how basic and shallow are Logobank’s graphics? You throw in some yellows and bananas, and it spits out a perfectly aligned ‘Juice Bar’ in a yellow circle-container logo. Come on, we all know that first-level associations never work in design!
FANCY THE AIRBNB LOGO REDESIGNED BY A MACHINE
Sounds dodgy, no? It is human talent that will be in charge of designing machines and machine learning applications, while others will make use of advanced Photoshop and Illustrator tools to cut down the tiresome work. Over the time machines will surely learn design principles and techniques, but can they learn human emotion? According to A.I. Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, one thing the machines can’t do is ‘building empathy, compassion, and trust — all of which require human-to-human connection’. Only humans can truly make a product that serves its customer in a meaningful way. As Paul Rand aptly puts it: | https://medium.com/hackernoon/will-human-centered-design-leave-the-human-designers-behind-1e8d778b52d9 | ['Olya Green'] | 2019-06-07 11:26:01.119000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Design', 'Human Centered Design', 'AI', 'Human Design'] | Title humancentered design leave human designer behindContent AI sort peanut butter spread across multiple industry precise idea condition thing I’m designing see real life design better — Maurice Conti DESIGN THINKING MACHINE AGE Thanks design thinking advocate designer emerged taking sort founding managerial role quite Big Tech player last couple decade time advent machine learning didn’t succeed challenging design trade per se artificial intelligence taking every industry sweeping pace array lingering question arising design tech community alike tame machine produce compelling graphic inducing human emotion thought restrain feeding AI biased data amateur nondesigners exquisite Adobe software finally evolve robotic tool taking human hand Feelings thought mixed let reserve piece personal stance blog AiDa first ever robot artist draw without human input DITCHING HUMAN DESIGNERS mid last century probably celebrated commercial designer time Paul Rand noticed majority ‘professionals’ ad business ‘…not even discriminating enough distinguish good bad trendy original always recognize talent specialized skill field design dichotomy privileged necessarily qualified — design business’ fifty year situation aggravated immensely abundance tool design asset available online striking giving everyone basic Photoshop skill chance create graphic dubious quality Ditch year design training selflearning — need Macbook Adobe Suite side note — you’d better get Wacom robotdesigners design education gap get completely control flipside though machine heavily trained preferably topnotch designer make sure output adequate Sounds like pricey endeavour however could another alternate career pathway graphic design graduate consolation thinking human kicked profession entirely believe sort facilitator teacher role prove viable exciting evolving artistic trade Collaborating sharing knowledge building ML tool — I’m AI TOOLS — DESIGNERS’ LITTLE HELPERS wake recent news world’s first machineartist reasonable angle look AI like another tool artist like camera drum machine Creators adept playing device sort collaboration great way get juice flowing ain’t AI extensively taking niche affordable freebee designtools seems logical exploit ‘little helper’ speed flow automate tedious task like preparing sorting unifying design asset one like spend hour cropping retouching hundred jpegs creating instant pattern variation legit UI tool pretty basic logo generator exquisite design tool like Adobe Sensei Intelligent Alerts — great time saver loved designer business Robotic intelligence also great way help making design decision bringing complex data analysis table iterate faster consider multiple option otherwise available human eye WHAT’S INHERENTLY WRONG AI DESIGNGENERATORS Well mind they’re entirely missing ‘metaphorbehindthedesign point task exerting meaningful emotion resonating human audience seems plausible robogenerations designing poster way provoke human brain ‘close Gestalt’ hardly ever course barely machine least capable constructing logo would satisfy timeless criterion Sir Paul Rand ‘A logo le important product signifies mean important look like’ Another danger inferred placing human bias design illiteracy machine brain Design amateur steer clear it’s responsibility forwardthinking design community rely highclass design educator feeding artistic data robobrain ‘Lack humility originality … absence restraint equation simplicity shallowness complexity depth understanding obscurity innovation distinguishes quality work times’ — applied new realia mean ‘do let engineer bad taste ever approach machine Cam robodesigners exquisite complex AI solution still pricey majority design newbie hoping get exceptional result help ‘advanced tech’ still access elementary online generator like fellow designer noticed basic shallow Logobank’s graphic throw yellow banana spit perfectly aligned ‘Juice Bar’ yellow circlecontainer logo Come know firstlevel association never work design FANCY AIRBNB LOGO REDESIGNED MACHINE Sounds dodgy human talent charge designing machine machine learning application others make use advanced Photoshop Illustrator tool cut tiresome work time machine surely learn design principle technique learn human emotion According AI Superpowers China Silicon Valley New World Order one thing machine can’t ‘building empathy compassion trust — require humantohuman connection’ human truly make product serf customer meaningful way Paul Rand aptly put itTags Design Thinking Design Human Centered Design AI Human Design |
1,242 | ‘Healthy Eating’ Means So Much More Than It Used To | ‘Healthy Eating’ Means So Much More Than It Used To
Why staying at home has radically changed how we think about food
This story is part of How to Eat in the New Normal, a weeklong series about how the Covid-19 pandemic is changing the way we eat, with expert advice for making food choices that help you stay healthy and happy.
Fun fact: Radish greens make great pesto. Toss them in the blender with some oil and garlic and whatever nuts and/or cheese you can scrounge up and you’ve got yourself a killer sauce.
Three months ago, I thought of “radish greens” as just the leafy top part you throw away. Actually, I didn’t think about them at all. I barely thought about radishes (a garnish, at best), let alone their greens, and now I know a million ways to make them both delicious. Just as this pandemic has taught me the difference between sanitizing and disinfecting, and how to turn a tank top into a face mask, it has also taught me to appreciate radishes — and everything else in my fridge — like never before. There’s no such thing as a garnish now, and nothing gets thrown away.
I’ve been a mindful eater for a long time. But it wasn’t until this pandemic that I learned just how deeply I could appreciate — and relish — what I had.
I’ve always been a creative cook, and fairly conscientious about food waste. I’ve never experienced true food insecurity, but I know what it’s like to obsess over food: I spent my twenties learning to turn $25 into a week of meals. I also spent my twenties (and my teens, and most of my childhood) trying to lose weight by eating smaller meals, or no-carb meals, or meals with just three Points because that’s all I had left for the day. This would inevitably end in a frenzied binge, wherein I’d spend months eating all the things I wasn’t allowed — not really enjoying it, but simply cramming it in before I came to my senses and started the next plan. It wasn’t until I finally landed on the sofa of an anti-diet dietician that I actually came to my senses and learned the difference between obsessing over food and being mindful of it.
In short, obsession is a fear response. It’s what happens when that primal part of your brain is triggered by a sense of scarcity — whether it’s artificial (say, no-carb diet) or genuine (an aisle of empty pasta shelves). Mindfulness is what happens when you pause and look around the rest of the grocery store, seeing everything that is available: the potatoes, the cold cuts, the humble radishes and their secretly delicious greens. Mindfulness is considering what you really want and need, and what you already have, before impulse buying a giant bag of whatever. I’ve been a mindful eater for a long time. But it wasn’t until this pandemic that I learned just how deeply I could appreciate — and relish — what I had.
Jars, for example. Like most millennial white ladies, I’ve gone through several whimsical-glassware phases, lugging home clanky bags of Ball Mason jars, which I’d use for exactly one cocktail, then stick in a cabinet for seven years. Last week, I was scraping the last inch of salsa onto a defrosted hunk of cod and half an onion — all of which had to be used immediately, before they went bad — when I noticed the raised letters on the glass jar in my hand: “Mason.” I thought of all the $6 Mason jars I’d schlepped home on the subway over the years. I thought of all the $4 jars of salsa I’d thrown away, often with a spoonful of salsa left in them. I screamed across the apartment at my bewildered husband: “THE JARS WERE HERE THE WHOLE TIME.”
I’ll probably go to hell for being such a wasteful asshat, and that’s fair. But at least I now know that a spoonful of salsa can turn old, frozen fish into a truly delicious dinner, especially if you cook it with a little sautéed onion. I also know that Mason jars can be used to freeze vegetable stock, and that vegetable stock can be easily made from onion skins, and pretty much any other produce scrap. And somehow, that knowledge is a balm. Like many others, I find myself staying up late to simmer stock or bake bread, and not just because it’s hard to buy right now, but because it feels really, really good. It’s comfort food — and that’s okay. It’s what we’re supposed to do, in fact. Just ask a dietician.
“This is a really uncertain and anxious time,” says Julie Dillon, RD. “It’s really normal and wonderful that we’re leaning towards food to cope — baking and cooking, maybe trying recipes that have been passed down. I think that’s just a wonderful way for us to connect to our ancestors and different generations and be able to kind of get grounded and calm ourselves.” It’s okay to eat the food too, by the way. Comfort eating is instinctive, not disordered. Just as scarcity triggers fear and hoarding, satisfaction triggers relaxation and ease. “Within a few bites, food sends our mood into a calmer state,” Dillon points out. “It’s really effective. Why is that a bad thing?”
It’s a radical concept, truly. Even after years of therapy and nutritional coaching, I still struggled to really get it. A lot of us entered These Times with the understanding that bread is a bad food and comfort eating is a bad habit, period. We live in a world that bombards us every day with that messaging — or, we used to, anyway. Now, everything is different.
That’s the behavior I’m ashamed of now — the ‘whatever’ attitude, and the audacity of being annoyed at having to choose.
Now, I think of “bad” food as food that has actually gone bad. Now, flour is a precious commodity — especially the plain, white, all-purpose kind. Now I feel like the luckiest duck when eggs are back in stock, though I know how to substitute them if necessary. Before I cooked creatively for fun — and usually only on the odd weekend when nothing else was planned. During the week my husband and I didn’t even eat dinner together, just because our schedules were so different. We’d throw together separate meals when we got home, or we’d order in. Before, choosing takeout felt almost like a chore, with the two of us sending harried texts back and forth at the end of the day, until one of us finally just said, “Yeah sure, sushi, whatever. I’m in the middle of something.”
That’s the behavior I’m ashamed of now — the “whatever” attitude, and the audacity of being annoyed at having to choose. That is the shittiest symptom of privilege. Finding pleasure and comfort in your food isn’t bad. Failing to appreciate food and all the ways it nourishes us — that’s the only bad eating habit in my book.
Now, we get delivery once a week. We get excited discussing our options, like it’s a special occasion (because it is). “Pizza Fridays!” we cheer, to no one but each other. We choose one of favorite local joints, hoping they’re still open and still will be a few months from now. We leave a huge tip — which is the only appropriate amount to tip someone running through the epicenter of a pandemic to deliver you a pizza. We ask them to leave it on the stairs, say thank you a million times, and wait for them to leave before we dash down to grab it. Then we run back up, leave our shoes in the hall, and put the pizza box on the stove. Then we wash our hands like crazy, pour wine into actual wine glasses, and sit down at the actual table. We toast, and we dig in.
Everything has changed, and most of it changed for the worse. But not this. We have fewer options in our lives now, and many more unknowns. But we always know exactly what we do have, and we treasure it: There are six eggs in the fridge, enough flour to make bread tonight, and tomorrow we’ll have leftover radish greens pesto on toast. We have more than enough.
If you can, consider making a donation to Feeding America to support those facing hunger, or to Frontline Foods to help local restaurants send meals to health care workers. | https://elemental.medium.com/healthy-eating-means-so-much-more-than-it-used-to-d19b9cb74c9b | ['Kelsey Miller'] | 2020-04-27 18:07:29.497000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Eat In The New Normal', 'Coronavirus', 'Food', 'Life'] | Title ‘Healthy Eating’ Means Much Used ToContent ‘Healthy Eating’ Means Much Used staying home radically changed think food story part Eat New Normal weeklong series Covid19 pandemic changing way eat expert advice making food choice help stay healthy happy Fun fact Radish green make great pesto Toss blender oil garlic whatever nut andor cheese scrounge you’ve got killer sauce Three month ago thought “radish greens” leafy top part throw away Actually didn’t think barely thought radish garnish best let alone green know million way make delicious pandemic taught difference sanitizing disinfecting turn tank top face mask also taught appreciate radish — everything else fridge — like never There’s thing garnish nothing get thrown away I’ve mindful eater long time wasn’t pandemic learned deeply could appreciate — relish — I’ve always creative cook fairly conscientious food waste I’ve never experienced true food insecurity know it’s like ob food spent twenty learning turn 25 week meal also spent twenty teen childhood trying lose weight eating smaller meal nocarb meal meal three Points that’s left day would inevitably end frenzied binge wherein I’d spend month eating thing wasn’t allowed — really enjoying simply cramming came sens started next plan wasn’t finally landed sofa antidiet dietician actually came sens learned difference obsessing food mindful short obsession fear response It’s happens primal part brain triggered sense scarcity — whether it’s artificial say nocarb diet genuine aisle empty pasta shelf Mindfulness happens pause look around rest grocery store seeing everything available potato cold cut humble radish secretly delicious green Mindfulness considering really want need already impulse buying giant bag whatever I’ve mindful eater long time wasn’t pandemic learned deeply could appreciate — relish — Jars example Like millennial white lady I’ve gone several whimsicalglassware phase lugging home clanky bag Ball Mason jar I’d use exactly one cocktail stick cabinet seven year Last week scraping last inch salsa onto defrosted hunk cod half onion — used immediately went bad — noticed raised letter glass jar hand “Mason” thought 6 Mason jar I’d schlepped home subway year thought 4 jar salsa I’d thrown away often spoonful salsa left screamed across apartment bewildered husband “THE JARS WHOLE TIME” I’ll probably go hell wasteful asshat that’s fair least know spoonful salsa turn old frozen fish truly delicious dinner especially cook little sautéed onion also know Mason jar used freeze vegetable stock vegetable stock easily made onion skin pretty much produce scrap somehow knowledge balm Like many others find staying late simmer stock bake bread it’s hard buy right feel really really good It’s comfort food — that’s okay It’s we’re supposed fact ask dietician “This really uncertain anxious time” say Julie Dillon RD “It’s really normal wonderful we’re leaning towards food cope — baking cooking maybe trying recipe passed think that’s wonderful way u connect ancestor different generation able kind get grounded calm ourselves” It’s okay eat food way Comfort eating instinctive disordered scarcity trigger fear hoarding satisfaction trigger relaxation ease “Within bite food sends mood calmer state” Dillon point “It’s really effective bad thing” It’s radical concept truly Even year therapy nutritional coaching still struggled really get lot u entered Times understanding bread bad food comfort eating bad habit period live world bombard u every day messaging — used anyway everything different That’s behavior I’m ashamed — ‘whatever’ attitude audacity annoyed choose think “bad” food food actually gone bad flour precious commodity — especially plain white allpurpose kind feel like luckiest duck egg back stock though know substitute necessary cooked creatively fun — usually odd weekend nothing else planned week husband didn’t even eat dinner together schedule different We’d throw together separate meal got home we’d order choosing takeout felt almost like chore two u sending harried text back forth end day one u finally said “Yeah sure sushi whatever I’m middle something” That’s behavior I’m ashamed — “whatever” attitude audacity annoyed choose shittiest symptom privilege Finding pleasure comfort food isn’t bad Failing appreciate food way nourishes u — that’s bad eating habit book get delivery week get excited discussing option like it’s special occasion “Pizza Fridays” cheer one choose one favorite local joint hoping they’re still open still month leave huge tip — appropriate amount tip someone running epicenter pandemic deliver pizza ask leave stair say thank million time wait leave dash grab run back leave shoe hall put pizza box stove wash hand like crazy pour wine actual wine glass sit actual table toast dig Everything changed changed worse fewer option life many unknown always know exactly treasure six egg fridge enough flour make bread tonight tomorrow we’ll leftover radish green pesto toast enough consider making donation Feeding America support facing hunger Frontline Foods help local restaurant send meal health care workersTags Health Eat New Normal Coronavirus Food Life |
1,243 | Inspiration is absolutely everywhere. | Inspiration is absolutely everywhere.
But you have to train your brain to look for it everywhere. It’s a necessary skill for travel writing. You don’t fly across the globe to get one story. If you want to make a living, you scrutinize every detail of the trip, the destination, and the people you encounter, always looking for another story to add to the stack.
Today my inspiration is Thursday Night Football. Are you taking three shots at every goal you set? (Hmm, maybe that’s my title.) Once I saw it clearly, the story began to write itself.
What’s inspiring you to write today? | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/inspiration-is-absolutely-everywhere-ae71c9e23f42 | ['Melinda Crow'] | 2020-12-18 03:44:30.322000+00:00 | ['Ideas', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Football', 'Goals'] | Title Inspiration absolutely everywhereContent Inspiration absolutely everywhere train brain look everywhere It’s necessary skill travel writing don’t fly across globe get one story want make living scrutinize every detail trip destination people encounter always looking another story add stack Today inspiration Thursday Night Football taking three shot every goal set Hmm maybe that’s title saw clearly story began write What’s inspiring write todayTags Ideas Writing Creativity Football Goals |
1,244 | To Improve Your Writing Skills, Find Your Voice | A decade ago I was given my first major magazine assignment. The twist is that it wasn’t actually MY assignment. I had been hired to rewrite an article that had been done by someone else. Poorly, it appears. I don’t know who this inadequate writer was. Possibly William Faulkner. Regardless, the copy filed by the writer was dull and lifeless, and my editor told me that my job was to make it “voicier.”
My assignment was to breathe life into the words by imbuing them with my own ESSENCE, which tends to be clear and direct and gleefully profane. The irony is that my own revision of the story ALSO never saw the light of day. But I must have made it voicier somehow, because I kept getting work from that editor, even assignments for articles I was allowed to write from scratch!
You can make your own writing voicier, too — the voice you use for your first novel, for the next email you write today, for your 8 millionth tweet, anything. Given that many of you are stuck inside right now, with nowhere else to go, you might even have the time to do it. But before I hand you your bluebook exam, I need to explain to you what voice is.
Your voice is you on the page. It’s the sum total of your influences and your life experiences — all built into words. It’s the expression of your identity, or perhaps the identity of the person you would LIKE to be. This is a blank page, after all. Lemme break down the formula for you.
Take in all the influences
A voice can come in an infinite number of guises. Let’s listen to a few of them right now.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
That’s from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. But let’s say you’d never read those words before and someone asked you to identify their source. I bet you could guess. That passage above is so distinctly King that it may as well be a fingerprint. It possesses all of the man’s public qualities: it’s honest, ambitious, thoughtful, and decidedly righteous. You can hear King saying these words in his actual voice, which was itself a magnificent instrument.
Now let’s listen to another critical voice from history. I speak, naturally, of @dril:
A friend of mine once told me that @dril is written as the inner monologue of the internet. I think he’s a funny guy who’s stoned out of his brain ALL THE TIME, but our two opinions need not be mutually exclusive. The average person online is both arrogant and defensive as a matter of natural reflex. It makes sense that someone took those qualities and deliberately ratcheted them up to absurd levels, complete with garbled syntax and all. You gotta hand it to him. Is the real @dril like this? I’m gonna say no. But he looked at the deeply insecure lunacy of everyone else online and shrewdly created a voice that reflected it.
There are more voices like these all around you. They come in the form of writers, musicians, filmmakers, family members, even advertisers. Listen to them. Listen to Candice Millard. Listen to Alexandra Petri. Listen to Fountains of Wayne, who nailed Jersey better than all the more famous Jersey musicians ever did. Listen to your favorite English teacher. These are your influences. They supply you with information, opinions, and STYLE. For example, I spent the bulk of my adolescence listening to Sam Kinison comedy albums.
Explains why I write in all caps so often. I also listened to Metallica, watched The Hard Way 700 times, re-read every Great Brain book over and over, and took in a zillion other influences. Those voices made a boisterous jumble inside my brain, each of them informing the other. This is legal, by the way. You’re allowed to be influenced by Jesus AND by Slayer at the same time. They can’t arrest you for that. Except in Georgia.
Try to absorb as many influences as you can, and seek out influences that other people aren’t necessarily into. You’re living through a generation of movies all made by people who were REALLY into Star Wars, myself included. It shows, and not necessarily for the better. You got the time now to go deeper down the rabbit hole. The more diverse your influences are, the more diverse your own voice will be.
Live your experiences and use them creatively
The old writing edict is to write what you know. I remember being told that in Creative Writing class in college. The end result was 20 students all turning in the same short story about a kid who goes to a house party and has a shitty time. We were not the most imaginative lot. Not terribly popular, either.
The goal shouldn’t be to write what you know, but to USE what you know. So you know what it’s like to be somewhere where you’re SUPPOSED to be enjoying yourself, and you know the odd shame you feel when you are not: when the night isn’t living up to the perhaps unreasonable standards you had for it. Okay, now set that party in Nazi Germany. See now? You used what you knew, but you gave it FLAIR. You gave the reader a reason to give a crap.
In order to write well, you gotta live. You gotta be out there seeing and doing and learning new things. That’s not easy to do at the present moment, but let’s imagine a world where everything gets un-fucked (a stretch, I know) and you’re finally able to venture out your door once again. Take advantage. When Philipp Meyer was writing his epic novel The Son, he learned how to tan hides AND he drank buffalo blood. Why? Because that’s what his characters did. He had to personally experience what they experienced so that he KNEW what living through those experiences were like. That way, he could then put them into proper words.
You know what it’s like to be in love. You know what it’s like to feel lonely. You know what it’s like to have a friend let you down. You know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of violence. These are universal experiences, but in your context they are PAINFULLY specific. You can use all that. And then you can use more. You can live more, whether it’s for the sake of research or for the sake of living itself. You will absorb everything around you in a way that literally no other person will, because you will absorb it at a particular time in your life that only you are living in. Think deeply about how those moments make you feel. Even if you’re uncomfortable with how they make you feel. ESPECIALLY so.
Allow those influences and experiences to guide you
Now the challenge is to get those thoughts down into words. They don’t have to be pretty. They don’t have to be perfect. What matters is that they are CLEAR, that you are able to get the person reading your copy to understand how you feel and — this is where the magic happens — FEEL what you felt. Scroll back up and read King again:
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Tell me you can’t feel those words right now. They are both profound and direct. They require no obscure vocabulary to get the idea across. King lived and learned enough to have ideas, to know how to get those ideas across, AND to separate which ideas of his were worthwhile from those that were useless. Think hard about your ideas. Save a good one, and then think about what that idea would look and sound like if it were something you wanted to see and hear, whether it’s in the form of a short story, or a take, or a TV show script, or a song, or even a tweet. Be your own audience for a moment. Laugh at your own jokes when they land the right way in your cortex. It’s okay. You’re finding your voice and you’re gaining a strange, wonderful awareness of how that voice will sound to distant ears.
Once you’ve given your voice shape, it has remarkable power. I’m gonna let Carl Sagan explain how:
One glance at (a book) and you hear the voice of another person — perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
You can work that magic, too. All you gotta do is listen: first to others, then to yourself.
Drew’s third novel, Point B, is available starting today. Right now. Go buy it. | https://forge.medium.com/how-to-find-your-voice-as-a-writer-43b283b67a0c | ['Drew Magary'] | 2020-04-22 15:50:40.580000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing', 'Social Media', 'Inspiration', 'Create'] | Title Improve Writing Skills Find VoiceContent decade ago given first major magazine assignment twist wasn’t actually assignment hired rewrite article done someone else Poorly appears don’t know inadequate writer Possibly William Faulkner Regardless copy filed writer dull lifeless editor told job make “voicier” assignment breathe life word imbuing ESSENCE tends clear direct gleefully profane irony revision story ALSO never saw light day must made voicier somehow kept getting work editor even assignment article allowed write scratch make writing voicier — voice use first novel next email write today 8 millionth tweet anything Given many stuck inside right nowhere else go might even time hand bluebook exam need explain voice voice page It’s sum total influence life experience — built word It’s expression identity perhaps identity person would LIKE blank page Lemme break formula Take influence voice come infinite number guise Let’s listen right caught inescapable network mutuality tied single garment destiny Whatever affect one directly affect indirectly Never afford live narrow provincial “outside agitator” idea Anyone life inside United States never considered outsider anywhere within bound That’s Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter Birmingham Jail let’s say you’d never read word someone asked identify source bet could guess passage distinctly King may well fingerprint posse man’s public quality it’s honest ambitious thoughtful decidedly righteous hear King saying word actual voice magnificent instrument let’s listen another critical voice history speak naturally dril friend mine told dril written inner monologue internet think he’s funny guy who’s stoned brain TIME two opinion need mutually exclusive average person online arrogant defensive matter natural reflex make sense someone took quality deliberately ratcheted absurd level complete garbled syntax gotta hand real dril like I’m gonna say looked deeply insecure lunacy everyone else online shrewdly created voice reflected voice like around come form writer musician filmmaker family member even advertiser Listen Listen Candice Millard Listen Alexandra Petri Listen Fountains Wayne nailed Jersey better famous Jersey musician ever Listen favorite English teacher influence supply information opinion STYLE example spent bulk adolescence listening Sam Kinison comedy album Explains write cap often also listened Metallica watched Hard Way 700 time reread every Great Brain book took zillion influence voice made boisterous jumble inside brain informing legal way You’re allowed influenced Jesus Slayer time can’t arrest Except Georgia Try absorb many influence seek influence people aren’t necessarily You’re living generation movie made people REALLY Star Wars included show necessarily better got time go deeper rabbit hole diverse influence diverse voice Live experience use creatively old writing edict write know remember told Creative Writing class college end result 20 student turning short story kid go house party shitty time imaginative lot terribly popular either goal shouldn’t write know USE know know it’s like somewhere you’re SUPPOSED enjoying know odd shame feel night isn’t living perhaps unreasonable standard Okay set party Nazi Germany See used knew gave FLAIR gave reader reason give crap order write well gotta live gotta seeing learning new thing That’s easy present moment let’s imagine world everything get unfucked stretch know you’re finally able venture door Take advantage Philipp Meyer writing epic novel Son learned tan hide drank buffalo blood that’s character personally experience experienced KNEW living experience like way could put proper word know it’s like love know it’s like feel lonely know it’s like friend let know it’s like receiving end violence universal experience context PAINFULLY specific use use live whether it’s sake research sake living absorb everything around way literally person absorb particular time life living Think deeply moment make feel Even you’re uncomfortable make feel ESPECIALLY Allow influence experience guide challenge get thought word don’t pretty don’t perfect matter CLEAR able get person reading copy understand feel — magic happens — FEEL felt Scroll back read King Whatever affect one directly affect indirectly Tell can’t feel word right profound direct require obscure vocabulary get idea across King lived learned enough idea know get idea across separate idea worthwhile useless Think hard idea Save good one think idea would look sound like something wanted see hear whether it’s form short story take TV show script song even tweet audience moment Laugh joke land right way cortex It’s okay You’re finding voice you’re gaining strange wonderful awareness voice sound distant ear you’ve given voice shape remarkable power I’m gonna let Carl Sagan explain One glance book hear voice another person — perhaps someone dead thousand year Across millennium author speaking clearly silently inside head directly Writing perhaps greatest human invention binding together people citizen distant epoch never knew one another Books break shackle time proof human work magic work magic gotta listen first others Drew’s third novel Point B available starting today Right Go buy itTags Creativity Writing Social Media Inspiration Create |
1,245 | 5 elements of high converting ecommerce product pages | A product page is where e-commerce customers spend most of the time and make the final decision about completing a purchase.
If you are running PPC campaigns, the products page might be as well the first impression a prospective customer has of your online business.
The importance of a good product page is immense — it is the page where you showcase your products and give customers a reason to make the final buying decision.
The structure of your product page can make or break your sales and in this article, we’re covering the 5 elements that all high converting product pages have in common.
Here’s what we covered
The 5 elements:
Trust
High-quality images/videos
Optimized product copy
Clean design, no distractions
Flawless checkout
Conclusion
With these 5 elements, you are more likely to turn your eCommerce visitors into paying customers.
Trust
One of the key elements of your product page should be building trust. Showing your product page is trustworthy by displaying trust signals can play a decisive role in completing the purchase.
Contrarily, not having enough trust signals on your product page can lead to cart abandonment:
Trust signals on product pages include:
Social symbols — icons of your social plug-ins;
Payment assurance — multiple payment options and third party badges and certifications;
Reviews and ratings — a snapshot of the general rating, and feedback from previous buyers;
Contact and information — contact information and possibility to get in touch with the store;
Trust badges — badges that show the payment methods are secure — the most popular are Norton Secured, McAfee Secure, and Verified by Visa;
Return policy — offering free return in a certain time period or a Money back guarantee badge.
Increase trust on your product page by:
Including reviews
Including 2 to 10 reviews of the product from your customers builds trust. Some stores offer a possibility to win a discount code if you leave a review of the product. Do not hide the identity of the reviewer — adding full names, pictures will bring more transparency. Display the average score calculated by the reviewers for a visitor, who does not have time to read each of the separate reviews.
Offering multiple payment options
Your online store should provide the most popular payment method among your target group. However, adding multiple payment methods increases your store’s credibility. The bigger choice of payment methods you offer, the highest the trust will be of your prospective customers. Another possibility is to offer the “pay later” possibility, where the customer pays for the products after receiving them. Do not forget to include icons of the possible payments as well.
Displaying contact information
Try including the icons with links to your social media channels and contact information on the bottom or top of your product page. Adding a chat-bot on your page that gives viewers the possibility to immediately ask questions is even more efficient.
The online store Asos builds trust by offering free shipping and a 60-days return policy. It also includes social icons in the footer:
While the website Bol.com which presents more providers of the same products builds trust with the platform by highlighting a free 30-day return policy, 24/7 customer care service, and free shipping:
It also includes reviews on each product page:
2. High-quality images/videos
The visual representation of the products in your online store is the most important aspect of a product page and can be a deal-breaker. Compared to the physical stores, a customer is unable to hold the product; therefore it has to be presented to him through pictures and videos from different angles.
As the popularity of videos is increasing, it is highly advisable to include both — high-quality pictures and videos to highlight the best of your products.
Nike already incorporated videos on their product pages:
When using multiple pictures, make sure all of them have the same size and height-width ratio. A recommended size for e-commerce pictures is 2048px X 2048px.
Include one (or all) of these practices to improve your visual representation:
Provide 360° view of your product
Offer your customers a more interactive, 3D experience by providing a 360° view of your product. Most commonly used for showcasing jewelry, this is especially handy when you want to show the details of your product.
Include a model wearing the product
Again, people cannot try your product before buying it; therefore try to show them how it looks. The most successful online stores include the measurements of the model wearing the item.
Use video to show how to use the product
Adding a video of how to use the product or how to style it has a persuasive effect on your potential customers.
Brilliant Earth offers a detailed look of their rings with the 3D feature:
While Boohoo includes pictures of the model from different angles, and the clothes size that he or she is wearing:
Effects use the video to show the viewers how can they use the product (and indirectly, why do they need to buy it):
3. Optimized product copy
Creating a fun, engaging, and optimized product copy can make an online store stand out among competitors.
To be successful at product copy, you need to know your audience, have a strong understanding of the brand, and be familiar with the SEO best practices.
Improve your copy by:
Speaking to your target audience
Knowing your target audience dictates the tone of voice, which words to use, and sometimes even how funny your product description becomes.
You can use trendy word abbreviations when targeting Gen Z but avoid them completely when writing copy to attract boomers.
Talking about value
The copy should answer the question: “Why does someone need this product?” and present the advantages of having it instead of just its features.
The online store Twelfth South created a copy that speaks to millennials by taking into consideration their buying behavior. Known for being technologically savvy, millennials tend to buy the latest version of mobile phones and are loyal Apple customers:
When it comes to innovative headlines, Firebox knows how to catch a buyer’s attention by creating unique and fun product names:
Showcasing a product’s value comes almost naturally for the online store Chi Chi London. In this product description they explained where could their customer wear the dress, instead of talking about its features:
4. Clean design, no distractions
The design of your product page should be attractive and easy to navigate.
To improve your website design:
Use tabbed navigation
To avoid cluttering your page with text, present more information, create a drop-down menu with links to more details about the product.
Create clear and contrasting CTA’s
Make your call to action pop by making the button clear and in a different color compared to the other text.
Make it mobile-friendly
Design your product page to be not only responsive on mobile devices but clear and easy to navigate when being in a smaller format.
The online store Watches of Switzerland keeps its product in the spotlight by using tabbed navigation:
The website of Jackie Smith store opted for a more colorful and eye-catchy design, paying attention to the colorful call to actions:
Warby Parker’s product page is a perfect example of how a clean, well-designed e-commerce website should look on a mobile device:
5. Flawless checkout
The checkout process should be simple, transparent, and fast. If your score of cart abandonment is high, consider improving your checkout process by:
Including a basket summary
Include a review of the products in the shopping cart and the possibility to remove some of them before moving to the next step.
Displaying a progress indicator
Creating an overview of the needed steps to complete the purchase makes the customer aware of the next steps and can indicate how soon the process will be over.
Offer guest checkout
Offer a guest checkout for customers who are in a rush or do not want to create an account
H&M offers a review of the products at the beginning of the checkout process:
In the checkout process, Etsy displays a progress indicator in the top-right corner:
Chanel facilitates the checkout process by offering a guest checkout:
Conclusion
Building trust, using high-quality images and videos to show your products, and engaging your visitors with fun and useful copy can increase the number of prospective customers.
While the clear design of your product page and a simple check-out process should lead them to complete the purchase.
By keeping in mind your target audience, you will surely be able to personalize each of these elements and use it to connect with your ideal customer. | https://medium.com/analytics-for-humans/5-elements-of-high-converting-ecommerce-product-pages-bdcebc4a6377 | ['Mike Wagaba'] | 2020-12-22 19:04:59.250000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Content Marketing', 'Analytics', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business'] | Title 5 element high converting ecommerce product pagesContent product page ecommerce customer spend time make final decision completing purchase running PPC campaign product page might well first impression prospective customer online business importance good product page immense — page showcase product give customer reason make final buying decision structure product page make break sale article we’re covering 5 element high converting product page common Here’s covered 5 element Trust Highquality imagesvideos Optimized product copy Clean design distraction Flawless checkout Conclusion 5 element likely turn eCommerce visitor paying customer Trust One key element product page building trust Showing product page trustworthy displaying trust signal play decisive role completing purchase Contrarily enough trust signal product page lead cart abandonment Trust signal product page include Social symbol — icon social plugins Payment assurance — multiple payment option third party badge certification Reviews rating — snapshot general rating feedback previous buyer Contact information — contact information possibility get touch store Trust badge — badge show payment method secure — popular Norton Secured McAfee Secure Verified Visa Return policy — offering free return certain time period Money back guarantee badge Increase trust product page Including review Including 2 10 review product customer build trust store offer possibility win discount code leave review product hide identity reviewer — adding full name picture bring transparency Display average score calculated reviewer visitor time read separate review Offering multiple payment option online store provide popular payment method among target group However adding multiple payment method increase store’s credibility bigger choice payment method offer highest trust prospective customer Another possibility offer “pay later” possibility customer pay product receiving forget include icon possible payment well Displaying contact information Try including icon link social medium channel contact information bottom top product page Adding chatbot page give viewer possibility immediately ask question even efficient online store Asos build trust offering free shipping 60days return policy also includes social icon footer website Bolcom present provider product build trust platform highlighting free 30day return policy 247 customer care service free shipping also includes review product page 2 Highquality imagesvideos visual representation product online store important aspect product page dealbreaker Compared physical store customer unable hold product therefore presented picture video different angle popularity video increasing highly advisable include — highquality picture video highlight best product Nike already incorporated video product page using multiple picture make sure size heightwidth ratio recommended size ecommerce picture 2048px X 2048px Include one practice improve visual representation Provide 360° view product Offer customer interactive 3D experience providing 360° view product commonly used showcasing jewelry especially handy want show detail product Include model wearing product people cannot try product buying therefore try show look successful online store include measurement model wearing item Use video show use product Adding video use product style persuasive effect potential customer Brilliant Earth offer detailed look ring 3D feature Boohoo includes picture model different angle clothes size wearing Effects use video show viewer use product indirectly need buy 3 Optimized product copy Creating fun engaging optimized product copy make online store stand among competitor successful product copy need know audience strong understanding brand familiar SEO best practice Improve copy Speaking target audience Knowing target audience dictate tone voice word use sometimes even funny product description becomes use trendy word abbreviation targeting Gen Z avoid completely writing copy attract boomer Talking value copy answer question “Why someone need product” present advantage instead feature online store Twelfth South created copy speaks millennials taking consideration buying behavior Known technologically savvy millennials tend buy latest version mobile phone loyal Apple customer come innovative headline Firebox know catch buyer’s attention creating unique fun product name Showcasing product’s value come almost naturally online store Chi Chi London product description explained could customer wear dress instead talking feature 4 Clean design distraction design product page attractive easy navigate improve website design Use tabbed navigation avoid cluttering page text present information create dropdown menu link detail product Create clear contrasting CTA’s Make call action pop making button clear different color compared text Make mobilefriendly Design product page responsive mobile device clear easy navigate smaller format online store Watches Switzerland keep product spotlight using tabbed navigation website Jackie Smith store opted colorful eyecatchy design paying attention colorful call action Warby Parker’s product page perfect example clean welldesigned ecommerce website look mobile device 5 Flawless checkout checkout process simple transparent fast score cart abandonment high consider improving checkout process Including basket summary Include review product shopping cart possibility remove moving next step Displaying progress indicator Creating overview needed step complete purchase make customer aware next step indicate soon process Offer guest checkout Offer guest checkout customer rush want create account HM offer review product beginning checkout process checkout process Etsy display progress indicator topright corner Chanel facilitates checkout process offering guest checkout Conclusion Building trust using highquality image video show product engaging visitor fun useful copy increase number prospective customer clear design product page simple checkout process lead complete purchase keeping mind target audience surely able personalize element use connect ideal customerTags Marketing Content Marketing Analytics Entrepreneurship Business |
1,246 | The Facebook Front | I joined Facebook in 2006 when a lifelong, trustworthy friend sent me a “friend request” over email. Simon wants to be your friend, the message conveyed. I was confused. “What? We’re already friends,” I thought. “What is this?”
Simon was a bit older than me, well-rounded, in that he was both extremely well-educated and artistic — a man of immense talent and wisdom. He was always articulate, and certainly not the type of person to spread chain mail, debunked hoaxes, or questionable links. As a gay man who disliked the option of online dating services, he often relayed his weariness of “things on the internet.” He especially disliked having an inbox overflowing with spam. “Inkjets and penises,” he’d repeat in a sing-song way, his exaggerated southern lilt lending the phrase extra comedic effect. “That’s all the mail I get anymore. Spam. Always the same stuff. Folks trying to sell me ink jets and penises!”
I decided to follow Simon’s link and check out “the Facebook” (back when Facebook still used “the” in front of its name), and found it was actually pretty cool. It had the look of LinkedIn, but the feel of a more casual, fun climate — nothing stuffy or professional. It definitely had the potential to be a huge time-waster with its endless rabbit holes and simple, mind-numbing games.
But it also had the special power of doing the whole ‘six degrees of separation’ thing for you, because it would suggest other “friends” who were already in your network, but whom you might not have known had an online presence anywhere. As you invited more people to be your Facebook friend, more people joined and got hooked, and in turn, invited even more people. It was a whole new concept for connecting—and finding people.
The potential was astronomical.
The very first post on my “wall” was from Simon. I remember getting the notification and the ridiculousness of feeling important for a moment. The message read, “Welcome to the face book! This can be kind of addictive!”
Right he was.
Simon’s no longer living, but every year that post shows up in my memories and makes me smile.
Image by Simon Steinberger from Pixabay
In 2006 when I joined “the face book,” I’d just given birth to my third child. I’d been fanatical about taking photos of all three kids, but had no efficient way of picking only the best ones, sorting them, compiling albums, and then sharing with family and friends spread out across the country.
Online photo services were not always user-friendly at the time, or they came and went. Nothing seemed to stick around. We’d only discovered YouTube and Blogger about a year prior. We found those to be great outlets for sharing news or home videos, and in return, I could enjoy videos of my baby nieces four states away, taking their first steps—all from the comfort of my own home. This was the next best thing…
Only, there wasn’t one platform where you could share all of it together, in the same place. I couldn’t embed YouTube videos on Blogger, for example. Adding good quality photos to a blog post wasn’t the one-step insert like it is now. Nonetheless, we embraced and enjoyed this new age of technology and sharing. It was something we couldn’t have even dreamed of having in the 80s (which, in hindsight, was definitely a good thing).
Around the time social media really exploded — about a year or two after Simon invited me to join—I noticed that a lot of folks’ portrayal of life in general seemed to explode. Towards the end of the decade, a trend was evident: the #humblebrag was exploding in popularity.
The more you scrolled, the more you saw people across social media who were overwhelmingly happy, like, all the time! Nothing bad ever happened to anyone! Everyone loved their super-satisfying jobs, their happy relationships, their immaculate homes, their loving families, their perfect pregnancies, their perfect kids, their perfect parties, their perfect vacations (which always looked expensive and lavish). It was enough to make you feel like a nobody, like your life simply paled in comparison.
This was, at least, one area of life where my psychology degree (and common sense) came in handy. I realized it was pointless to ever feel bad about my current station in life, because deep down, I knew I was doing just fine. And because I saw most of these Facebook friends in real life, I knew that they weren’t necessarily doing so fine — at least not all the time.
It didn’t make sense to believe everyone else out there was being real and honest when they showcased nothing but Brady Bunch bliss all the time. It defied all logic. What were they not sharing? What were they hiding? I realized Facebook was becoming merely a convenient “front,” a rose-tinted lens, and I started calling it “the Facebook front.”
As Facebook became less real, it became less fun.
As we Americans became more obsessed with living our lives on social media, studies started being released regarding the impact of social media on mental health. Time and again, a direct correlation was found among people who consumed lots of social media and also suffered depression or anxiety. In fact, social media was often identified as causation, or at least an accelerant, for those suffering the effects of depression and anxiety.
What became evident was that most people were merely showcasing the highlight reels of their lives, and even then, those were frequently edited, filtered, or exaggerated — if not totally fabricated.
It was all smoke and mirrors.
By using images and words that portrayed only the things people could use as #humblebrag fodder, it became apparent that people were carefully crafting their own personal brands. They were choosing this over honesty, and in the process, withholding the unfiltered, imperfect images and stories that would have more authentically reflected everyone’s reality.
We’ve all been complicit at some point. I try to keep myself in check, but fail miserably at times. I do occasionally keep it real by posting exactly how shitty things are—no filter. Surprisingly, those are the posts that resonate the most with others. Those are the posts that seem to help foster empathy. Those are the posts where people who don’t usually write anything on social media suddenly feel led to speak up and comment, “me too.”
Trying to juggle social media when you use it for your work is almost impossible. Especially if you’re a writer, actor, artist, or anyone more in the public eye, or even if you’re just job-seeking, in many cases, you need to have a digital footprint everywhere—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Since each platform uses different algorithms and methods for sharing the most relevant content in order to give each unique user the most personally-tailored experience, you have to approach each platform differently. Which is time-consuming to figure out, and exhausting to apply.
As one example, through trial and error (and time), I’ve learned that Facebook users are less likely to share the work of anyone who self-promotes, whereas Twitter users fully embrace the shameless plug approach. Almost all traffic to pieces I’ve written that exist behind a paywall have come exclusively from Twitter links, shares, and retweets. (Plus—selfish perk — Twitter offers what Facebook doesn’t: the ability to communicate directly with your favorite celebs who actually run their own accounts. A few of my original tweets and links to my work have been retweeted by some pretty awesome folks — Rosie O’Donnell, John Cusack, Patricia Arquette, Jacob Tobia, and others. That’s my only #humblebrag here, I promise.)
But when it comes to keeping up with community or local news, Facebook is far better, because it’s so much smaller. And also because anyone can form discussion or interest groups around any topic under the sun. Communities can be built that don’t otherwise exist. Facebook is superior for this.
Though an excellent case can be made for mastering just one form of social media, sticking with just one, and doing it well, I like the variety that different social media platforms offer. When I’m in a hurry, I prefer Twitter because of the fast pace and brevity. When I need a happy escape, I go to Instagram or TikTok. When I want to catch up with my closest friends, I go to Facebook, or I pick up the phone and make a call, or text. (And these are all great options when you have social anxiety, and the thought of going out in public is simply too much some days.)
Image by ijmaki from Pixabay
I’ve also found it necessary to try and balance social media use with not using it, like, going “off the grid” completely for periods of time, for restorative purposes (or because maybe you just don’t have the time, energy, or interest). But the downfall there is you miss out on info that’s personally relevant to you. I swear, every time I take a Facebook break, I seem to miss about 5 major illness or surgery events, 4 birth or death announcements, 3 major life changes, 2 career updates, and 1 person who suddenly uprooted and moved to Russia.
Like it or not, the majority of people live life on social media now.
Of course, all of social media is a delicate balancing act; you can’t post only negative stuff all the time because that’s just depressing for everyone. I’ve found that what works best is a mix of everything — everything that’s real. Glimpses of hope, especially when presented along with authentic pain, struggle, or suffering — things we all experience more often than we’d like to admit—can especially resonate with many. Which can go a really long way in cultivating and nurturing empathy. And empathy, I believe, is the one ingredient that’s largely absent in our society right now. We can all afford kindness. Even occasionally. Especially on social media. | https://medium.com/swlh/the-facebook-front-a47db708e156 | ['Martie Sirois'] | 2019-10-03 10:42:40.723000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Self', 'Social Media'] | Title Facebook FrontContent joined Facebook 2006 lifelong trustworthy friend sent “friend request” email Simon want friend message conveyed confused “What We’re already friends” thought “What this” Simon bit older wellrounded extremely welleducated artistic — man immense talent wisdom always articulate certainly type person spread chain mail debunked hoax questionable link gay man disliked option online dating service often relayed weariness “things internet” especially disliked inbox overflowing spam “Inkjets penises” he’d repeat singsong way exaggerated southern lilt lending phrase extra comedic effect “That’s mail get anymore Spam Always stuff Folks trying sell ink jet penises” decided follow Simon’s link check “the Facebook” back Facebook still used “the” front name found actually pretty cool look LinkedIn feel casual fun climate — nothing stuffy professional definitely potential huge timewaster endless rabbit hole simple mindnumbing game also special power whole ‘six degree separation’ thing would suggest “friends” already network might known online presence anywhere invited people Facebook friend people joined got hooked turn invited even people whole new concept connecting—and finding people potential astronomical first post “wall” Simon remember getting notification ridiculousness feeling important moment message read “Welcome face book kind addictive” Right Simon’s longer living every year post show memory make smile Image Simon Steinberger Pixabay 2006 joined “the face book” I’d given birth third child I’d fanatical taking photo three kid efficient way picking best one sorting compiling album sharing family friend spread across country Online photo service always userfriendly time came went Nothing seemed stick around We’d discovered YouTube Blogger year prior found great outlet sharing news home video return could enjoy video baby niece four state away taking first steps—all comfort home next best thing… wasn’t one platform could share together place couldn’t embed YouTube video Blogger example Adding good quality photo blog post wasn’t onestep insert like Nonetheless embraced enjoyed new age technology sharing something couldn’t even dreamed 80 hindsight definitely good thing Around time social medium really exploded — year two Simon invited join—I noticed lot folks’ portrayal life general seemed explode Towards end decade trend evident humblebrag exploding popularity scrolled saw people across social medium overwhelmingly happy like time Nothing bad ever happened anyone Everyone loved supersatisfying job happy relationship immaculate home loving family perfect pregnancy perfect kid perfect party perfect vacation always looked expensive lavish enough make feel like nobody like life simply paled comparison least one area life psychology degree common sense came handy realized pointless ever feel bad current station life deep knew fine saw Facebook friend real life knew weren’t necessarily fine — least time didn’t make sense believe everyone else real honest showcased nothing Brady Bunch bliss time defied logic sharing hiding realized Facebook becoming merely convenient “front” rosetinted lens started calling “the Facebook front” Facebook became le real became le fun Americans became obsessed living life social medium study started released regarding impact social medium mental health Time direct correlation found among people consumed lot social medium also suffered depression anxiety fact social medium often identified causation least accelerant suffering effect depression anxiety became evident people merely showcasing highlight reel life even frequently edited filtered exaggerated — totally fabricated smoke mirror using image word portrayed thing people could use humblebrag fodder became apparent people carefully crafting personal brand choosing honesty process withholding unfiltered imperfect image story would authentically reflected everyone’s reality We’ve complicit point try keep check fail miserably time occasionally keep real posting exactly shitty thing are—no filter Surprisingly post resonate others post seem help foster empathy post people don’t usually write anything social medium suddenly feel led speak comment “me too” Trying juggle social medium use work almost impossible Especially you’re writer actor artist anyone public eye even you’re jobseeking many case need digital footprint everywhere—Instagram Twitter Facebook LinkedIn etc Since platform us different algorithm method sharing relevant content order give unique user personallytailored experience approach platform differently timeconsuming figure exhausting apply one example trial error time I’ve learned Facebook user le likely share work anyone selfpromotes whereas Twitter user fully embrace shameless plug approach Almost traffic piece I’ve written exist behind paywall come exclusively Twitter link share retweets Plus—selfish perk — Twitter offer Facebook doesn’t ability communicate directly favorite celebs actually run account original tweet link work retweeted pretty awesome folk — Rosie O’Donnell John Cusack Patricia Arquette Jacob Tobia others That’s humblebrag promise come keeping community local news Facebook far better it’s much smaller also anyone form discussion interest group around topic sun Communities built don’t otherwise exist Facebook superior Though excellent case made mastering one form social medium sticking one well like variety different social medium platform offer I’m hurry prefer Twitter fast pace brevity need happy escape go Instagram TikTok want catch closest friend go Facebook pick phone make call text great option social anxiety thought going public simply much day Image ijmaki Pixabay I’ve also found necessary try balance social medium use using like going “off grid” completely period time restorative purpose maybe don’t time energy interest downfall miss info that’s personally relevant swear every time take Facebook break seem miss 5 major illness surgery event 4 birth death announcement 3 major life change 2 career update 1 person suddenly uprooted moved Russia Like majority people live life social medium course social medium delicate balancing act can’t post negative stuff time that’s depressing everyone I’ve found work best mix everything — everything that’s real Glimpses hope especially presented along authentic pain struggle suffering — thing experience often we’d like admit—can especially resonate many go really long way cultivating nurturing empathy empathy believe one ingredient that’s largely absent society right afford kindness Even occasionally Especially social mediaTags Society Mental Health Culture Self Social Media |
1,247 | You Probably Are a Terrible Writer, but Don’t Let That Stop You | What if You ARE a terrible writer?
Sometimes there is worth in assuming the worst. At least insofar as it can be clarifying. Apart from the question of being terrible, I had to consider what it would mean if I was correct in my suspected terribleness. This self-examination led me to conclude that ultimately, I did not care. You shouldn’t either.
It turns out that rejection is not so bad. Or at least, it is extremely survivable and not as bad as you think. If you are rejected for a publication, you can write more and submit again. If you self-publish your work and it does not gain an audience, you can write and publish more until you do find an audience.
In either case, your family and friends will still love you, and your prospective readers will still be out there. The worst that will happen if your work is terrible is that no one will read it. That’s it. Nothing else will happen. No one will cut you off. There will be no grassroots campaign to keep you from your keyboard.
If you are a terrible writer, you can either give up or get better.
I vote for getting better. The only way to accomplish this is to write more. Also, you have to start letting people read your work. If you have a chance to submit a story, do so. If you have an article you want to publish, do it. Even if you are terrible, hiding your words from the world won’t help. Writing and publishing more will.
The internet can help you improve as a writer because there are nearly endless opportunities to get your work out there. Your work will either be viewed, or it won’t. This equates to real-world, real-time feedback. If you keep at it, you can use this to drive your progress.
But please stop keeping all of your written work to yourself. This is the only action that will keep you from improving. Now, let me tell you something you’ve been afraid to hear:
You are a terrible writer.
See how easily you survived? Now, please write and share your work. I know I will. | https://medium.com/bulletproof-writers/you-probably-are-a-terrible-writer-but-dont-let-that-stop-you-76854ea98bbe | ['Adam Rains'] | 2020-11-30 21:04:17.199000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Creativity Tips', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] | Title Probably Terrible Writer Don’t Let Stop YouContent terrible writer Sometimes worth assuming worst least insofar clarifying Apart question terrible consider would mean correct suspected terribleness selfexamination led conclude ultimately care shouldn’t either turn rejection bad least extremely survivable bad think rejected publication write submit selfpublish work gain audience write publish find audience either case family friend still love prospective reader still worst happen work terrible one read That’s Nothing else happen one cut grassroots campaign keep keyboard terrible writer either give get better vote getting better way accomplish write Also start letting people read work chance submit story article want publish Even terrible hiding word world won’t help Writing publishing internet help improve writer nearly endless opportunity get work work either viewed won’t equates realworld realtime feedback keep use drive progress please stop keeping written work action keep improving let tell something you’ve afraid hear terrible writer See easily survived please write share work know willTags Creativity Creativity Tips Writing Tips Writing |
1,248 | 7 Things You Need To Do To Have Consistently Incredible Evenings | 1 || Put your phone to bed early in the evening
We’ve all heard of the psychological effects of using screens before bed, but they’re usually focused on eye strain and blue light — not about how damaging it can be to be followed around by a pestering technological device 24/7. While most studies point to the time spent on technology as irrelevant, it’s important to note how much time you spend thinking about things related to technology.
In the evenings, how often do you spend time thinking about that work project you have due tomorrow, that assignment you need to wrap up, that text you’re expecting, or the emails you have to check? When you’re thinking about those things as much as you do, you might as well go ahead and check your email, finish that assignment, start your workday, or send a text yourself.
“But with no iPhone to keep my mind wired, I was able to tune into my body and fall asleep according to its needs. Every single night of the experiment, I conked out within 10 minutes of getting in bed. And I didn’t make the connection at the time, but my stories were all written well before their deadlines that week.” — Amanda Montell, “The Benefits of Having an iPhone-Free Bedroom”
plugging in your phone/laptop in another room
2 || Don’t start projects too late
Put work away and don’t start something you know you won’t be able to finish. One thing I’ve found having more regular hours for my job as of late is how detrimental it can be to my evenings to haphazardly start work — especially harder projects that aren’t as urgent as I make them out to be. If there’s something big you need to get done, don’t forget to check and see if it could be done later in the week, before work one day, or earlier in the afternoon.
“If you do nothing else, plan each day of your life with intention, purpose, and passion.”― Jeff Sanders
One trick I’ve found useful, one that’s used by the likes of Jeff Sanders, podcaster behind The 5 am Miracle show, is an end time to the work day. Basically, barring an unprecedented event, at a certain amount of time — you stop working. Whether that’s 6 pm or 4 pm, you don’t do work at that point.
You can also change how you define that. Maybe work for your real job isn’t allowed after 4 pm, and you only allow yourself to write your novel or your blog. However, you want to define that, stick to your plan. You may be thinking, though, “I won’t have time for my work” or “I’ll never finish my projects.”
“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” — Sydney J. Harris, journalist
While that might be the case and you might need to allow more time to get work done, setting a boundary will actually allow you to work more efficiently in the time you’ve allotted for it. Whatever you do, don’t start new work too late in the day. Aim to start early, finish early, and have time to do what you need to do to relax and settle down in the evenings.
3 || Respect a boundary between work and play
One really hard thing, closely tied to projects started too late, is maintaining a healthy boundary between work and play. I have vivid memories of growing up, watching TV with my family, and all of us being on devices, doing work, school, or a personal project that would have been much more enjoyed and efficiently completed without a distracting show in the background.
“W ork refers to the effort someone makes that has value to the person or society or a sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve and objective or result. Play can be described as any activity someone finds enjoyable and interesting and is valuable in itself for that reason.” — Montessori Child Development Center
Not everything you do needs to be a side hustle. Some things can be done just for fun. One thing that really changed my life for the better towards the end of high school and on into college was the realization that I could write and not worry about doing it for the money.
While I write a blog here as part of my work and am paid for other writing projects, I write fiction for fun — and freeing myself of the hustling aspect has helped me to enjoy myself so much more. It’s also allowed my evening writing time to be spent much more restfully.
4 || Look over/create your plan for the next day
Many people point to the issue of willpower that can become a problem in the morning. If you happen to wake up tired and groggier than usual, having a preset plan to rely on can really save the day. And while you can save some of the planning for the morning of, assessing your current mood and anything that’s come up/come to your mind during your sleep, you can already have a list of things to do, or a calendar with your pre-arranged commitments filled in.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”― Yogi Berra
Also, if you happen to wake up a little out of it or otherwise unprepared for the day, you have a plan that you can rely on to get you started — something you’ve thought about beforehand that you can launch into as soon as you wake up. Even if you prefer to plan in the morning, you can at least already have an idea of what your day is going to look like, and leave it to your sleeping self to think of where all the pieces should go.
5 || Enjoy yourself
I know, I know —maybe it’s obvious, but in a world that’s so focused on extreme productivity, going to bed early, and setting yourself apart, it’s difficult to remember that we are designed to relax, reset, and recharge in ways that differ depending on our personality.
Whatever your relaxer of choice is, make sure you make time for it in your evening. That will do you a lot more good than spending an unfocused hour on work or being distracted by email while trying to play with your kids.
“While accomplishing your dreams, don’t forget to enjoy life too.” — Unknown
Whether relaxing is watching a film once a week with your wife, playing a game with your kids before bed, reading a novel, watching a comedy sketch, or talking to an old friend on the phone, find something that fills your soul of and gives you the opposite of stress in your life. It’s worth making time for.
6 || Be realistic with what you can make happen
Let’s be rea,l if you get home from your day job or other vocation-related commitment at 5 pm, and you aim to go to bed at 9 pm every evening, you only have four hours. That’s one hour for dinner, one hour for your spouse, one hour for reading and relaxing and getting ready for bed, and one hour for something else.
“You can do anything, but not everything.” — David Allen
You can’t realistically spend four hours rigorously writing your novel with that kind of schedule. If you can, try and give yourself thirty minutes and really focus on it. That will probably yield much better results and be a much more regular occurrence in your schedule because it fits fairly easily in the time you have.
Some things you’re going to have to reserve for the morning, others for the weekend, and more until you maybe have fewer hours or are on a break/vacation of some sort. Being realistic isn’t always fun, but it’ll yield the best results, give you the least amount of steps, and give you realistic increments of time to do what you need to do.
7 || Reset for the next day
This involves more than just planning for tomorrow. This can be laying out your clothes for the next day, prepping your gym bag so you’ll face less resistance to working out the following day, doing your laundry, cleaning the kitchen, whatever you need to do to create a fresh start for the next day.
[Read: 7 Things You Need To Do To Have Consistently Incredible Mornings]
Whatever you need to do to make tomorrow amazing, make sure you squeeze that into your morning routine. Some go as far as to get a light dimmer for their light switches that will turn on lights in the morning, an Alexa with a routine set to wake you up, or some other system that will alert you to the time and encourage you to start the day.
While in the end, tomorrow lies in the hands of tomorrow, there’s no reason you can’t start preparing for it the day before.
Have a great evening! | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/7-things-you-need-to-do-to-have-consistently-incredible-evenings-4774e8dedaab | ['Katie E. Lawrence'] | 2020-12-22 03:02:13.073000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Life', 'Technology', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity'] | Title 7 Things Need Consistently Incredible EveningsContent 1 Put phone bed early evening We’ve heard psychological effect using screen bed they’re usually focused eye strain blue light — damaging followed around pestering technological device 247 study point time spent technology irrelevant it’s important note much time spend thinking thing related technology evening often spend time thinking work project due tomorrow assignment need wrap text you’re expecting email check you’re thinking thing much might well go ahead check email finish assignment start workday send text “But iPhone keep mind wired able tune body fall asleep according need Every single night experiment conked within 10 minute getting bed didn’t make connection time story written well deadline week” — Amanda Montell “The Benefits iPhoneFree Bedroom” plugging phonelaptop another room 2 Don’t start project late Put work away don’t start something know won’t able finish One thing I’ve found regular hour job late detrimental evening haphazardly start work — especially harder project aren’t urgent make there’s something big need get done don’t forget check see could done later week work one day earlier afternoon “If nothing else plan day life intention purpose passion”― Jeff Sanders One trick I’ve found useful one that’s used like Jeff Sanders podcaster behind 5 Miracle show end time work day Basically barring unprecedented event certain amount time — stop working Whether that’s 6 pm 4 pm don’t work point also change define Maybe work real job isn’t allowed 4 pm allow write novel blog However want define stick plan may thinking though “I won’t time work” “I’ll never finish projects” “Regret thing tempered time regret thing inconsolable” — Sydney J Harris journalist might case might need allow time get work done setting boundary actually allow work efficiently time you’ve allotted Whatever don’t start new work late day Aim start early finish early time need relax settle evening 3 Respect boundary work play One really hard thing closely tied project started late maintaining healthy boundary work play vivid memory growing watching TV family u device work school personal project would much enjoyed efficiently completed without distracting show background “W ork refers effort someone make value person society sustained physical mental effort overcome obstacle achieve objective result Play described activity someone find enjoyable interesting valuable reason” — Montessori Child Development Center everything need side hustle thing done fun One thing really changed life better towards end high school college realization could write worry money write blog part work paid writing project write fiction fun — freeing hustling aspect helped enjoy much It’s also allowed evening writing time spent much restfully 4 Look overcreate plan next day Many people point issue willpower become problem morning happen wake tired groggier usual preset plan rely really save day save planning morning assessing current mood anything that’s come upcome mind sleep already list thing calendar prearranged commitment filled “If don’t know going you’ll end someplace else”― Yogi Berra Also happen wake little otherwise unprepared day plan rely get started — something you’ve thought beforehand launch soon wake Even prefer plan morning least already idea day going look like leave sleeping self think piece go 5 Enjoy know know —maybe it’s obvious world that’s focused extreme productivity going bed early setting apart it’s difficult remember designed relax reset recharge way differ depending personality Whatever relaxer choice make sure make time evening lot good spending unfocused hour work distracted email trying play kid “While accomplishing dream don’t forget enjoy life too” — Unknown Whether relaxing watching film week wife playing game kid bed reading novel watching comedy sketch talking old friend phone find something fill soul give opposite stress life It’s worth making time 6 realistic make happen Let’s real get home day job vocationrelated commitment 5 pm aim go bed 9 pm every evening four hour That’s one hour dinner one hour spouse one hour reading relaxing getting ready bed one hour something else “You anything everything” — David Allen can’t realistically spend four hour rigorously writing novel kind schedule try give thirty minute really focus probably yield much better result much regular occurrence schedule fit fairly easily time thing you’re going reserve morning others weekend maybe fewer hour breakvacation sort realistic isn’t always fun it’ll yield best result give least amount step give realistic increment time need 7 Reset next day involves planning tomorrow laying clothes next day prepping gym bag you’ll face le resistance working following day laundry cleaning kitchen whatever need create fresh start next day Read 7 Things Need Consistently Incredible Mornings Whatever need make tomorrow amazing make sure squeeze morning routine go far get light dimmer light switch turn light morning Alexa routine set wake system alert time encourage start day end tomorrow lie hand tomorrow there’s reason can’t start preparing day great eveningTags Health Life Technology Self Improvement Productivity |
1,249 | Here’s How I Use Natural Language Processing In Stock Price Analysis | Here’s How I Use Natural Language Processing In Stock Price Analysis
Using NLP and Granger causality to analyze the relationship between the sentiment of a written article and a stock’s price
Image by Trist’n Joseph
Being able to accurately predict the stock market is like being able to see into the future. Stock market prediction refers to the act of attempting to determine the future value of a company’s stock that is traded on an exchange. However, being able to accurately predict the stock market is like being able to ride a purple unicorn; that is, it probably is not possible.
There are way too many factors to consider which can affect a stock’s price and building a model that consists of all these factors will likely produce poor predictions in the long run. Because of this, I do not think that the goal should be to accurately predict the stock market. Rather, it should be to determine and understand the factors which have the greatest influence on the stock market’s fluctuations.
Image by Trist’n Joseph
It is quite common to hear that a stock’s price is nothing more than a random walk and thus, it cannot be predicted. Whether this is true or not, I believe that it is possible for key external events to have a significant impact on a stock’s price. Understanding and investigating these events could lead to understanding a stock’s movement better; even understanding just 1% more of these factors could imply significant returns.
A potential issue, however, is that is it not usually immediately clear what information is relevant to a particular problem. This kind of information can be referred to as alternative data. In the world of finance, alternative data is referred to as information that is beyond the typical company filings, earnings calls, or fundamental data sets.
The use of alternative data in the finance industry is rapidly growing as investors are looking for new signals which can give them an edge over their competitors. In other words, analysts might just be able to ride a purple unicorn if they can effectively utilize an appropriate set of alternative data.
Image bt Trist’n Joseph
Since June 2020, I have been working on a project to understand the power of natural language processing (NLP) in the context of the stock market’s movements. My motivation for this comes from the fact that the stock market is a forward-looking instrument. This means that it does not reflect a financial market’s current situation, but it reflects an investor’s outlook on that financial market. If investors generally believe that Apple will be successful in the future, they will invest in Apple now and the stock’s price will increase over time (granted that Apple is successful and holding all other factors constant).
This project has definitely been a work in progress, and I have previously published two articles where I outlined my findings as they developed. I suggest looking at those articles for greater context on this one (links in the reference section). As a summary, I collected articles that were published about Apple and Exxon Mobil, calculated the daily sentiment of those articles, and then used these values (along with stock volume data) to predict the stock price for the following day.
I found that by using this method I was able to somewhat predict both the stock price and the day-to-day absolute value price change of the stock. | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/heres-how-i-use-natural-language-processing-in-stock-price-analysis-a58c4b160e8c | ["Trist'N Joseph"] | 2020-12-18 19:19:58.097000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Data Science', 'Stock Market'] | Title Here’s Use Natural Language Processing Stock Price AnalysisContent Here’s Use Natural Language Processing Stock Price Analysis Using NLP Granger causality analyze relationship sentiment written article stock’s price Image Trist’n Joseph able accurately predict stock market like able see future Stock market prediction refers act attempting determine future value company’s stock traded exchange However able accurately predict stock market like able ride purple unicorn probably possible way many factor consider affect stock’s price building model consists factor likely produce poor prediction long run think goal accurately predict stock market Rather determine understand factor greatest influence stock market’s fluctuation Image Trist’n Joseph quite common hear stock’s price nothing random walk thus cannot predicted Whether true believe possible key external event significant impact stock’s price Understanding investigating event could lead understanding stock’s movement better even understanding 1 factor could imply significant return potential issue however usually immediately clear information relevant particular problem kind information referred alternative data world finance alternative data referred information beyond typical company filing earnings call fundamental data set use alternative data finance industry rapidly growing investor looking new signal give edge competitor word analyst might able ride purple unicorn effectively utilize appropriate set alternative data Image bt Trist’n Joseph Since June 2020 working project understand power natural language processing NLP context stock market’s movement motivation come fact stock market forwardlooking instrument mean reflect financial market’s current situation reflects investor’s outlook financial market investor generally believe Apple successful future invest Apple stock’s price increase time granted Apple successful holding factor constant project definitely work progress previously published two article outlined finding developed suggest looking article greater context one link reference section summary collected article published Apple Exxon Mobil calculated daily sentiment article used value along stock volume data predict stock price following day found using method able somewhat predict stock price daytoday absolute value price change stockTags Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence AI Data Science Stock Market |
1,250 | Notes from the field of visual health mapping | Helping doctors get to know patients and make them memorable
As I start to work directly with more doctors through this process — namely Sunjya Schweig of the California Center for Functional Medicine and some local VA doctors I’m currently collaborating with — I’m learning more about how this process helps them. Aside from the obvious (things like making appointments more efficient and saving them time digging through the medical record), I’ve recently heard that the visuals make patients’ stories more tangible and memorable:
“It makes my intake easier, and even more interesting to me is the way the patient’s case is much better retained in my memory. For the two cases who came in during the last couple weeks with visualizations, I can still remember the story in detail. This is not the case for my normal patients where everything blends together and I don’t retain the details as well when not looking at the chart.”
–Dr. Schweig
This makes sense. The visuals provide an additional modality that helps doctors commit to memory what they’ve learned about the patient. I’ll quote this article from Psychology Today:
“A large body of research indicates that visual cues help us to better retrieve and remember information. The research outcomes on visual learning make complete sense when you consider that our brain is mainly an image processor (much of our sensory cortex is devoted to vision), not a word processor. In fact, the part of the brain used to process words is quite small in comparison to the part that processes visual images.”
In addition to helping doctors remember their patients better, it also helps them better understand their patients ‘as people’:
“I’m finding these really helpful for getting to know patients better, especially with regard to work and social history.”
–VA Psychiatrist
For the three veterans I’ve worked with so far, it’s been helpful to map out their work history. I don’t do this with most people, but it felt significant to their story. Two of them had long-term work-related chemical exposures that seemed potentially related to their cognitive and memory loss symptoms.
Two also had impressive careers that involved building and making things; they love working with their hands and solving problems, and have continued to do so into retirement. For both of them, their health has interfered with their ability to do this work, which has left them feeling depressed and unfulfilled. I made sure to articulate this in their story and pass this along to their doctors. As doctors try to help mitigate the pain of illness, it’s helpful for them to understand not only physical sensations but psychological impacts and losses; that way, they can hopefully be more effective in helping to improve patients’ quality of life.
It is always a pleasure to learn from the people who have entrusted me with their health histories. Thanks to them, and also to you for reading. I’d love to know what you think — feel free to leave me a comment below or learn more at pictalhealth.com. | https://medium.com/pictal-health/notes-from-the-field-of-visual-health-mapping-d9995b91b842 | ['Katie Mccurdy'] | 2019-07-23 13:52:43.112000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Healthcare', 'Patient Experience', 'Healthcare Innovations', 'Design'] | Title Notes field visual health mappingContent Helping doctor get know patient make memorable start work directly doctor process — namely Sunjya Schweig California Center Functional Medicine local VA doctor I’m currently collaborating — I’m learning process help Aside obvious thing like making appointment efficient saving time digging medical record I’ve recently heard visuals make patients’ story tangible memorable “It make intake easier even interesting way patient’s case much better retained memory two case came last couple week visualization still remember story detail case normal patient everything blend together don’t retain detail well looking chart” –Dr Schweig make sense visuals provide additional modality help doctor commit memory they’ve learned patient I’ll quote article Psychology Today “A large body research indicates visual cue help u better retrieve remember information research outcome visual learning make complete sense consider brain mainly image processor much sensory cortex devoted vision word processor fact part brain used process word quite small comparison part process visual images” addition helping doctor remember patient better also help better understand patient ‘as people’ “I’m finding really helpful getting know patient better especially regard work social history” –VA Psychiatrist three veteran I’ve worked far it’s helpful map work history don’t people felt significant story Two longterm workrelated chemical exposure seemed potentially related cognitive memory loss symptom Two also impressive career involved building making thing love working hand solving problem continued retirement health interfered ability work left feeling depressed unfulfilled made sure articulate story pas along doctor doctor try help mitigate pain illness it’s helpful understand physical sensation psychological impact loss way hopefully effective helping improve patients’ quality life always pleasure learn people entrusted health history Thanks also reading I’d love know think — feel free leave comment learn pictalhealthcomTags Health Healthcare Patient Experience Healthcare Innovations Design |
1,251 | How to level up your UI design skills | There was a point when I had a breakdown over my UI design skills. I was working on multiple projects back then, mostly early-stage startups. I knew that my designs were technically fine and at a level that could be successfully used elsewhere. In this article, I will pinpoint a few ideas for how you can leverage your UI design skills that I wish I had known back then.
Words that make a difference
Due to the high pace I had to deal with, as well as the start-up clients that sometimes seemed not to be very passionate about their new businesses, I mainly opted for popular and hackneyed typefaces. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea, unless your choices have concrete reasons. Yes, there are lots of attractive products that use popular typeface choices like Lato, Roboto or San Francisco, but this choice should always be thought through.
Typography is undoubtedly the most distinctive layer of UI design. Don’t be afraid to experiment with various typefaces or try different pairing ideas. Even a relatively small change like this may dramatically impact the whole perception of your designs. It sounds quite obvious, but always try to use real content. Don’t have access to world-class copywriters? Fake it till you make it.
TheHub — Website by Martin Strba
The devil is in the details
Another aspect that made my designs look ordinary was essentially the lack of branding. There were a few factors that contributed to this. The main ones were the lack of budget for proper branding and the lack of vision. No, not every start-up needs $150k brand guidelines from day one, especially for an MVP, but without any “spice”, your designs will fail to stand out.
What can you do without any clients’ preferences or brand guidelines? Make sure that the typeface and colour scheme match with your product’s personality. An app for booking doctors’ appointments won’t look good with orange colours and a quirky typeface. The same goes for an app for crypto traders; it won’t look good with pastel colours and an elegant, serif typeface. You can consider using a complementary icon set or a pattern that will add a personal touch.
The ability to adapt
Low-contrast is becoming an emerging and well-known design trend, and not only on Dribbble. It sacrifices readability for aesthetics, which strains our eyes even more and makes our designs less accessible to users. Insufficient contrast degrades the user experience along with discoverability and confidence. Have you ever used your phone outside? It’s obviously a rhetorical question, but designers often forget about this context.
It’s fairly simple to design for high-resolution retina displays and validate our designs on our newest iPhone in an office with bright light all over the place. We often forget that not every user has the newest device, nor will they always be using our apps in a closed room. Low-contrast text is nearly impossible to read outside. Another aspect to keep in mind is designing for dark mode. Negative contrast polarity is growing in popularity. Not only does it save our battery but it increases the readability as well. Our designs should also be adaptable to dark colour schemes.
Design unification
Although this could be a separate article or even a series of articles, consistency and cooperation with developers is crucial to your workflow. It’s fairly easy to lose track of all the components you’re using within your designs and forget to communicate certain parts of your work well enough. That’s why you should always try to document your work in a way that’s accessible to every team member. You can do it in many ways.
Start by documenting all the design tokens you’re using. Make sure that every component you’re using for your design has different states. Create a page that will be the one source of truth for your developers when it comes to the typography, colours, icons and grids. This will not only save their time, but will also allow you to think of the project more holistically. Constraints can actually make you more creative than you might have thought.
Focus is also a design skill
We are humans, not robots. The ability to focus on one thing at a time is now more difficult than ever before. Constant notifications on your phone and computer are becoming bright moments of pseudo pleasure. At the same time you need to be familiar with lots of UX patterns and ideas. Not only does this speed up your work, but it also lets you improve the detail in your designs.
My tool of choice is time blocking. I divide parts of my day into smaller chunks that will be spent on one type of task. I personally prefer using 2h blocks, but you should experiment with various time frames. You can mark your time in an application like Google Calendar or the default calendar app on Mac, but a paper version will also do the job.
Improving your skills takes a lot of practice and patience. Leveraging these skills step-by-step will allow you to produce high-quality work. Never forget to listen to others’ feedback, not only from designers. Think of your projects in a broader way; they are digital products, not just collections of screens. | https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-level-up-your-ui-design-skills-696f00e30ef9 | ['Jakub Wojnar-Płeszka'] | 2020-10-15 18:04:43.999000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'UI', 'UI Design', 'Productivity', 'Product Design'] | Title level UI design skillsContent point breakdown UI design skill working multiple project back mostly earlystage startup knew design technically fine level could successfully used elsewhere article pinpoint idea leverage UI design skill wish known back Words make difference Due high pace deal well startup client sometimes seemed passionate new business mainly opted popular hackneyed typeface isn’t necessarily bad idea unless choice concrete reason Yes lot attractive product use popular typeface choice like Lato Roboto San Francisco choice always thought Typography undoubtedly distinctive layer UI design Don’t afraid experiment various typeface try different pairing idea Even relatively small change like may dramatically impact whole perception design sound quite obvious always try use real content Don’t access worldclass copywriter Fake till make TheHub — Website Martin Strba devil detail Another aspect made design look ordinary essentially lack branding factor contributed main one lack budget proper branding lack vision every startup need 150k brand guideline day one especially MVP without “spice” design fail stand without clients’ preference brand guideline Make sure typeface colour scheme match product’s personality app booking doctors’ appointment won’t look good orange colour quirky typeface go app crypto trader won’t look good pastel colour elegant serif typeface consider using complementary icon set pattern add personal touch ability adapt Lowcontrast becoming emerging wellknown design trend Dribbble sacrifice readability aesthetic strain eye even make design le accessible user Insufficient contrast degrades user experience along discoverability confidence ever used phone outside It’s obviously rhetorical question designer often forget context It’s fairly simple design highresolution retina display validate design newest iPhone office bright light place often forget every user newest device always using apps closed room Lowcontrast text nearly impossible read outside Another aspect keep mind designing dark mode Negative contrast polarity growing popularity save battery increase readability well design also adaptable dark colour scheme Design unification Although could separate article even series article consistency cooperation developer crucial workflow It’s fairly easy lose track component you’re using within design forget communicate certain part work well enough That’s always try document work way that’s accessible every team member many way Start documenting design token you’re using Make sure every component you’re using design different state Create page one source truth developer come typography colour icon grid save time also allow think project holistically Constraints actually make creative might thought Focus also design skill human robot ability focus one thing time difficult ever Constant notification phone computer becoming bright moment pseudo pleasure time need familiar lot UX pattern idea speed work also let improve detail design tool choice time blocking divide part day smaller chunk spent one type task personally prefer using 2h block experiment various time frame mark time application like Google Calendar default calendar app Mac paper version also job Improving skill take lot practice patience Leveraging skill stepbystep allow produce highquality work Never forget listen others’ feedback designer Think project broader way digital product collection screensTags Creativity UI UI Design Productivity Product Design |
1,252 | Trump Administration Admits They Can’t Control the Pandemic | Trump Administration Admits They Can’t Control the Pandemic
The president needs a vaccine to bail out his incompetence.
America, your long national nightmare isn’t quite over. Not yet. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s admission that the Trump administration is powerless to control the pandemic and merely waiting for a vaccine is nothing short of unconditional surrender. Welcome to Trump’s America where walls are never built and problems are kicked down the road until someone else solves them.
Imagine if John F. Kennedy had said, “We choose not to go to the Moon in this decade because it is hard.” Science is complicated and sciencing takes a lot of brainpower, whether it be designing a rocketship or curing a disease. Given that degree of difficulty, Trump decided to make America wait again.
To be fair, he valiantly fought his way through his own Coronavirus contraction and has returned to throwing superspreader events with thousands of acolytes in attendance. MAGA hats are recommended but masks are optional. He and Mike Pence soldier on with their 2020 campaigning, despite Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, Pence’s close aide Zach Bauer, and three others testing positive for the virus. With Pence needing to stump for Trump in Minnesota and the Carolinas this week, he’s ignored CDC guidelines, leading Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to admit what many of us already suspected.
We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.
The Trump approach is akin to the basketball adage ‘You can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him.’ Except instead of contain, Trump’s team is running a let-him-score-at-will defensive formation, while awaiting a medical Hail Mary.
I’m mixing my sports metaphors almost as fast as this administration mixes its messages. At last week’s presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed the US is ‘rounding the curve’ in its fight against COVID-19 and a vaccine is weeks away, or very, very soon, or by the end of the year, or by April 2021. Regardless, someday in the future, we will have a vaccine, but the important part is the US is rounding the curve. This is important because one day after he said that, the US recorded the ‘highest number of Coronavirus cases in one day since the pandemic began.’ Geometry was never my strong suit, but this curve we’re on looks suspiciously like a spike.
I’m being harsh on Chief of Staff Meadows and the rest of the Trump administration. You can’t hope to control a pandemic with masks, social distancing, and a thoughtful sense of community spirit. That would be, what’s the word? No, not malarkey. That would be samfundssind! Yes, that’s it.
Samfundssind isn’t the result of the three espressos I shotgunned as I sat down to write, but it is a Danish term defined as “putting the concern of society higher than one’s own interests.” Social mindedness has been all the rage in Denmark in 2020. Back on March 11th, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference, stating the following:
We have to stand together by keeping our distance. We need community spirit. We need help. I would like to thank… all who have so far shown that this is exactly what we have in Denmark — samfundssind.
Unlike many in the MAGA crowd who insist you’re going to have to pry their mask from their cold, dead conspiracy theory, Danes responded ‘enthusiastically.’ They complied with government guidelines like a bunch of grown-ups! This resulted in Denmark being one of the first European countries to re-open schools while keeping COVID-19 deaths below 700 and maintaining ‘relatively low’ infection rates. They believe that by valuing society over the individual, all the individuals benefit and it’s working! Seems the only thing rotten in the state of Denmark is the stench of infection wafting across the Atlantic from the US.
There have been 223,378 new Coronavirus cases reported in the US since Thursday night’s debate. Despite medical experts stressing masks help reduce the risk of infection, the idea of asking a Republican-leaning American to make sacrifices of anything other than possibly their lives at a Trump rally, and signing a liability waiver before they do it, is unthinkable in Trump’s America. Personal accountability is something for those people who need to stop leeching off the welfare system and pull themselves up by their economic bootstraps. A real American can’t be told to wear a mask for the health of the country. A real American can’t even be asked to think about eating a few more vegetables at dinner. America is the land of optional masks, all meat platters, and an exorbitantly expensive healthcare system that no human can possibly explain why it’s so pricey.
A cure will happen, but perhaps not until Trump turns over his tax returns. But before you dismiss Trump as a candidate of broken promises, remember he gave corporations and rich Americans their tax cuts, he pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, he stacked the Supreme Court with right-leaning justices, and he slashed environmental regulations. According to Gallup polling, this is enough to keep 56% of the country happy, thinking they are better off now than they were four years ago.
You can scoff at Trump and Pence for appearing to wave the white flag in their battle against COVID-19, but many maskless Americans breathe easier knowing those two are in charge. Furthermore, many see Trump as sympathizing with their current social and economic plights, even if he does it from a palatial suite in Mar-a-Lago. When they attend one of Trump’s mask optional rallies, they pack in tightly, their unprotected faces shining statements of freedom that proclaim, “Give me liberty or give me death,” for which they’ve already signed a waiver. | https://thebrianabbey.medium.com/trump-administration-admits-they-cant-control-the-pandemic-656f1da010c7 | ['Brian Abbey'] | 2020-10-26 15:24:58.880000+00:00 | ['Election 2020', 'Politics', 'Health', 'Coronavirus', 'Culture'] | Title Trump Administration Admits Can’t Control PandemicContent Trump Administration Admits Can’t Control Pandemic president need vaccine bail incompetence America long national nightmare isn’t quite yet White House Chief Staff Mark Meadows’s admission Trump administration powerless control pandemic merely waiting vaccine nothing short unconditional surrender Welcome Trump’s America wall never built problem kicked road someone else solves Imagine John F Kennedy said “We choose go Moon decade hard” Science complicated sciencing take lot brainpower whether designing rocketship curing disease Given degree difficulty Trump decided make America wait fair valiantly fought way Coronavirus contraction returned throwing superspreader event thousand acolyte attendance MAGA hat recommended mask optional Mike Pence soldier 2020 campaigning despite Mike Pence’s chief staff Marc Short Pence’s close aide Zach Bauer three others testing positive virus Pence needing stump Trump Minnesota Carolinas week he’s ignored CDC guideline leading Chief Staff Mark Meadows admit many u already suspected going control pandemic going control fact get vaccine therapeutic mitigation area Trump approach akin basketball adage ‘You can’t stop hope contain him’ Except instead contain Trump’s team running lethimscoreatwill defensive formation awaiting medical Hail Mary I’m mixing sport metaphor almost fast administration mix message last week’s presidential debate Donald Trump claimed US ‘rounding curve’ fight COVID19 vaccine week away soon end year April 2021 Regardless someday future vaccine important part US rounding curve important one day said US recorded ‘highest number Coronavirus case one day since pandemic began’ Geometry never strong suit curve we’re look suspiciously like spike I’m harsh Chief Staff Meadows rest Trump administration can’t hope control pandemic mask social distancing thoughtful sense community spirit would what’s word malarkey would samfundssind Yes that’s Samfundssind isn’t result three espresso shotgunned sat write Danish term defined “putting concern society higher one’s interests” Social mindedness rage Denmark 2020 Back March 11th Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held press conference stating following stand together keeping distance need community spirit need help would like thank… far shown exactly Denmark — samfundssind Unlike many MAGA crowd insist you’re going pry mask cold dead conspiracy theory Danes responded ‘enthusiastically’ complied government guideline like bunch grownup resulted Denmark one first European country reopen school keeping COVID19 death 700 maintaining ‘relatively low’ infection rate believe valuing society individual individual benefit it’s working Seems thing rotten state Denmark stench infection wafting across Atlantic US 223378 new Coronavirus case reported US since Thursday night’s debate Despite medical expert stressing mask help reduce risk infection idea asking Republicanleaning American make sacrifice anything possibly life Trump rally signing liability waiver unthinkable Trump’s America Personal accountability something people need stop leeching welfare system pull economic bootstrap real American can’t told wear mask health country real American can’t even asked think eating vegetable dinner America land optional mask meat platter exorbitantly expensive healthcare system human possibly explain it’s pricey cure happen perhaps Trump turn tax return dismiss Trump candidate broken promise remember gave corporation rich Americans tax cut pulled US Paris Climate Agreement stacked Supreme Court rightleaning justice slashed environmental regulation According Gallup polling enough keep 56 country happy thinking better four year ago scoff Trump Pence appearing wave white flag battle COVID19 many maskless Americans breathe easier knowing two charge Furthermore many see Trump sympathizing current social economic plight even palatial suite MaraLago attend one Trump’s mask optional rally pack tightly unprotected face shining statement freedom proclaim “Give liberty give death” they’ve already signed waiverTags Election 2020 Politics Health Coronavirus Culture |
1,253 | Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music | Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music
A scientist shows us how to make science fun
Antibodies are all the rage these days. As Covid-19 vaccines come to market, many want to understand how immunity works. Scientists and health writers struggle to find ways to make these topics accessible and exciting.
This morning my Twitter feed blessed me with an outstanding video from Raven Baxter AKA Raven the Science Maven. Her video provides a fantastic explanation of immunology. The best part is she teaches us through rap music.
She walks us through the various types of antibodies and explains B cells as “B cells know the haters when they see them, so it’s fight night.” And how can you not love a lyric like “NK natural killers makin’ haters going night night”?
Baxter is an American molecular biologist and science communicator. She is a doctoral student at the University of Buffalo and the founder of STEMbassy, an organization dedicated to high-level science and technology discussions in politics, culture, and social issues. She is also the founder of Black In Science Communication.
We need more scientific leaders using social media tools and creative approaches to educate the public.
Science is fun!
Thank you for reminding us Raven the Maven. | https://medium.com/beingwell/dont-miss-out-a-biologist-explains-antibodies-through-rap-music-9f60427586e1 | ['Dr Jeff Livingston'] | 2020-11-28 16:53:57.164000+00:00 | ['Science', 'STEM', 'Education', 'Health', 'Immune System'] | Title Don’t Miss Biologist Explains Antibodies Rap MusicContent Don’t Miss Biologist Explains Antibodies Rap Music scientist show u make science fun Antibodies rage day Covid19 vaccine come market many want understand immunity work Scientists health writer struggle find way make topic accessible exciting morning Twitter feed blessed outstanding video Raven Baxter AKA Raven Science Maven video provides fantastic explanation immunology best part teach u rap music walk u various type antibody explains B cell “B cell know hater see it’s fight night” love lyric like “NK natural killer makin’ hater going night night” Baxter American molecular biologist science communicator doctoral student University Buffalo founder STEMbassy organization dedicated highlevel science technology discussion politics culture social issue also founder Black Science Communication need scientific leader using social medium tool creative approach educate public Science fun Thank reminding u Raven MavenTags Science STEM Education Health Immune System |
1,254 | Welcoming Dash 1.0.0 | It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, we released Dash. The last two years have been a whirlwind—we’ve made over 100 releases containing bug fixes and new features, we’ve introduced 10 brand new chart types, we’ve published 5 new first class component libraries, and I’ve personally spent over 130 hours helping folks out on the Dash community forum.
Dash’s active community forum with 19 active discussions over the last 24 hours. To everyone in the community, thank you. Thanks for keeping the community productive, friendly, and accessible. Thank your feedback and candor and patience. We couldn’t have gotten to 1.0.0 with you ❤️
Why 1.0.0?
At Plotly, most of our projects adhere to semver which means that in the 1.x.x. series we won’t be making any breaking changes to Dash. In this sense, it’s a big release. 1.0.0 commits us to a promise that the library is stable and continues to be production-ready, and that no breaking changes will be added to Dash for the near future. In another sense, it’s not a big release — Dash has been production ready since day one. With the community and commercial uptake, we’ve been very careful about breaking changes for the past two years.
With 1.0.0, we’re taking the opportunity to make this commitment official and to streamline the interface with a few breaking changes for the days ahead.
While 1.0.0 is significant symbolically, we haven’t changed anything at the core of Dash. We’re proud of this — Dash’s architectural foundations are solid. As we continually refined Dash over the past 2 years, talking and working with Dash users, we developed new features that outdated old ones, discovered which settings were awkward or confusing to new users, and overall accumulated a lot of ideas for how to improve the experience of building Dash apps. With 1.0.0, we’re resolving some of the friction that users experienced with Dash by streamlining Dash Core Components and changing some parameter names and configuration settings to be friendlier and more semantic. Essentially we’re taking all that we’ve learned from our community and making Dash more intuitive and powerful for years to come. For a full list of what’s changed, and what breaking changes you’ll need to reconcile in order to upgrade, see the Dash 1.0.0 Migration Guide. | https://medium.com/plotly/welcoming-dash-1-0-0-f3af4b84bae | [] | 2019-06-27 17:22:10.223000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Plotly', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Dash'] | Title Welcoming Dash 100Content It’s hard believe two year ago released Dash last two year whirlwind—we’ve made 100 release containing bug fix new feature we’ve introduced 10 brand new chart type we’ve published 5 new first class component library I’ve personally spent 130 hour helping folk Dash community forum Dash’s active community forum 19 active discussion last 24 hour everyone community thank Thanks keeping community productive friendly accessible Thank feedback candor patience couldn’t gotten 100 ❤️ 100 Plotly project adhere semver mean 1xx series won’t making breaking change Dash sense it’s big release 100 commits u promise library stable continues productionready breaking change added Dash near future another sense it’s big release — Dash production ready since day one community commercial uptake we’ve careful breaking change past two year 100 we’re taking opportunity make commitment official streamline interface breaking change day ahead 100 significant symbolically haven’t changed anything core Dash We’re proud — Dash’s architectural foundation solid continually refined Dash past 2 year talking working Dash user developed new feature outdated old one discovered setting awkward confusing new user overall accumulated lot idea improve experience building Dash apps 100 we’re resolving friction user experienced Dash streamlining Dash Core Components changing parameter name configuration setting friendlier semantic Essentially we’re taking we’ve learned community making Dash intuitive powerful year come full list what’s changed breaking change you’ll need reconcile order upgrade see Dash 100 Migration GuideTags Python Plotly Data Science Data Visualization Dash |
1,255 | What is the “Collective Prisoner’s Dilemma”? | What is the “Collective Prisoner’s Dilemma”?
New research looks at brain function during individual and group decision-making scenarios to better understand the role of personality, brain sync, and morality.
How we make decisions together when we are looking to maximize the benefit to all is an important area of research, and important for the survival of our species. We’re passing the point where we can act as if we are competing on a playing field with infinite resources.
Planetary prisoners
Nations are approaching full interdependence as they expand to take up as much space as they can on the global landscape. Space is another frontier, but on the surface of the planet, we’re shoulder-to-shoulder.
Our situation is what game theorists call the “repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma” (PD). In the single-case PD (detailed description), co-conspirators are captured, and then separated for interrogation. If they keep the faith (cooperate), they each get a moderate reward, and go free. If they stab each other in the back (defect), they both get punished. If one defects, and the other cooperates, the defector gets a sweet deal, and the other… well, you know. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma Illustrated, Source: Christopher X Jon Jensen (CXJJensen) & Greg Riestenberg, WikiMedia Commons Open Source
This paradigm is used as a way of studying how we make decisions, part of “game theory”. Do nations cooperate, or defect? Are short-term strategies, which may favor defection, good in the long-run?
The long view
Research on best long-term strategies for repeated PD support ongoing cooperation as the winning approach. Cooperation on balance works out best for all, even with some defections. Illustrating this, in a repeated PD study of 94 participants playing 400 ten-round games, researchers found that 40 percent of players were “resilient cooperators”. Based on this data, modelling predicted that “a sufficiently large minority of resilient cooperators can permanently stabilize unravelling among a majority of rational players.”
Individual factors
Two against one, wearing fNIRS headgear, Source: Zhang et al., 2020
In their paper Group decision-making behavior in social dilemmas: Inter-brain synchrony and the predictive role of personality traits, Zhang, Jia, ZHeng and Liu (2020) set-up a variant of the PD, pitting two players against one (who was actually one of the researchers) in order to study how Big 5 personality factors (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) and brain activity correlate with decision-making.
They recruited 54 participants who did not previously know one another into 27 pairs. Before the PD games, they completed a measure of Big 5 personality traits. While they were playing, participants’ brain activity was captures fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy, with a focus on key areas identified from prior research. It’s easier than fMRI for studies like this as players don’t need to be in a scanner.
Reward matrix for HIR and LIR, Cooperation and Defection, Source: Zhang et al., 2020
There were two parts of each game. In the first, participants decided to cooperate or defect without conferring (the individual decision-making stage IDM). In the second, they discussed their strategy (the group decision-making stage GDM). This way they compared self-interest with shared interest.
Researchers also set high and low reward scenarios, (high incentive reward HIR) and low reward (low incentive reward LIR) in order to see how the stakes affected findings. Brain activity was measured throughout, along with reaction times and outcomes.
Findings
Overall, there was more cooperation than defection with lower stakes, regardless whether IDM or GDM. Players were faster at deciding what to do when cooperating; deciding to defect slowed them down. Cooperation was more common in group decision-making compared with individual.
The brain’s right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), thought to be a key component in the human mirror neuron system (involved with empathy and attunement), was more active during GDM. Inter-brain synchrony (IBS) was higher during GDM, seen in increased rIFD coherence. Players’ brains were more entrained together at those times. Their IFDs were also more synced-up when the reward was higher. Sync (IBS) spiked in the high-reward/group decision-making condition, suggesting that the mirror neuron system is most engaged when our fates are intertwined and the stakes are high.
IBS was elevated in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) during GDM. The rDLPFC is key in executive function, mediating cognitive control and moral decision-making. Greater effort may be required to make the best decision for all in exercising joint top-down control when the immediate impulse may be to go for the quick win.
Personality tracked with these findings. Extroversion and agreeableness correlated with IBS. Extroversion tracked with rIFG IBS during cooperative decisions, and agreeableness with lIFG. Agreeableness and extroversion correlated with rIFG IBS when deciding to cooperate in the HIR task. On the other hand, IBS in the DLPFC was lower when pairs chose defection, reflective of “being of two minds” about what to do.
For consideration
This work is preliminary, extending earlier work on group decision-making showing that we tend to be more rational when we think together about what is best for all. Personality plays a role — agreeableness and extroversion are connected with greater brain sync between players during cooperation with group decisions. Prior work has shown that agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness are correlated with cooperative choices, on average.
The role of two important brain areas, the IFG and the DPLFC, were highlighted by this study. Given the IFG’s role in the mirror neuron system, it makes sense that group intelligence is reflected in sync (or lack thereof) between these areas. When people are working together collectively, our brains must be entrained, figuratively constituting the “hive mind” (which is fascinating from a neuroscience point of view [1]).
Are we selfish by default, or cooperative by default? Personality and upbringing make a difference, as does the need for rational group decision-making. People higher in “dark traits” are less likely to cooperate unless they are higher in empathy (“dark empaths”) or if there is clear self-interest and they are not so narcissistic, sadistic or psychopathic they can’t act in their own self-interest when it also serves others’ needs. For people average or low on dark traits and average or higher on empathy, cooperation may be more or less an obviously good idea, depending on various factors including personality and upbringing.
In terms of working out how to share the planet most effectively, making the cooperative long-term decisions which game theory suggests are the best strategy for future generations[2], it’s important to combined education with rational decision-making, using tools to strengthen the factors which enhance cooperation on for individuals and groups, and setting up reward systems which increased the odds of choosing the best overall long-term strategies.
Amplifying the voices of — and providing support and resources to — “resilient cooperators”, who can shift toward positive outcomes even as a significant minority, may be a winning strategy. Understanding who these people are, and determining if they are best suited for leadership positions, could be part of a rational strategy to secure a better future for humanity.
Notes
1. The DLPFC is interesting because it mediates top-down cognitive control especially when moral values are implicated in group decisions. In defection, there is a lack of sync between players’ DLPFCs. The time required to decide to defect is longer than the time required to cooperate, as we morally grapple with the decision to betray rather than the more prosocial move to cooperate.
The DLPFC, and closely related areas, are involved in many key functions. For instance, prior work suggests that we take in collective knowledge via the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC). Our tendency to pay attention to our own needs, a factor involved in weighing group decisions which may not immediately gratify, is mediated by the DMPFC as well, a key area in the brain’s activity at rest, or default mode network. We are programmed by our culture, and tend to focus on our own needs for basic survival — yet in order to survive in the long-run, we have to function collectively.
When it comes to social relations, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) comes on line. Whether or not you’ll be friends three months after meeting someone can be predicted based on VMPFC activity at the time, both individual and in sync. Other work has pointed to the key role of the DLPFC in radicals, such as people who hold terrorist beliefs, and connects with the willingness to act on — even die for — those beliefs.
2. Science-fiction out-take: Perhaps decision-makers can be hooked-up to fNIRS and related systems, during negotiations. Real-time brain-activity can be used to gauge the degree of true synchrony during group decision-making tasks, and stake-holders (such as voters, the media, etc.) can pay attention to meaningful neuroscience activity. I, for one, would like to see streaming graphics on candidates’ brain activity in order to inform my decision-making, at least.
Please note: ExperiMentations Blog Post (“Our Blog Post”) is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information obtained through Our Blog Post. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice, or other content. We are not responsible and will not be held liable for third party comments on Our Blog Post. Any user comment on Our Blog Post that in our sole discretion restricts or inhibits any other user from using or enjoying Our Blog Post is prohibited and may be reported to Medium. Grant H. Brenner. All rights reserved. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/brain-activity-personality-and-group-decision-making-83c662b893b0 | ['Grant H Brenner'] | 2020-10-29 04:21:17.328000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Psychiatry', 'Psychology', 'Decision Making', 'Personality'] | Title “Collective Prisoner’s Dilemma”Content “Collective Prisoner’s Dilemma” New research look brain function individual group decisionmaking scenario better understand role personality brain sync morality make decision together looking maximize benefit important area research important survival specie We’re passing point act competing playing field infinite resource Planetary prisoner Nations approaching full interdependence expand take much space global landscape Space another frontier surface planet we’re shouldertoshoulder situation game theorist call “repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma” PD singlecase PD detailed description coconspirator captured separated interrogation keep faith cooperate get moderate reward go free stab back defect get punished one defect cooperates defector get sweet deal other… well know Go directly jail pas Go collect 200 Prisoner’s Dilemma Illustrated Source Christopher X Jon Jensen CXJJensen Greg Riestenberg WikiMedia Commons Open Source paradigm used way studying make decision part “game theory” nation cooperate defect shortterm strategy may favor defection good longrun long view Research best longterm strategy repeated PD support ongoing cooperation winning approach Cooperation balance work best even defection Illustrating repeated PD study 94 participant playing 400 tenround game researcher found 40 percent player “resilient cooperators” Based data modelling predicted “a sufficiently large minority resilient cooperator permanently stabilize unravelling among majority rational players” Individual factor Two one wearing fNIRS headgear Source Zhang et al 2020 paper Group decisionmaking behavior social dilemma Interbrain synchrony predictive role personality trait Zhang Jia ZHeng Liu 2020 setup variant PD pitting two player one actually one researcher order study Big 5 personality factor Openness Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism brain activity correlate decisionmaking recruited 54 participant previously know one another 27 pair PD game completed measure Big 5 personality trait playing participants’ brain activity capture fNIRS functional nearinfrared spectroscopy focus key area identified prior research It’s easier fMRI study like player don’t need scanner Reward matrix HIR LIR Cooperation Defection Source Zhang et al 2020 two part game first participant decided cooperate defect without conferring individual decisionmaking stage IDM second discussed strategy group decisionmaking stage GDM way compared selfinterest shared interest Researchers also set high low reward scenario high incentive reward HIR low reward low incentive reward LIR order see stake affected finding Brain activity measured throughout along reaction time outcome Findings Overall cooperation defection lower stake regardless whether IDM GDM Players faster deciding cooperating deciding defect slowed Cooperation common group decisionmaking compared individual brain’s right inferior frontal gyrus rIFG thought key component human mirror neuron system involved empathy attunement active GDM Interbrain synchrony IBS higher GDM seen increased rIFD coherence Players’ brain entrained together time IFDs also syncedup reward higher Sync IBS spiked highrewardgroup decisionmaking condition suggesting mirror neuron system engaged fate intertwined stake high IBS elevated right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex rDLPFC GDM rDLPFC key executive function mediating cognitive control moral decisionmaking Greater effort may required make best decision exercising joint topdown control immediate impulse may go quick win Personality tracked finding Extroversion agreeableness correlated IBS Extroversion tracked rIFG IBS cooperative decision agreeableness lIFG Agreeableness extroversion correlated rIFG IBS deciding cooperate HIR task hand IBS DLPFC lower pair chose defection reflective “being two minds” consideration work preliminary extending earlier work group decisionmaking showing tend rational think together best Personality play role — agreeableness extroversion connected greater brain sync player cooperation group decision Prior work shown agreeableness extroversion conscientiousness correlated cooperative choice average role two important brain area IFG DPLFC highlighted study Given IFG’s role mirror neuron system make sense group intelligence reflected sync lack thereof area people working together collectively brain must entrained figuratively constituting “hive mind” fascinating neuroscience point view 1 selfish default cooperative default Personality upbringing make difference need rational group decisionmaking People higher “dark traits” le likely cooperate unless higher empathy “dark empaths” clear selfinterest narcissistic sadistic psychopathic can’t act selfinterest also serf others’ need people average low dark trait average higher empathy cooperation may le obviously good idea depending various factor including personality upbringing term working share planet effectively making cooperative longterm decision game theory suggests best strategy future generations2 it’s important combined education rational decisionmaking using tool strengthen factor enhance cooperation individual group setting reward system increased odds choosing best overall longterm strategy Amplifying voice — providing support resource — “resilient cooperators” shift toward positive outcome even significant minority may winning strategy Understanding people determining best suited leadership position could part rational strategy secure better future humanity Notes 1 DLPFC interesting mediates topdown cognitive control especially moral value implicated group decision defection lack sync players’ DLPFCs time required decide defect longer time required cooperate morally grapple decision betray rather prosocial move cooperate DLPFC closely related area involved many key function instance prior work suggests take collective knowledge via dorsomedial prefrontal cortex DMPFC tendency pay attention need factor involved weighing group decision may immediately gratify mediated DMPFC well key area brain’s activity rest default mode network programmed culture tend focus need basic survival — yet order survive longrun function collectively come social relation ventromedial prefrontal cortex VMPFC come line Whether you’ll friend three month meeting someone predicted based VMPFC activity time individual sync work pointed key role DLPFC radical people hold terrorist belief connects willingness act — even die — belief 2 Sciencefiction outtake Perhaps decisionmakers hookedup fNIRS related system negotiation Realtime brainactivity used gauge degree true synchrony group decisionmaking task stakeholder voter medium etc pay attention meaningful neuroscience activity one would like see streaming graphic candidates’ brain activity order inform decisionmaking least Please note ExperiMentations Blog Post “Our Blog Post” intended substitute professional advice liable loss damage caused reliance information obtained Blog Post Please seek advice professional appropriate regarding evaluation specific information opinion advice content responsible held liable third party comment Blog Post user comment Blog Post sole discretion restricts inhibits user using enjoying Blog Post prohibited may reported Medium Grant H Brenner right reservedTags Neuroscience Psychiatry Psychology Decision Making Personality |
1,256 | Retinal Inspired Neural Network Structure | If you’ve ever trained a GAN(Generative Adversarial Network) or an image classification neural network, you know just how data hungry it can be. Especially when you want to work with higher resolution images. The other day, I tried running a GAN on a couple hundred images. Just on a resolution of 256x256 and the compute time was close to an hour. And I’ve got a fairly decent graphics card: a GeForce RTX 2070 Super.
So that got me thinking: How in the world do animals process so much visual information on the go? Think about your own eyes for a minute.
Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash
We focus on a point in center, while everything else is out of focus. If you could look at the back of your eyeball under a microscope, you’d see around 130 million rods(think light/dark) and 7 million cones(think color). But the bulk of those rods and cones are smack dab in the center of your eye.
Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash
Having all of those sensors in the center allows you to see high definition at the focal point, while still being able to see if there is anything of interest is in the periphery.
So I wondered if a model based on nature could help reduce the high GPU requirements in any way. And it turns out, yes it can, and in a much more significant way than I could have imagined.
The Problem
To start, let’s consider a typical GAN and, say we were to feed it 10,000 images at 4,096 x 4,096 resolution. If you pull out your handy calculator, you’ll see that is shy of 17 million points of data in gray scale per image, and 3 times that if in RGB. Compare that to the 256x256 images I was processing earlier, which total around 65kb per picture. So we’re talking about an increase of 256 times the size for the larger images.
But that doesn’t take into consideration that training a neural network requires performing operations on humongous matrices. The time it takes to calculate the product of two matrices grows exponentially at just a measly* n³!!! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_multiplication_algorithm)
*dash of sarcasm
That turns our 256 times increase in data into nearly 17 million times the processing time! See the problem? So any way to reduce the amount of data needing to be processed will yield dividends.
Plus, it’s not like every part of an image is important for determining what you are looking at. With a quick glance at a dog, you know you’re looking at your furry companion and not a hungry crocodile.
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
But you didn’t have to focus on the wall, floor, fur, etc. It was all there, but just not as clear.
So how could we turn a simple glance into digital code? I developed a method to do just this.
The RNN-i Structure
Meet the Retinal Inspired Neural Network Input method, or RNN-i, for short.
First, we want to choose a focal area size. For this example, we’ll use 4x4. That will be at the center of our focus. We will pass all of those data points into our first row of “glance” data. Since it is 4x4, that will be 16 data points in our first row.
Second, we will want to take an area of 8x8(two times the width and height), centered on the same focal point. But we will process each 2x2 part to take the mean average. The mean average is just (x1+x2+x3+x4)/4. That turns those four pixels into one averaged pixel. Then we continue doing this with each 2x2 subsection in the 8x8 section. This gives us, again, 16 points of data, which we now enter into our second row.
Third, we continue with this process, but with 16x16 as our area and 4x4 subsections to be averaged.
RNN-i Grid
Fourth, we can keep doing this as many times as we like, until our entire image is “in view”. Each time we double the width and height, we only add one row of 16 pieces of data.
You might be asking now, “Wouldn’t that be confusing since each row of data is starting with a new top left corner?” Maybe for us. But the cool thing about neural networks is that they can adapt to whatever way you feed the data, as long as you stay consistent. The order doesn’t matter if you just make sure you always send it in the same order every time.
The Result
So just how much data can this method save? Taking our 4,096 x 4,096 pixel image example earlier, instead of entering close to 17 million data points, we will be entering only 176 points of data per “look” with this method.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
Game-changer.
Now, with so few data points, you would expect to lose a lot of accuracy. But I tested this method out on the MNIST fashion set here. And, in this experiment, the accuracy lost was only from 88.3% accuracy for whole images down to 81.4% accuracy with a single glance at center, using this approach.
Here is a link to the GitHub paper and code: https://github.com/therealjjj77/RNNi
How can we increase accuracy?
With just one look, we are already doing a fantastic job of categorizing the images. But suppose we have a self driving car and 80% survival is just not the kind of odds we want to leave in the hands of AI. Then we will need a more comprehensive solution.
RNN-Brn
So you’re driving on the road and, out of the corner of your eye, you see a truck plowing toward you. Within a few short instances, your eyes dart to see the massive object coming your way and determine how you can avoid it or if you have time to stop before entering its path.
Photo by Ernesto Leon on Unsplash
In this case, you needed multiple looks to understand the object and make some determination about it. A certain part of your brain (think neural network), that has been trained to identify peripheral threats, gave you a “heads up” that you should look that direction and see what’s going on.
Likewise, an RNN-i will need a processing neural network layered to analyze the output, certainty of classification, and decide below what threshold requires a second or third look at the object. And, lastly, where the new focal center should be relative to the first.
Utilizing a second look at the object may greatly increase accuracy, but only requires an additional 176 points of data. We’re still not even scratching the surface of what a whole 4,096 x 4,096 image view would cost in time and data!
So that is where a Retinal Inspired Neural Network Bidirectional Relay Node (or RNN-Brn for short) comes in. This will allow us to, if necessary, loop back through our trained RNN-i and see if a second look in another part of the image improves the certainty of classification.
I might come back to continue this at a later date with a follow-up article, depending on the how interested people are in this topic. Leave a comment if you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/retinal-inspired-neural-network-structure-79a3fed50cc2 | ['Jeremiah Johnson'] | 2020-12-07 15:14:32.932000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Image Classification', 'Generative Adversarial', 'AI'] | Title Retinal Inspired Neural Network StructureContent you’ve ever trained GANGenerative Adversarial Network image classification neural network know data hungry Especially want work higher resolution image day tried running GAN couple hundred image resolution 256x256 compute time close hour I’ve got fairly decent graphic card GeForce RTX 2070 Super got thinking world animal process much visual information go Think eye minute Photo Paul Skorupskas Unsplash focus point center everything else focus could look back eyeball microscope you’d see around 130 million rodsthink lightdark 7 million conesthink color bulk rod cone smack dab center eye Photo salvatore ventura Unsplash sensor center allows see high definition focal point still able see anything interest periphery wondered model based nature could help reduce high GPU requirement way turn yes much significant way could imagined Problem start let’s consider typical GAN say feed 10000 image 4096 x 4096 resolution pull handy calculator you’ll see shy 17 million point data gray scale per image 3 time RGB Compare 256x256 image processing earlier total around 65kb per picture we’re talking increase 256 time size larger image doesn’t take consideration training neural network requires performing operation humongous matrix time take calculate product two matrix grows exponentially measly n³ httpsenwikipediaorgwikiMatrixmultiplicationalgorithm dash sarcasm turn 256 time increase data nearly 17 million time processing time See problem way reduce amount data needing processed yield dividend Plus it’s like every part image important determining looking quick glance dog know you’re looking furry companion hungry crocodile Photo Roberto Nickson Unsplash didn’t focus wall floor fur etc clear could turn simple glance digital code developed method RNNi Structure Meet Retinal Inspired Neural Network Input method RNNi short First want choose focal area size example we’ll use 4x4 center focus pas data point first row “glance” data Since 4x4 16 data point first row Second want take area 8x8two time width height centered focal point process 2x2 part take mean average mean average x1x2x3x44 turn four pixel one averaged pixel continue 2x2 subsection 8x8 section give u 16 point data enter second row Third continue process 16x16 area 4x4 subsection averaged RNNi Grid Fourth keep many time like entire image “in view” time double width height add one row 16 piece data might asking “Wouldn’t confusing since row data starting new top left corner” Maybe u cool thing neural network adapt whatever way feed data long stay consistent order doesn’t matter make sure always send order every time Result much data method save Taking 4096 x 4096 pixel image example earlier instead entering close 17 million data point entering 176 point data per “look” method Photo Ben White Unsplash Gamechanger data point would expect lose lot accuracy tested method MNIST fashion set experiment accuracy lost 883 accuracy whole image 814 accuracy single glance center using approach link GitHub paper code httpsgithubcomtherealjjj77RNNi increase accuracy one look already fantastic job categorizing image suppose self driving car 80 survival kind odds want leave hand AI need comprehensive solution RNNBrn you’re driving road corner eye see truck plowing toward Within short instance eye dart see massive object coming way determine avoid time stop entering path Photo Ernesto Leon Unsplash case needed multiple look understand object make determination certain part brain think neural network trained identify peripheral threat gave “heads up” look direction see what’s going Likewise RNNi need processing neural network layered analyze output certainty classification decide threshold requires second third look object lastly new focal center relative first Utilizing second look object may greatly increase accuracy requires additional 176 point data We’re still even scratching surface whole 4096 x 4096 image view would cost time data Retinal Inspired Neural Network Bidirectional Relay Node RNNBrn short come allow u necessary loop back trained RNNi see second look another part image improves certainty classification might come back continue later date followup article depending interested people topic Leave comment question thought you’d like shareTags Neural Networks Artificial Intelligence Image Classification Generative Adversarial AI |
1,257 | After You Drop Your Balls | Is it finally happening? I can hear you asking after reading that headline. Is Zach finally going to join the league of excellent Medium writers who write about their sex lives?
No. I don’t have a sex life, and the title is a metaphor. Moving on.
Over the years, I’ve become a master of pushing through — being tired, being exhausted, not feeling particularly well, but still getting up and doing whatever I have to do.
And there are some days where that just doesn’t happen.
I get so used to feeling my usually vaguely crappy, that it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be well and truly sick. Like all-out fever and chills sick, complete with a giant anthropomorphic frog telling me that I should drink more water.
At least, that’s what I think was going on. The details are kind of fuzzy. | https://zachjpayne.medium.com/after-you-drop-your-balls-39829022f8ec | ['Zach J. Payne'] | 2019-04-05 01:09:54.416000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Productivity', 'Self', 'Creativity'] | Title Drop BallsContent finally happening hear asking reading headline Zach finally going join league excellent Medium writer write sex life don’t sex life title metaphor Moving year I’ve become master pushing — tired exhausted feeling particularly well still getting whatever day doesn’t happen get used feeling usually vaguely crappy it’s easy forget it’s like well truly sick Like allout fever chill sick complete giant anthropomorphic frog telling drink water least that’s think going detail kind fuzzyTags Life Life Lessons Productivity Self Creativity |
1,258 | Activating the Vagus Nerve Might Lower Your Covid-19 Risk | Activating the Vagus Nerve Might Lower Your Covid-19 Risk
While physical distancing and masks are crucial, social interaction could calm the immune system and turn down inflammation
Like other apes, humans are social animals. We evolved to live in codependent communities, and we do poorly if deprived of interpersonal contact.
Everyone has a different threshold for social interaction. But nearly all of us tend to become distressed when cut off from others, and our immune system responds to this distress by ramping up its defenses. A new study in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews finds that social isolation is associated with a rise in inflammation-promoting molecules, including some that are implicated in severe Covid-19. And past research has linked loneliness to poor cellular immune health and increased viral loads during an infection.
All of these cellular and immune changes are worrying in the context of SARS-CoV-2. Inflammation is a unifying feature of illness, and out-of-control inflammation seems to be a common feature of severe Covid-19.
“People [who have Covid-19] are not dying because of a high viral load, they’re dying because of a high cytokine load,” says Stephen Porges, PhD, a distinguished university scientist at Indiana University. Cytokines are immune cells that can turn up or down inflammation. In many cases of severe Covid-19, pro-inflammatory cytokines surge, and the resulting inflammation causes organ damage and death.
“Our nervous system requires social interaction. Without that information, our bodies can’t calm down.”
Porges says that this now infamous “cytokine storm” can build up for a number of reasons. Medical conditions such as obesity and diabetes — both of which are established risk factors for severe Covid-19 — tend to raise a person’s cytokine load, he says. But so does social isolation.
“Our nervous system requires social interaction,” Porges says. “Without that information, our bodies can’t calm down.”
In some of his work published during the pandemic, he’s made the case that safe and appropriately distanced social engagement is an underappreciated element of Covid-19 prevention and care. In one recent paper, he and his coauthors point out that corticosteroids — drugs designed to turn down the body’s production of pro-inflammatory molecules — have become a mainstay of Covid-19 treatment. But for the most part, public-health officials have done little to promote safe social interaction as a method of calming the immune system and turning down inflammation.
This is where the vagus nerve enters the picture, and particularly an underappreciated branch of the nerve that exerts a calming effect through positive social interaction.
The vagus nerve and social interaction
When people experience anxiety or distress, including the type that stems from social isolation, what they’re actually experiencing is a swell of sympathetic nervous system activity. This system speeds up the heart, slows digestion, and causes a number of other physiological changes that are known collectively as the body’s stress response.
Stress and sympathetic nervous system activity are normal and healthy in moderation. “But if the autonomic nervous system is always in fight-or-flight mode — if it never goes to relaxation — then there’s a loss of balance,” says Peter Payne, a researcher affiliated with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Dartmouth College. This loss of balance underlies the immune system dysregulation and runaway inflammation that are associated with chronic stress, and that also seem to play a role in cases of severe Covid-19.
Payne says that the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) provides the counterweight to this stressed-out state. Sometimes called the “rest and digest” system, PNS activity is associated with feelings of calmness and relaxation. “It’s a very positive and recuperative state,” he says.
The vagus nerve — which is actually a network of nerves that links the brain and immune system to the heart, the gut, and other organs — governs PNS activity. When the vagus nerve is active, Payne says, it acts like a brake on stress and all of its immune-stoking effects in the body.
There are many ways to activate the vagus nerve and its stress-lowering powers. Payne mentions deep breathing, yoga, meditation, and other relaxation techniques that entail “shutting down” or stepping back from life’s stressors. But the vagus nerve has two main branches — one of which seems to have developed in humans much more recently than the other. Payne says that this newer branch seems closely tied to positive social interaction, and it may exert a more robust calming effect on the nervous system.
“In evolutionary terms, activating this branch is a much more advanced way of dealing with distress and balancing the nervous system,” he says.
How to activate the vagus nerve when close contact is risky
Porges says that this newer branch of the vagus nerve is connected to the muscles of the face, head, and throat. This may explain why social interaction — smiling, laughing, talking, listening, emoting — all seem to switch on the vagus nerve and its calming influence.
“What we think of as talking is a form of co-regulation,” he says. “You’re projecting your autonomic state through your tone of voice, and you’re also receiving that from the person you’re talking with.”
“If we don’t have social interaction, the threat of the pandemic is exacerbated.”
While social contact should not take precedence over social distancing, he says that in-person interaction is optimal, and seems safe if people are outside and appropriately distanced and masked. If that’s not possible he says that video-based calls — Zoom, FaceTime, and so on — are good surrogates because they preserve most modes of normal interpersonal exchange. Plus, you can see people’s whole faces. If a video call isn’t possible, a phone call is a good stand-in. “Intonation of voice is an important safety cue we share with one another,” he says. “Think about a mother calming a crying baby, or how a dog responds to its owner’s tone of voice.”
Texting or emails are better than nothing, but inferior to a call. Apart from not being able to see or hear the other person, texting can involve a lot of waiting and even elements of anxiety. “You can get nervous if you don’t get a response,” he points out.
So much of modern medicine is focused on interventions — whether those take the form of a drug, a surgery, or an apparatus like a ventilator. All of those measures have their place. But Porges says that we should also utilize “the body’s own resources” to combat Covid-19, and that includes its ability to calm itself and its inflammatory activity through social interaction.
“The take-home message is that we need to connect as much as we can in any way we know how to,” he adds. “If we don’t have social interaction, the threat of the pandemic is exacerbated.” | https://elemental.medium.com/activating-the-vagus-nerve-might-lower-your-covid-19-risk-e08ed0ce7a04 | ['Markham Heid'] | 2020-11-25 06:31:59.389000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Health', 'The Nuance', 'Pandemic', 'Covid 19'] | Title Activating Vagus Nerve Might Lower Covid19 RiskContent Activating Vagus Nerve Might Lower Covid19 Risk physical distancing mask crucial social interaction could calm immune system turn inflammation Like ape human social animal evolved live codependent community poorly deprived interpersonal contact Everyone different threshold social interaction nearly u tend become distressed cut others immune system responds distress ramping defense new study journal Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews find social isolation associated rise inflammationpromoting molecule including implicated severe Covid19 past research linked loneliness poor cellular immune health increased viral load infection cellular immune change worrying context SARSCoV2 Inflammation unifying feature illness outofcontrol inflammation seems common feature severe Covid19 “People Covid19 dying high viral load they’re dying high cytokine load” say Stephen Porges PhD distinguished university scientist Indiana University Cytokines immune cell turn inflammation many case severe Covid19 proinflammatory cytokine surge resulting inflammation cause organ damage death “Our nervous system requires social interaction Without information body can’t calm down” Porges say infamous “cytokine storm” build number reason Medical condition obesity diabetes — established risk factor severe Covid19 — tend raise person’s cytokine load say social isolation “Our nervous system requires social interaction” Porges say “Without information body can’t calm down” work published pandemic he’s made case safe appropriately distanced social engagement underappreciated element Covid19 prevention care one recent paper coauthor point corticosteroid — drug designed turn body’s production proinflammatory molecule — become mainstay Covid19 treatment part publichealth official done little promote safe social interaction method calming immune system turning inflammation vagus nerve enters picture particularly underappreciated branch nerve exerts calming effect positive social interaction vagus nerve social interaction people experience anxiety distress including type stem social isolation they’re actually experiencing swell sympathetic nervous system activity system speed heart slows digestion cause number physiological change known collectively body’s stress response Stress sympathetic nervous system activity normal healthy moderation “But autonomic nervous system always fightorflight mode — never go relaxation — there’s loss balance” say Peter Payne researcher affiliated Department Microbiology Immunology Dartmouth College loss balance underlies immune system dysregulation runaway inflammation associated chronic stress also seem play role case severe Covid19 Payne say parasympathetic nervous system PNS provides counterweight stressedout state Sometimes called “rest digest” system PNS activity associated feeling calmness relaxation “It’s positive recuperative state” say vagus nerve — actually network nerve link brain immune system heart gut organ — governs PNS activity vagus nerve active Payne say act like brake stress immunestoking effect body many way activate vagus nerve stresslowering power Payne mention deep breathing yoga meditation relaxation technique entail “shutting down” stepping back life’s stressor vagus nerve two main branch — one seems developed human much recently Payne say newer branch seems closely tied positive social interaction may exert robust calming effect nervous system “In evolutionary term activating branch much advanced way dealing distress balancing nervous system” say activate vagus nerve close contact risky Porges say newer branch vagus nerve connected muscle face head throat may explain social interaction — smiling laughing talking listening emoting — seem switch vagus nerve calming influence “What think talking form coregulation” say “You’re projecting autonomic state tone voice you’re also receiving person you’re talking with” “If don’t social interaction threat pandemic exacerbated” social contact take precedence social distancing say inperson interaction optimal seems safe people outside appropriately distanced masked that’s possible say videobased call — Zoom FaceTime — good surrogate preserve mode normal interpersonal exchange Plus see people’s whole face video call isn’t possible phone call good standin “Intonation voice important safety cue share one another” say “Think mother calming cry baby dog responds owner’s tone voice” Texting email better nothing inferior call Apart able see hear person texting involve lot waiting even element anxiety “You get nervous don’t get response” point much modern medicine focused intervention — whether take form drug surgery apparatus like ventilator measure place Porges say also utilize “the body’s resources” combat Covid19 includes ability calm inflammatory activity social interaction “The takehome message need connect much way know to” add “If don’t social interaction threat pandemic exacerbated”Tags Coronavirus Health Nuance Pandemic Covid 19 |
1,259 | This Was The Most Traumatic Experience of My Life | On Friday night, May 31st, 2013, I found myself in the middle of a tornado.
Ever since I was a child the weather experts always warned about being in a car on elevated roads when a tornado is bearing down on you.
That Friday night in 2013, I was highly weather-aware and was confident that the tornado that formed near Yukon Oklahoma was heading north and away from me.
I even called my parents that live in Tucson to tell them not to worry about me. About the time I got off the phone with them the storm took a sharp turn south.
I got a call from my friend Nikki warning me to run. I had decided earlier not to run away from the storm and suddenly I was faced with the realization that the apartment that I live in would not survive a direct hit from the tornado the news was describing.
The weather forecaster said,
“This is a groundscraper. You must be either underground, or you must get out of the way.”
So, I got in my car with plans to head south, effectively trying to outrace the tornado.
I immediately regretted leaving the safety of my apartment. Before I even got out of my apartment complex a wild and unpredictable wind buffeted my little Nissan car. I considered heading west instead, but I had no idea what was that way and I knew south was away from the tornado.
So, I decided to go south to the I-35 highway. I figured that I could speed away from the storm.
Unfortunately, I-35 was a parking lot. Apparently, everyone else heard the same weatherman tell us to flee the beast and now we were locked in a traffic jam.
I was maybe half a mile away from my apartment when I hear the cross-streets of where I live mentioned as the path of the tornado and it was heading directly toward me!
As the storm intensified, I pulled over to the shoulder of the bridge I was on to get close to a concrete wall. Rain was pelting my little car horizontally as the wind strengthened.
Then about 100 yards in front of me I saw a power flash as wind ripped the lines out of Moore street lights, one after another.
I looked up to see large black debris floating above me about 30 feet off the ground. Twenty yards in front of me a large heavy construction barricade was effortlessly lifted into the sky and thrown across the highway.
My heart felt like it was about to come out of my chest.
My car started rocking and I began to hear what everyone describes as the signature sound of a tornado — a high pitched banshee howl that is similar to the sound of a freight train.
So, after decades of hearing that you should not be on an elevated roadway when a tornado was chasing you, there I was…
Trapped.
Tornado overhead.
On an elevated roadway.
I had never been more frightened, but I knew if I didn’t do something my life was in jeopardy. So, I decided to take my little Nissan car off-road.
I jumped an embankment, crossed a side road and went over a curb to get my car up against the wall of the Central Church of Moore.
The storm was throwing branches and debris on top of the car and I still didn’t feel safe, so I got out of the car and ran to a doorway that was covered and halfway below ground.
By that time a steady stream of people who were trapped on the highway had followed me, parked behind me on the lawn, and were huddling with me in the covered doorway.
People who were staying in the church heard the commotion and let us in. They were there to help with cleanup after the devastating May 20th tornado in Moore.
It was an ironic and fortuitous occurrence.
In most cases, the church would have been empty on a Friday night and we would have had to take our chances with the tornado outside.
I would like to thank the staff at that church for helping me and, what may have been another 100 people that followed me off the highway, find shelter during the storm.
Amazingly, me, my car and my apartment made it through mostly unscathed.
You can see the track of the tornados in the image above. In addition to these tracks, there were reports of tornadoes all around us for several hours that evening, and I’m convinced that I experienced a mesocyclone as soon as I left my apartment too.
I can tell you that the following day was clear and beautiful, and that I had a focus and desire to achieve my goals more than I ever had before that dark night.
Hello, my name is Dirk Hooper. I have a deep passion for writing that has led me to win a few awards. I’ve had work published at Huffington Post, Slate Magazine, Business Insider, Quartz, The Sporting News, and much more.
In addition to writing, I’m a professional photographer and artist, a consultant for adult marketing and branding, and an audio talent.
My love for words extends to reading as well. Let’s connect!
You’ll see stories on writing, motivation, entertainment, life, business, marketing, art, kink, and poetry on my Medium profile. | https://medium.com/swlh/this-was-the-most-traumatic-experience-of-my-life-888b53182302 | ['Dirk Hooper'] | 2019-09-28 07:57:22.493000+00:00 | ['Weather', 'Life', 'Storytelling', 'Life Lessons', 'Tornado'] | Title Traumatic Experience LifeContent Friday night May 31st 2013 found middle tornado Ever since child weather expert always warned car elevated road tornado bearing Friday night 2013 highly weatheraware confident tornado formed near Yukon Oklahoma heading north away even called parent live Tucson tell worry time got phone storm took sharp turn south got call friend Nikki warning run decided earlier run away storm suddenly faced realization apartment live would survive direct hit tornado news describing weather forecaster said “This groundscraper must either underground must get way” got car plan head south effectively trying outrace tornado immediately regretted leaving safety apartment even got apartment complex wild unpredictable wind buffeted little Nissan car considered heading west instead idea way knew south away tornado decided go south I35 highway figured could speed away storm Unfortunately I35 parking lot Apparently everyone else heard weatherman tell u flee beast locked traffic jam maybe half mile away apartment hear crossstreets live mentioned path tornado heading directly toward storm intensified pulled shoulder bridge get close concrete wall Rain pelting little car horizontally wind strengthened 100 yard front saw power flash wind ripped line Moore street light one another looked see large black debris floating 30 foot ground Twenty yard front large heavy construction barricade effortlessly lifted sky thrown across highway heart felt like come chest car started rocking began hear everyone describes signature sound tornado — high pitched banshee howl similar sound freight train decade hearing elevated roadway tornado chasing was… Trapped Tornado overhead elevated roadway never frightened knew didn’t something life jeopardy decided take little Nissan car offroad jumped embankment crossed side road went curb get car wall Central Church Moore storm throwing branch debris top car still didn’t feel safe got car ran doorway covered halfway ground time steady stream people trapped highway followed parked behind lawn huddling covered doorway People staying church heard commotion let u help cleanup devastating May 20th tornado Moore ironic fortuitous occurrence case church would empty Friday night would take chance tornado outside would like thank staff church helping may another 100 people followed highway find shelter storm Amazingly car apartment made mostly unscathed see track tornado image addition track report tornado around u several hour evening I’m convinced experienced mesocyclone soon left apartment tell following day clear beautiful focus desire achieve goal ever dark night Hello name Dirk Hooper deep passion writing led win award I’ve work published Huffington Post Slate Magazine Business Insider Quartz Sporting News much addition writing I’m professional photographer artist consultant adult marketing branding audio talent love word extends reading well Let’s connect You’ll see story writing motivation entertainment life business marketing art kink poetry Medium profileTags Weather Life Storytelling Life Lessons Tornado |
1,260 | What It Means for Conversational AI to Be “Conversational” | HAL is a well-known fictional conversational AI that lacked in empathy for it’s users.
About the Author: Dr. Ender Ricart is a Principal UX Researcher at LivePerson, a company at the forefront of conversational AI applications for customer service. The content of this article is informed by insights from in-depth qualitative research on customer experience with conversational AI.
In the research I have performed on conversational AI, people tell me that they do not want nor expect an AI to be human-like. In spite of what they say, in practice, I observe people applying the same fundamentals of linguistic interaction with conversational AIs as they do with people. Interactions with conversational AI are, thus far, designed to emulate (or simulate) human-to-human conversation, and, therefore, trigger people to apply fundamental principles of communication. If and when an AI does not behave in accordance with these principles or ignores them entirely, it leads to confusion and frustration for its conversational partner. In this article, I am going to unpack two fundamental principles of communication and their applications to chatbots:
Forming a Shared Symbolic Cloud — How we can successfully communicate about things and build shared understandings.
Maxims of Cooperative Communication — How we manipulate what we say and how we say things to communicate meaning.
Insights in this article draw from my training in cultural and linguistic anthropology and qualitative research I performed at LivePerson on people’s interactions with agents and chatbots in customer service. After reading this article, you should have a better idea about the complexity of communication and how it comes to bear on people’s expectations and frustrations when interacting with conversational AI.
1. Forming a Shared Symbolic Cloud — How we can successfully communicate about things and build shared understandings.
In communication, we build a kind of Shared Symbolic Cloud, if you will, that conversational participants contribute to and draw from. This cloud is comprised of subjects, objects, temporal markers, spatial markers, referenceable symbolic systems, and more. We can engage in conversation to begin with because there is enough pre-existing overlap in the language spoken, perhaps similar experiences, learnings, and sociocultural underpinnings.
While conversational participants engage in the mutual building of this symbolic cloud, they nonetheless have a unique set of interpretations and understandings of the conversation at hand, because they also have their own Individual Cloud through which they filter and process information. We have different understandings and meanings attached to words born from slight to dramatic differences in our sociolinguistic systems and experiences.
What is your mental image of a “chair?” Is it a La-Z-boy or an armchair? Mine is a wooden chair. You probably imagine a different “wooden chair” than I do. I see the wooden chairs my parents had in the house when I was growing up. There is no way that this is also your mental image of a chair, let alone a wooden chair. Regardless, I can successfully communicate with you about chairs or the need to buy wooden chairs for the dining room table. What this specifically means for you, your mental image of a wooden chair for the dining room, will not 100% map to my mental image, but it will still overlap enough that we can communicate.
Communication, then, is like a game of telephone. The message is communicated and received by others with a degree of fidelity to the original and intended meaning. Each conversational participant takes away something different from a conversation because our Individual Clouds differ. This is why it is so valuable to have supporting, nonverbal language infrastructures in place afforded by face-to-face communication. Things such as body language, vocal intonation, other vocal cues such as sighs but also visual aids like specific dining room chairs to point out and compare. All of this comes together to form that Shared Symbolic Cloud of communication. Participating members of a conversation have access to, understanding of, and can contribute to this symbolic cloud of linguistic interaction.
In sum, the Shared Symbolic Cloud of communication is a composite of a participant’s Individual Clouds, and Individual Clouds too are composites of societal clouds such as macro levels of language, culture, and social norms and the more micro levels of personal experience, sociolinguistics, and niche culture, etc. All this comes together to enable communication at all and then about specific things.
Knowledge cultures — mind the gap
Building a Shared Symbolic Cloud becomes more difficult when we throw things like medicine, physics, philosophy, heating and ducting installation, ballet, university admission process, etc., into the picture. These are known as “knowledge cultures.” The more stand-out knowledge cultures include specialization that require advanced training or education. There is usually identifiable jargon (common examples being legalese or technobabble). Included in the term knowledge culture are also less obvious things like a business. Think about any business or company you have worked in. There is an internal work culture, business goals, best practices, brand image, processes, systems, departments or divisions, ranks, etc. You have likely experienced the confusion of engaging in an unfamiliar knowledge culture at multiple points in your life. Maybe you started a new job, and people around you were using acronyms or software you were unfamiliar with. Much of a company’s New Hire Orientation is around helping new employees learn and implement knowledge culture tenets like corporate goals or principles.
According to Pokémon.com, there are 809 official Pokémon types.
Many hobbies are also deeply entrenched in knowledge cultures. I can recall not too long ago trying to get into the then newly released Pokémon Go. I quickly found myself overwhelmed by the sheer variety of Pokémon, Pokémon classification, abilities, stats, and care/evolution. Meanwhile, my partner, who had grown up playing Pokémon, was making strategic decisions about which Pokémon to catch, develop, and evolve.
Another and more frequent exposure to foreign knowledge cultures occurs when you call customer service because of a question or issue. You frame the problem or question using your Individual Cloud of experience and knowledge — your point of view. You have very little understanding of how the company or business talks and thinks about said problem or question within their knowledge culture. It can be frustrating to engage in a conversation with said company or business because there is little correspondence between how you are thinking and talking and how the business is. It is a failure to build that Shared Symbolic Cloud wherein communication takes place. This is because there is a larger gap between your Individual Cloud and the cloud the customer service agent is mobilizing, heavily influenced by the knowledge culture they work in. It makes it more difficult to talk about the same thing and build shared understanding if and when you have different meanings underpinning similar words and concepts.
Diaper debacle — black-boxed business process and practices
I ordered diapers on Amazon that were supposed to arrive in two days. Five days later, I had yet to receive them and noticed that the delivery date had been pushed out another two weeks! I got in touch with Amazon’s customer service through the in-app chat. They informed me that the diapers were sold through a third-party seller, and Amazon could not do anything to help me. I needed to send the vendor a message to cancel or refund the order. This was confusing as, when I made the initial purchase, I could find no indication that this was a third-party vendor. I sent a message to the third-party vendor. There was no response or refund. The next delivery window elapsed, and the delivery date was pushed out even further. I got back in touch with Amazon to complain. They again informed me there was nothing they could do at this point except message the vendor and wait. If the product did not arrive by the specific date for delivery, then they could compensate me. I never heard from the seller. I never got the diapers. Amazon issued a refund. I presume the seller is still selling diapers. I still can’t tell if I am ordering through them or not when I go to purchase diapers.
In the above example, there is a gap between how I understand the Amazon Marketplace operates and how the customer service representatives understand it. From my point of view, everything on the Amazon Marketplace is Amazon’s. I do not have visibility into what is being sold by a third party and the rules and regulations behind cancellations, returns, refunds, or complaints. I experienced the promise of two-day delivery being broken, and the diapers failed to be delivered. For me, this was the fault of Amazon and not some then invisible third-party seller. Already frustrated, it was even more frustrating to have the customer service representative tell me nothing could be done because of rules that seemingly were magicked into existence just to annoy me. Had I known at the time of my purchase that the seller was a third-party vendor (and maybe the seller’s star ratings and not the product’s) and had I known the rules surrounding cancelation and refunds, I likely would have gone about my purchase differently. This is a clear example of inside/outsider knowledge of the knowledge culture the business is operating under. The onus is on Amazon to be transparent about this for improved customer service relations and should not be on me to learn through some agent telling me, basically, “yeah sorry; not our problem!”
Customers do not have access or exposure to a business’ knowledge culture: the company’s way of thinking, saying, and doing things is black-boxed. The customer service agent or sales rep, however, is in a unique position. They have an intimate understanding of the company’s knowledge culture and can empathize with the customer and their point of view. Because customer service representatives are in this privileged position of dual understanding, a good customer service representative will go the extra mile to meet the customer where they are and build the bulk of the Shared Symbolic Cloud to enable effective communication.
Image of a customer trying to make sense of a business’ knowledge culture with access only to a small portion of the whole.
The Amazon customer service representatives I spoke with did not successfully empathize with me. They did not realize that I, in my Individual Cloud, did not have the knowledge or access they have. If they had stepped into my shoes, they would have gone the extra mile to demonstrate to me how I can find out if a product is being sold by a third-party seller on the Amazon marketplace. They could have informed me all in one sitting about the rules regarding cancellations and refunds for goods sold by third parties, rather than doling out these policies slowly over the course of a month with different agents. They also could have followed up with the seller and perhaps notified me that they are going to be putting the seller on probation or removing them from the Marketplace (I had done some digging and found this particular seller had failed to fulfill orders for a number of people). They did not do this. Instead, I had to be the angry and confused customer. I would have much preferred to be informed, teaming up with Amazon’s customer service representative to resolve my situation and monitoring it over time. I just needed them to share the necessary knowledge with me so we could build that bridge of mutual understanding...
Starting from the customer’s point of view
Based on qualitative researchI conducted at LivePerson with people of a various age, gender, educational background, income, occupation, and locality, we know that a positive experience with customer service includes empathy and personalized care. These are the actual terms used by the majority of study participants, with all mentioning this in some form or other. Empathy was characterized by study participants as when the customer service representative acknowledges what the customer is experiencing and how it is impacting them. This amounts to feeling like one is being heard, taken seriously, and that he or she will be given individualized attention given the specifics of their situation. This latter aspect dovetails into study participants’ conception of “personalized care,” discussed as the customer service representative working toward identifying the specifics of what is going on and providing tailored solutions given such particulars.
What empathy and personalized care have in common here is this feeling of having successfully connected through communication with the customer service representative. That is at the core of what makes for a positive interaction with customer service. These research insights demonstrate that customers value when agents go the extra mile to meet them where they are, starting from their Individual Cloud of experience and understanding, and work from there to build out a Shared Symbolic Cloud that they, the customer, can understand and see the applicability to their situation. This amounts to recognizing the gap between the internal knowledge culture that a business possesses and the knowledge and experience of the customer and starting from the customer’s point of view (empathy) to find a resolution that satisfies their situation and the business (personalized care).
Building chatbots that start from the customer’s point of view
As discussed, customer service needs to go further than a typical conversation partner to translate the internal world of the business (its knowledge culture) into something easily digestible for the customer and the Individual Cloud of experiences and understanding they are operating within. Customers cannot do this work because the internal logic and workings of the company are black-boxed and inaccessible to them. In customer service interactions, therefore, it needs to be the agent building this bridge, the Symbolic Shared Cloud, and providing, at necessary junctures, pertinent information to help the customer join in and engage successfully. This same responsibility applies to a business’ digital customer service agent, the chatbot. It too must work from the customer’s point of view, their Individual Cloud, to build empathy.
Tell-tale signs that your chatbot is not bridging the gap are as follows (insights derived from research I conducted at LivePerson):
A. Customers are struggling with how to word things to get the chatbot to understand them.
This is a struggle to translate his or her problem/query as it is understood and experienced in their Individual Cloud into the knowledge culture of the company.
B. When the chatbot presents selection options, the customer cannot figure out which category to choose.
This is also a translation issue, but more directly related to the organizational schema that a business knowledge culture might be implementing. It is a question of how the company is classifying or categorizing this product or this topic. It is a similar experience to walking up and down every aisle of a grocery store to try to find where they categorized the dried fruit — is it next to the fresh fruit, nuts, spices, cereals, or canned goods? If you can’t find it after your first try (maybe two if you aren’t in a hurry or don’t have kids), of course, you are going to ask someone that works there rather than go through the whole store.
Building conversational AI experiences for customer service that possess the winning qualities of empathy and personalized care are readily achievable with user research. Below are a few examples of things you can start investing in today to help your bot bridge the gap and translate effectively between your internal business knowledge culture and the customer’s point of view.
Solution — how to build chatbots that have empathy and personalized care
Reminder that empathy for customers is feeling listened to and understood and personalized care amounts to having his or her situation be identified as unique and then customer service working towards finding a resolution that works for the customer. Both of these can be achieved by a chatbot.
Start from the user’s point of view — their Individual Cloud
It is important to work backward from the customer. In another article, I talked about this from the perspective of mental models. It also applies to what a bot says and how it says it. You don’t want the bot to be too steeped in jargon or the company’s knowledge culture. It needs to be a proper marriage between the customer’s point of view and the business’. Conduct user research into how people are framing problems or issues — what language they are using to talk about things? What is the context in which they are experiencing it? Incorporate learnings into the language and phrasing of the bot. This will go a long way to help customers feel grounded in their interaction with an unfamiliar knowledge culture. You can admix business jargon or info about your company’s organizational system as teachable moments. In the example below, the bot gently rephrases the customer’s query using the business jargon “digital portal.”
Customer: I have a new credit card but when I log in to view my activity online. I can’t see the new card there. What is going on?
Bot: I am sorry to hear you are experiencing difficulty accessing your credit card activity on the digital portal. To help you better, would you please take a moment to log in here…
Having the bot restate or rephrase the customer’s intent is additionally a way to build empathy. It demonstrates to the customer that their specific situation was understood — the first step toward receiving personalized care.
2. Plain talk doesn’t just apply to words
The design basics of user experience on the web also have many parallels with conversational AI. To create satisfying customer experiences, it is absolutely imperative to design categories, information architectures, logic hierarchies, and more from the user’s point of view. Again, just like user experience on the web, working backward from the customer will make their role in the conversation and the interaction options seem intuitive (that is, resonating with their Individual Cloud). At risk of sounding like a broken record, and tooting my own horn, perform user research (such as card sorting, first click, or tree testing) to identify how to label and construct information hierarchies and categories so it resonates with the customer’s understanding.
3. Recognize a customer’s issue or need as unique and deliver “personalized” care with bots
Sure, maybe the company gets hundreds, thousands, even millions of customer service hits about the same issue daily. It doesn’t matter. From this one customer’s singular point of view, the issue is unique to them. They don’t want to be told that their issue is commonplace. If they did not go to or find their answer in the “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)” page, being shuttled to the FAQ page reinforces that: (a). they are just a number, and (b) the company doesn’t value them and their situation enough to provide personalized care. Unless your bot is specifically an FAQ bot, don’t send a customer to the FAQs. It is OK to pull content for the bot’s response from an FAQ page, but don’t link to the FAQs or indicate that their question is commonplace. Instead, have the bot talk to the customer and frame content (derived from FAQ pages or not) as unique to this individual and their specific situation. This will set the bot up to deliver a personalized care experience to the customer.
2. Maxims of cooperative communication — how we manipulate what we say and how we say things to communicate meaning
In addition to Individual and Shared Symbolic Clouds, what we say and how we say it conveys meaning as well. The British philosopher of language, Paul Grice, outlines four principles of cooperative communication that we apply unconsciously when we converse with others to drive and derive meaning. The maxims are as follows:
Maxim of Quantity — Your contribution to a conversation should be informative only to the extent needed; that means there should be no additional information nor should there be too little.
Maxim of Quality — Say only what you know or believe to be true and possesses sufficient evidence to support it.
Maxim of Relation/Relevance — Contribute to the conversation at hand.
Maxim of Manner — Don’t be obscure, be brief, don’t be vague, and organize your contribution.
Gricean maxims operate at the overarching level of the conversation as a whole. To this end, they draw individual utterances made into the larger whole of related subjects, objects, spatiotemporal references, and topics. We unconsciously apply these maxims to convey and comprehend meaning, both implicit and explicit. If and when we encounter a violation of one or more of these maxims, the violation and type of violation serves to communicate significance beyond the surface value. See the following example:
Person A: Did you talk to Michal and Jorge about getting together next Saturday?
Person B: I sent a message.
Here, Person A applies the maxims of cooperative communication to derive meaning from what Person B has stated. They apply the Maxim of Relevance to determine that the “message” must be related to getting together with Michal and Jorge. Surely, Person B wouldn’t intentionally mislead Person A by talking about some irrelevant message they sent! Person B has additionally flaunted the Maxim of Quantity. They could have responded by saying, “I did talk to them. I sent them a message, and they responded to say, ‘yes; next Saturday works.’” However, Person B did not say this and in not saying this but rather violating the Maxim of Quantity, Person B has, in turn, successfully communicated a different set of implicit meanings to Person A.
Person A: Did you talk to Michal and Jorge about getting together next Saturday?
Person B: (EXPLICIT) I sent a message. (IMPLIED) No, I have not talked to them. I messaged them, but they never got back (and I may be a bit irritated by this), so I don’t know if we are getting together next Saturday or not (please don’t ask me again).
Thus, violations of these maxims serve to communicate additional value beyond the explicit content of what was uttered. All of this occurs tacitly, often without calculation, as a part and parcel of communication.
How do these maxims apply to communication with conversational AI?
Conversational AI are not good at carrying context across utterances. Because of this, the application of Gricean maxims fail and with it the thread of cooperative communication.
For intent recognition purposes, conversational AI tend to ground conversational context on a turn-by-turn basis or per discrete interaction, rather than across interactions and intents. The longer context can be retained (subjects, objects, topics, and other identifying information) and mobilized, the easier it will be for the bot and the customer to mobilize Gricean maxims. Businesses should preface the development of machine learning and natural language processing that enables AI to integrate transconversational historical data and multithreaded intents in any given interaction with a customer.
Below is an example of a well-known conversational AI, Mitsuku, developed by Pandorabots and acclaimed “record breaking five-time winner of the Loebner Prize Turing Test, is the world’s best conversational chatbot.” (Link)
Between individual conversational turns (I say something and someone else says something), Mitsuku appears to be in accordance with the principles of cooperative communication, but Gricean maxims apply at the level of the overarching conversation (comprised of multiple conversational turns), not a single turn. Looking at the bigger picture of what is actually being talked about, Mitsuku violates the Maxim of Relevance, Quantity, and Manner. It switches the topic of conversation from the weather to the cost of raincoats, after which it fails to be relevant altogether. It violates the Maxim of Manner and Quantity by talking at length about random things like a “Mousebreaker” clearing its memory.
As Mitsuku’s conversational partner, I felt frustrated and confused because I tried to apply these maxims to understand what Mitsuku was saying, sussing out any implied intentionality related to our larger conversation. For example, I had to think over what “Mousebreaker” might mean. At first I thought maybe “Mousebreaker” was a play on words, referring to a computerized “windbreaker,” but then why does it erase memory? So, this implied meaning didn’t make sense and essentially I wasted cognitive power. The topic continued to leapfrog. Even Mitsuku’s possible joke about the cost of my raincoat lands awkwardly when she promptly forgets the conversational thread and then becomes distractingly vague (violation of the Maxim of Relevance and Manner). Mitsuku’s repeated violations devoid of intentionality (and, therefore, meaning) prevent us from actually cooperatively communicating and failing to build a Shared Symbolic Cloud. Maintaining the larger conversational context across each of our interactions is essential for a truly cooperative and collaborative conversation to occur with conversational AI.
To summarize
If we are going to position AI as conversational, then we need to be more aware of the anatomy of a communicative event.
Shared Symbolic Cloud — how we build mutual understanding.
Maxims of cooperative communication — how we say things and what we say convey implicit and explicit meanings related to larger context of conversation.
I discussed how building mutual understanding becomes more complicated when a complex knowledge culture is involved. With customer service, it becomes increasingly important to meet the customer where they are, their individual clouds, and work backward to build empathy and personalized care. The same need applies to chatbots used for customer service. Research into the customer’s point of view is needed to achieve this. This includes not only what they are experiencing and how they communicate, but also how they organize information.
With maxims of cooperative communication, I emphasized the need for conversational AI to maintain conversational context beyond discrete interactions (however a complete interaction is defined). These maxims, which, are unconsciously applied by people in communicative events, apply across interactions to index all past subjects, objects, topics, places, people, etc.
The goal is not to make AI indistinguishable from humans but make them more conversationally compatible with humans. This is important because people will unconsciously apply the fundamentals of communication when invited to converse with AI. | https://medium.com/swlh/what-it-really-means-for-conversational-ai-to-be-conversational-c796ff278656 | ['Dr. Ender Ricart'] | 2019-12-22 11:06:38.309000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Chatbots', 'Customer Service', 'AI', 'Conversational UI'] | Title Means Conversational AI “Conversational”Content HAL wellknown fictional conversational AI lacked empathy it’s user Author Dr Ender Ricart Principal UX Researcher LivePerson company forefront conversational AI application customer service content article informed insight indepth qualitative research customer experience conversational AI research performed conversational AI people tell want expect AI humanlike spite say practice observe people applying fundamental linguistic interaction conversational AIs people Interactions conversational AI thus far designed emulate simulate humantohuman conversation therefore trigger people apply fundamental principle communication AI behave accordance principle ignores entirely lead confusion frustration conversational partner article going unpack two fundamental principle communication application chatbots Forming Shared Symbolic Cloud — successfully communicate thing build shared understanding Maxims Cooperative Communication — manipulate say say thing communicate meaning Insights article draw training cultural linguistic anthropology qualitative research performed LivePerson people’s interaction agent chatbots customer service reading article better idea complexity communication come bear people’s expectation frustration interacting conversational AI 1 Forming Shared Symbolic Cloud — successfully communicate thing build shared understanding communication build kind Shared Symbolic Cloud conversational participant contribute draw cloud comprised subject object temporal marker spatial marker referenceable symbolic system engage conversation begin enough preexisting overlap language spoken perhaps similar experience learning sociocultural underpinnings conversational participant engage mutual building symbolic cloud nonetheless unique set interpretation understanding conversation hand also Individual Cloud filter process information different understanding meaning attached word born slight dramatic difference sociolinguistic system experience mental image “chair” LaZboy armchair Mine wooden chair probably imagine different “wooden chair” see wooden chair parent house growing way also mental image chair let alone wooden chair Regardless successfully communicate chair need buy wooden chair dining room table specifically mean mental image wooden chair dining room 100 map mental image still overlap enough communicate Communication like game telephone message communicated received others degree fidelity original intended meaning conversational participant take away something different conversation Individual Clouds differ valuable supporting nonverbal language infrastructure place afforded facetoface communication Things body language vocal intonation vocal cue sigh also visual aid like specific dining room chair point compare come together form Shared Symbolic Cloud communication Participating member conversation access understanding contribute symbolic cloud linguistic interaction sum Shared Symbolic Cloud communication composite participant’s Individual Clouds Individual Clouds composite societal cloud macro level language culture social norm micro level personal experience sociolinguistics niche culture etc come together enable communication specific thing Knowledge culture — mind gap Building Shared Symbolic Cloud becomes difficult throw thing like medicine physic philosophy heating ducting installation ballet university admission process etc picture known “knowledge cultures” standout knowledge culture include specialization require advanced training education usually identifiable jargon common example legalese technobabble Included term knowledge culture also le obvious thing like business Think business company worked internal work culture business goal best practice brand image process system department division rank etc likely experienced confusion engaging unfamiliar knowledge culture multiple point life Maybe started new job people around using acronym software unfamiliar Much company’s New Hire Orientation around helping new employee learn implement knowledge culture tenet like corporate goal principle According Pokémoncom 809 official Pokémon type Many hobby also deeply entrenched knowledge culture recall long ago trying get newly released Pokémon Go quickly found overwhelmed sheer variety Pokémon Pokémon classification ability stats careevolution Meanwhile partner grown playing Pokémon making strategic decision Pokémon catch develop evolve Another frequent exposure foreign knowledge culture occurs call customer service question issue frame problem question using Individual Cloud experience knowledge — point view little understanding company business talk think said problem question within knowledge culture frustrating engage conversation said company business little correspondence thinking talking business failure build Shared Symbolic Cloud wherein communication take place larger gap Individual Cloud cloud customer service agent mobilizing heavily influenced knowledge culture work make difficult talk thing build shared understanding different meaning underpinning similar word concept Diaper debacle — blackboxed business process practice ordered diaper Amazon supposed arrive two day Five day later yet receive noticed delivery date pushed another two week got touch Amazon’s customer service inapp chat informed diaper sold thirdparty seller Amazon could anything help needed send vendor message cancel refund order confusing made initial purchase could find indication thirdparty vendor sent message thirdparty vendor response refund next delivery window elapsed delivery date pushed even got back touch Amazon complain informed nothing could point except message vendor wait product arrive specific date delivery could compensate never heard seller never got diaper Amazon issued refund presume seller still selling diaper still can’t tell ordering go purchase diaper example gap understand Amazon Marketplace operates customer service representative understand point view everything Amazon Marketplace Amazon’s visibility sold third party rule regulation behind cancellation return refund complaint experienced promise twoday delivery broken diaper failed delivered fault Amazon invisible thirdparty seller Already frustrated even frustrating customer service representative tell nothing could done rule seemingly magicked existence annoy known time purchase seller thirdparty vendor maybe seller’s star rating product’s known rule surrounding cancelation refund likely would gone purchase differently clear example insideoutsider knowledge knowledge culture business operating onus Amazon transparent improved customer service relation learn agent telling basically “yeah sorry problem” Customers access exposure business’ knowledge culture company’s way thinking saying thing blackboxed customer service agent sale rep however unique position intimate understanding company’s knowledge culture empathize customer point view customer service representative privileged position dual understanding good customer service representative go extra mile meet customer build bulk Shared Symbolic Cloud enable effective communication Image customer trying make sense business’ knowledge culture access small portion whole Amazon customer service representative spoke successfully empathize realize Individual Cloud knowledge access stepped shoe would gone extra mile demonstrate find product sold thirdparty seller Amazon marketplace could informed one sitting rule regarding cancellation refund good sold third party rather doling policy slowly course month different agent also could followed seller perhaps notified going putting seller probation removing Marketplace done digging found particular seller failed fulfill order number people Instead angry confused customer would much preferred informed teaming Amazon’s customer service representative resolve situation monitoring time needed share necessary knowledge could build bridge mutual understanding Starting customer’s point view Based qualitative researchI conducted LivePerson people various age gender educational background income occupation locality know positive experience customer service includes empathy personalized care actual term used majority study participant mentioning form Empathy characterized study participant customer service representative acknowledges customer experiencing impacting amount feeling like one heard taken seriously given individualized attention given specific situation latter aspect dovetail study participants’ conception “personalized care” discussed customer service representative working toward identifying specific going providing tailored solution given particular empathy personalized care common feeling successfully connected communication customer service representative core make positive interaction customer service research insight demonstrate customer value agent go extra mile meet starting Individual Cloud experience understanding work build Shared Symbolic Cloud customer understand see applicability situation amount recognizing gap internal knowledge culture business posse knowledge experience customer starting customer’s point view empathy find resolution satisfies situation business personalized care Building chatbots start customer’s point view discussed customer service need go typical conversation partner translate internal world business knowledge culture something easily digestible customer Individual Cloud experience understanding operating within Customers cannot work internal logic working company blackboxed inaccessible customer service interaction therefore need agent building bridge Symbolic Shared Cloud providing necessary juncture pertinent information help customer join engage successfully responsibility applies business’ digital customer service agent chatbot must work customer’s point view Individual Cloud build empathy Telltale sign chatbot bridging gap follows insight derived research conducted LivePerson Customers struggling word thing get chatbot understand struggle translate problemquery understood experienced Individual Cloud knowledge culture company B chatbot present selection option customer cannot figure category choose also translation issue directly related organizational schema business knowledge culture might implementing question company classifying categorizing product topic similar experience walking every aisle grocery store try find categorized dried fruit — next fresh fruit nut spice cereal canned good can’t find first try maybe two aren’t hurry don’t kid course going ask someone work rather go whole store Building conversational AI experience customer service posse winning quality empathy personalized care readily achievable user research example thing start investing today help bot bridge gap translate effectively internal business knowledge culture customer’s point view Solution — build chatbots empathy personalized care Reminder empathy customer feeling listened understood personalized care amount situation identified unique customer service working towards finding resolution work customer achieved chatbot Start user’s point view — Individual Cloud important work backward customer another article talked perspective mental model also applies bot say say don’t want bot steeped jargon company’s knowledge culture need proper marriage customer’s point view business’ Conduct user research people framing problem issue — language using talk thing context experiencing Incorporate learning language phrasing bot go long way help customer feel grounded interaction unfamiliar knowledge culture admix business jargon info company’s organizational system teachable moment example bot gently rephrases customer’s query using business jargon “digital portal” Customer new credit card log view activity online can’t see new card going Bot sorry hear experiencing difficulty accessing credit card activity digital portal help better would please take moment log here… bot restate rephrase customer’s intent additionally way build empathy demonstrates customer specific situation understood — first step toward receiving personalized care 2 Plain talk doesn’t apply word design basic user experience web also many parallel conversational AI create satisfying customer experience absolutely imperative design category information architecture logic hierarchy user’s point view like user experience web working backward customer make role conversation interaction option seem intuitive resonating Individual Cloud risk sounding like broken record tooting horn perform user research card sorting first click tree testing identify label construct information hierarchy category resonates customer’s understanding 3 Recognize customer’s issue need unique deliver “personalized” care bot Sure maybe company get hundred thousand even million customer service hit issue daily doesn’t matter one customer’s singular point view issue unique don’t want told issue commonplace go find answer “Frequently Asked Questions FAQ” page shuttled FAQ page reinforces number b company doesn’t value situation enough provide personalized care Unless bot specifically FAQ bot don’t send customer FAQs OK pull content bot’s response FAQ page don’t link FAQs indicate question commonplace Instead bot talk customer frame content derived FAQ page unique individual specific situation set bot deliver personalized care experience customer 2 Maxims cooperative communication — manipulate say say thing communicate meaning addition Individual Shared Symbolic Clouds say say conveys meaning well British philosopher language Paul Grice outline four principle cooperative communication apply unconsciously converse others drive derive meaning maxim follows Maxim Quantity — contribution conversation informative extent needed mean additional information little Maxim Quality — Say know believe true posse sufficient evidence support Maxim RelationRelevance — Contribute conversation hand Maxim Manner — Don’t obscure brief don’t vague organize contribution Gricean maxim operate overarching level conversation whole end draw individual utterance made larger whole related subject object spatiotemporal reference topic unconsciously apply maxim convey comprehend meaning implicit explicit encounter violation one maxim violation type violation serf communicate significance beyond surface value See following example Person talk Michal Jorge getting together next Saturday Person B sent message Person applies maxim cooperative communication derive meaning Person B stated apply Maxim Relevance determine “message” must related getting together Michal Jorge Surely Person B wouldn’t intentionally mislead Person talking irrelevant message sent Person B additionally flaunted Maxim Quantity could responded saying “I talk sent message responded say ‘yes next Saturday works’” However Person B say saying rather violating Maxim Quantity Person B turn successfully communicated different set implicit meaning Person Person talk Michal Jorge getting together next Saturday Person B EXPLICIT sent message IMPLIED talked messaged never got back may bit irritated don’t know getting together next Saturday please don’t ask Thus violation maxim serve communicate additional value beyond explicit content uttered occurs tacitly often without calculation part parcel communication maxim apply communication conversational AI Conversational AI good carrying context across utterance application Gricean maxim fail thread cooperative communication intent recognition purpose conversational AI tend ground conversational context turnbyturn basis per discrete interaction rather across interaction intent longer context retained subject object topic identifying information mobilized easier bot customer mobilize Gricean maxim Businesses preface development machine learning natural language processing enables AI integrate transconversational historical data multithreaded intent given interaction customer example wellknown conversational AI Mitsuku developed Pandorabots acclaimed “record breaking fivetime winner Loebner Prize Turing Test world’s best conversational chatbot” Link individual conversational turn say something someone else say something Mitsuku appears accordance principle cooperative communication Gricean maxim apply level overarching conversation comprised multiple conversational turn single turn Looking bigger picture actually talked Mitsuku violates Maxim Relevance Quantity Manner switch topic conversation weather cost raincoat fails relevant altogether violates Maxim Manner Quantity talking length random thing like “Mousebreaker” clearing memory Mitsuku’s conversational partner felt frustrated confused tried apply maxim understand Mitsuku saying sussing implied intentionality related larger conversation example think “Mousebreaker” might mean first thought maybe “Mousebreaker” play word referring computerized “windbreaker” erase memory implied meaning didn’t make sense essentially wasted cognitive power topic continued leapfrog Even Mitsuku’s possible joke cost raincoat land awkwardly promptly forgets conversational thread becomes distractingly vague violation Maxim Relevance Manner Mitsuku’s repeated violation devoid intentionality therefore meaning prevent u actually cooperatively communicating failing build Shared Symbolic Cloud Maintaining larger conversational context across interaction essential truly cooperative collaborative conversation occur conversational AI summarize going position AI conversational need aware anatomy communicative event Shared Symbolic Cloud — build mutual understanding Maxims cooperative communication — say thing say convey implicit explicit meaning related larger context conversation discussed building mutual understanding becomes complicated complex knowledge culture involved customer service becomes increasingly important meet customer individual cloud work backward build empathy personalized care need applies chatbots used customer service Research customer’s point view needed achieve includes experiencing communicate also organize information maxim cooperative communication emphasized need conversational AI maintain conversational context beyond discrete interaction however complete interaction defined maxim unconsciously applied people communicative event apply across interaction index past subject object topic place people etc goal make AI indistinguishable human make conversationally compatible human important people unconsciously apply fundamental communication invited converse AITags Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Customer Service AI Conversational UI |
1,261 | What I Wish People Knew About Reporting Suicidal Friends on Facebook | What I Wish People Knew About Reporting Suicidal Friends on Facebook
With no one to turn to, I turned to Facebook — and ended up with a cop on my doorstep
Photo: Jack Halford/EyeEm/Getty Images
In the winter of 2013, I found myself spending a month on a leaky air mattress. I was staying at the home of my ex-fiancé’s Facebook friend, in Iowa. She’d generously welcomed me after my ex kicked me out of our shared Tennessee apartment.
I was three months pregnant and battling suicidal ideation every day. When my fiancé told me to go back to Minnesota and began spending all of his time trolling online for dates, my prenatal depression kicked into high gear. I was pregnant, recently dumped, filled with guilt, and terrified of being a bad mother. I was afraid my depression would prevent me from bonding with my child, and I was in desperate need of help. No matter how much people told me to move on, I couldn’t understand how to actually do it.
In those days, I still had a Facebook account, which constantly reminded me of the breakup. Everything online did, but Facebook was particularly good at it. Plus my Facebook posts were pretty damn depressing. I like to think I was careful about what I posted. I knew I shouldn’t tell people how much I wanted to die. I knew I shouldn’t share how often I went for walks in the middle of the night with a knife in my pocket.
One day I posted a status I don’t remember posting: “Today I’m thinking a lot about taking a walk and disappearing for good.”
I was alone when there was a loud knock at the door. Startled, I opened the door to see a police officer.
“Are you Shannon Ashley?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, the blood draining from my face. I didn’t understand what he wanted.
“One of your friends was concerned about some things you posted on Facebook,” he said. “Can I come in and talk?”
The officer sat down and asked me some questions about what was going on and how I was feeling. As I realized what was happening, I felt my face burn. Someone had reported my post to Facebook, which advised them to contact my local authorities.
I knew if I answered too honestly, I would have to go to the hospital. For a lot of folks battling suicidal ideation, going to the hospital is an unknown that seems even scarier than our darkest thoughts. We will do everything we can to avoid it.
So I was careful to tell the police officer just enough to get him to leave me alone. I’m not sure why we don’t talk more about this flaw in the system: So many of our protocols surrounding depression or suicide checks assume the person who needs help will tell the truth.
But a lot of us won’t.
The officer didn’t stay long, and my main concern was making sure he left before anyone else returned home. It was bad enough to feel so miserable; the last thing I wanted was to explain myself to somebody else.
I still don’t know who reported my post and called the police. I do know Facebook didn’t deem the post “against community guidelines” because it’s still visible six years later on my now-unused account.
“If someone you know is in danger, please contact local emergency services for help immediately,” Facebook advises on its help page. “After you’ve called emergency services, connect with your friend or call someone who can. Showing that you care matters. Make sure they know that you’re there for them, and that they aren’t alone.”
I’m glad to see Facebook recommends that the concerned user reach out to their friend, but I have mixed feelings about the entire policy. In my case, the person who reported my post and called the cops never revealed themselves or reached out to offer personal support.
People don’t know how to react to a pregnant woman who isn’t glowing with joy or delightfully sharing photos of baby showers and nursery makeovers. And they definitely don’t know how to deal with one in the deep throes of prenatal depression. Some friends did send baby gifts, but they were hard to look at — more reminders of what I didn’t have, and the massive responsibility that was about to come screaming into my unprepared arms. | https://humanparts.medium.com/i-made-a-facebook-post-that-had-the-police-knocking-on-my-door-b5e3d11baf20 | ['Shannon Ashley'] | 2020-01-15 17:30:33.282000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Facebook', 'Depression', 'Social Media', 'Mental Health'] | Title Wish People Knew Reporting Suicidal Friends FacebookContent Wish People Knew Reporting Suicidal Friends Facebook one turn turned Facebook — ended cop doorstep Photo Jack HalfordEyeEmGetty Images winter 2013 found spending month leaky air mattress staying home exfiancé’s Facebook friend Iowa She’d generously welcomed ex kicked shared Tennessee apartment three month pregnant battling suicidal ideation every day fiancé told go back Minnesota began spending time trolling online date prenatal depression kicked high gear pregnant recently dumped filled guilt terrified bad mother afraid depression would prevent bonding child desperate need help matter much people told move couldn’t understand actually day still Facebook account constantly reminded breakup Everything online Facebook particularly good Plus Facebook post pretty damn depressing like think careful posted knew shouldn’t tell people much wanted die knew shouldn’t share often went walk middle night knife pocket One day posted status don’t remember posting “Today I’m thinking lot taking walk disappearing good” alone loud knock door Startled opened door see police officer “Are Shannon Ashley” asked “Yes” answered blood draining face didn’t understand wanted “One friend concerned thing posted Facebook” said “Can come talk” officer sat asked question going feeling realized happening felt face burn Someone reported post Facebook advised contact local authority knew answered honestly would go hospital lot folk battling suicidal ideation going hospital unknown seems even scarier darkest thought everything avoid careful tell police officer enough get leave alone I’m sure don’t talk flaw system many protocol surrounding depression suicide check assume person need help tell truth lot u won’t officer didn’t stay long main concern making sure left anyone else returned home bad enough feel miserable last thing wanted explain somebody else still don’t know reported post called police know Facebook didn’t deem post “against community guidelines” it’s still visible six year later nowunused account “If someone know danger please contact local emergency service help immediately” Facebook advises help page “After you’ve called emergency service connect friend call someone Showing care matter Make sure know you’re aren’t alone” I’m glad see Facebook recommends concerned user reach friend mixed feeling entire policy case person reported post called cop never revealed reached offer personal support People don’t know react pregnant woman isn’t glowing joy delightfully sharing photo baby shower nursery makeover definitely don’t know deal one deep throe prenatal depression friend send baby gift hard look — reminder didn’t massive responsibility come screaming unprepared armsTags Life Facebook Depression Social Media Mental Health |
1,262 | The Ultimate Tool to Start the New Year the Right Way | The Ultimate Tool to Start the New Year the Right Way
How to get started with the Wheel of Life
I have never been the biggest fan of New Year resolutions, purely due to the short lifespan they seem to hold.
Research by Strava recently found that in 2020, Sunday 19th January is the day when most people will give up on their resolutions.
In another research, HelloFresh discovered 40% of New Year’s Resolutions have already failed by this point, despite our best intentions.
There are quite a few ways you can go about planning your new year and setting meaningful intentions, and one of them is known as the Wheel of Life® (or Life Wheel).
The original concept of The Wheel of Life is attributed to the late Paul J. Meyer who founded the Success Motivation® Institute in 1960 and created an array of programs and tools for leaders worldwide.
Commonly used by life coaches, it highlights each area of your life in turn in order to assess which areas need more attention.
It’s a great nifty exercise that also helps you outline your core values as well as understanding how you can create a life that can best lead you to meet your ultimate goals — yes, it’s quite powerful stuff.
When it comes to the Life Wheel, you can follow the standard areas you should focus on, however, I’m more of the school of thought of choosing the core areas based on your personal and professional values.
How do you go about finding your values? If you have not done this already, it may be time for you to outline what are the values you stand by on both a professional and a personal level.
I love to get a piece of paper and draw a line to create two columns. One column should be for your personal values (family, connection, freedom) and one for your professional values (success, space, flexibility).
Exercise: once you have outlined the top 5 values for each column, I want you to compare your answers. What is overlapping, and what is clashing? How can you make sure these values work together, instead of working against each other?
Once you know what values matter most to you, it’s time to fill your wheel. The idea is to helps you to identify areas that need more attention, so getting clear on the values will help you map out only the areas of your life that truly resonate with you.
A few approaches have been used in the past, including the “roles” you fulfill in your life (mother, manager, daughter, etc) or the areas that matter to you the most (family, work, creativity).
In my case, I love to use the values I would find from the exercise I mentioned earlier in the piece since they would represent my priorities in my personal and professional life.
Examples would be
Personal: relationships, movement, spiritual wellbeing
Professional: freedom, creativity, connections
By using a wheel, you get a clear representation of the way your life is currently, as opposed to the way you’d ideally like it to be. The concept can be adapted to the way you want to highlight your focus. Some people love to use numbers (from 1–10 to rate each area) others use a traffic light system instead.
Exercise: map out your wheel and start adding the areas you want to focus on. You can consider each in turn and rate them based on the amount of attention you’re devoting to that area of your life, how much you feel aligned with each value (for example freedom and creativity).
It’s time to get honest now: I hate to break it to you, but it’s unlikely you’ll be scoring a 10 in every single area any time soon.
Truly, what you are looking for is to be able to have a balanced spread across the board. Some coaches recommend joining all the marks together from each area to see if they are all in balance.
Yet, I believe what is truly important is to take the time to ask yourself:
Am I happy with the balance I see across the different areas of my life? Which areas need more attention and focus right now?
Action step: write down for each area the one step you can take to make improvements for yourself, and work on them for the next 30 days.
I personally run this exercise every 90 days for the members of our collective. You may want to do this every single month, and that is also fine.
Being able to look over and assess what works for you it’s key when it comes to creating a more balanced life overall. The real balance is the one that allows you to fill your life with more than one area. First, you have to decide what you want to fill your wheel with.
Truth is, many people are looking to have a very “unbalanced” life. Don’t roll your eye just yet. Hear me out.
The real goal of “balance” is to experience happiness on a daily basis. Today my slice of happiness was a long run. Tomorrow it may be work.
Rethink was a balanced wheel means and tailor it to you, in order to truly achieve happiness every day. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/the-ultimate-tool-to-start-the-new-year-the-right-way-32661dd7810f | ['Fab Giovanetti'] | 2020-12-28 23:03:04.884000+00:00 | ['Habits', 'Goal Setting', 'Productivity', 'Self', 'Creativity'] | Title Ultimate Tool Start New Year Right WayContent Ultimate Tool Start New Year Right Way get started Wheel Life never biggest fan New Year resolution purely due short lifespan seem hold Research Strava recently found 2020 Sunday 19th January day people give resolution another research HelloFresh discovered 40 New Year’s Resolutions already failed point despite best intention quite way go planning new year setting meaningful intention one known Wheel Life® Life Wheel original concept Wheel Life attributed late Paul J Meyer founded Success Motivation® Institute 1960 created array program tool leader worldwide Commonly used life coach highlight area life turn order ass area need attention It’s great nifty exercise also help outline core value well understanding create life best lead meet ultimate goal — yes it’s quite powerful stuff come Life Wheel follow standard area focus however I’m school thought choosing core area based personal professional value go finding value done already may time outline value stand professional personal level love get piece paper draw line create two column One column personal value family connection freedom one professional value success space flexibility Exercise outlined top 5 value column want compare answer overlapping clashing make sure value work together instead working know value matter it’s time fill wheel idea help identify area need attention getting clear value help map area life truly resonate approach used past including “roles” fulfill life mother manager daughter etc area matter family work creativity case love use value would find exercise mentioned earlier piece since would represent priority personal professional life Examples would Personal relationship movement spiritual wellbeing Professional freedom creativity connection using wheel get clear representation way life currently opposed way you’d ideally like concept adapted way want highlight focus people love use number 1–10 rate area others use traffic light system instead Exercise map wheel start adding area want focus consider turn rate based amount attention you’re devoting area life much feel aligned value example freedom creativity It’s time get honest hate break it’s unlikely you’ll scoring 10 every single area time soon Truly looking able balanced spread across board coach recommend joining mark together area see balance Yet believe truly important take time ask happy balance see across different area life area need attention focus right Action step write area one step take make improvement work next 30 day personally run exercise every 90 day member collective may want every single month also fine able look ass work it’s key come creating balanced life overall real balance one allows fill life one area First decide want fill wheel Truth many people looking “unbalanced” life Don’t roll eye yet Hear real goal “balance” experience happiness daily basis Today slice happiness long run Tomorrow may work Rethink balanced wheel mean tailor order truly achieve happiness every dayTags Habits Goal Setting Productivity Self Creativity |
1,263 | Redesigning Chrome Desktop | As my involvement in the Chrome browser is ending with this Core UI project, I’m excited to see what the Chrome team has for the future of Chrome on desktop and mobile.
Lessons learned and initial release feedback
As a closing note, I’d like to share some of the lessons I learned during this project as well as some release reaction, both internal and external, hoping that these will be helpful to you, in your projects.
1. Engineers are great designers
We talk a lot in our design circles about if and why a designer should code. There are a lot of diverging opinions on the matter and it comes from the fact that there is no simple definition of the role of a designer.
However, we talk less of the opposite: Should engineer design?
In the end, they are the makers and to a certain extent, the “designers” of your product, the ones who make it become a real thing. Sometimes, as a designer, I feel like all that we do is trying to “fake” or “mimick” the end result. Cutting to the chase as fast as possible to try things in the real environment, in real code, is essential.
In this project, a lot of my assumptions were broken by engineers who not only brought better solutions to the table but executed and iterated on the design better that I could ever do. I’m thinking more specifically of programmatic rendering (an effort championed by Peter Kasting) and motion design (lead by Ben Ruthig). Their code knowledge was crucial in getting the design right and more than only changing the design it changed the nature of the project, from a visual revamp of the UI to a core rewriting.
Everybody is a designer. Ideas are not limited to a role. If you are lucky enough to be working with motivated and engaged engineer, you might realize that they can sometimes be a better designer than you.
2. Involve engineers early
In the present case, they were involved right away and were an integral of the design and conception process. As I mentioned earlier, their motivation to deliver better design through better engineering solution made the product what it is today. Maintaining constant communication was key to bring the right design to life.
You don’t necessarily need to understand how to code, it’s more important to understand the people who do.
3. Know when to be precise, learn when to be loose
Delivering extremely precise spec work is necessary, however, in some cases, leaving your preliminary work open for feedback and new ideas can bring your design to another level. As long as your end design stays true to its original goal or intent, let others enter your process and improve on your design.
4. Beware of change aversion
When you are redesigning a product, especially if it has been around for a while, you will run into what a lot of us have encountered: change aversion. Now be careful, sometimes your design might actually be bad but in a lot of cases, the simple act of changing something is sufficient to trigger moderate to extreme reaction from your users.
It can be extremely hard to receive and extremely hard to fight. For this redesign, adding a few pixel triggered lengthy discussions or debate.
I won’t lie, I do not have the miracle solution to it but there are things that you can do to minimize change aversion:
Communicate with your audience. Always have a deck ready to explain your vision to who might want to hear it, especially if they are your stakeholders.
Stay the course. It is very beneficial to strongly believe in the choices you made. Don’t get stubborn but stay confident.
Be prepared. When somebody wants to discuss some of your design decisions, be prepared to back these up with facts, studies (when possible) or past experiences. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot answer back, you might find that their feedback is worth considering.
Understand some things take time. Probably the most frustrating and the one I’m having the most trouble dealing with, some things just take time to change. The bigger the product, the longer it might take. Find happiness in the small victories and understand that your product is never done.
5. Manage your expectation
When the update started to roll out, the hardest feedback I received was: “That’s it?”. It’s a fair feedback in my opinion. The project took time and it’s not a visual revolution. I like to think that if you look into the details, you might start to see how much attention and care we put into it.
The biggest improvements brought by this redesign project are under the hood. It is an engineering achievement most and foremost.
I do hope that the benefit will be felt over time, both in our team and with our users, as Chrome has never been so flexible and consistent across our supported platforms.
Finding satisfaction in your work and the result of it through your own eyes is more important than seeking validation through others’. If you are truly and honestly satisfied with what you have done. You’re good.
Closing notes
Thanks for reading so far. If you want to reach out, feel free to connect on Twitter or anywhere else.
If you want to connect with the Chrome design team, these are cool people to follow on Twitter: Alex Ainslie, Chris Lee, Max Walker, Rachel Ilan Simpson, Peter Schaffner, Hannah Lee, Glen Murphy.
The awesome engineering team behind this work:
Peter Kasting, Ben Ruthig, Evan Stade, Terry Anderson, Valery Arkhangorosky, Jayson Adams. | https://medium.com/google-design/redesigning-chrome-desktop-769aeb5ab987 | ['Sebastien Gabriel'] | 2016-11-14 05:36:37.960000+00:00 | ['User Interface', 'Design', 'UX', 'Visual Design', 'Google'] | Title Redesigning Chrome DesktopContent involvement Chrome browser ending Core UI project I’m excited see Chrome team future Chrome desktop mobile Lessons learned initial release feedback closing note I’d like share lesson learned project well release reaction internal external hoping helpful project 1 Engineers great designer talk lot design circle designer code lot diverging opinion matter come fact simple definition role designer However talk le opposite engineer design end maker certain extent “designers” product one make become real thing Sometimes designer feel like trying “fake” “mimick” end result Cutting chase fast possible try thing real environment real code essential project lot assumption broken engineer brought better solution table executed iterated design better could ever I’m thinking specifically programmatic rendering effort championed Peter Kasting motion design lead Ben Ruthig code knowledge crucial getting design right changing design changed nature project visual revamp UI core rewriting Everybody designer Ideas limited role lucky enough working motivated engaged engineer might realize sometimes better designer 2 Involve engineer early present case involved right away integral design conception process mentioned earlier motivation deliver better design better engineering solution made product today Maintaining constant communication key bring right design life don’t necessarily need understand code it’s important understand people 3 Know precise learn loose Delivering extremely precise spec work necessary however case leaving preliminary work open feedback new idea bring design another level long end design stay true original goal intent let others enter process improve design 4 Beware change aversion redesigning product especially around run lot u encountered change aversion careful sometimes design might actually bad lot case simple act changing something sufficient trigger moderate extreme reaction user extremely hard receive extremely hard fight redesign adding pixel triggered lengthy discussion debate won’t lie miracle solution thing minimize change aversion Communicate audience Always deck ready explain vision might want hear especially stakeholder Stay course beneficial strongly believe choice made Don’t get stubborn stay confident prepared somebody want discus design decision prepared back fact study possible past experience find situation cannot answer back might find feedback worth considering Understand thing take time Probably frustrating one I’m trouble dealing thing take time change bigger product longer might take Find happiness small victory understand product never done 5 Manage expectation update started roll hardest feedback received “That’s it” It’s fair feedback opinion project took time it’s visual revolution like think look detail might start see much attention care put biggest improvement brought redesign project hood engineering achievement foremost hope benefit felt time team user Chrome never flexible consistent across supported platform Finding satisfaction work result eye important seeking validation others’ truly honestly satisfied done You’re good Closing note Thanks reading far want reach feel free connect Twitter anywhere else want connect Chrome design team cool people follow Twitter Alex Ainslie Chris Lee Max Walker Rachel Ilan Simpson Peter Schaffner Hannah Lee Glen Murphy awesome engineering team behind work Peter Kasting Ben Ruthig Evan Stade Terry Anderson Valery Arkhangorosky Jayson AdamsTags User Interface Design UX Visual Design Google |
1,264 | We need 2 things to be great at what we do. | We need 2 things to be great at what we do.
From a writer’s perspective, we need to learn daily. Eating a slice of the humble pie goes a long way.
Next, we need working tools. We are not perfect. With working tools, we can get better.
Right? | https://medium.com/technology-hits/we-need-2-things-to-be-great-at-what-we-do-12cbe7f5918a | ['Aldric Chen'] | 2020-12-15 07:36:26.987000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Short Story', 'Technology'] | Title need 2 thing great doContent need 2 thing great writer’s perspective need learn daily Eating slice humble pie go long way Next need working tool perfect working tool get better RightTags Productivity Business Writing Short Story Technology |
1,265 | SEM: Is There Value in the Google Guaranteed Program? | SOURCE: Google
Here’s a new wrinkle to Google search for local businesses. Advertisers on Google can now display a green checkmark, which Google will tag businesses with either “Google Screened” or “Google Guaranteed.”
It’s only available right now for certain categories of business, such as law, financial planning, and real estate for the Screened badge and service-oriented companies for the Google Guaranteed mark. To get the checkmark, businesses will have to go through background checks, provide proof of insurance and licenses, and other paperwork. To use the mark, you have to pay for the ads and be part of the search engine’s Local Service Ads program.
“…the real value of the badge is the access it provides to Local Services Ads (LSA). This is Google’s local trust pack. It is a cost-per-call advertising inventory unit that acts unlike anything we have ever encountered as marketers.” SEARCH ENGINE LAND
For consumers, booking through the Google Guaranteed ad includes an offer to refund up to $2,000 if you aren’t satisfied with the service you’ve received.
SOURCE: Google
Here’s how Google describes how the service works:
Google Screened
On Local Service listings, you will see the Google Screened icon next to these businesses. How it works All firms that have the Google Screened badge must pass a business-level background and a business-owner background check. Additionally, each professional in the business must pass a license check, and in some categories, a background check. See Requirements by category for details. These checks ensure consumers that the professionals they work with have been thoroughly vetted and provide them added peace of mind as they work with you. Who it covers Only firms that provide professional services including Law, Financial Planning, and Real Estate are eligible for the Google Screened badge. MORE INFO FROM GOOGLE
The Google Guarantee
The Google Guarantee badge is available for businesses that pass a Google screening and qualification process through Google Local Services. If you’re backed by the Google Guarantee, and your customers (that came to your business through Google) aren’t satisfied with work quality, Google may refund the amount paid for the service. The following are the upper limits of lifetime coverage for claims: What it Covers United States: $2,000
Canada: CAD $2,000 The Google Guarantee covers claims up to the amount on the job invoice up to the lifetime cap for coverage. Services must be booked through Google Local Services. The Google Guarantee doesn’t cover add-on or future projects, damages to property, dissatisfaction with price or provider responsiveness, or cancellations. How it Works If one of your customers submits a claim, we’ll contact you to learn more. You’ll have an opportunity to make things right with your customer. After investigating the claim, Google will decide on a resolution. MORE INFO FROM GOOGLE
A Deeper Dive
Search Engine Land does a deeper dive into this and is worth the read if you’re interested.
If you’re trying to figure out whether it’s worth it for you, get in touch with me and we can do an assessment for your business. | https://medium.com/digital-vault/sem-is-there-value-in-the-google-guaranteed-program-c0f350ae476a | ['Paul Dughi'] | 2020-09-18 15:15:15.363000+00:00 | ['SEM', 'Search Engine Marketing', 'Google', 'Advertising', 'Marketing'] | Title SEM Value Google Guaranteed ProgramContent SOURCE Google Here’s new wrinkle Google search local business Advertisers Google display green checkmark Google tag business either “Google Screened” “Google Guaranteed” It’s available right certain category business law financial planning real estate Screened badge serviceoriented company Google Guaranteed mark get checkmark business go background check provide proof insurance license paperwork use mark pay ad part search engine’s Local Service Ads program “…the real value badge access provides Local Services Ads LSA Google’s local trust pack costpercall advertising inventory unit act unlike anything ever encountered marketers” SEARCH ENGINE LAND consumer booking Google Guaranteed ad includes offer refund 2000 aren’t satisfied service you’ve received SOURCE Google Here’s Google describes service work Google Screened Local Service listing see Google Screened icon next business work firm Google Screened badge must pas businesslevel background businessowner background check Additionally professional business must pas license check category background check See Requirements category detail check ensure consumer professional work thoroughly vetted provide added peace mind work cover firm provide professional service including Law Financial Planning Real Estate eligible Google Screened badge INFO GOOGLE Google Guarantee Google Guarantee badge available business pas Google screening qualification process Google Local Services you’re backed Google Guarantee customer came business Google aren’t satisfied work quality Google may refund amount paid service following upper limit lifetime coverage claim Covers United States 2000 Canada CAD 2000 Google Guarantee cover claim amount job invoice lifetime cap coverage Services must booked Google Local Services Google Guarantee doesn’t cover addon future project damage property dissatisfaction price provider responsiveness cancellation Works one customer submits claim we’ll contact learn You’ll opportunity make thing right customer investigating claim Google decide resolution INFO GOOGLE Deeper Dive Search Engine Land deeper dive worth read you’re interested you’re trying figure whether it’s worth get touch assessment businessTags SEM Search Engine Marketing Google Advertising Marketing |
1,266 | Cut the Shit: Why advertisers need to sell more and bullshit less. | In the summer of 2015, Pepto-Bismol made one of the most epic ads in the history of indigestion medicine. You might want to get comfortable before starting this:
It took a strange 4 minutes to get there but eventually the point was made: if you were raised by goats, you would need Pepto-Bismol to deal with the trash you’d end up eating.
“The Boy Raised by Goats” won a couple of Clios but failed to generate much viral traction. And because of it’s unwieldy length, Pepto-Bismol wasn’t able to pump money into paid views of the ad to make it seem viral. So, not a lot of people saw it.
And that’s probably a big reason why Chief Brand Officer at Procter and Gamble, Marc Pritchard, used the piece of content to highlight the “content crap trap” of advertising during his keynote speech at the 2016 ANA “Masters of Marketing” conference.
“In our quest to produce dynamic real-time marketing in the digital age, we were producing thousands of new ads, posts, tweets, every week, every month, every year. I guess we thought the best way to cut through the clutter was to create more ads. All we were doing was adding to the noise.”
Pritchard, who was appointed as the new ANA chair shortly before his speech, used his new platform and the P&G-produced goat spot to illustrate the pitfalls of content marketing. He described the goat spot as “why did we do this” content, questioning the relevance of the creative insight and the length of the video. It wasn’t the only piece of content he called it but it was a crowd favorite.
Waste in advertising has been a hot topic for Pritchard in this era of his career and he used the ANA speech to stress the need for higher quality advertising. In Pritchard’s version of the story, marketers and agencies have been too quick to pour money into content for new technologies, leading to lower-performing ads because, more ads with unchanging creative budgets equals crappier ads.
Even if “The Boy Raised by Goats” is seen as the 21st century’s “Citizen Kane” in a few decades, it would’ve been hard to justify as a business expense because it only ended up accumulating a few thousand views. It’s unlikely that a professionally produced four-minute film had a positive return on investment with only a few thousand views. And that is probably what Pritchard means when he refers to it as crap. Not subjectively in an artistic sense but objectively in a crappy for business sense.
Because Pritchard is speaking up about waste. For him, it’s about value. And waste is the enemy of value.
Pritchard isn’t alone in this. Marketing is a function of business, after all. It shouldn’t be a surprise that senior marketers want results from the investments they make. Surveys of senior marketers show over and over again that what they want most from agency partners is good value for their investments.
Unfortunately they’re not seeing it.
USA Today and the ad agency RPA surveyed senior marketers in the US in 2014 and found that only 56% believed their agencies understood how to generate sales and only 40% believed their agencies delivered a positive return-on-investment. In other words, about half of advertising agencies in the US couldn’t do the number one thing they were hired to do.
A similar British survey from 2015 found that 46% of senior marketers in the UK were not satisfied with their agency partners’ work, and only 8% were ‘very satisfied’.⁶ Again, roughly half of client-side marketers weren’t getting the value they want.
Pritchard’s goat story and ANA speech illustrates the frustration of client-side marketers across the world and across industries who continue to see their agencies pour ad budgets into costly productions that have virtually no impact on sales. Of course four-minute ads aren’t the only form of advertising waste and sometimes they work. But clearly the goat spot was not the G.O.A.T. spot when it came to delivering business results.
Unfortunately, agency-side marketers might not even know that they’re making crap. USA Today asked senior-agency side marketers the same questions they had given the client-side marketers in their 2014 survey and found that agency-side marketers had a much sunnier opinion of their own abilities. 84% said they understood how to drive sales (compared to 56% of clients) and 76% believed they delivered positive return-on-investment (compared to 40% of clients).
Agencies will find out soon enough that they’re not cutting it because Pritchard and his fellow marketers are starting to call bullshit.
CALLING BULLSHIT
“We should get the best price for our consumers, and if that means rooting out inefficiencies in someone else’s business, I will do it.” — Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever
In June 2017 Unilever’s CMO, Keith Weed, announced that the company would be ending half of their 3,000 agency relationships as part of a larger effort to cut inefficiencies in marketing. They set a goal to save €6 billion by 2019 and had already saved €1 billion by the first half of 2017.
Unilever’s agency purge came roughly three years after Pritchard’s P&G announced a similar initiative. Between 2013 and 2016, P&G cut their agency roster of 6,000 by 50%, leading in part to a $620 million in savings, which they reinvested in media and sampling. Between the two advertising giants, 4,500 agency relationships were over or ending.
Kraft, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Hershey, and other major marketers followed suit by consolidating their work and cutting redundancies around the same time.
The marketing consolidation trend was driven by several factors including technology that streamlined the planning and buying of media and the financial ripple effects of the great recession that increased the burden on business leaders to be more efficient with operational budgets. But the thing that really drove clients to lose trust in agencies was our expensive love affair with content.
THE CONTENT CRAP TRAP
Advertisers are suckers for trends. Stuff like QR codes, web series, food trucks, virtual reality… Show us a cool new, unproven communications technique or medium and we’ll spend millions of dollars to be a part of it.
In the late ’00s and early ’10s the trend was branded digital content. “Content is king” was a favorite go-to-phrase and agencies like VaynerMedia were raking in new business by relentlessly pumping out content and experimenting with new digital formats and social platforms.
“The more content I can put out, the more luck I have… You have to get into the content game. You have to force yourself to make more videos, write more posts.” — Gary Vaynerchuck
People started calling themselves “content strategists” and building monthly content calendars for their clients’ brand pages. Brands became content publishers and dumped huge chunks of their marketing budgets into supporting a constant stream of branded content, where new ads were posted to brand pages daily, sometimes several times a day. Teams of people were hired to manage content, respond to consumer comments, and take advantage of big trending topics.
But the pendulum is just starting to swing back and marketers like Unilever and P&G are starting to realize that quality really does matter when it comes to the bottom line. A lot. And that sometimes less is more.
Unilever created a proprietary tool to measure the creative wear-out of their ads and found they were grossly underusing their creative assets. On average only 1% of ads they produced reached a point of “wear-out” where it had no effect or negative effects on the audience, and only 40% of ads were “worn-in,” meaning that consumers were familiar enough with the idea to move the sales needle. In theory, you want to use all of your ads to the point of “wear-out” to maximize the investment made in the creative idea and production of the film.
In June 2017, Unilever announced that it would cut the number of ads it made by 30%, largely because of these findings. P&G also made cuts, slashing their creative production budgets by $570 million between 2014 and 2016.
Unilever and P&G don’t represent the entire advertising industry of course, but they do have massive influence on the trajectory of the industry. P&G spent $4.26 billion in advertising in 2015 and Unilever spent $8.3 billion in 2014. That financial power alone can be used to force change on the media and creative industries. And that is exactly what Pritchard and Weed are doing.
As of 2017, agencies were still making a profit but combined 2016 revenue was at it’s lowest since 2013, and in a common-sense-defying trend, agencies’ digital revenue dropped from 13.5% to 8% in the 2016 fiscal year, while client side budgets were increasing.¹³
If we want to reverse our fortunes and ensure that we remain indispensable instruments of the marketing process, we will need to understand how we’re creating waste and how we can avoid creating it in the future.
At some point in 2015 it became trendy to start talking about the death of the ad agency. Mashable wrote an article with that exact title and AdAge heavily covered the “death of the agency of record.”
Agencies aren’t dying. But we’re changing in a big way. We’ve been chasing the newest trends at a high cost to efficiency and marketers are wisely demanding an end to the insanity.
It’s time we suck it up ourselves and cut the shit.
CUT THE SHIT
Every three years or so, the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), a UK-based advertising trade organization, analyzes hundreds of advertising case studies from around the world to understand what’s going on in the world of advertising. It’s kind of like a census for ad campaigns.
The reports they produce from these studies are usually over a hundred pages long and examine the differences in brand impact from various advertising strategies, like how different campaign lengths can affect the overall growth of a brand, or how emotional and rational messages impact sales differently. They’re incredibly influential reports because of how massive and comprehensive the data sets are; nearly one thousand case studies from a range of industries, countries, and cultures. Despite any selection bias inherent in reviewing award-submission papers, these IPA reports are one of the closest things we have to scientific proof of our collective impact on marketing success.
Within each report, the IPA calculates something called the economic multiplier of creativity, which is a unique measurement designed to isolate creativity’s impact on business growth. The thinking behind this metric is that a creatively excellent campaign should drive more business growth than a mediocre creative campaign, when media spend is equal. Otherwise, why would marketers pay creative agencies millions of dollars to come up with a creative ideas?
This “multiplier” is built on the assumption that brands grow when they spend above their relative market share in paid media, regardless of the creative quality of their advertising. But they grow a lot more for the same spend if they have excellent creative.
Consider this example of imaginary fruit advertising; Oranges have 20% of the fruit market but they buy 30% of all fruit ad space and grow 0.5 market share points without getting any creative awards. Oranges are good but not great. Oranges are the norm.
Plums though… Plums are much more creative. Plums have the same market share (20%) and spend the same amount as Oranges — 30% of fruit ad space — but they come up with an awesome creative idea, rake in a bunch of creative awards and see a 2.5 increase in market share. Plums were 5x more efficient with their media spend than Oranges and excellent according to all the creative experts. Plums for the win!
This is the idea behind the IPA’s multiplier score and fortunately for creative agencies — that creatively awarded campaigns deliver a stronger business results when a brand is spending above the minimum threshold to gain market share.
Fortunately for agencies, the IPA has found that creatively awarded campaigns significantly increased the financial efficiency of campaigns in every edition of the study. It reached a high of 12x in 2010.
However that number has been declining ever since, reaching a low of 6x 2014 according to the 2015 IPA report “Selling Creativity Short.”
This drastic four year slide lines up well with the rapid erosion of client trust illustrated in part one of this series. Something that was driven by the perceived increase in ad ‘clutter,’ which the IPA also signs of in their research:
Between 2010 and 2014, the amount of digitally integrated campaigns campaigns tracked by the IPA rose from 75% to virtually 100%. And while they saw above-average returns for campaigns with multiple assets, they also found a potential limitation to the benefit of multiple assets; campaigns with 5 or more assets performed worse than campaigns with 3–4 assets.
It’s been said so many times that sometimes we forget to remind ourselves how much media changed between 2005 and 2016. Lenses, Live Video, Augmented Reality, Cinemagraphs, Shoppable posts… it’s been a bonanza of ad innovation. And there have been some incredible ads to come out of these new ad formats. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), from 2000 to 2016, internet advertising revenue grew from $8.2 billion to $72.5 billion.
But we’ve become so eager to fill the space that we’re sacrificing the impact of our creative. Not only in the number of channels and ads used but the way in which those channels are used. And how they’re used together. And it’s coming back to haunt our relationships with clients.
ABC — ALWAYS BE CLOSING
“Your role is to sell, don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising.” — David Ogilvy
The erosion of client trust and scaling back of agency budgets that we’ve seen over the past five years comes down to one very important problem; advertisers have lost sight of their #1 job: to sell.
This article shows how a variety of behaviors and beliefs can create waste in advertising. But all of those behaviors and beliefs boil down to a lack of business-mindedness. Whether it’s adding more creative ideas to an existing idea and diluting it’s message, selling in more assets to produce and decreasing the efficiency of a campaign, or creating ads that can’t achieve scale — we don’t always have our clients business in mind.
If we want to reverse the erosion of trust between agency and client, agencies need to step up and cut the shit. And that means prioritizing your clients business goals above all else. | https://medium.com/comms-planning/cut-the-shit-1fc48e163ad2 | ['Brian Brydon'] | 2019-05-01 22:25:30.323000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Marketing', 'Measurement', 'Creative', 'Creativity'] | Title Cut Shit advertiser need sell bullshit lessContent summer 2015 PeptoBismol made one epic ad history indigestion medicine might want get comfortable starting took strange 4 minute get eventually point made raised goat would need PeptoBismol deal trash you’d end eating “The Boy Raised Goats” couple Clios failed generate much viral traction it’s unwieldy length PeptoBismol wasn’t able pump money paid view ad make seem viral lot people saw that’s probably big reason Chief Brand Officer Procter Gamble Marc Pritchard used piece content highlight “content crap trap” advertising keynote speech 2016 ANA “Masters Marketing” conference “In quest produce dynamic realtime marketing digital age producing thousand new ad post tweet every week every month every year guess thought best way cut clutter create ad adding noise” Pritchard appointed new ANA chair shortly speech used new platform PGproduced goat spot illustrate pitfall content marketing described goat spot “why this” content questioning relevance creative insight length video wasn’t piece content called crowd favorite Waste advertising hot topic Pritchard era career used ANA speech stress need higher quality advertising Pritchard’s version story marketer agency quick pour money content new technology leading lowerperforming ad ad unchanging creative budget equal crappier ad Even “The Boy Raised Goats” seen 21st century’s “Citizen Kane” decade would’ve hard justify business expense ended accumulating thousand view It’s unlikely professionally produced fourminute film positive return investment thousand view probably Pritchard mean refers crap subjectively artistic sense objectively crappy business sense Pritchard speaking waste it’s value waste enemy value Pritchard isn’t alone Marketing function business shouldn’t surprise senior marketer want result investment make Surveys senior marketer show want agency partner good value investment Unfortunately they’re seeing USA Today ad agency RPA surveyed senior marketer US 2014 found 56 believed agency understood generate sale 40 believed agency delivered positive returnoninvestment word half advertising agency US couldn’t number one thing hired similar British survey 2015 found 46 senior marketer UK satisfied agency partners’ work 8 ‘very satisfied’⁶ roughly half clientside marketer weren’t getting value want Pritchard’s goat story ANA speech illustrates frustration clientside marketer across world across industry continue see agency pour ad budget costly production virtually impact sale course fourminute ad aren’t form advertising waste sometimes work clearly goat spot GOAT spot came delivering business result Unfortunately agencyside marketer might even know they’re making crap USA Today asked senioragency side marketer question given clientside marketer 2014 survey found agencyside marketer much sunnier opinion ability 84 said understood drive sale compared 56 client 76 believed delivered positive returnoninvestment compared 40 client Agencies find soon enough they’re cutting Pritchard fellow marketer starting call bullshit CALLING BULLSHIT “We get best price consumer mean rooting inefficiency someone else’s business it” — Keith Weed CMO Unilever June 2017 Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed announced company would ending half 3000 agency relationship part larger effort cut inefficiency marketing set goal save €6 billion 2019 already saved €1 billion first half 2017 Unilever’s agency purge came roughly three year Pritchard’s PG announced similar initiative 2013 2016 PG cut agency roster 6000 50 leading part 620 million saving reinvested medium sampling two advertising giant 4500 agency relationship ending Kraft GlaxoSmithKline Hershey major marketer followed suit consolidating work cutting redundancy around time marketing consolidation trend driven several factor including technology streamlined planning buying medium financial ripple effect great recession increased burden business leader efficient operational budget thing really drove client lose trust agency expensive love affair content CONTENT CRAP TRAP Advertisers sucker trend Stuff like QR code web series food truck virtual reality… Show u cool new unproven communication technique medium we’ll spend million dollar part late ’00s early ’10s trend branded digital content “Content king” favorite gotophrase agency like VaynerMedia raking new business relentlessly pumping content experimenting new digital format social platform “The content put luck have… get content game force make video write posts” — Gary Vaynerchuck People started calling “content strategists” building monthly content calendar clients’ brand page Brands became content publisher dumped huge chunk marketing budget supporting constant stream branded content new ad posted brand page daily sometimes several time day Teams people hired manage content respond consumer comment take advantage big trending topic pendulum starting swing back marketer like Unilever PG starting realize quality really matter come bottom line lot sometimes le Unilever created proprietary tool measure creative wearout ad found grossly underusing creative asset average 1 ad produced reached point “wearout” effect negative effect audience 40 ad “wornin” meaning consumer familiar enough idea move sale needle theory want use ad point “wearout” maximize investment made creative idea production film June 2017 Unilever announced would cut number ad made 30 largely finding PG also made cut slashing creative production budget 570 million 2014 2016 Unilever PG don’t represent entire advertising industry course massive influence trajectory industry PG spent 426 billion advertising 2015 Unilever spent 83 billion 2014 financial power alone used force change medium creative industry exactly Pritchard Weed 2017 agency still making profit combined 2016 revenue it’s lowest since 2013 commonsensedefying trend agencies’ digital revenue dropped 135 8 2016 fiscal year client side budget increasing¹³ want reverse fortune ensure remain indispensable instrument marketing process need understand we’re creating waste avoid creating future point 2015 became trendy start talking death ad agency Mashable wrote article exact title AdAge heavily covered “death agency record” Agencies aren’t dying we’re changing big way We’ve chasing newest trend high cost efficiency marketer wisely demanding end insanity It’s time suck cut shit CUT SHIT Every three year Institute Practitioners Advertising IPA UKbased advertising trade organization analyzes hundred advertising case study around world understand what’s going world advertising It’s kind like census ad campaign report produce study usually hundred page long examine difference brand impact various advertising strategy like different campaign length affect overall growth brand emotional rational message impact sale differently They’re incredibly influential report massive comprehensive data set nearly one thousand case study range industry country culture Despite selection bias inherent reviewing awardsubmission paper IPA report one closest thing scientific proof collective impact marketing success Within report IPA calculates something called economic multiplier creativity unique measurement designed isolate creativity’s impact business growth thinking behind metric creatively excellent campaign drive business growth mediocre creative campaign medium spend equal Otherwise would marketer pay creative agency million dollar come creative idea “multiplier” built assumption brand grow spend relative market share paid medium regardless creative quality advertising grow lot spend excellent creative Consider example imaginary fruit advertising Oranges 20 fruit market buy 30 fruit ad space grow 05 market share point without getting creative award Oranges good great Oranges norm Plums though… Plums much creative Plums market share 20 spend amount Oranges — 30 fruit ad space — come awesome creative idea rake bunch creative award see 25 increase market share Plums 5x efficient medium spend Oranges excellent according creative expert Plums win idea behind IPA’s multiplier score fortunately creative agency — creatively awarded campaign deliver stronger business result brand spending minimum threshold gain market share Fortunately agency IPA found creatively awarded campaign significantly increased financial efficiency campaign every edition study reached high 12x 2010 However number declining ever since reaching low 6x 2014 according 2015 IPA report “Selling Creativity Short” drastic four year slide line well rapid erosion client trust illustrated part one series Something driven perceived increase ad ‘clutter’ IPA also sign research 2010 2014 amount digitally integrated campaign campaign tracked IPA rose 75 virtually 100 saw aboveaverage return campaign multiple asset also found potential limitation benefit multiple asset campaign 5 asset performed worse campaign 3–4 asset It’s said many time sometimes forget remind much medium changed 2005 2016 Lenses Live Video Augmented Reality Cinemagraphs Shoppable posts… it’s bonanza ad innovation incredible ad come new ad format According Interactive Advertising Bureau IAB 2000 2016 internet advertising revenue grew 82 billion 725 billion we’ve become eager fill space we’re sacrificing impact creative number channel ad used way channel used they’re used together it’s coming back haunt relationship client ABC — ALWAYS CLOSING “Your role sell don’t let anything distract sole purpose advertising” — David Ogilvy erosion client trust scaling back agency budget we’ve seen past five year come one important problem advertiser lost sight 1 job sell article show variety behavior belief create waste advertising behavior belief boil lack businessmindedness Whether it’s adding creative idea existing idea diluting it’s message selling asset produce decreasing efficiency campaign creating ad can’t achieve scale — don’t always client business mind want reverse erosion trust agency client agency need step cut shit mean prioritizing client business goal elseTags Advertising Marketing Measurement Creative Creativity |
1,267 | Integrate machine learning and big data into real-time business intelligence with Snowflake and Plotly’s Dash | Integrate machine learning and big data into real-time business intelligence with Snowflake and Plotly’s Dash plotly Follow Jun 5 · 7 min read
AI-enhanced BI powered by Dash and Snowflake — (Check out the app here)
Business intelligence (BI) is an indispensable tool for many, if not most, modern organizations. BI covers an entire gamut of end-to-end activities from data mining to reporting, all carried out with a core goal assisting critical business decision making.
How significant has BI become? One indication of its popularity can be gleaned from this Google Trends chart showing its search popularity over the last five years.
Google Trends Data — BI vs Machine Learning
This chart shows a steady and sizable increase in search volume for BI throughout the last five years. In fact, it has consistently remained above even the volume for machine learning, another critical business capability that often supports BI activities.
Modern BI activities have evolved to almost unrecognizably complex forms even since the 1990s or 2000s, never mind its nascent days of the 1950s and 1960s using mainframe computers.
Quite simply, business Intelligence is here to stay, and it is well and truly intertwined with the domain of big data.
Take a look at customer reaction or competitor activity monitoring for instance.
These days, natural language processing (NLP) tools might be deployed to parse and analyze millions, if not billions, of social media posts across multiple platforms not to mention press releases, websites and online fora. Or, internal systems might be built to search and analyze corpora of internal text data comprising tens of millions of texts in documents, e-mails, internal chat logs, and customer feedback.
Quite simply, business intelligence is here to stay, and it is well and truly intertwined with the domain of big data; a necessary consequence of which has been that machine learning / AI tools are now indelibly linked for their necessity in analyzing the enormous volume of data.
One side effect of growing complexities in BI activities has been increased demands for those building the underlying infrastructures, such as data management platforms. In fact, many organizations these days have eschewed building their own solutions for contracting external service providers such as Snowflake to fill their data warehousing needs.
Snowflake
Snowflake is one of the leading data warehousing service providers, offering ‘near zero-maintenance’ service, as well as uniquely providing de-coupled, ‘near-instant‘ scalability to their clients. This means that Snowflake’s compute power or storage are independently scalable, allowing the user to scale one or the other up or down for as long (or as short) as needed.
For these reasons and more, Snowflake is a massively popular solution in the world of data management and warehousing.
But, collecting data and having fast access to the data is only one part of the puzzle. To meet BI’s goal of aiding business decision-making, the requisite systems must effectively analyze the latest and greatest datasets, and subsequently deliver its key findings to the relevant stakeholders. In other words, it requires a tight integration between the underlying data, analysis layer, and user interface.
Pairing Plotly’s Dash with Snowflake
Dash was designed with these goals in mind, and that’s why it is a natural partner to a premium data service provider such as Snowflake for delivering not just vanilla, static, BI, but integrated, responsive BI systems incorporating machine learning analysis layers. Dash is a lot more than a simple tool for visualizing existing data, but an integrated user interface layer for machine learning and data science models.
An example of a successful marriage between Dash and Snowflake can be seen in this demo Dash app, designed to search and analyze over half a million user reviews from Amazon.
Screenshot of Dash / Snowflake driven BI app
This app allows the user to perform a search of the underlying dataset, as well as to analyze the text of a review, whether it is from the search results or manually typed in by the user.
When the user updates a filter or performs a search, Dash sends the query through to Snowflake, which returns search results from half a million records in less time than a blink of an eye (within tens of milliseconds). Dash then takes the returned result set to generate a dashboard report with not only macro-level statistics, but also natural language processing analysis outputs that are generated on the fly.
In other words, Dash-powered BI dashboard can incorporate not only live data, but live machine learning analysis layers under the hood.
With traditional systems, database, data analytics, and dashboard outputs must be separately updated by disparate individuals or departments. Combining these components to set up an equivalent system to Dash and Snowflake would require more time and cost, not to mention that it would be slow and prone to errors or inconsistencies as some pipelines are updated faster than others.
D ash-powered BI dashboard can incorporate not only live data, but live machine learning analysis layers under the hood.
Dash can help to integrate these components and automate intermediate tasks, pulling the displayed data from the primary database and running required analysis or ML models in real-time. This ensures that the entire organization is aligned and working with common ground truths from the one dataset.
By connecting Dash with Snowflake, the analytics outputs will be always up to date and in sync with the primary data; there is no need for further intermediate processing, passing data back and forth between departments, and updating the app separately. Take a look here at the app in action:
Dash in action — responsive filtering & NLP outputs (app)
As the animation shows, the Dash app reacts to a user’s inputs by triggering a series of processes, starting from passing a query to Snowflake and processing the returned data set.
The app carries out statistical analysis in the background, updates corresponding graphs, and triggers the NLP analyses for sentiment analysis and named entity recognition (NER).
Dash is, of course, easily customizable. While in the above animation you see multiple outputs being updated simultaneously, as much, or as little, of the app can be made to be triggered by specific inputs.
The next figure shows a user fetching a random review from the filtered results set, or clicking through to one of the named entities from a review to perform a new search. Once again, a new review is populated, automatically triggering Dash to run the NLP engine looks for named entity, before displaying them in the results.
Fetching data & triggering NLP analyses (app)
Beyond simple BI-style controls like sliders, dropdowns and buttons, Dash supports much more advanced interaction possibilities, such as free-form text input for on-the-fly processing with real-time model execution. To demonstrate this, in this app the user can even type in their own review as shown in the animation below. Once the user finishes typing and clicks away from the text box, Dash once again initiates the sentiment analysis and NER analyses, updating the results.
Triggering NLP analyses on user-entered data (app)
Not only is it merely possible to build these repeatable analysis layers with Dash to streamline analyses and reporting, it is actually incredibly easy to do so. The secret is to leverage Dash’s callback functions that wrap a function to inputs and outputs, for example a change to the filter parameters to an output graph.
Writing callback function to update a dashboard element takes just few lines of code; here is an example:
@app.callback(Output('filt-ner-count', 'figure'),
[Input('filt-params', 'children')])
def update_ner_freq_chart(filter_params):
fig = ...
return fig
This, and a reference to the output element, is all it takes for a Dash function to detect an update to the search parameters and update the relevant chart on the dashboard.
The fact that Dash allows data scientists to code the analysis modules in their preferred language (such as Python, R, or Julia), as well as the front end, is simply gravy. Not a trivial one, mind you.
We’ve seen Dash empower many data science teams to take control of the entire data dashboard, instead of building analysis or machine learning layers and handing the outputs over to separate front end engineers.
By pairing Dash with powerful services such as Snowflake, you and your organization can take advantage of all that bid data offers, while minimizing the headaches, inconsistencies and labor involved in analysis and communication.
If you’ve gotten this far, and haven’t looked at the app in action — what’re you waiting for? Go and take a look.
We are excited to see what you build with these tools and look forward to seeing the amazing creations from our community of incredible, creative Dash users. If you would like to learn more about Dash and its capabilities, check out our weekly live demo! | https://medium.com/plotly/integrate-machine-learning-and-big-data-into-real-time-business-intelligence-with-snowflake-and-c972b5ea274e | [] | 2020-06-05 14:50:16.516000+00:00 | ['Snowflake', 'Python', 'Business Intelligence', 'Data Visualization'] | Title Integrate machine learning big data realtime business intelligence Snowflake Plotly’s DashContent Integrate machine learning big data realtime business intelligence Snowflake Plotly’s Dash plotly Follow Jun 5 · 7 min read AIenhanced BI powered Dash Snowflake — Check app Business intelligence BI indispensable tool many modern organization BI cover entire gamut endtoend activity data mining reporting carried core goal assisting critical business decision making significant BI become One indication popularity gleaned Google Trends chart showing search popularity last five year Google Trends Data — BI v Machine Learning chart show steady sizable increase search volume BI throughout last five year fact consistently remained even volume machine learning another critical business capability often support BI activity Modern BI activity evolved almost unrecognizably complex form even since 1990s 2000s never mind nascent day 1950s 1960s using mainframe computer Quite simply business Intelligence stay well truly intertwined domain big data Take look customer reaction competitor activity monitoring instance day natural language processing NLP tool might deployed parse analyze million billion social medium post across multiple platform mention press release website online forum internal system might built search analyze corpus internal text data comprising ten million text document email internal chat log customer feedback Quite simply business intelligence stay well truly intertwined domain big data necessary consequence machine learning AI tool indelibly linked necessity analyzing enormous volume data One side effect growing complexity BI activity increased demand building underlying infrastructure data management platform fact many organization day eschewed building solution contracting external service provider Snowflake fill data warehousing need Snowflake Snowflake one leading data warehousing service provider offering ‘near zeromaintenance’ service well uniquely providing decoupled ‘nearinstant‘ scalability client mean Snowflake’s compute power storage independently scalable allowing user scale one long short needed reason Snowflake massively popular solution world data management warehousing collecting data fast access data one part puzzle meet BI’s goal aiding business decisionmaking requisite system must effectively analyze latest greatest datasets subsequently deliver key finding relevant stakeholder word requires tight integration underlying data analysis layer user interface Pairing Plotly’s Dash Snowflake Dash designed goal mind that’s natural partner premium data service provider Snowflake delivering vanilla static BI integrated responsive BI system incorporating machine learning analysis layer Dash lot simple tool visualizing existing data integrated user interface layer machine learning data science model example successful marriage Dash Snowflake seen demo Dash app designed search analyze half million user review Amazon Screenshot Dash Snowflake driven BI app app allows user perform search underlying dataset well analyze text review whether search result manually typed user user update filter performs search Dash sends query Snowflake return search result half million record le time blink eye within ten millisecond Dash take returned result set generate dashboard report macrolevel statistic also natural language processing analysis output generated fly word Dashpowered BI dashboard incorporate live data live machine learning analysis layer hood traditional system database data analytics dashboard output must separately updated disparate individual department Combining component set equivalent system Dash Snowflake would require time cost mention would slow prone error inconsistency pipeline updated faster others ashpowered BI dashboard incorporate live data live machine learning analysis layer hood Dash help integrate component automate intermediate task pulling displayed data primary database running required analysis ML model realtime ensures entire organization aligned working common ground truth one dataset connecting Dash Snowflake analytics output always date sync primary data need intermediate processing passing data back forth department updating app separately Take look app action Dash action — responsive filtering NLP output app animation show Dash app reacts user’s input triggering series process starting passing query Snowflake processing returned data set app carry statistical analysis background update corresponding graph trigger NLP analysis sentiment analysis named entity recognition NER Dash course easily customizable animation see multiple output updated simultaneously much little app made triggered specific input next figure show user fetching random review filtered result set clicking one named entity review perform new search new review populated automatically triggering Dash run NLP engine look named entity displaying result Fetching data triggering NLP analysis app Beyond simple BIstyle control like slider dropdowns button Dash support much advanced interaction possibility freeform text input onthefly processing realtime model execution demonstrate app user even type review shown animation user finish typing click away text box Dash initiate sentiment analysis NER analysis updating result Triggering NLP analysis userentered data app merely possible build repeatable analysis layer Dash streamline analysis reporting actually incredibly easy secret leverage Dash’s callback function wrap function input output example change filter parameter output graph Writing callback function update dashboard element take line code example appcallbackOutputfiltnercount figure Inputfiltparams child def updatenerfreqchartfilterparams fig return fig reference output element take Dash function detect update search parameter update relevant chart dashboard fact Dash allows data scientist code analysis module preferred language Python R Julia well front end simply gravy trivial one mind We’ve seen Dash empower many data science team take control entire data dashboard instead building analysis machine learning layer handing output separate front end engineer pairing Dash powerful service Snowflake organization take advantage bid data offer minimizing headache inconsistency labor involved analysis communication you’ve gotten far haven’t looked app action — what’re waiting Go take look excited see build tool look forward seeing amazing creation community incredible creative Dash user would like learn Dash capability check weekly live demoTags Snowflake Python Business Intelligence Data Visualization |
1,268 | From Fibonacci to N-bonacci | The Fibonacci sequence gives rise to the golden ratio found in many beauties of nature. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The Fibonacci sequence was one of the first mathematical concepts that I analysed when I started coding. In particular, this sequence was vital in enabling me to grasp recursion.
To construct a positive Fibonacci sequence, we start by initialising the first two terms: 0, 1.
The next term is derived from the sum of the prior two terms: 0 + 1 = 2. And so on.
In Python, we can automate the process via recursion. So if we want to determine the third fibonacci number: in the function fibonacci, we first check if the sequence already has the value by supplying k as the key into a sequence defined as a dictionary.
If k is in the sequence, then we simply return the value paired with k as the answer. However, as we have just initialised the sequence, k = 3 would not be found. So we go ahead to calculate the kth value of the sequence by recursively calling the fibonacci function twice to calculate the two terms before.
The recursion stack keeps piling on with half-completed function calls until the base case is satisfied — that is the sequence has already stored or cached the value in the fibonacci_sequence dictionary.
We could have returned the answer immediately, but we decide to add one more line to add our result into the sequence so that the machine would not need to waste time recalculating a value that we have seen before.
Now, what if we want to generalise the Fibonacci sequence into an N-bonacci sequence, where we initialise the first N-1 values as 0, while the N-th value is 1.
If you are interested in a related coding challenge, today’s post is inspired by this Edabit problem, so you could try to solve it before continuing on. To be sure, copying and pasting the code below would not work as-is as the answer that I am seeking is slightly different.
The approach I have taken is actually a generalised form of the solution, where the problem is solved via object-oriented programming rather than functional programming. OOP has the advantage of enabling us to first create and object representing some N-bonacci — e.g. Fibonacci is also a 2-bonacci — before adding a kth_term method that could be reused to find different kth values.
Let us create an object called Bonacci such that a Fibonacci sequence can be represented by Bonacci(2). In the __init__ magic method, we initialise the sequence self.ans to store the initial sequence values.
We also write a __repr__ magic method to easily identify the object upon instantiation, which is almost always more useful than printing some memory address of the object.
The kth-term method is very similar in process to the main code in the fibonacci function, except that we use comprehension to sum up the N prior terms when an unseen kth-term is found. This method also relies on calling recursion stacks to calculate all required N-bonacci values in reverse upon reaching the base case.
A few more examples on how we could use the object:
The Fibonacci sequence and the resulting golden ratio is found throughout nature — an example would be the seashell in the image above. With the computing power to generalise such sequences, I wonder what else could be discovered in time?
Enjoyed this article? If so, get more similar content by subscribing to Decoded, our YouTube channel! | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/from-fibonacci-to-n-bonacci-d1bc874a54ba | ['Kelvin Tan'] | 2020-10-06 20:01:34.184000+00:00 | ['Recursion', 'Python', 'Algorithms', 'Software Engineering', 'Fibonacci'] | Title Fibonacci NbonacciContent Fibonacci sequence give rise golden ratio found many beauty nature file licensed Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 40 International license Fibonacci sequence one first mathematical concept analysed started coding particular sequence vital enabling grasp recursion construct positive Fibonacci sequence start initialising first two term 0 1 next term derived sum prior two term 0 1 2 Python automate process via recursion want determine third fibonacci number function fibonacci first check sequence already value supplying k key sequence defined dictionary k sequence simply return value paired k answer However initialised sequence k 3 would found go ahead calculate kth value sequence recursively calling fibonacci function twice calculate two term recursion stack keep piling halfcompleted function call base case satisfied — sequence already stored cached value fibonaccisequence dictionary could returned answer immediately decide add one line add result sequence machine would need waste time recalculating value seen want generalise Fibonacci sequence Nbonacci sequence initialise first N1 value 0 Nth value 1 interested related coding challenge today’s post inspired Edabit problem could try solve continuing sure copying pasting code would work asis answer seeking slightly different approach taken actually generalised form solution problem solved via objectoriented programming rather functional programming OOP advantage enabling u first create object representing Nbonacci — eg Fibonacci also 2bonacci — adding kthterm method could reused find different kth value Let u create object called Bonacci Fibonacci sequence represented Bonacci2 init magic method initialise sequence selfans store initial sequence value also write repr magic method easily identify object upon instantiation almost always useful printing memory address object kthterm method similar process main code fibonacci function except use comprehension sum N prior term unseen kthterm found method also relies calling recursion stack calculate required Nbonacci value reverse upon reaching base case example could use object Fibonacci sequence resulting golden ratio found throughout nature — example would seashell image computing power generalise sequence wonder else could discovered time Enjoyed article get similar content subscribing Decoded YouTube channelTags Recursion Python Algorithms Software Engineering Fibonacci |
1,269 | Why you need to become conscious | Perhaps we all have this habit — switching habit.
The habit of switching from conscious to unconscious.
We are trained professionals in switching. Most of us had learned this very well from childhood — if nothing else :).
Perhaps it was an essential strategy for that little child, that we were once, to survive the heaviness of unpleasantness. It could be that we were not equipped — our brains — to face them consciously.
But this habit had gotten the better of us — this unconscious avoidance. And this makes us suffer the weight of suppressed emotions, the ugly ones: anxieties, shame, embarrassment, humiliation, …the list goes.
And at some point in our lives, mostly through some sort of suffering, that this switching process no longer works — become ineffective. At this point, we get to see that all is ‘not’ well as it seems.
This compulsive switching to unconscious can happen in two ways depending on one’s unique makeup:
one might jump into action with the intention of having to not face the sensations.
one might flee or pull back more when the threatening sensations are felt.
Whatever be one’s way of avoidance, at some point the body-mind cannot take it anymore.
Panic, sheer panic arrives!!!.
It becomes difficult to simply deny the force of suffering arising from this old habit in our body-mind. But still, we continue this habit via thinking — we think for a solution, yet thinking cannot solve it; moreover being overwhelmed by thoughts, we remain stuck in the unconscious mode even worse.
To be conscious is to see what is happening within — the habit of slipping into the unconscious, the habit of suppression or avoidance of unpleasant sensations.
We are forced by life to switch back to the conscious mode, which is painful, but when the old habit had gotten the better of us, there is no way out than to become conscious — if we have to get out of the mess. Being conscious and learning to break the cycle of unconscious suffering can lead to healing and stabilization within.
To be conscious of the fact that thinking is a way of avoidance, by itself opens up a possibility to undo the old habit. There are no stubborn rules on how to consciously heal the body-mind with the release of suppressed energies. Sitting with thoughts and feelings without doing anything about it (as in some meditation) or purposefully engaging in any sort of creative work or a conscious walk, engaging in daily life situations risking consciously, active imagination method (Carl Jung), etc can serve the healing process.
Often we turn away from immersing in any creative works because our thoughts need assurance that it will feel better before we even start. It is perhaps a trick of thoughts to keep clinging onto the habit of remaining unconscious. It even comes with fear of missing out as an excuse for preventing a wholehearted immersion — allowing all the tensions to arise and get released along with the creative process.
The habitual mind — as soon as a difficult feeling/thought arises, if let alone — gets preoccupied with how to avoid or become unconscious of the difficult thoughts or feelings; it seems the mind is quite satisfied with anything but not being conscious of the experience; it is a trick, in the sense, we do not really get to escape the reality, the most it can do is to be unconscious or not see ‘what-is’ — running in circles for the hope of avoidance. Though the way in is the only way out.
Being conscious of how we prolong our suffering, opens up the possibility for us to be willing to face the threatening sensations in a kind manner as we become able to unhook from the pull of old habits. | https://medium.com/spiritual-secrets/why-you-need-to-become-conscious-75b966cedb5b | ['Pretheesh Presannan'] | 2020-10-14 14:44:50.790000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Spiritual Secrets', 'Consciousness', 'Mental Health', 'Healing'] | Title need become consciousContent Perhaps habit — switching habit habit switching conscious unconscious trained professional switching u learned well childhood — nothing else Perhaps essential strategy little child survive heaviness unpleasantness could equipped — brain — face consciously habit gotten better u — unconscious avoidance make u suffer weight suppressed emotion ugly one anxiety shame embarrassment humiliation …the list go point life mostly sort suffering switching process longer work — become ineffective point get see ‘not’ well seems compulsive switching unconscious happen two way depending one’s unique makeup one might jump action intention face sensation one might flee pull back threatening sensation felt Whatever one’s way avoidance point bodymind cannot take anymore Panic sheer panic arrives becomes difficult simply deny force suffering arising old habit bodymind still continue habit via thinking — think solution yet thinking cannot solve moreover overwhelmed thought remain stuck unconscious mode even worse conscious see happening within — habit slipping unconscious habit suppression avoidance unpleasant sensation forced life switch back conscious mode painful old habit gotten better u way become conscious — get mess conscious learning break cycle unconscious suffering lead healing stabilization within conscious fact thinking way avoidance open possibility undo old habit stubborn rule consciously heal bodymind release suppressed energy Sitting thought feeling without anything meditation purposefully engaging sort creative work conscious walk engaging daily life situation risking consciously active imagination method Carl Jung etc serve healing process Often turn away immersing creative work thought need assurance feel better even start perhaps trick thought keep clinging onto habit remaining unconscious even come fear missing excuse preventing wholehearted immersion — allowing tension arise get released along creative process habitual mind — soon difficult feelingthought arises let alone — get preoccupied avoid become unconscious difficult thought feeling seems mind quite satisfied anything conscious experience trick sense really get escape reality unconscious see ‘whatis’ — running circle hope avoidance Though way way conscious prolong suffering open possibility u willing face threatening sensation kind manner become able unhook pull old habitsTags Creativity Spiritual Secrets Consciousness Mental Health Healing |
1,270 | Why the warming oceans will get louder | Why the warming oceans will get louder Mashable Follow Feb 21 · 4 min read
“The ecological implications of this are wide open.”
BY MARK KAUFMAN
IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Every 10 minutes, the relentlessly warming oceans absorb 50 megatons of energy, the amount of energy released when detonating the largest-ever atomic bomb.
These warming seas — which soak up over 90 percent of the heat humanity traps on Earth — harbor a particularly loud critter found all over the world: the snapping shrimp. The shrimp make an omnipresent background noise similar to static, or frying bacon, or crinkled paper. And new evidence points to a future where snapping shrimp may get significantly louder as the oceans continue to warm — a big environmental change for the many creatures inhabiting bustling reefs.
Marine scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution recently gathered some 200 snapping shrimp from waters off of North Carolina. The researchers found the already-clamorous species become markedly louder when introduced to warmer temperatures, and will present their research Friday at the 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting.
“The sea is a pretty noisy place,” said Aran Mooney, a marine biologist at Woods Hole who coauthored the research.
“We’ve been worried about human-produced noise in the ocean,” he said. “But we haven’t thought about natural sounds.”
The sound of snapping shrimp (which is likely an involuntary, automatic response) in coral and oyster reefs is truly ubiquitous. “If you’re listening to a healthy coastal ecosystem, you’ll hear snapping shrimp,” said Michelle Fournet, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University.
“We hear them almost every hour of every day,” Fournet, who had no involvement in the research, added.
Each “snap” is made when shrimp quickly close their claws and pop a little bubble of air. Listen for yourself:
The Woods Hole researchers exposed the shrimp to three main temperatures: 10 degrees Celsius (50 F), 20 C (68 F), and 30 C (86 F). For reference, the shrimp usually experience 10 C temperatures in the winter, and about 28 C during the summer.
The difference in noise levels between 10 C and 30 C, measured in decibels, was dramatic. In the warmer conditions, the snapping was 20 decibels louder, which equates to being ten times as loud, explained Wood Hole’sMooney.
“It’s already pretty loud”
Overall, ocean temperatures have risen by about 2 F over the last 100 years, so each season, whether summer or winter, presumably has boosted overall temperatures and loudness, explained Mooney.
Critically, the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects surface ocean waters to warm by at least another 1 degree Fahrenheit or so by 2050. The warming will continue until human-made carbon emissions drop to zero — and there’s no evidence of that happening for at least decades. ( Emissions are still on the rise.)
The link between temperature and snapping is clear, said Mooney, and suggests that it’s almost certainly going to get louder in ocean reefs, which teem with life (Though, like all novel research, these compelling results must be reproduced again). The looming question, however, is what does this boost in noise mean for ocean animals?
IMAGE: NOAA
“The ecological implications of this are wide open,” said Cornell’s Fournet.
“We don’t know what these effects are,” agreed Mooney.
This research opens up the door to find answers, he said, by further researching snapping shrimp and animals, potentially in wild places.
Louder environments could easily cause problems for fish and other creatures. The boosted volume can mask sounds of the reef, as animals look for food or avoid predators. To us, reefs might appear quiet, but when recorded with underwater microphones, it’s a bustling place. Toadfish whistle, groupers make low-frequency sounds, and many fish “puff.”
“Fish make a lot more sounds than people think,” said Fournet.
Or, the amplified snapping could be like having excessively loud neighbors, said Mooney. In that case, the noise would be incessantly stressful.
Already, civilization’s warming of the oceans — stoked by dramatically boosted levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to amounts likely not seen in millions of years — has resulted in animals fleeing from their homes and may also blind some sea creatures.
Now, we’re likely altering the way their world sounds.
“We’re changing the soundscape,” said Mooney. | https://medium.com/mashable/why-the-warming-oceans-will-get-louder-2277444e4b6d | [] | 2020-02-24 16:42:59.111000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Oceans', 'Climate Change', 'Environment'] | Title warming ocean get louderContent warming ocean get louder Mashable Follow Feb 21 · 4 min read “The ecological implication wide open” MARK KAUFMAN IMAGE GETTY IMAGESISTOCKPHOTO Every 10 minute relentlessly warming ocean absorb 50 megaton energy amount energy released detonating largestever atomic bomb warming sea — soak 90 percent heat humanity trap Earth — harbor particularly loud critter found world snapping shrimp shrimp make omnipresent background noise similar static frying bacon crinkled paper new evidence point future snapping shrimp may get significantly louder ocean continue warm — big environmental change many creature inhabiting bustling reef Marine scientist Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution recently gathered 200 snapping shrimp water North Carolina researcher found alreadyclamorous specie become markedly louder introduced warmer temperature present research Friday 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting “The sea pretty noisy place” said Aran Mooney marine biologist Woods Hole coauthored research “We’ve worried humanproduced noise ocean” said “But haven’t thought natural sounds” sound snapping shrimp likely involuntary automatic response coral oyster reef truly ubiquitous “If you’re listening healthy coastal ecosystem you’ll hear snapping shrimp” said Michelle Fournet postdoctoral researcher Center Conservation Bioacoustics Cornell University “We hear almost every hour every day” Fournet involvement research added “snap” made shrimp quickly close claw pop little bubble air Listen Woods Hole researcher exposed shrimp three main temperature 10 degree Celsius 50 F 20 C 68 F 30 C 86 F reference shrimp usually experience 10 C temperature winter 28 C summer difference noise level 10 C 30 C measured decibel dramatic warmer condition snapping 20 decibel louder equates ten time loud explained Wood Hole’sMooney “It’s already pretty loud” Overall ocean temperature risen 2 F last 100 year season whether summer winter presumably boosted overall temperature loudness explained Mooney Critically UN International Panel Climate Change IPCC expects surface ocean water warm least another 1 degree Fahrenheit 2050 warming continue humanmade carbon emission drop zero — there’s evidence happening least decade Emissions still rise link temperature snapping clear said Mooney suggests it’s almost certainly going get louder ocean reef teem life Though like novel research compelling result must reproduced looming question however boost noise mean ocean animal IMAGE NOAA “The ecological implication wide open” said Cornell’s Fournet “We don’t know effect are” agreed Mooney research open door find answer said researching snapping shrimp animal potentially wild place Louder environment could easily cause problem fish creature boosted volume mask sound reef animal look food avoid predator u reef might appear quiet recorded underwater microphone it’s bustling place Toadfish whistle grouper make lowfrequency sound many fish “puff” “Fish make lot sound people think” said Fournet amplified snapping could like excessively loud neighbor said Mooney case noise would incessantly stressful Already civilization’s warming ocean — stoked dramatically boosted level atmospheric carbon dioxide amount likely seen million year — resulted animal fleeing home may also blind sea creature we’re likely altering way world sound “We’re changing soundscape” said MooneyTags Science Oceans Climate Change Environment |
1,271 | Automating a Machine Learning Workflow using Google BigQuery and Amazon Managed Apache Airflow | Automating a Machine Learning Workflow using Google BigQuery and Amazon Managed Apache Airflow
Using BigQuery, Airflow, and Amazon Personalize to Build a machine learning workflow
Amazon announced the availability of Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA), a fully managed service that makes it easy to run Apache Airflow on AWS and to build data processing workflows in the cloud.
Apache Airflow is an open-source tool used to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor sequences of processes and tasks referred to as “workflows”.
This article shows how we can build and manage an ML workflow using Google BigQuery, Amazon MWAA, and Amazon Personalize. We’ll build a session-based recommender system to predict the most popular items for an e-commerce website based on the traffic data of the product pages tracked by Google Analytics.
Amazon Personalize enables developers to build applications with the same machine learning (ML) technology used by Amazon.com for real-time personalized recommendations — no ML expertise required. BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse that solves this problem by enabling super-fast SQL queries using the processing power of Google’s infrastructure.
High-level solution
We’ll start by extracting the data, transforming the data, building, training, deploying a solution version (a trained Amazon Personalize recommendation model), and deploying a campaign. These tasks will be plugged into a workflow that can be orchestrated and automated through Apache Airflow integration with Amazon Personalize and Google BigQuery.
The diagram below represents the workflow we’ll implement for building the recommender system:
Architecture diagram by Yi Ai
The workflow consists of the following tasks:
Data preparation
Export session and hit data from a Google Analytics 360 account to BigQuery, use SQL query analytics data into Pandas data frame with Personalize format, and then write data frame to CSV file directly to S3.
Amazon Personalize solution
Create a Personalize dataset group if it doesn’t exist.
Create an Interaction schema for our data if the schema doesn’t exist.
Create an ‘Interactions’ dataset type if it doesn’t exist.
Attach an Amazon S3 policy to your Amazon Personalize role if it doesn’t exist.
Create a Personalize role that has the right permissions if it doesn’t exist.
Create your Dataset import jobs.
Create / Update Solution.
Create/ Update Campaign.
Before implementing the solution, you have to create an Airflow Environment Using Amazon MWAA;
“extra packages” should be included while creating an environment; please don’t include BigQuery Client in the below requirements.txt, we will install the BigQuery Client in the next step:
boto >= 2.49.0 httplib2 awswrangler google-api-python-client
When the new Airflow environment is ready to be used, attach the Personalize policies to the IAM role of your environment, run CLI as below:
$aws iam put-role-policy — role-name AmazonMWAA-MyAirflowEnvironment-em53Wv — policy-name AirflowPersonalizePolicy — policy-document file://airflowPersonalizePolicy.json
Installing Google Bigquery Client
MWAA currently doesn't support Google Cloud Bigquery client ( google-cloud-bigquery ) and pandas-gbq with grpc > 1.20 , We are not able to install Bigquery Client through requirements.txt . if you put the above dependencies into requiremnts.txt, pip installation won’t install any dependencies in requirements.txt , and you will meet error No module named “httplib2” when running DAG.
To resolve this issue, we can 1)package the required Google libraries in local computer and upload to S3, 2)and then download them to Airflow workers when the bigquery export task started, 3)after that we can dynamically import required modules given the full file path.
I created a bash file and requirements.txt for the above steps; run the following command:
$bash setup.sh
setup.sh
requirements.txt
then, copy the following code to the DAG task to import google modules dynamically :
Next, We will create Google Cloud Connection in Airflow Airflow UI.
Now, we will use Google BigQuery in Amazon Managed Airflow workers; let’s begin to create workflow tasks.
Data preparation
First, export session and hit data from a Google Analytics 360 account to BigQuery, use SQL to query Analytics data into Pandas data frame with Personalize format.
To prepare an interaction dataset for Personalize, we need to extract the following data from BigQuery and Google Analytics:
USER_ID In this example, we don’t have user data of the e-commerce website, and there is no user interaction data from the website database. However, we can use the client id provided by Google Analytics. The client id ( cid ) is a unique identifier for a browser–device pair that helps Google Analytics link user actions on a site. By default, Google Analytics determines unique users using this parameter. The client ID format is a randomly generated 31-bit integer followed by a dot ( “.” ) followed by the current time in seconds. Hence we only need the 31-bit integer before the dot. BigQuery provides regular expression support, which we can put REGEXP_EXTRACT(USER_ID, r’(\d+)\.’) AS USER_ID in Big Query to extract the session id as session-based User Id.
In this example, we don’t have user data of the e-commerce website, and there is no user interaction data from the website database. However, we can use the client id provided by Google Analytics. The client id ( ) is a unique identifier for a browser–device pair that helps Google Analytics link user actions on a site. By default, Google Analytics determines unique users using this parameter. The client ID format is a randomly generated 31-bit integer followed by a dot ( ) followed by the current time in seconds. Hence we only need the 31-bit integer before the dot. BigQuery provides regular expression support, which we can put in Big Query to extract the session id as session-based User Id. ITEM_ID Google Analytics provides page location ( page_location ), so we can extract product pages (product slug) by WHERE Clause page_location LIKE ‘%/product/%’ and make it as Item Id.
Google Analytics provides page location ( ), so we can extract product pages (product slug) by WHERE Clause and make it as Item Id. TIMESTAMP , timestamp data must be in UNIX epoch time format, use TIMESTAMP_TRUNC(TIMESTAMP_MICROS(event_timestamp) to convert Analytics event_timestamp to correct format.
, timestamp data must be in UNIX epoch time format, use to convert Analytics to correct format. device.category AS DEVICE .
AS . geo.country AS LOCATION .
AS . event_name AS EVENT_NAME .
SQL query in BigQuery as below:
Next, write the data frame to the CSV file directory to S3 using AWS DataWragler.
The following PythonOperator snippet in the DAG defines BigQuery to S3 task.
Creating a recommendation model with Amazon Personalize
In this section, we will build a Personalize solution to identify the most popular items for an e-commerce website integrated with Google Analytics.
We will use Popularity-Count Recipe for training our model. Although Personalize supports importing interactions incrementally, we will retrain the model base on daily interaction data to get more relevant recommendations.
What we’ll cover:
check_s3_for_key ( S3KeySensor ): check if the dataset CSV file exists.
( ): check if the dataset CSV file exists. t_check_dataset_group ( BranchPythonOperator ): check if the Personalize dataset group exists. If Yes, trigger t_init_personalize , else trigger t_skip_init_personalize .
( ): check if the Personalize dataset group exists. If Yes, trigger , else trigger . t_init_personalize ( DummyOperator ): trigger parallels tasks if dataset group doesn't exist( t_create_dataset_group,t_create_schema,t_put_bucket_policies,t_create_iam_role) .
( ): trigger parallels tasks if dataset group doesn't exist( . t_create_dataset_group ( PythonOperator ): Create a Personalize dataset group if it doesn’t exist.
( ): Create a Personalize dataset group if it doesn’t exist. t_create_schema ( PythonOperator ): Create an Interaction schema for our data if the schema doesn’t exist.
( ): Create an Interaction schema for our data if the schema doesn’t exist. t_put_bucket_policies ( PythonOperator ): Attach an Amazon S3 policy to your Amazon Personalize role if it doesn’t exist.
( ): Attach an Amazon S3 policy to your Amazon Personalize role if it doesn’t exist. t_create_iam_role ( PythonOperator ): Create a Personalize role that has the right permissions if it doesn’t exist.
( ): Create a Personalize role that has the right permissions if it doesn’t exist. t_create_dataset_type ( PythonOperator ): Create an ‘Interactions’ dataset type if it doesn’t exist.
( ): Create an ‘Interactions’ dataset type if it doesn’t exist. t_skip_init_personalize ( DummyOperator ): Downstream task of BranchOperator task.
( ): Downstream task of BranchOperator task. t_create_import_dataset_job ( PythonOperator ): Create your Dataset import jobs.
( ): Create your Dataset import jobs. t_update_solution ( PythonOperator ): Create / Update Solution.
( ): Create / Update Solution. t_update_campagin (PythonOperator): Create/ Update Campaign.
DAG tasks for Personalize workflow
In the next section, we’ll see how all these tasks are stitched together to form a workflow in an Airflow DAG.
Defining DAG
Different tasks are created in the above sections using operators like PythonOperator for generic Python code to run on-demand or at a scheduled interval.
Now let’s set DAG with parameters; a DAG is simply a Python script that contains a set of tasks and their dependencies.
Next, specify task dependencies:
After triggering the DAG on-demand or on a schedule, we can monitor DAGs and task executions and directly interact with them through Airflow UI.
In the Airflow UI, we can see a graph view of the DAG to have a clear representation of how tasks are executed: | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/creating-a-machine-learning-workflow-using-google-bigquery-and-amazon-managed-apache-airflow-1596b1a0375e | ['Yi Ai'] | 2020-12-22 23:04:48.530000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Machine Learning', 'Airflow', 'AWS', 'Google Big Query'] | Title Automating Machine Learning Workflow using Google BigQuery Amazon Managed Apache AirflowContent Automating Machine Learning Workflow using Google BigQuery Amazon Managed Apache Airflow Using BigQuery Airflow Amazon Personalize Build machine learning workflow Amazon announced availability Amazon Managed Workflows Apache Airflow MWAA fully managed service make easy run Apache Airflow AWS build data processing workflow cloud Apache Airflow opensource tool used programmatically author schedule monitor sequence process task referred “workflows” article show build manage ML workflow using Google BigQuery Amazon MWAA Amazon Personalize We’ll build sessionbased recommender system predict popular item ecommerce website based traffic data product page tracked Google Analytics Amazon Personalize enables developer build application machine learning ML technology used Amazoncom realtime personalized recommendation — ML expertise required BigQuery enterprise data warehouse solves problem enabling superfast SQL query using processing power Google’s infrastructure Highlevel solution We’ll start extracting data transforming data building training deploying solution version trained Amazon Personalize recommendation model deploying campaign task plugged workflow orchestrated automated Apache Airflow integration Amazon Personalize Google BigQuery diagram represents workflow we’ll implement building recommender system Architecture diagram Yi Ai workflow consists following task Data preparation Export session hit data Google Analytics 360 account BigQuery use SQL query analytics data Pandas data frame Personalize format write data frame CSV file directly S3 Amazon Personalize solution Create Personalize dataset group doesn’t exist Create Interaction schema data schema doesn’t exist Create ‘Interactions’ dataset type doesn’t exist Attach Amazon S3 policy Amazon Personalize role doesn’t exist Create Personalize role right permission doesn’t exist Create Dataset import job Create Update Solution Create Update Campaign implementing solution create Airflow Environment Using Amazon MWAA “extra packages” included creating environment please don’t include BigQuery Client requirementstxt install BigQuery Client next step boto 2490 httplib2 awswrangler googleapipythonclient new Airflow environment ready used attach Personalize policy IAM role environment run CLI aws iam putrolepolicy — rolename AmazonMWAAMyAirflowEnvironmentem53Wv — policyname AirflowPersonalizePolicy — policydocument fileairflowPersonalizePolicyjson Installing Google Bigquery Client MWAA currently doesnt support Google Cloud Bigquery client googlecloudbigquery pandasgbq grpc 120 able install Bigquery Client requirementstxt put dependency requiremntstxt pip installation won’t install dependency requirementstxt meet error module named “httplib2” running DAG resolve issue 1package required Google library local computer upload S3 2and download Airflow worker bigquery export task started 3after dynamically import required module given full file path created bash file requirementstxt step run following command bash setupsh setupsh requirementstxt copy following code DAG task import google module dynamically Next create Google Cloud Connection Airflow Airflow UI use Google BigQuery Amazon Managed Airflow worker let’s begin create workflow task Data preparation First export session hit data Google Analytics 360 account BigQuery use SQL query Analytics data Pandas data frame Personalize format prepare interaction dataset Personalize need extract following data BigQuery Google Analytics USERID example don’t user data ecommerce website user interaction data website database However use client id provided Google Analytics client id cid unique identifier browser–device pair help Google Analytics link user action site default Google Analytics determines unique user using parameter client ID format randomly generated 31bit integer followed dot “” followed current time second Hence need 31bit integer dot BigQuery provides regular expression support put REGEXPEXTRACTUSERID r’d’ USERID Big Query extract session id sessionbased User Id example don’t user data ecommerce website user interaction data website database However use client id provided Google Analytics client id unique identifier browser–device pair help Google Analytics link user action site default Google Analytics determines unique user using parameter client ID format randomly generated 31bit integer followed dot followed current time second Hence need 31bit integer dot BigQuery provides regular expression support put Big Query extract session id sessionbased User Id ITEMID Google Analytics provides page location pagelocation extract product page product slug Clause pagelocation LIKE ‘product’ make Item Id Google Analytics provides page location extract product page product slug Clause make Item Id TIMESTAMP timestamp data must UNIX epoch time format use TIMESTAMPTRUNCTIMESTAMPMICROSeventtimestamp convert Analytics eventtimestamp correct format timestamp data must UNIX epoch time format use convert Analytics correct format devicecategory DEVICE geocountry LOCATION eventname EVENTNAME SQL query BigQuery Next write data frame CSV file directory S3 using AWS DataWragler following PythonOperator snippet DAG defines BigQuery S3 task Creating recommendation model Amazon Personalize section build Personalize solution identify popular item ecommerce website integrated Google Analytics use PopularityCount Recipe training model Although Personalize support importing interaction incrementally retrain model base daily interaction data get relevant recommendation we’ll cover checks3forkey S3KeySensor check dataset CSV file exists check dataset CSV file exists tcheckdatasetgroup BranchPythonOperator check Personalize dataset group exists Yes trigger tinitpersonalize else trigger tskipinitpersonalize check Personalize dataset group exists Yes trigger else trigger tinitpersonalize DummyOperator trigger parallel task dataset group doesnt exist tcreatedatasetgrouptcreateschematputbucketpoliciestcreateiamrole trigger parallel task dataset group doesnt exist tcreatedatasetgroup PythonOperator Create Personalize dataset group doesn’t exist Create Personalize dataset group doesn’t exist tcreateschema PythonOperator Create Interaction schema data schema doesn’t exist Create Interaction schema data schema doesn’t exist tputbucketpolicies PythonOperator Attach Amazon S3 policy Amazon Personalize role doesn’t exist Attach Amazon S3 policy Amazon Personalize role doesn’t exist tcreateiamrole PythonOperator Create Personalize role right permission doesn’t exist Create Personalize role right permission doesn’t exist tcreatedatasettype PythonOperator Create ‘Interactions’ dataset type doesn’t exist Create ‘Interactions’ dataset type doesn’t exist tskipinitpersonalize DummyOperator Downstream task BranchOperator task Downstream task BranchOperator task tcreateimportdatasetjob PythonOperator Create Dataset import job Create Dataset import job tupdatesolution PythonOperator Create Update Solution Create Update Solution tupdatecampagin PythonOperator Create Update Campaign DAG task Personalize workflow next section we’ll see task stitched together form workflow Airflow DAG Defining DAG Different task created section using operator like PythonOperator generic Python code run ondemand scheduled interval let’s set DAG parameter DAG simply Python script contains set task dependency Next specify task dependency triggering DAG ondemand schedule monitor DAGs task execution directly interact Airflow UI Airflow UI see graph view DAG clear representation task executedTags Big Data Machine Learning Airflow AWS Google Big Query |
1,272 | I Hope That You Learn How To Gently Start Over | I hope that you learn how to gently start over.
I hope that you learn how to look at yourself and know that you aren’t quite the person you want to be, without condemning the person you currently are. I hope you learn how to see your evolution not as a linear ascent into perfection, but an unpacking of why you might want to perfect yourself in the first place. What feels so broken? And who taught you it was that way?
I hope that you learn success is less about vision than it is consistency, because ideas are easy, and everyone has them. It is what you act on consistently that you truly see the viability of. It is what you do all of the time that you learn to grow around and through. You are not supposed to get it all right the first time, you’re just supposed to keep trying until you do.
I hope you learn that loving is much like life — it takes everything and gives everything back. And merging your life with someone else’s is the greatest honor you’ll ever get, so I hope that you learn how to bend, not break, how to compromise, not take, and how to appreciate, not assume.
I hope you learn that you are also your own project, your own muse, your own love affair.
I hope you learn you belong to yourself.
I hope you learn that you are not meant to grow once and never again, but to fall in love with the process of building, and pulling apart, and rebuilding again.
Life calls us to shed ourselves at different points in time.
There is nothing we can do to avoid this — no dogma, no religion, no belief, no accumulation of belonging that could possibly remove this requirement from us.
We are not here to be just one person, nor a series of ourselves piled up upon one another, fighting for relevance and dominance and space.
We die and are reborn often.
Instead of gripping tightly to that which gives you place, I hope you learn that growth is really just learning to love what you have while you have it, be where you are while you’re there, and not get too flustered at the fact that you’re still a work in progress.
There is no point at which you are supposed to be completed.
The only finish point is death.
Your life is about gently starting over, every day, every hour, in ways both subtle and disruptive, beautiful and melancholy, startling and expected.
I hope you learn how to gently dust yourself off and begin again because life is too short to stay stagnant, life is too full to only drink a quarter of the glass.
If you enjoyed this piece, check out my new book on self-sabotage, or book a 1:1 mentoring session with me. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/i-hope-that-you-learn-how-to-gently-start-over-22f55c749257 | ['Brianna Wiest'] | 2020-12-01 19:01:11.424000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Motivation', 'Creativity'] | Title Hope Learn Gently Start OverContent hope learn gently start hope learn look know aren’t quite person want without condemning person currently hope learn see evolution linear ascent perfection unpacking might want perfect first place feel broken taught way hope learn success le vision consistency idea easy everyone act consistently truly see viability time learn grow around supposed get right first time you’re supposed keep trying hope learn loving much like life — take everything give everything back merging life someone else’s greatest honor you’ll ever get hope learn bend break compromise take appreciate assume hope learn also project muse love affair hope learn belong hope learn meant grow never fall love process building pulling apart rebuilding Life call u shed different point time nothing avoid — dogma religion belief accumulation belonging could possibly remove requirement u one person series piled upon one another fighting relevance dominance space die reborn often Instead gripping tightly give place hope learn growth really learning love you’re get flustered fact you’re still work progress point supposed completed finish point death life gently starting every day every hour way subtle disruptive beautiful melancholy startling expected hope learn gently dust begin life short stay stagnant life full drink quarter glass enjoyed piece check new book selfsabotage book 11 mentoring session meTags Spirituality Life Lessons Inspiration Motivation Creativity |
1,273 | Ever Wondered Why O’Reilly Books Have Animals on Their Covers? | History of the Design of O’Reilly Book Covers
In the article “A short history of the O’Reilly animals,” it’s mentioned that in the mid-1980s, O’Reilly used to sell short books on Unix topics via mail order. These were held together by staples and had plain brown covers. As time progressed, Tim O’Reilly (born 6 June 1954, and the founder of O’Reilly Media, formerly O’Reilly & Associates) decided to sell books through brick-and-mortar stores. He hired a graphics designer for the first two titles that were sold in the book stores, but he wasn’t satisfied with them.
Then enters a woman named Edie Freedman into the picture. She was neighbors with a woman who was involved with the company’s marketing and technical writing team. Over a friendly chat, the women discussed the two book covers that had been published by then by O’Reilly, and Freedman was asked if she had some better ideas.
Quoting Freedman directly here from the article:
“ I had heard of Unix, but I had a very hazy idea of what it was. I’d never met a Unix programmer or tried to edit a document using vi. Even the terms associated with Unix — vi, sed and awk, uucp, lex, yacc, curses, to name just a few — were weird. They sounded to me like words that might come out of Dungeons and Dragons, a game that was popular with a geeky (mostly male) subculture. Sometimes when designing, things come together effortlessly — everything falls into place as if it were inevitable. It just flows. As I looked for images for the book covers, I came across some odd-looking animal engravings from the 19th century. They seemed to be a good match for all those strange-sounding UNIX terms and were esoteric enough that I figured they’d probably appeal to programmers. And, as I investigated the attributes of the real animals, I quickly discovered that there were intriguing correspondences between specific technologies and specific animals. That resonance grew and expanded as I learned more about both the technologies and the animals. I was so energized and inspired that I spent an entire weekend working on the covers without much sleep. At the end of the weekend, I gave several sketches to my neighbor to take into the office. “Some of the people at O’Reilly were taken aback: they thought the animals were weird, ugly, and a bit scary. But Tim got it immediately — he liked the quirkiness of the animals, thought it would help to make the books stand out from other publishers’ offerings — and it just felt right. And so it began. We’ve published hundreds of Animal books since then, and the brand is well known worldwide.”
And this has surely worked. O’Reilly books can be recognized distinctively, due to the animals on their cover pages, even in the most crowded of the bookstands. This distinction has contributed immensely to the intangible brand recognition and value systems.
This was the history of the design of the cover pages of the O’Reilly books. | https://medium.com/better-programming/ever-wondered-why-all-the-oreilly-books-have-animals-on-their-covers-b9440d41570 | ['Juhi Ramzai'] | 2020-09-08 14:54:15.079000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Technology', 'Design', 'Books', 'Programming'] | Title Ever Wondered O’Reilly Books Animals CoversContent History Design O’Reilly Book Covers article “A short history O’Reilly animals” it’s mentioned mid1980s O’Reilly used sell short book Unix topic via mail order held together staple plain brown cover time progressed Tim O’Reilly born 6 June 1954 founder O’Reilly Media formerly O’Reilly Associates decided sell book brickandmortar store hired graphic designer first two title sold book store wasn’t satisfied enters woman named Edie Freedman picture neighbor woman involved company’s marketing technical writing team friendly chat woman discussed two book cover published O’Reilly Freedman asked better idea Quoting Freedman directly article “ heard Unix hazy idea I’d never met Unix programmer tried edit document using vi Even term associated Unix — vi sed awk uucp lex yacc curse name — weird sounded like word might come Dungeons Dragons game popular geeky mostly male subculture Sometimes designing thing come together effortlessly — everything fall place inevitable flow looked image book cover came across oddlooking animal engraving 19th century seemed good match strangesounding UNIX term esoteric enough figured they’d probably appeal programmer investigated attribute real animal quickly discovered intriguing correspondence specific technology specific animal resonance grew expanded learned technology animal energized inspired spent entire weekend working cover without much sleep end weekend gave several sketch neighbor take office “Some people O’Reilly taken aback thought animal weird ugly bit scary Tim got immediately — liked quirkiness animal thought would help make book stand publishers’ offering — felt right began We’ve published hundred Animal book since brand well known worldwide” surely worked O’Reilly book recognized distinctively due animal cover page even crowded bookstands distinction contributed immensely intangible brand recognition value system history design cover page O’Reilly booksTags Software Development Technology Design Books Programming |
1,274 | When I Win, It’s Skill. When Someone Else Wins, It’s Luck | When I Win, It’s Skill. When Someone Else Wins, It’s Luck
Roll the dice more when the worst that can happen isn’t a big deal
From PIRO4D on Pixabay
The title is a joke in a fantasy football league of my friends from college. Whenever we win on a given week, we talk trash about our skill at starting just the right players. Whenever we lose, we blame it on bad luck and external factors like weather and injuries. Of course, with COVID-19 making the season especially precarious, there are even more factors our fantasy football league can attribute to bad luck.
The facetious attitude is that when we win, it’s skill. But when we lose, our opponents got lucky.
Of course, I don’t believe this attitude outside the realm of fantasy football. It’s simply the dynamic with my friends that make it interesting and entertaining to trash talk.
On a more serious note, as a writer and teacher, it’s easy to fall into the trap of getting jealous and attributing your successes to skill and others to luck. You can think that other teachers teach easier classes and less challenging students.
But the lesson here is clear —most of life is luck. It’s a reality I first started to realize this year, and then start to buy into as a way to cope with realities I faced, my students faced, and more faced that seemed increasingly unfair. It’s a human tendency to attribute our own successes to our own skills and merit, and the accomplishments of others to luck.
Luck is more important than skill. And while most people in western society find that mindset defeating, I find it liberating — I don’t take too much stock in my own successes and think I’m better than people, because I just got luckier. I don’t take my losses and failures as personally as I used — I just got unlucky. And I’m more than willing to take risks and venture out of my comfort zone because luck dictates I have no idea where the outcome is going to go.
Don’t get me wrong — I have a lot of willpower. The problem is that willpower, determination, productivity hacks, and anything else I can credit to my personal attributes only goes so far. It only lasts so long.
As a writer, luck means writing about topics I’ve never written about before because I don’t know how well I’m going to do writing about them, or how much I’m going to enjoy the writing process. Luck means pitching big and dreaming big, and not taking it personally when I get no response from a prominent editor or publication.
According to Scott Barry Kaufman at Scientific American, the secret to success just might be luck. Kaufman emphasizes that magazines like Success, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur as telling the secrets to success, and that success is all due to personal characteristics like hard work, toughness, optimism, a growth mindset, and emotional intelligence. And that’s not only a part of our values but also how we allocate resources. In the words of Kaufman,
“We tend to give out resources to those who have a past history of success, and tend to ignore those who have been unsuccessful, assuming that the most successful are also the most competent.”
Kaufman is a psychologist, and he spent his whole life studying psychological characteristics that predict creativity and achievement. While he has found many traits that explain differences in success, much more is left unexplained. Kaufman concludes that luck and opportunity play a far greater role in anything than we previously realized. He doesn’t think luck is everything but instead thinks that personal characteristics matter much less than we think, and are more determined by other determinants of success.
Some of these determinants of success are that half of the differences in income of people across the world is explained by the country they’re raised in and the income distribution in their country. Kaufman also notes that scientific impact is randomly distributed, not based on productivity. Also, the chances of being a CEO is often most influenced by your mother’s name or month of birth.
So that begs the bigger question — is all of success just luck? And what would be the implications for whether successful people are just lucky? How would we allocate resources? How would we assess the “potential” of others? The idea of a meritocracy has been discredited enough, and in a 2018 paper by Pluchino et al., the Italian author credited the “toy mathematical model,” which defined talent as the personal characteristics that allowed them to exploit lucky opportunities.
The authors replicated the Pareto Principle, which suggests that a small number of people end up achieving the success of most of the population. The simulation found that talent was equally distributed, but success was not equally distributed. The 20 most successful individuals held 44% of the total success in that study, which is consistent and even an underestimation of how wealth is distributed in the real world.
The authors found that talent isn’t irrelevant to success since people with talent had a greater probability of increasing success. People with more talent could exploit the possibilities offered to them.
But talent is not the most important factor, since the most talented people in the study were often not the most successful. The people most successful had above average talent, but the most luck.
“In general, mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals,” Kaufman says.
Luck ended up being the most important factor in the study.
As a Christian, I believe everything is up to God. At the same time, I believe God controls luck. And God isn’t Santa — He doesn’t just reward you because you believe in him. The “shit just happens” attitude of Robert Frost is one I completely buy into, because the randomness of life makes it so a lot of good people suffer immensely, while people who commit mass genocide gain power. I personally will have to read much more into the theology of luck.
Luck is an unpopular idea in western society, and for good reason. We want to focus on what’s merely within our control. But maybe we need to keep believing in luck, according to the School of Life, despite luck being “a substantial offence against modern ideals of control, strategy, and foresight.” We want to be the authors of our own destinies, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that notion.
Advances in science, medicine, insurance, and education tilt the tide against luck. But luck will never be tamed as an entity. Every success requires a significant amount of luck, and we avoid failure using luck. Think about driving a car — the most dangerous activity most of us do every day. Lord knows how many near accidents each of us has gotten into, how many close calls we’ve had either making risky turns or having other people make risky turns.
People see themselves less as passive actors in the world by day. Personal responsibility is the idea and concept with which we feel the greatest degree of control, and luck often assigns our failures to things outside our control.
But a belief in luck should ground us in humility when we’ve successful, and not blame other people for their circumstances. A belief in luck can help enforce our own sense of compassion and empathy, because no one is to blame for their circumstances. At the same time, a belief in luck means no one else is to blame for our circumstances — there’s a tendency in some circles I’ve been in to blame all our problems on our parents. And while I didn’t have the perfect and picturesque childhood, my problems are my own.
Luck and personal responsibility can co-exist. But doesn’t luck give us the capacity for personal responsibility? We’re lucky that we didn’t get into that accident that nearly ended our lives. We’re lucky for so many things. And just because we’re so lucky doesn’t mean we should be complacent, but rather aim higher and take more risks. Of course, that doesn’t go for all high stakes situations, but situations where there’s really not much to lose.
Roll the dice more when the worst that can happen isn’t a big deal. Apply for that dream job. Pitch that dream publication. Strike that conversation you’re nervous about. Go on that trip. Have some fun. What’s the worst that can happen? We just might get lucky. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/when-i-win-its-skill-when-someone-else-wins-it-s-luck-477e3b551473 | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-12-20 17:38:47.421000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Ideas', 'Philosophy', 'Nonfiction', 'Self'] | Title Win It’s Skill Someone Else Wins It’s LuckContent Win It’s Skill Someone Else Wins It’s Luck Roll dice worst happen isn’t big deal PIRO4D Pixabay title joke fantasy football league friend college Whenever win given week talk trash skill starting right player Whenever lose blame bad luck external factor like weather injury course COVID19 making season especially precarious even factor fantasy football league attribute bad luck facetious attitude win it’s skill lose opponent got lucky course don’t believe attitude outside realm fantasy football It’s simply dynamic friend make interesting entertaining trash talk serious note writer teacher it’s easy fall trap getting jealous attributing success skill others luck think teacher teach easier class le challenging student lesson clear —most life luck It’s reality first started realize year start buy way cope reality faced student faced faced seemed increasingly unfair It’s human tendency attribute success skill merit accomplishment others luck Luck important skill people western society find mindset defeating find liberating — don’t take much stock success think I’m better people got luckier don’t take loss failure personally used — got unlucky I’m willing take risk venture comfort zone luck dictate idea outcome going go Don’t get wrong — lot willpower problem willpower determination productivity hack anything else credit personal attribute go far last long writer luck mean writing topic I’ve never written don’t know well I’m going writing much I’m going enjoy writing process Luck mean pitching big dreaming big taking personally get response prominent editor publication According Scott Barry Kaufman Scientific American secret success might luck Kaufman emphasizes magazine like Success Forbes Inc Entrepreneur telling secret success success due personal characteristic like hard work toughness optimism growth mindset emotional intelligence that’s part value also allocate resource word Kaufman “We tend give resource past history success tend ignore unsuccessful assuming successful also competent” Kaufman psychologist spent whole life studying psychological characteristic predict creativity achievement found many trait explain difference success much left unexplained Kaufman concludes luck opportunity play far greater role anything previously realized doesn’t think luck everything instead think personal characteristic matter much le think determined determinant success determinant success half difference income people across world explained country they’re raised income distribution country Kaufman also note scientific impact randomly distributed based productivity Also chance CEO often influenced mother’s name month birth begs bigger question — success luck would implication whether successful people lucky would allocate resource would ass “potential” others idea meritocracy discredited enough 2018 paper Pluchino et al Italian author credited “toy mathematical model” defined talent personal characteristic allowed exploit lucky opportunity author replicated Pareto Principle suggests small number people end achieving success population simulation found talent equally distributed success equally distributed 20 successful individual held 44 total success study consistent even underestimation wealth distributed real world author found talent isn’t irrelevant success since people talent greater probability increasing success People talent could exploit possibility offered talent important factor since talented people study often successful people successful average talent luck “In general mediocrebutlucky people much successful moretalentedbutunlucky individuals” Kaufman say Luck ended important factor study Christian believe everything God time believe God control luck God isn’t Santa — doesn’t reward believe “shit happens” attitude Robert Frost one completely buy randomness life make lot good people suffer immensely people commit mass genocide gain power personally read much theology luck Luck unpopular idea western society good reason want focus what’s merely within control maybe need keep believing luck according School Life despite luck “a substantial offence modern ideal control strategy foresight” want author destiny there’s certainly nothing wrong notion Advances science medicine insurance education tilt tide luck luck never tamed entity Every success requires significant amount luck avoid failure using luck Think driving car — dangerous activity u every day Lord know many near accident u gotten many close call we’ve either making risky turn people make risky turn People see le passive actor world day Personal responsibility idea concept feel greatest degree control luck often assigns failure thing outside control belief luck ground u humility we’ve successful blame people circumstance belief luck help enforce sense compassion empathy one blame circumstance time belief luck mean one else blame circumstance — there’s tendency circle I’ve blame problem parent didn’t perfect picturesque childhood problem Luck personal responsibility coexist doesn’t luck give u capacity personal responsibility We’re lucky didn’t get accident nearly ended life We’re lucky many thing we’re lucky doesn’t mean complacent rather aim higher take risk course doesn’t go high stake situation situation there’s really much lose Roll dice worst happen isn’t big deal Apply dream job Pitch dream publication Strike conversation you’re nervous Go trip fun What’s worst happen might get luckyTags Creativity Ideas Philosophy Nonfiction Self |
1,275 | How To Write For In Fitness And In Health On Medium | Welcome to In Fitness And In Health!
Ours is a community dedicated to living happy, healthy lives and inspiring others to do the same. We share stories, anecdotes, tips, tricks, and suggestions on how to do so.
We believe in the power of storytelling. The content that performs best for us comes from firsthand experience in the form of personal lessons, thoughts, ideas, opinions and profound takeaways. We want to provide as much value as possible for the reader.
We’re so excited you’re interested in joining us as an active contributor. As long as your content has a focus on health, fitness or general well-being, we’d be happy to accept it.
Read on for our official submission guidelines. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/how-to-write-for-in-fitness-and-in-health-on-medium-f4c67f028073 | ['Scott Mayer'] | 2020-10-06 23:10:20.233000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Fitness', 'Nutrition', 'Mental Health', 'Running'] | Title Write Fitness Health MediumContent Welcome Fitness Health community dedicated living happy healthy life inspiring others share story anecdote tip trick suggestion believe power storytelling content performs best u come firsthand experience form personal lesson thought idea opinion profound takeaway want provide much value possible reader We’re excited you’re interested joining u active contributor long content focus health fitness general wellbeing we’d happy accept Read official submission guidelinesTags Health Fitness Nutrition Mental Health Running |
1,276 | Scientists Prove that Yoga Can Help With Fighting Migraines | We’ve all had to deal with having a headache.
Some of us get it regularly in stressful times, others might experience headaches when the weather changes, when they don’t drink enough (or too much, right?) or when they have other issues to deal with, like back pain or musculoskeletal problems.
Around 12% of people worldwide are suffering from migraines. Now, even though the term migraine might have been used ubiquitously to describe a very bad headache in the past, it is actually way worse than that.
Patients suffering from recurring migraine attacks can have various symptoms, reaching from extreme vulnerability to light and noises (phono- and photophobia), to vomiting, blurry vision, the inability to stand up straight, and — of course — a severe, pulsating headache. An attack can last from 30 minutes up to a whole day.
Migraines are hard to treat
Once an attack occurs, it knocks out the patient completely. He or she has to stay home from work, hide in a dark room, and will not be able to tolerate any light, loud noises or movements. In the long run, this can lead to complications like depression, sleep deprivation, and decreased quality of life.
Photo by Artem Podrez by Prexels
Of course, modern medicine offers medications to treat the disease. This includes pain medication, like ibuprofen or paracetamol, and also specific treatments like triptans that work centrally in the brain itself.
Nevertheless, a treatment for migraine can be tough. Some patients don’t respond to the offered treatment and have to try out multiple medications until they experience an improvement of symptoms. Triptans come with unwanted side effects and can lead to an increase in blood pressure, dizziness, ischemia of the heart muscle, and more. Plus, if taken for a long period of time, the migraine might stop to respond to triptans and the pain might come back even worse.
Multiple other treatments and supportive measurements have been proven to help with migraines. To decrease the frequency of attacks, patients are advised to avoid stress and to exercise at least three times a week.
Yoga might be a new potential therapeutic
In May 2020, a research group from New Deli in India published their results of the randomized clinical trial CONTAIN in the renowned journal Neurology, introducing a new and promising treatment option to help with migraines.
In the trial, 160 patients suffering from the disease were observed for three months. Before the trial started, they were randomly divided into two groups:
The first group received only the standard medications recommended for prophylactic and acute medical therapy.
The other group received a supervised regimen of yoga modules, consisting of 60-minute classes 3–5 times a week next to the standard medical treatment.
Both groups were assessed at baseline for their migraine severity and handed a headache log book to write down symptoms and attacks throughout the study. Patients were also asked to document any side medication. Multiple objective scales like the Migraine Disability Assessment questionnaire (MIDAS) and the Visual Analogue Scale were used to quantify symptoms.
The two groups were very comparable due to similar baseline demographic and clinical characteristics except for the yoga group showing a slightly increased baseline headache frequency before the trial when being compared to the group treated with medication only.
Promising results are highly significant
After three months of observation and follow-up examinations, patients in the yoga group showed a highly significant reduction of headache frequency, headache intensity and pill count.
Supervised yoga sessions helped with reducing stress and increasing relaxation. While other studies have suggested yoga sessions or meditation in the prodromal phase of an upcoming migraine attack, this study stresses the need for practicing Yoga on a regular basis.
In conclusion, this well-planned trial published in a well-known and critically reviewed medical journal shows the beneficial effect of add-on therapy with Yoga when being compared to medical therapy alone.
Photo by Samuel Silitonga by Prexels
Yoga can be studied by almost everyone and does not cause any unwanted side effects.
Moreover, it could effectively reduce the number of pills needed to treat the migraine after all. It is also cost-effective, making it very attractive to low-income countries.
Even though the study has only observed patients for the course of three months, the effect is assumed to last also for longer periods of time.
More studies will be needed to understand the biochemical and psychological changes yoga induces in the human body. Nevertheless, this study shows the need of integrating different therapeutically approaches to match a patient’s needs. | https://medium.com/beingwell/scientists-prove-that-yoga-can-help-with-fighting-migraines-e00017d69283 | [] | 2020-06-29 07:20:09.123000+00:00 | ['Migraines', 'Yoga', 'Science', 'Health', 'Medicine'] | Title Scientists Prove Yoga Help Fighting MigrainesContent We’ve deal headache u get regularly stressful time others might experience headache weather change don’t drink enough much right issue deal like back pain musculoskeletal problem Around 12 people worldwide suffering migraine even though term migraine might used ubiquitously describe bad headache past actually way worse Patients suffering recurring migraine attack various symptom reaching extreme vulnerability light noise phono photophobia vomiting blurry vision inability stand straight — course — severe pulsating headache attack last 30 minute whole day Migraines hard treat attack occurs knock patient completely stay home work hide dark room able tolerate light loud noise movement long run lead complication like depression sleep deprivation decreased quality life Photo Artem Podrez Prexels course modern medicine offer medication treat disease includes pain medication like ibuprofen paracetamol also specific treatment like triptans work centrally brain Nevertheless treatment migraine tough patient don’t respond offered treatment try multiple medication experience improvement symptom Triptans come unwanted side effect lead increase blood pressure dizziness ischemia heart muscle Plus taken long period time migraine might stop respond triptans pain might come back even worse Multiple treatment supportive measurement proven help migraine decrease frequency attack patient advised avoid stress exercise least three time week Yoga might new potential therapeutic May 2020 research group New Deli India published result randomized clinical trial CONTAIN renowned journal Neurology introducing new promising treatment option help migraine trial 160 patient suffering disease observed three month trial started randomly divided two group first group received standard medication recommended prophylactic acute medical therapy group received supervised regimen yoga module consisting 60minute class 3–5 time week next standard medical treatment group assessed baseline migraine severity handed headache log book write symptom attack throughout study Patients also asked document side medication Multiple objective scale like Migraine Disability Assessment questionnaire MIDAS Visual Analogue Scale used quantify symptom two group comparable due similar baseline demographic clinical characteristic except yoga group showing slightly increased baseline headache frequency trial compared group treated medication Promising result highly significant three month observation followup examination patient yoga group showed highly significant reduction headache frequency headache intensity pill count Supervised yoga session helped reducing stress increasing relaxation study suggested yoga session meditation prodromal phase upcoming migraine attack study stress need practicing Yoga regular basis conclusion wellplanned trial published wellknown critically reviewed medical journal show beneficial effect addon therapy Yoga compared medical therapy alone Photo Samuel Silitonga Prexels Yoga studied almost everyone cause unwanted side effect Moreover could effectively reduce number pill needed treat migraine also costeffective making attractive lowincome country Even though study observed patient course three month effect assumed last also longer period time study needed understand biochemical psychological change yoga induces human body Nevertheless study show need integrating different therapeutically approach match patient’s needsTags Migraines Yoga Science Health Medicine |
1,277 | 11 Principles of Placemaking: How to Design People-Centered Places | If you want to design places catered for humans, placemaking is the concept you want to utilize.
It’s UX on an urban scale. We plan, design, and develop according to the user’s needs and preferences, to ensure that the output is actually useful and usable for them. In this case, the user is the community — the people.
In their book How to Turn a Place Around, Project for Public Spaces (PPS) proposes 11 principles to help urban planners, designers, and developers make places people actually want to live in.
Let’s dissect them one by one.
1. The Community Is the Expert
To begin a placemaking process, it’s best to first identify the talents and assets of the community.
In every community, there are “experts” who can present valuable perspectives and insights about the area’s history, culture, functionalities, or any other aspect that’s considered meaningful for the people.
By placing the community as the expert, it will foster a sense of “community ownership” which elevates the place’s importance in the eyes of its residents.
2. Create a Place, Not a Design
When we hear “design,” our minds are likely to conjure images of shapes, colors, and other physical elements. However, it actually extends beyond that.
As we understand from UX, design is about experience.
In placemaking, every element (physical or otherwise), must serve a purpose. Mainly, the place should make people feel welcome and comfortable.
This often translates to the development of effective relationships between the place, the people, and the activities. The goal here is to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
3. Look for Partners
In a placemaking project, it’s best to look for partners as early as possible.
These partners may come from the residents, local governments, educational institutions, museums, libraries, or other related organizations.
Since placemaking is community-driven, and the place itself is supposed to foster community ownership, more partners will generally mean a greater sense of community.
4. You Can See a Lot Just by Observing
Instead of guessing what might work or not work, it’s much more preferable to learn through observation.
Simply by looking at how people are conducting their activities in a place, which elements they use or don’t use, what features they like, or don’t like; we can accurately identify what elements are missing and thus can be incorporated through placemaking.
It’s also important to remember that the people’s preferences will evolve over time, and needs to be managed continuously.
5. Have a Vision
A good placemaking approach shouldn’t just flow by “whatever seems easiest” or “whatever seems good at the time” — it should have a vision.
This vision might include the physical shape of the place, its brand/image, the kinds of activities that might happen there, and so on. Ideally, the vision should come from the community itself.
6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper
Places are complex entities, and the placemaking practitioners shouldn’t expect to do everything correctly from the get-go.
The best places are made through incremental improvements that are tested and refined over many years. For example, physical elements like seating, footpaths, or public artworks can be added and subtracted as needed, in time.
Your first step can be as simple as planting a row of petunias. From there, you can gradually experiment with more intricate elements.
7. Triangulate
Holly Whyte defined triangulation as follows:
“Triangulation is the process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each other.”
In the context of placemaking, this generally means the relationship between separate elements within the place, and how we select and arrange them to achieve a desirable effect.
For example, if we put a coffee stand and a bench near a pond, they will create a behavior pattern: People will buy a cup of coffee, then sit on the bench to drink it, while enjoying the pond’s view.
8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”
Yogi Berra once said:
“If they say it can’t be done, it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Creating good places always has its obstacles. Often, no single stakeholder in the placemaking project has a specific responsibility to “create places.” Each person will have a narrow job description such as “landscape design” or “traffic management.”
As mentioned before, placemaking itself is a community effort that’s nurtured through small scale improvements over time.
9. Form Supports Function
While “form” is important, it must be designed to support a certain “function.”
This function should come from the place’s vision and the community’s needs and preferences, which can be understood through the input of the partners, and the community itself.
10. Money Is Not the Issue
Usually, the major problems of placemaking are not financial in nature.
After basic infrastructures are put in the public spaces, any additional elements often don’t have that big of a cost. Additionally, if the community and other partners are thoroughly involved in the process, this cost can be reduced further.
In the broader context, the financial costs are not as significant as the benefits. The bigger issue is, therefore, to ensure that all stakeholders involved are on the same page, going all-in on the same vision.
11. You Are Never Finished
By nature, a good place is one that responds to the needs and the preferences of the community, and these are ever-changing variables.
Amenities wear out, new technologies are invented, social customs are continuously shifting — placemaking doesn’t simply “end,” it’s an ongoing process.
Thus, to create good places, the ability to adapt and overcome change is of the utmost importance.
Final Thoughts
Placemaking is still growing as an urban development concept. It will adjust itself to the characteristics of the particular time and location. Perhaps, these 11 principles will also change with it.
That being said, whenever and wherever placemaking is conducted, one thing stays the same: Just like UX design, that focuses on the users, placemaking focuses on the community.
First and foremost, placemaking is done with the community — the people — in mind.
That’s the most important mindset you need to make people-centered places. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/11-principles-of-placemaking-how-to-design-people-centered-places-b84e7e705a1f | ['Aushaf Widisto'] | 2020-10-03 04:13:58.643000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Design', 'Urban Planning', 'Placemaking', 'Cities'] | Title 11 Principles Placemaking Design PeopleCentered PlacesContent want design place catered human placemaking concept want utilize It’s UX urban scale plan design develop according user’s need preference ensure output actually useful usable case user community — people book Turn Place Around Project Public Spaces PPS proposes 11 principle help urban planner designer developer make place people actually want live Let’s dissect one one 1 Community Expert begin placemaking process it’s best first identify talent asset community every community “experts” present valuable perspective insight area’s history culture functionality aspect that’s considered meaningful people placing community expert foster sense “community ownership” elevates place’s importance eye resident 2 Create Place Design hear “design” mind likely conjure image shape color physical element However actually extends beyond understand UX design experience placemaking every element physical otherwise must serve purpose Mainly place make people feel welcome comfortable often translates development effective relationship place people activity goal make whole greater sum part 3 Look Partners placemaking project it’s best look partner early possible partner may come resident local government educational institution museum library related organization Since placemaking communitydriven place supposed foster community ownership partner generally mean greater sense community 4 See Lot Observing Instead guessing might work work it’s much preferable learn observation Simply looking people conducting activity place element use don’t use feature like don’t like accurately identify element missing thus incorporated placemaking It’s also important remember people’s preference evolve time need managed continuously 5 Vision good placemaking approach shouldn’t flow “whatever seems easiest” “whatever seems good time” — vision vision might include physical shape place brandimage kind activity might happen Ideally vision come community 6 Start Petunias Lighter Quicker Cheaper Places complex entity placemaking practitioner shouldn’t expect everything correctly getgo best place made incremental improvement tested refined many year example physical element like seating footpath public artwork added subtracted needed time first step simple planting row petunia gradually experiment intricate element 7 Triangulate Holly Whyte defined triangulation follows “Triangulation process external stimulus provides linkage people prompt stranger talk stranger knew other” context placemaking generally mean relationship separate element within place select arrange achieve desirable effect example put coffee stand bench near pond create behavior pattern People buy cup coffee sit bench drink enjoying pond’s view 8 Always Say “It Can’t Done” Yogi Berra said “If say can’t done doesn’t always work way” Creating good place always obstacle Often single stakeholder placemaking project specific responsibility “create places” person narrow job description “landscape design” “traffic management” mentioned placemaking community effort that’s nurtured small scale improvement time 9 Form Supports Function “form” important must designed support certain “function” function come place’s vision community’s need preference understood input partner community 10 Money Issue Usually major problem placemaking financial nature basic infrastructure put public space additional element often don’t big cost Additionally community partner thoroughly involved process cost reduced broader context financial cost significant benefit bigger issue therefore ensure stakeholder involved page going allin vision 11 Never Finished nature good place one responds need preference community everchanging variable Amenities wear new technology invented social custom continuously shifting — placemaking doesn’t simply “end” it’s ongoing process Thus create good place ability adapt overcome change utmost importance Final Thoughts Placemaking still growing urban development concept adjust characteristic particular time location Perhaps 11 principle also change said whenever wherever placemaking conducted one thing stay like UX design focus user placemaking focus community First foremost placemaking done community — people — mind That’s important mindset need make peoplecentered placesTags Creativity Design Urban Planning Placemaking Cities |
1,278 | Ford is known as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. But was he such a great leader at all? How do you spot a weak leader?Was Henry Ford a Good Leader? | Ford is known as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. But was he such a great leader at all? How do you spot a weak leader?Was Henry Ford a Good Leader? Maximilian Perkmann Follow Dec 14 · 4 min read
There is an often-told story of what happened when some intellectuals denounced Henry Ford, claiming he didn’t know much. Ford challenged them to come and ask him anything they liked. He listened to their questions and, when they were through, he simply reached for several phones on his desk and called in some of his bright assistants and asked them to give the answers the intellectuals sought.
Model T — Pixabay.com
He ended by telling the panel that he’d rather hire smart people to come up with answers, so he could leave his mind clear to do more important tasks, tasks like thinking.
One of the quotes credited to Ford goes: “Thinking is the hardest work there is. That is why so few people engage in it.”
Was he such a great leader?
The Other Perspective
John Maxwell poses the story of Henry Ford as a negative example in his chapter about the leadership principle of “empowerment”. According to him, the company lived for a long time on the revolution that has been the Model T and its innovative form of production. Henry Ford has invented assembly line production with the Model T.
However, the company faced a hard time with Henry Ford in the following years. By blocking the ideas of capable employees and with his eccentric behavior Ford almost destroyed the company. Only his son Edsel Ford was able to rescue the company. Because of Edsel, several employees remained in the company. Henry Ford’s grandson “Henry Ford II” took over the management in the next generation. In the beginning, he made some very good decisions and, above all, hired excellent managers. Unfortunately, he fell into negative patterns too, causing some great damage through intrigue. You can read the exciting details about this in the 21 Leadership Principles. I do not want to go into more details, but I just want everyone to have a serious look in the mirror. Do you see some parallels to the Ford family?
Are You a Weak Leader?
A weak leader is driven by fear. The fear of no longer being the center of attention, the fear of being replaced, and the fear of losing control.
Photo by Alfred Aloushy on Unsplash
In fact, a great leader does not need to fear replacement. When people lead excellently, an exciting paradox comes into play: those who work to make themselves superfluous are given more and more responsibility.
Provide a safe framework
The most valuable thing a leader can give is a safe framework where they don’t have to worry about things that aren’t their job. Everyone has a limited amount of resources in their head. So if someone needs their brain capacity to manage uncertainty, they won’t have that capacity available for creative performance. If a leader provides a safe framework, then employees can concentrate fully on their creative work.
Theodore Roosevelt simply says that “the best boss is the one who has enough brains to select good leaders who can achieve his goals, and then does not interfere with their work.”
Insecurity in Leaders
How do you spot insecure leaders?
Resistance to change
Change means uncertainty. That’s why “weak” people often struggle with change. However, self-confident people are aware that preventing change is much more dangerous in the long run than the short-term uncertainty of a change process. Even if a change does not bring the desired result, we can always continue to change until it fits again.
Lack of Self-confidence
If you don’t know who you are, you can’t stand firm when there is a problem. Being self-aware and being able to confidently represent decisions is a must for every leader.
Micro-Management
Most of the time, the good development of an organization depends on the leader doing a few big things well. Insecure leaders tend to get lost in a thousand small details and “micromanaging” their employees.
Competition
Insecure leaders become nervous when others increase in authority in the organization. As a result, they try to reduce their influence or to
Take Away
“Leadership, is the ability to bring out the best in people. The technical skills of business are easy. The hard part is working with people.” — Rich Dad, Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad Poor Dad
Working with people, taking responsibility and trust are some serious skills when being in a leadership position. To conclude, I want to bring up another quote from Harry Truman, 33rd president of the United States:
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit — Harry S. Truman
Interested in leadership? Have a look at my article Agile Leadership: A Mindset, Not a Method | https://medium.com/illumination/was-henry-ford-a-good-leader-311fc36e7381 | ['Maximilian Perkmann'] | 2020-12-20 21:37:07.998000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Leadership', 'Management'] | Title Ford known one greatest entrepreneur time great leader spot weak leaderWas Henry Ford Good LeaderContent Ford known one greatest entrepreneur time great leader spot weak leaderWas Henry Ford Good Leader Maximilian Perkmann Follow Dec 14 · 4 min read oftentold story happened intellectual denounced Henry Ford claiming didn’t know much Ford challenged come ask anything liked listened question simply reached several phone desk called bright assistant asked give answer intellectual sought Model — Pixabaycom ended telling panel he’d rather hire smart people come answer could leave mind clear important task task like thinking One quote credited Ford go “Thinking hardest work people engage it” great leader Perspective John Maxwell pose story Henry Ford negative example chapter leadership principle “empowerment” According company lived long time revolution Model innovative form production Henry Ford invented assembly line production Model However company faced hard time Henry Ford following year blocking idea capable employee eccentric behavior Ford almost destroyed company son Edsel Ford able rescue company Edsel several employee remained company Henry Ford’s grandson “Henry Ford II” took management next generation beginning made good decision hired excellent manager Unfortunately fell negative pattern causing great damage intrigue read exciting detail 21 Leadership Principles want go detail want everyone serious look mirror see parallel Ford family Weak Leader weak leader driven fear fear longer center attention fear replaced fear losing control Photo Alfred Aloushy Unsplash fact great leader need fear replacement people lead excellently exciting paradox come play work make superfluous given responsibility Provide safe framework valuable thing leader give safe framework don’t worry thing aren’t job Everyone limited amount resource head someone need brain capacity manage uncertainty won’t capacity available creative performance leader provides safe framework employee concentrate fully creative work Theodore Roosevelt simply say “the best bos one enough brain select good leader achieve goal interfere work” Insecurity Leaders spot insecure leader Resistance change Change mean uncertainty That’s “weak” people often struggle change However selfconfident people aware preventing change much dangerous long run shortterm uncertainty change process Even change bring desired result always continue change fit Lack Selfconfidence don’t know can’t stand firm problem selfaware able confidently represent decision must every leader MicroManagement time good development organization depends leader big thing well Insecure leader tend get lost thousand small detail “micromanaging” employee Competition Insecure leader become nervous others increase authority organization result try reduce influence Take Away “Leadership ability bring best people technical skill business easy hard part working people” — Rich Dad Cashflow Quadrant Rich Dad Poor Dad Working people taking responsibility trust serious skill leadership position conclude want bring another quote Harry Truman 33rd president United States amazing accomplish care get credit — Harry Truman Interested leadership look article Agile Leadership Mindset MethodTags Business Startup Entrepreneurship Leadership Management |
1,279 | Exploring Wellness Newsletter | Exploring Wellness Newsletter
Check out the latest stories from making your own lattes to finding your running motivation.
Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash
Welcome to the first-ever newsletter for Exploring Wellness! I had intended to write a regular newsletter when I began this publication, but life got in the way, and here we are.
I plan to provide periodic updates to you highlighting our feature articles. Although, don’t expect them to come on any sort of regular sort of basis. Until my kid is back in school full time and e-learning is a thing of the past, I’ve been careful not to overdo expectations for myself. We’re all facing stress these days, and we need to remember self-care. Sometimes, self-care means going easy on yourself and your expectations. | https://medium.com/exploring-wellness/exploring-wellness-newsletter-5c6fd3c0d329 | ['Jennifer Geer'] | 2020-10-04 19:43:31.395000+00:00 | ['Medium Publications', 'Health', 'Newsletter', 'Wellness', 'Lifestyle'] | Title Exploring Wellness NewsletterContent Exploring Wellness Newsletter Check latest story making latte finding running motivation Photo Corinne Kutz Unsplash Welcome firstever newsletter Exploring Wellness intended write regular newsletter began publication life got way plan provide periodic update highlighting feature article Although don’t expect come sort regular sort basis kid back school full time elearning thing past I’ve careful overdo expectation We’re facing stress day need remember selfcare Sometimes selfcare mean going easy expectationsTags Medium Publications Health Newsletter Wellness Lifestyle |
1,280 | Make LinkedIn Part of Your Content Promotion Strategy to Increase Your Reach | 3. Distribute Your Content in LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn has a plethora of interest groups that you can join and take part in.
Since these groups are tied to specific interests, industries, and demographics, they contain an already segmented audience to target.
This can help increase your influence within a specific area, as well as establish thought leadership.
Share Your Content in Groups as a Link Post
This one can be a bit tricky, but it can also be rewarding when done correctly. The first part is choosing your groups wisely.
You need to pick groups that aren’t so unmoderated that they are nothing but spam, but not so moderated that they don’t allow you to share your content at all.
Ideally, you want a group that fits your content so well that when you do share your content, it isn’t considered spam. It’s considered helpful.
One way to ensure your content is seen as helpful and not spam is to interact with group members before dropping in content links. Another is to interact with the group members that do like and comment on your content when you do share.
LinkedIn groups will give you what you put into them. Engage with members who have high-quality content like yours, and they will likely do the same when you start to promote your content.
Share Your Content in Groups as a Link in a Comment
For the groups that are so heavily moderated that you can’t actually start a link as a group discussion, try sharing your content as a comment in the group instead.
Once you’re in the LinkedIn group, use the search box to see if there are any questions that relate to your content. If you find any, see if you can create an answer that leads to a link to your content.
At a bare minimum, the person who posted the question will get notified of your answer. If you provided a valuable answer, they might reward you with a thank you and a share of your content outside of the group. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/make-linkedin-part-of-your-content-promotion-strategy-to-increase-your-reach-2632f16af48d | ['Esat Artug'] | 2020-12-08 21:52:01.861000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Writing', 'Business', 'Social Media', 'Freelancing'] | Title Make LinkedIn Part Content Promotion Strategy Increase ReachContent 3 Distribute Content LinkedIn Groups LinkedIn plethora interest group join take part Since group tied specific interest industry demographic contain already segmented audience target help increase influence within specific area well establish thought leadership Share Content Groups Link Post one bit tricky also rewarding done correctly first part choosing group wisely need pick group aren’t unmoderated nothing spam moderated don’t allow share content Ideally want group fit content well share content isn’t considered spam It’s considered helpful One way ensure content seen helpful spam interact group member dropping content link Another interact group member like comment content share LinkedIn group give put Engage member highquality content like likely start promote content Share Content Groups Link Comment group heavily moderated can’t actually start link group discussion try sharing content comment group instead you’re LinkedIn group use search box see question relate content find see create answer lead link content bare minimum person posted question get notified answer provided valuable answer might reward thank share content outside groupTags Marketing Writing Business Social Media Freelancing |
1,281 | Build Quality Microservices and Apps | Build Quality Microservices and Apps
Ensure governance by including these five elements in your requirements document
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
Fragile apps and microservices are often the results of vague requirements, and developers left to their interpretation and devices.
A well written technical requirements document provides sufficient information to ensure IT governance and implementation consistency across teams. Proper governance leads to better product quality, increased efficiency through clarity, and improved stakeholder collaboration, e.g. testers.
Software quality should be ensured before the coding starts, and not wait for quality assurance (QA) to raise issues to fix—as it would slow down the entire delivery process.
In the following, I’ll share five attributes of good technical API/microservice specification that has served me well during my stint as a developer doing the implementation; and as a tech lead managing the governance and requirements.
#1: Short description and intended callers
Microservices are often designed and built based on bounded contexts. Each microservice at the data layer would be in charge of its own set of tables or documents within a database, e.g. products, users, etc. according to microservice design principles.
In the short description, specify the following:
Database/table names to query — prevent overlapping of queries and joins to other tables managed by other teams/services.
— prevent overlapping of queries and joins to other tables managed by other teams/services. Downstream microservices invoked — applies to logic layer or stateless microservices to communicate and manage dependencies.
With the above information specified, the developer can then communicate with the relevant database and microservice owners to align requirements and bridge implementation gaps.
#2: Microservice details and non-functional requirements
The seemingly minor details such as transport encryption protocols and response headers could potentially lead to deployment issues, e.g. certificate incompatibility, failing security tests, etc. especially in a high-security environment.
Therefore, it’s crucial to indicate such details in the requirements document:
Transport authentication/encryption — specify whether if it’s mutual TLS, HTTP/HTTPS, etc. so that the developer can manage the application configuration and certificates in the codebase.
— specify whether if it’s mutual TLS, HTTP/HTTPS, etc. so that the developer can manage the application configuration and certificates in the codebase. Microservice supported actions — indicate if the application is supporting GET/POST/PUT/DELETE requests to limit redundant exposure of endpoints.
— indicate if the application is supporting GET/POST/PUT/DELETE requests to limit redundant exposure of endpoints. Microservice response headers — ensure that appropriate response headers are returned from the microservice to avoid exposing details that would threaten security, e.g. server type, etc.
— ensure that appropriate response headers are returned from the microservice to avoid exposing details that would threaten security, e.g. server type, etc. Microservice endpoints and query params — provide examples of the specific endpoint pattern, e.g. https://[NAMESPACE_URL]/[SERVICE]/v1/data?{param}={value}, to standardise API endpoint designs.
By indicating such details, it allows the developer to build the application with basic security considerations and governance in place.
#3: Request and response details
The request and response details potentially make up the bulk of the document. The information would also likely be disseminated to other collaborators to assist with service designs, testing, etc.
The key elements to include in this section are:
Request headers — some optional yet important examples include UUID headers to facilitate request tracing and accept-language for localisation.
— some optional yet important examples include UUID headers to facilitate request tracing and accept-language for localisation. Request query parameters — with the attribute name(s), required/optional, data type, and a short description of the attribute.
— with the attribute name(s), required/optional, data type, and a short description of the attribute. Response body — include attribute names (e.g. status, status.code, data, data.uuid), data type, and a short description for the attribute.
I would recommend the above information to be presented in a table format to facilitate readability for non-technical stakeholders. The next section on sample requests/responses will cater to the technical stakeholders.
#4: Sample requests and responses
For certain stakeholders, merely providing the request and response description and attributes would not suffice. Having a sample output response in JSON format enables the reader to quickly contextualise and visualise the desired output of the service with “actual” data.
To facilitate clarity, include the following in the sample request/response section of the document:
Microservice action, URL and headers — a suggestion would be to imagine you’re querying the actual service via CURL and include the essential details.
— a suggestion would be to imagine you’re querying the actual service via CURL and include the essential details. Response with HTTP code — for each HTTP code(s), include the respective response payloads to ensure that errors are properly handled; this is especially essential for services deployed in a mesh architecture.
You can refer to a sample snippet below.
Image by Author
#5: HTTP and business response codes
Considering the high interdependency of services in a microservice architecture, errors would have to be properly handled with appropriate response codes to facilitate debugging and tracing. The list of response codes also helps with testing of the microservice application.
Things to include:
HTTP response codes — details such as code number (403), name (Forbidden), type (Client Error), description (Invalid authorisation credentials).
— details such as code number (403), name (Forbidden), type (Client Error), description (Invalid authorisation credentials). Business response codes — include code number (8989), scenario (access token expired), description (the token is more than one day old).
In most cases, the solution architect/lead would have a list of error codes established during the solution design phase to reference against and standardise. | https://medium.com/the-internal-startup/build-quality-microservices-and-apps-79544948579a | ['Jimmy Soh'] | 2020-06-23 16:06:04.929000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming'] | Title Build Quality Microservices AppsContent Build Quality Microservices Apps Ensure governance including five element requirement document Photo Gabrielle Henderson Unsplash Fragile apps microservices often result vague requirement developer left interpretation device well written technical requirement document provides sufficient information ensure governance implementation consistency across team Proper governance lead better product quality increased efficiency clarity improved stakeholder collaboration eg tester Software quality ensured coding start wait quality assurance QA raise issue fix—as would slow entire delivery process following I’ll share five attribute good technical APImicroservice specification served well stint developer implementation tech lead managing governance requirement 1 Short description intended caller Microservices often designed built based bounded context microservice data layer would charge set table document within database eg product user etc according microservice design principle short description specify following Databasetable name query — prevent overlapping query join table managed teamsservices — prevent overlapping query join table managed teamsservices Downstream microservices invoked — applies logic layer stateless microservices communicate manage dependency information specified developer communicate relevant database microservice owner align requirement bridge implementation gap 2 Microservice detail nonfunctional requirement seemingly minor detail transport encryption protocol response header could potentially lead deployment issue eg certificate incompatibility failing security test etc especially highsecurity environment Therefore it’s crucial indicate detail requirement document Transport authenticationencryption — specify whether it’s mutual TLS HTTPHTTPS etc developer manage application configuration certificate codebase — specify whether it’s mutual TLS HTTPHTTPS etc developer manage application configuration certificate codebase Microservice supported action — indicate application supporting GETPOSTPUTDELETE request limit redundant exposure endpoint — indicate application supporting GETPOSTPUTDELETE request limit redundant exposure endpoint Microservice response header — ensure appropriate response header returned microservice avoid exposing detail would threaten security eg server type etc — ensure appropriate response header returned microservice avoid exposing detail would threaten security eg server type etc Microservice endpoint query params — provide example specific endpoint pattern eg httpsNAMESPACEURLSERVICEv1dataparamvalue standardise API endpoint design indicating detail allows developer build application basic security consideration governance place 3 Request response detail request response detail potentially make bulk document information would also likely disseminated collaborator assist service design testing etc key element include section Request header — optional yet important example include UUID header facilitate request tracing acceptlanguage localisation — optional yet important example include UUID header facilitate request tracing acceptlanguage localisation Request query parameter — attribute name requiredoptional data type short description attribute — attribute name requiredoptional data type short description attribute Response body — include attribute name eg status statuscode data datauuid data type short description attribute would recommend information presented table format facilitate readability nontechnical stakeholder next section sample requestsresponses cater technical stakeholder 4 Sample request response certain stakeholder merely providing request response description attribute would suffice sample output response JSON format enables reader quickly contextualise visualise desired output service “actual” data facilitate clarity include following sample requestresponse section document Microservice action URL header — suggestion would imagine you’re querying actual service via CURL include essential detail — suggestion would imagine you’re querying actual service via CURL include essential detail Response HTTP code — HTTP code include respective response payload ensure error properly handled especially essential service deployed mesh architecture refer sample snippet Image Author 5 HTTP business response code Considering high interdependency service microservice architecture error would properly handled appropriate response code facilitate debugging tracing list response code also help testing microservice application Things include HTTP response code — detail code number 403 name Forbidden type Client Error description Invalid authorisation credential — detail code number 403 name Forbidden type Client Error description Invalid authorisation credential Business response code — include code number 8989 scenario access token expired description token one day old case solution architectlead would list error code established solution design phase reference standardiseTags Software Development Startup Technology Software Engineering Programming |
1,282 | Here What’s Trait Have Common In Highly Intelligent People | There is different character ascribes that set significantly shrewd people apart from others. Amazingly, these characteristics are not related with a person’s IQ level yet are connected with one’s outrageous slants, emotions, and social collaborations. The vast majority don’t comprehend their regular endowments henceforth they rarely utilize their full imaginative potential. Just significantly cunning people really understand their inventive limits and use them to their full cutoff.
Following is a smart undertaking to layout the overall picture for everyone to get his/her ability and to grasp the qualities of especially intelligent people.They appreciate that knowing everything is ludicrous.
It is incredible to hope to be familiar with each and every subject. Significantly vigilant people grasp it absolutely and never postponement to tell others if they are not aware of a subject. Since when they don’t know something, they take in it from others and get however much data as could reasonably be expected.
They are flexible
Significantly intelligent people conform to their present situation by changing their practices. They adjust enough to their ecological factors and make themselves familiar with different thoughts.
Interest
Academic interest is something that makes an individual uncommonly sharp. Such people make themselves open to new experiences and gain from each piece of life.
They are open-minded
intelligent people are open in their considerations and are versatile to recognize other’s characteristics and examinations. They respect others’ fantasies. They hold their own feelings until they have enough verification and recognize things as they appear to be.
Exceptional limitation
Before an endeavor, intelligent people clarify their destinations and plan for them. They generally investigate elective methodologies and remember the results. They have outrageous restraint which causes them to tackle their issues and move towards their objectives.
Ludicrous restriction
Preceding an endeavor, intelligent people clarify their targets and plan for them. They for the most part explore elective methodology and recall the results. They have a ludicrous limitation that urges them to deal with their issues and move towards their targets.
They are individualistic
Astoundingly intelligent people value their own discussion, discussing their musings, and orchestrating with them. They are less pulled into socialization than others and feel that it’s more accommodating to consider issues that have significance for the duration of regular daily existence.
Inconceivable attention to what’s really clever
Intelligent people are not depleting; they have extraordinary familiarity with what’s really interesting. As shown by examines that were done, capable joke specialists were among the most raised scorers on extents of verbal information.
They can relate viably to all focuses
Significantly intelligent people draw equivalent lines between separating musings and dreams. They recognize old musings and change them to conform to prospects.
They are more thoughtful
They grasp others feeling and almost feel what others encountered. Significantly shrewd people are continually excited about social events new people and picking up from their experiences. They are fretful intelligent people wonder a ton about different things. They are reliably anxious to know the clarification behind the presence of everything and consider conditions from different focuses.
They dawdle
Intelligent people dodge futile issues and delay in more huge endeavors. They require some genuine energy with huge work and keep noodling different open doors for the results. They license more special intends to go into their mind as opposed to running customary frameworks.
If you understand that how by and large will be versatile and acknowledge the status quo, there’s a fair chance you’re significantly watchful. Instead of being rigid about what ought to happen, they remain mentally versatile, liberal and can without a doubt adjust to life, paying little heed to what gets throw their systems,. It basically shows that you can handle issues and find plans quickly.
As should be self-evident, it’s not connected to being book-splendid. Being thoughtful, sympathetic, and intelligent are through and through signs of information. So in case, you notice any of these qualities in yourself, you could be a particularly savvy person. Incredibly wise people don’t endeavor to go about like they know it all. In all honesty, a sign of information is seeing the way that you don’t have any acquaintance with it all. If they can’t achieve something they don’t endeavor to go about as they can,. Or maybe they realize their cutoff focuses and can leave it alone known. This licenses them to be accessible to acquire from others or possible situations. An incredible working memory and general understanding are significantly related,Exactly when you have a good working memory, this infers you have head working aptitudes, incredible flashing memory, the ability to focus a lot. It is like manner suggests you have scholarly versatility, and can without a very remarkable stretch change beginning with one thing then onto the following. Having limitations suggests you have advancement. You understand how to control your sentiments and inspirations so they won’t make any harm. According to intelligent people having balance means that knowledge since it infers you will undoubtedly think before you talk or act. When these people experience trouble in their lives, they also work to settle the issue and reduction the bother quickly, she says. In our present reality where people banter with exhibit what their personality is, significantly canny people are the opposite. As opposed to gloating about their accomplishments or telling people how right their emotions are, they’re regularly peaceful and mindful. Exactly when you can take everything in, you can see things that others missed like honest patterns. It’s definitely not hard to expect that uncommonly astute people like to scrutinize. Regardless, being intelligent isn’t connected to having the option to encounter different books a day. It’s connected to having an oddity about everything regardless.intelligent people attract their inclinations and posture requests like who, what, when, where, how, why, and think about how conceivable it is that.They like getting some answers concerning others, social orders, animals, history, and the world unhindered. While having worship for examining isn’t generally a sign of knowledge, it shows that you like learning and you’re intrigued.Knowledge has been described from different perspectives: the breaking point as for reasoning, getting, care, learning, exciting data, thinking, masterminding, informativeness, essential thinking, and basic reasoning. Even more generally, it might be depicted as the ability to see or incite information and to hold it as data to be applied towards flexible practices inside an atmosphere or setting. There are conflicting musings in regards to how understanding is assessed, going from the likelihood that information is fixed upon birth, or that it is adaptable and can change depending upon an individual’s disposition and efforts. Several subcategories of information, for instance, exciting understanding or social knowledge, are seriously chitchatted concerning whether they are regular kinds of intelligence. They are generally thought to be undeniable cycles that occur, anyway there is speculation that they tie into standard knowledge more than as of now suspected.Despite their usage of the word intelligent a couple of terms may have practically nothing or nothing to do with the referred to mental cycles. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/here-whats-trait-have-common-in-highly-intelligent-people-d5e6fc703b6b | [] | 2020-12-23 11:07:05.313000+00:00 | ['Traits', 'Intelligence', 'People', 'Self Improvement', 'Science'] | Title What’s Trait Common Highly Intelligent PeopleContent different character ascribes set significantly shrewd people apart others Amazingly characteristic related person’s IQ level yet connected one’s outrageous slant emotion social collaboration vast majority don’t comprehend regular endowment henceforth rarely utilize full imaginative potential significantly cunning people really understand inventive limit use full cutoff Following smart undertaking layout overall picture everyone get hisher ability grasp quality especially intelligent peopleThey appreciate knowing everything ludicrous incredible hope familiar every subject Significantly vigilant people grasp absolutely never postponement tell others aware subject Since don’t know something take others get however much data could reasonably expected flexible Significantly intelligent people conform present situation changing practice adjust enough ecological factor make familiar different thought Interest Academic interest something make individual uncommonly sharp people make open new experience gain piece life openminded intelligent people open consideration versatile recognize other’s characteristic examination respect others’ fantasy hold feeling enough verification recognize thing appear Exceptional limitation endeavor intelligent people clarify destination plan generally investigate elective methodology remember result outrageous restraint cause tackle issue move towards objective Ludicrous restriction Preceding endeavor intelligent people clarify target plan part explore elective methodology recall result ludicrous limitation urge deal issue move towards target individualistic Astoundingly intelligent people value discussion discussing musing orchestrating le pulled socialization others feel it’s accommodating consider issue significance duration regular daily existence Inconceivable attention what’s really clever Intelligent people depleting extraordinary familiarity what’s really interesting shown examines done capable joke specialist among raised scorer extent verbal information relate viably focus Significantly intelligent people draw equivalent line separating musing dream recognize old musing change conform prospect thoughtful grasp others feeling almost feel others encountered Significantly shrewd people continually excited social event new people picking experience fretful intelligent people wonder ton different thing reliably anxious know clarification behind presence everything consider condition different focus dawdle Intelligent people dodge futile issue delay huge endeavor require genuine energy huge work keep noodling different open door result license special intends go mind opposed running customary framework understand large versatile acknowledge status quo there’s fair chance you’re significantly watchful Instead rigid ought happen remain mentally versatile liberal without doubt adjust life paying little heed get throw system basically show handle issue find plan quickly selfevident it’s connected booksplendid thoughtful sympathetic intelligent sign information case notice quality could particularly savvy person Incredibly wise people don’t endeavor go like know honesty sign information seeing way don’t acquaintance can’t achieve something don’t endeavor go maybe realize cutoff focus leave alone known license accessible acquire others possible situation incredible working memory general understanding significantly relatedExactly good working memory infers head working aptitude incredible flashing memory ability focus lot like manner suggests scholarly versatility without remarkable stretch change beginning one thing onto following limitation suggests advancement understand control sentiment inspiration won’t make harm According intelligent people balance mean knowledge since infers undoubtedly think talk act people experience trouble life also work settle issue reduction bother quickly say present reality people banter exhibit personality significantly canny people opposite opposed gloating accomplishment telling people right emotion they’re regularly peaceful mindful Exactly take everything see thing others missed like honest pattern It’s definitely hard expect uncommonly astute people like scrutinize Regardless intelligent isn’t connected option encounter different book day It’s connected oddity everything regardlessintelligent people attract inclination posture request like think conceivable thatThey like getting answer concerning others social order animal history world unhindered worship examining isn’t generally sign knowledge show like learning you’re intriguedKnowledge described different perspective breaking point reasoning getting care learning exciting data thinking masterminding informativeness essential thinking basic reasoning Even generally might depicted ability see incite information hold data applied towards flexible practice inside atmosphere setting conflicting musing regard understanding assessed going likelihood information fixed upon birth adaptable change depending upon individual’s disposition effort Several subcategories information instance exciting understanding social knowledge seriously chitchatted concerning whether regular kind intelligence generally thought undeniable cycle occur anyway speculation tie standard knowledge suspectedDespite usage word intelligent couple term may practically nothing nothing referred mental cyclesTags Traits Intelligence People Self Improvement Science |
1,283 | Python HOW: Farewell Anaconda! Take Full Control of Your Development Environment | Setting up python with pyenv, venv, pipx, and vsCode on Windows and macOS
Photo by Kevin Ku from Pexels
Anaconda and Miniconda are amazing python distributions that get you up and running out-of-the-box. Once you start deploying your projects into production, however, you will defiantly need more control. In this article, I go through some of the best tools to make that transition happens! 🤘
All the CLI commands used in this article are in PowerShell for Windows, and zsh for macOS
Before starting up 🚿
If you’ve anaconda or miniconda installed, uninstall it as detailed here. For Windows, also:
Delete $HOME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\profile.ps1 if you have previously ran > conda init powershell
if you have previously ran Disable the built-in python launcher: search for Manage app execution aliases ▶️ disable App Installer aliases for python
Install python 🐍
Download the latest 64-bit python Release for Windows or macOS ( 3.9.0 at the time of writing), and install it (💀without adding python to PATH 💀). The installation directory is:
To use, specify the full path, e.g: $HOME\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\python.exe
⚠️ Because we haven’t added python to the system’s PATH , each time we want to use it, we have to give the full path. We can indeed do that. However, different projects require different versions of python, which makes this impractical. Solution? 👇
pyenv: python version management tool 🐍🐍
“pyenv lets you easily install and switch between multiple versions of python globally and locally” by using shim executables (more on shims here)
To understand how pyenv works, let’s first install it:
Windows: install pyenv-win with pip in the home directory, add an environment variable PYENV_HOME , and add bin & shims directories to the system’s PATH , and rehash shim :
Full installation instructions here. Installation directory is $HOME\.pyenv
MacOS: install with brew , add pyenv init to shell ( init adds bin and shims to PATH , installs autocompletion, and rehash shim ), and install some recommended python build dependencies:
Full instructions here. Installation directory is /usr/local/Cellar/pyenv
Now we’ve pyenv installed, close and reopen your CLI, then let’s use it to install python versions 3.7.9 and 3.8.6 :
The same applies for zsh. Full usage commands are here
pyenv installs python versions in the following directory:
To make version 3.8.6 global for example (i.e. register it with PATH through shims ), we use the global command:
For zsh use which instead of where.exe in line 9
Great! now we can make any version of python global 🎉 (we didn’t talk about making it local but you can check the local command)
⚠️ However, not only that each project requires a different versions of python, but it also requires for that version to be isolated in a virtual environment with all the required packages for the project to run. This allows us to take a snapshot of all the project’s requirements for reproducibility and for deployment. Solution? 👇
venv 📩
“The venv module provides support for creating lightweight virtual environments with their own site directories”. The module was introduced in python 3.3, and as of then, it’s included with any installation of python
We can easily create an isolated virtual environment using the venv command. The key point is: the created environment will have its own python binary 🐍 which matches the version of the binary that was used to create it
Here, for example, the virtual environment we create will also have python 3.8.6 :
The same applies for zsh
Before installing any dependencies for that project, however, we need to activate the virtual environment. Luckily, activation scripts for powershell , bash , and batch are also created for us in the sub-folder Scripts 💃
For zsh, use .venv/Scripts/ activate in line 2
To take a snapshot of your project dependencies, use the freeze command in pip :
For zsh use cat instead of Get-Content in line 5
If you already have the project’s requirements.txt , go through the same steps but instead of installing the dependencies as before, do: pip install -r requirements.txt to install them from the requirements file
Note: to delete the virtual environment, simply delete .venv folder
⚠️ There’re few tools that you should be using for any project, for example, code formatters and linters, that shouldn’t be included as a dependency,. It wouldn’t make sense to install them for each project then delete them from requirements.txt (and their own dependencies!). Solution? 👇
pipx
“pipx focuses on installing and managing Python packages that can be run from the CLI directly as applications”. pipx does that by creating an isolated environment for that package (and its dependencies), that we can then accesses from the CLI globally for any project 🙌
To understand how pipx works, let’s first install it (full instructions here):
Windows: install with pip from the main python installation (i.e. 3.9.0 ), and run ensurepath to add pipx directories to the system’s PATH :
Installation directory is $Home\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python39\site-packages
MacOS: install with brew , and run ensurepath to add pipx directories to the system’s PATH :
Installation directory is /usr/local/Cellar/pipx
The directories that ensurepath actually adds to PATH are its binary directory (so we can run it from the CLI), and the directory where packages’ binaries would go (so we can run them from the CLI), these are:
Directories in lines 2&6 have the pipx binary. Directories in lines 3&7 will have installed packages binaries
Now we’ve pipx installed, close and reopen your CLI, then let’s use it to install the following helper packages:
Black code formatter with “a strict subset of PEP 8 coding style”
code formatter with “a strict subset of PEP 8 coding style” isort for sorting imports alphabetically, and automatically separated into sections and by type
for sorting imports alphabetically, and automatically separated into sections and by type flake8 code linter for style guide enforcement
The same applies for zsh. Full usage commands are here
Each package will be installed in an isolated virtual environment inside $Home\.local\pipx\venvs , and have its binary in $Home\.local\bin (which is already in PATH thanks to ensurepath ). To use any of these applications, we can simply run it in the CLI:
The same applies for zsh
⚠️ If you’re using vsCode, you might be wondering “how to tell vsCode where to find the global packages installed with pipx so I can use them with any project? Solution? 👇
Setting up vsCode
Settings for pipx packages
You can tell vsCode to use all the helper packages we installed using pipx , and more importantly, where to find the binaries 📦 in the settings
vsCode saves settings in a settings.json file, Ctrl+Shift+P to bring the Palette, then search for Preferences: Open Settings (JSON) :
Define the formatting provider as black and provide its binary path (more on formatting here). As black defaults to 88 characters per line, we use the same length for the editor’s ruler (more on line length here)
Replace $HOME with your HOME path (vsCode doesn’t define $HOME). For macOS, use / instead of \\
Define the imports sorting path for isort (vsCode uses isort as an import sorting provider by default as you can see here). “ Black also formats imports, but in a different way from isort defaults which leads to conflicting changes” 😵. To fix this, we can pass few arguments to isort to make it consistent with black (more details here)
Replace $HOME with your HOME path. For macOS, use / instead of \\
Enable flake8 for linting and provide its binary path (more on linting here). “There are a few deviations that cause incompatibilities with black ”. To fix this, we can pass few arguments to make flake8 consistent with black (more details here)
Replace $HOME with your HOME path. For macOS, use / instead of \\
Settings Sync
You can sync your settings, keybindings, and installed extensions across your machines by following the instructions here (you need a Microsoft or a Git account). However, all the binaries paths for the packages we installed using pipx shouldn’t be synced between Windows and macOS. Luckily, we can ignore these by adding them to settings.json :
Note: you can add any settings in settings.json to the list of ignored settings above
What is next?
Start using Docker 🐋 for Python
Become a Scikit-learn plumber 🚿
Happy coding! | https://medium.com/swlh/python-how-farewell-anaconda-take-full-control-of-your-development-environment-6c4f8103980f | ['Gabriel Harris Ph.D.'] | 2020-12-14 16:13:43.216000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Data Engineering', 'Mlops'] | Title Python Farewell Anaconda Take Full Control Development EnvironmentContent Setting python pyenv venv pipx vsCode Windows macOS Photo Kevin Ku Pexels Anaconda Miniconda amazing python distribution get running outofthebox start deploying project production however defiantly need control article go best tool make transition happens 🤘 CLI command used article PowerShell Windows zsh macOS starting 🚿 you’ve anaconda miniconda installed uninstall detailed Windows also Delete HOMEDocumentsWindowsPowerShellprofileps1 previously ran conda init powershell previously ran Disable builtin python launcher search Manage app execution alias ▶️ disable App Installer alias python Install python 🐍 Download latest 64bit python Release Windows macOS 390 time writing install 💀without adding python PATH 💀 installation directory use specify full path eg HOMEAppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython39pythonexe ⚠️ haven’t added python system’s PATH time want use give full path indeed However different project require different version python make impractical Solution 👇 pyenv python version management tool 🐍🐍 “pyenv let easily install switch multiple version python globally locally” using shim executables shim understand pyenv work let’s first install Windows install pyenvwin pip home directory add environment variable PYENVHOME add bin shim directory system’s PATH rehash shim Full installation instruction Installation directory HOMEpyenv MacOS install brew add pyenv init shell init add bin shim PATH installs autocompletion rehash shim install recommended python build dependency Full instruction Installation directory usrlocalCellarpyenv we’ve pyenv installed close reopen CLI let’s use install python version 379 386 applies zsh Full usage command pyenv installs python version following directory make version 386 global example ie register PATH shim use global command zsh use instead whereexe line 9 Great make version python global 🎉 didn’t talk making local check local command ⚠️ However project requires different version python also requires version isolated virtual environment required package project run allows u take snapshot project’s requirement reproducibility deployment Solution 👇 venv 📩 “The venv module provides support creating lightweight virtual environment site directories” module introduced python 33 it’s included installation python easily create isolated virtual environment using venv command key point created environment python binary 🐍 match version binary used create example virtual environment create also python 386 applies zsh installing dependency project however need activate virtual environment Luckily activation script powershell bash batch also created u subfolder Scripts 💃 zsh use venvScripts activate line 2 take snapshot project dependency use freeze command pip zsh use cat instead GetContent line 5 already project’s requirementstxt go step instead installing dependency pip install r requirementstxt install requirement file Note delete virtual environment simply delete venv folder ⚠️ There’re tool using project example code formatters linters shouldn’t included dependency wouldn’t make sense install project delete requirementstxt dependency Solution 👇 pipx “pipx focus installing managing Python package run CLI directly applications” pipx creating isolated environment package dependency access CLI globally project 🙌 understand pipx work let’s first install full instruction Windows install pip main python installation ie 390 run ensurepath add pipx directory system’s PATH Installation directory HomeAppDataRoamingPythonPython39sitepackages MacOS install brew run ensurepath add pipx directory system’s PATH Installation directory usrlocalCellarpipx directory ensurepath actually add PATH binary directory run CLI directory packages’ binary would go run CLI Directories line 26 pipx binary Directories line 37 installed package binary we’ve pipx installed close reopen CLI let’s use install following helper package Black code formatter “a strict subset PEP 8 coding style” code formatter “a strict subset PEP 8 coding style” isort sorting import alphabetically automatically separated section type sorting import alphabetically automatically separated section type flake8 code linter style guide enforcement applies zsh Full usage command package installed isolated virtual environment inside Homelocalpipxvenvs binary Homelocalbin already PATH thanks ensurepath use application simply run CLI applies zsh ⚠️ you’re using vsCode might wondering “how tell vsCode find global package installed pipx use project Solution 👇 Setting vsCode Settings pipx package tell vsCode use helper package installed using pipx importantly find binary 📦 setting vsCode save setting settingsjson file CtrlShiftP bring Palette search Preferences Open Settings JSON Define formatting provider black provide binary path formatting black default 88 character per line use length editor’s ruler line length Replace HOME HOME path vsCode doesn’t define HOME macOS use instead Define import sorting path isort vsCode us isort import sorting provider default see “ Black also format import different way isort default lead conflicting changes” 😵 fix pas argument isort make consistent black detail Replace HOME HOME path macOS use instead Enable flake8 linting provide binary path linting “There deviation cause incompatibility black ” fix pas argument make flake8 consistent black detail Replace HOME HOME path macOS use instead Settings Sync sync setting keybindings installed extension across machine following instruction need Microsoft Git account However binary path package installed using pipx shouldn’t synced Windows macOS Luckily ignore adding settingsjson Note add setting settingsjson list ignored setting next Start using Docker 🐋 Python Become Scikitlearn plumber 🚿 Happy codingTags DevOps Data Science Python Data Engineering Mlops |
1,284 | A Founder’s Story: Chris Li, CEO of BioBox Analytics (1/3) | I’ve always loved computers and software.
I remember booting one up in my aunt’s office back in 95' and loading an 18Mb video game from a floppy disk. But I never thought I’d be building software one day as a career. My goal was medicine or life-science research. Fast forward to my 20’s and I’ve just received an opportunity to work as a research student in a brand new research institute.
Dream do come true.
Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash
Biology, meet Bioinformatics
First week on the job, my boss says to me, “We’re a small lab, and bioinformatics is too expensive right now for us. Your project this summer is to do bioinformatics.” I had no idea what that meant, but I stood there, nodded and accepted the challenge enthusiastically.
After googling, “What is bioinformatics”, I sat back into my uncomfortable lab chair, and thought to myself, “What did I just get myself into?”.
I thought life-science research was about tissue-culture, mouse-models, complex biochemical manipulations, yet here I am trying to figure how to use a Makefile to compile this program?
“do Bioinformatics”
Looking back now, I still chuckle at the notion of “do bioinformatics”. Bioinformatics is the happy love-child of computing, software engineering, advanced probability and statistics, and biology. It’s a discipline borne out of necessity through a tectonic change in life-sciences research — next generation sequencing (NGS).
Find any major life-sciences high impact research paper in the last decade. You’d be hard-pressed to see one that didn’t use some form of bioinformatics. It’s now a foundational aspect of life-sciences research. Through NGS tech and advancements in computation biology, we’re now able to decipher information about biology that lead to the discovery of new genes, disease-causing mutations, and fundamental biological processes at an unprecedented rate.
But there is a cost to this knowledge, as an unintended side-effect emerged. These advancements made software literacy and programming chops one of the most sought after skills in biological research.
Fortunately, in my story, the summer of doing bioinformatics ignited in me a deep curiosity, passion, and borderline obsession with the cross-section of software, stats, ML, and biology. A few years later, by the time I entered grad-school, I was fully self-sufficient in bioinformatics and was able to leverage those skills to blast through the first two years and generate enough data for a reclassification. But throughout my grad school experience I saw first-hand what happens if you were less fortunate and didn’t have the time to train in bioinformatics.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
My email inbox and backlog of work was consistently full from collaborator and colleagues requests for bioinformatic support. I can’t count how many late nights I’ve had with colleagues crunching through numbers with them, whipping up figures, and translating their biological research question into a computational pipeline. Don’t get me wrong, I did this gladly and would do it whenever asked, because this is what science is about. Scientists help each other in the pursuit of knowledge, not trading tit-for-tat favours. But I could see their frustration from losing the autonomy of conducting/performing this work by themselves. The frustration from a request to collaborators or bioinformatic services being unanswered for weeks, only to have the results/figures come back different from their expectations, and trigger another round of this toxic cycle.
Photo by Q.U.I on Unsplash
It started with a napkin
One consequential Friday evening, me and my now co-founders met up after work and went across the street to the bar. A few too many pitchers later, we began discussing these issues and on a bar napkin, we drew out a hypothetical system to solve this problem. At the time, we didn’t think it would grow into what BioBox is today. We just wanted the emails to stop so we could get back to our own projects. It was a small simple web-app that loaded their data, and gave them the ability to run basic stats tests, plotting, and simple analyses. After a month of tinkering on weekends, I sent it out to a few colleagues and the results were amazing. Inbox — 0 new emails. Then the feature requests started coming in.
After a little more research into how pervasive this problem was, the three of us decided take the leap and we left our careers behind to found BioBox.
It’s been almost 2 years (at the time of this writing) since we committed to this path. The purpose of our company is to build a platform that provides autonomy back to the biologist by giving them all the tools they need to execute their bioinformatic analyses. In so doing, freeing up the bioinformaticians from requests like, “Please make my plot more red”, and getting their time back to focus on the things they love doing, like developing new algorithms, tools, and pipelines.
We live in a time where sequencing your entire genome is cheaper than your iPhone
We are blessed to live in an era of scientific progress where we’ve generated and collected more biological data than ever before.
But having data is not the same as having knowledge. Transforming data into knowledge relies on the creative/innovative thinking from our biologists and the efficiency/ingenuity from our bioinformaticians.
Pushing the boundaries of science is like rowing a boat upstream. It takes work, commitment, sweat, and energy from our scientists. At BioBox, we’re not rowing the boat for you, we can’t. Only you can. But what we can do is give you the best oars, boat, and gear to support you along your journey. This is the singular mission for us here at BioBox. | https://medium.com/bioboxanalytics/a-founders-story-chris-li-ceo-of-biobox-analytics-1-3-a2e5fd110521 | ['Christopher Li'] | 2020-12-10 13:49:44.249000+00:00 | ['Biotechnology', 'Genomics', 'Software Development', 'Founder Stories', 'Startup'] | Title Founder’s Story Chris Li CEO BioBox Analytics 13Content I’ve always loved computer software remember booting one aunt’s office back 95 loading 18Mb video game floppy disk never thought I’d building software one day career goal medicine lifescience research Fast forward 20’s I’ve received opportunity work research student brand new research institute Dream come true Photo Cookie Pom Unsplash Biology meet Bioinformatics First week job bos say “We’re small lab bioinformatics expensive right u project summer bioinformatics” idea meant stood nodded accepted challenge enthusiastically googling “What bioinformatics” sat back uncomfortable lab chair thought “What get into” thought lifescience research tissueculture mousemodels complex biochemical manipulation yet trying figure use Makefile compile program “do Bioinformatics” Looking back still chuckle notion “do bioinformatics” Bioinformatics happy lovechild computing software engineering advanced probability statistic biology It’s discipline borne necessity tectonic change lifesciences research — next generation sequencing NGS Find major lifesciences high impact research paper last decade You’d hardpressed see one didn’t use form bioinformatics It’s foundational aspect lifesciences research NGS tech advancement computation biology we’re able decipher information biology lead discovery new gene diseasecausing mutation fundamental biological process unprecedented rate cost knowledge unintended sideeffect emerged advancement made software literacy programming chop one sought skill biological research Fortunately story summer bioinformatics ignited deep curiosity passion borderline obsession crosssection software stats ML biology year later time entered gradschool fully selfsufficient bioinformatics able leverage skill blast first two year generate enough data reclassification throughout grad school experience saw firsthand happens le fortunate didn’t time train bioinformatics Photo Brett Jordan Unsplash email inbox backlog work consistently full collaborator colleague request bioinformatic support can’t count many late night I’ve colleague crunching number whipping figure translating biological research question computational pipeline Don’t get wrong gladly would whenever asked science Scientists help pursuit knowledge trading titfortat favour could see frustration losing autonomy conductingperforming work frustration request collaborator bioinformatic service unanswered week resultsfigures come back different expectation trigger another round toxic cycle Photo QUI Unsplash started napkin One consequential Friday evening cofounder met work went across street bar many pitcher later began discussing issue bar napkin drew hypothetical system solve problem time didn’t think would grow BioBox today wanted email stop could get back project small simple webapp loaded data gave ability run basic stats test plotting simple analysis month tinkering weekend sent colleague result amazing Inbox — 0 new email feature request started coming little research pervasive problem three u decided take leap left career behind found BioBox It’s almost 2 year time writing since committed path purpose company build platform provides autonomy back biologist giving tool need execute bioinformatic analysis freeing bioinformaticians request like “Please make plot red” getting time back focus thing love like developing new algorithm tool pipeline live time sequencing entire genome cheaper iPhone blessed live era scientific progress we’ve generated collected biological data ever data knowledge Transforming data knowledge relies creativeinnovative thinking biologist efficiencyingenuity bioinformaticians Pushing boundary science like rowing boat upstream take work commitment sweat energy scientist BioBox we’re rowing boat can’t give best oar boat gear support along journey singular mission u BioBoxTags Biotechnology Genomics Software Development Founder Stories Startup |
1,285 | Globally Autoscaling Web Services with Health Checks | Globally Autoscaling Web Services with Health Checks
Season of Scale
Season of Scale
“Season of Scale” is a blog and video series to help enterprises and developers build scale and resilience into your design patterns. In this series we plan on walking you through some patterns and practices for creating apps that are resilient and scalable, two essential goals of many modern architecture exercises.
In Season 1, we’re covering Infrastructure Automation and High Availability:
In this article I’ll walk you through how to globally scale your web services on Google Cloud.
Check out the video
Review
So far we’ve looked at how Critter Junction was able to launch a new app on Google Cloud. We covered the various compute options Google Cloud has to offer — some including powerful autoscaling capabilities. It really just depends on your language requirements, level of control, access to the OS, and other application characteristics like containerization. Today let’s take a look at how they can enable their apps to gracefully handle peaks and dips in traffic.
Preparation is everything
Critter Junction is becoming very popular with more users than ever. The game is all about playing daily, collecting items and furniture to decorate your house, and interacting with other players.
As we saw in the previous article they chose to run their Layout App on Cloud Run. But, they still chose to migrate some game servers to Compute Engine. As their traffic grew, they were struggling to provision additional instances globally at any given time of the day. This led to overutilized compute and created constant pressure on their operations team. So now they’re looking for an automated way to handle their growing users and maintain performance to keep their users coming back daily. In other words, how can they set up autoscaling instances that check for unhealthy instances and replace them when needed?
Global Load Balancer
The answer is Google Cloud’s global load balancer and managed instance groups to scale and distribute the traffic automatically. This keeps operations team happy and the users satisfied with performance advantages.
Managed instance groups provide features such as autoscaling, autohealing, auto-updating and regional (multiple zone) deployments. To understand this better, let’s step back and understand how a Compute Engine instance is created.
Instance creation
You create a custom image for your application which is then used to create an instance. To make this reusable, you create an instance template. With an instance template, not only can you set up configuration of the VM, but you can also run startup scripts to pull down the latest version of your code when the machine starts up. You can also attach disk templates with all the software dependencies your app requires, or you leave it as an empty shell that gets populated by a CI/CD pipeline. These templates then automate the creation of the Compute Engine instances at scale through managed instance groups.
MIG + Health Check Walkthrough
Let’s see how this works with a simple web app example!
Create firewall rules
In the Google Cloud console, create a firewall rule under VPC networks with the following attributes:
Allow HTTP traffic to the app you’re about to deploy.
to the app you’re about to deploy. Provide a name: default-allow-http
Select a default network.
For Targets, select the specified target tags.
Set the target tag as http-server .
. Set the source filter to IP ranges and provide 0.0.0.0/0 to allow access for all IP addresses.
to allow access for all IP addresses. For ports and protocols select TCP and enter 80 .
and enter . Now click Create.
Create an instance template
Head over to Compute Engine and create an instance template with the following attributes:
Give it a name: instance-template.
Select machine type.
Set boot disk image to Debian9.
Check Allow HTTP traffic.
Under management tab find Automation and add the startup script.
sudo apt update && sudo apt -y install git gunicorn3 python3-pip
git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/python-docs-samples.git
cd python-docs-samples/compute/managed-instances/demo
sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt
sudo gunicorn3 --bind 0.0.0.0:80 app:app --daemon
This script causes each instance to run a simple web application during startup.
2. Finally click create.
Create and instance using your new template
Now that you have an instance template, you can create an instance group using this template.
Create an instance group on the Compute Engine instance groups page with the following attributes:
Give it a name.
Under location, select multiple zones. This protects you from zonal failures.
This protects you from zonal failures. Select a region and under instance template select the template you just created.
Now set autoscaling mode to Autoscale.
Set the Autoscaling policy to CPU utilization . You can also set policy to HTTP load balancing or monitoring metrics.
. You can also set policy to HTTP load balancing or monitoring metrics. Set the target CPU usage to 60%.
Set the minimum number of instances to 3
It’s recommended that you provision enough instances so that if an entire zone was to go down the remaining instances still meet the minimum number required.
Set the max number of instances to 6 to make sure you don’t incur additional cost.
to make sure you don’t incur additional cost. We will set the cool down period to 120 seconds.
Make sure this number is higher than the time it takes for CPU utilization of the VM to initially stabilize.
Skip setting a health check for now but we’ll cover that in the next article.
2. And click create, then wait for few minutes until all the instances are running
3. Then go to VM instances and click on the external IP of the instance to see the demo web app page.
Traffic load-test
Now that we have it all set up, let’s generate traffic so we can see the autoscaling in action.
Open Cloud Shell.
2. Create a local bash variable using the export PROJECT_ID command.
3. Run this bash script below.
export MACHINES=$(gcloud --project=$PROJECT_ID compute instances list --format="csv(name,networkInterfaces[0].accessConfigs[0].natIP)" | grep "autoscaling-web-app-group")
for i in $MACHINES;
do
NAME=$(echo "$i" | cut -f1 -d,)
IP=$(echo "$i" | cut -f2 -d,)
echo "Simulating high load for instance $NAME"
curl -q -s "http://$IP/startLoad" >/dev/null --retry 2
done
This script increases load which leads to increase in CPU utilization for our demo app. When it reaches the target value of 60% the autoscaling starts increasing the size of our instance group.
4. Now navigate to your monitoring tab in our instance group and you can see the increasing number of instances as the CPU usage is increasing.
You should be able to see the scale down effect by running a similar bash script that decreases the load leading to decrease in CPU utilization. And after a few minutes of stabilization period, the autoscaler prompts to decrease the instance group size which is visible in the monitoring tab.
Use load balancers at each layer
Critter junction has global users. They want the users from Singapore to end up on Asia east web server while the ones in US end up in the US central region.
For this they would use global load balancing which routes traffic to the nearest web server instance. which helps reduce latency and improve performance. From there the internal load balancer distributes the traffic to manage and maintain load across the backend.
These instance groups in different regions autoscale using an HTTP load balancing policy to scale seamlessly regardless of where the traffic is coming from.
Launch day success
Not only was Critter Junction able to automate the scaling of their Compute instances using autoscaling and managed instance groups, they were also able to improve performance by serving traffic from instances closest to their users using the Global Load Balancer.
But there’s one more step to scaling — identifying the instances that are unhealthy, and replacing them automatically! So stay tuned for the next episode where we will cover how Critter junction can set up Autohealing and keep their users happy.
And remember, always be architecting.
Next steps and references: | https://medium.com/google-cloud/globally-autoscaling-web-services-4b650cc6fc49 | ['Stephanie Wong'] | 2020-09-01 23:25:08.253000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Scalability', 'Software Engineering', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Cloud Computing'] | Title Globally Autoscaling Web Services Health ChecksContent Globally Autoscaling Web Services Health Checks Season Scale Season Scale “Season Scale” blog video series help enterprise developer build scale resilience design pattern series plan walking pattern practice creating apps resilient scalable two essential goal many modern architecture exercise Season 1 we’re covering Infrastructure Automation High Availability article I’ll walk globally scale web service Google Cloud Check video Review far we’ve looked Critter Junction able launch new app Google Cloud covered various compute option Google Cloud offer — including powerful autoscaling capability really depends language requirement level control access OS application characteristic like containerization Today let’s take look enable apps gracefully handle peak dip traffic Preparation everything Critter Junction becoming popular user ever game playing daily collecting item furniture decorate house interacting player saw previous article chose run Layout App Cloud Run still chose migrate game server Compute Engine traffic grew struggling provision additional instance globally given time day led overutilized compute created constant pressure operation team they’re looking automated way handle growing user maintain performance keep user coming back daily word set autoscaling instance check unhealthy instance replace needed Global Load Balancer answer Google Cloud’s global load balancer managed instance group scale distribute traffic automatically keep operation team happy user satisfied performance advantage Managed instance group provide feature autoscaling autohealing autoupdating regional multiple zone deployment understand better let’s step back understand Compute Engine instance created Instance creation create custom image application used create instance make reusable create instance template instance template set configuration VM also run startup script pull latest version code machine start also attach disk template software dependency app requires leave empty shell get populated CICD pipeline template automate creation Compute Engine instance scale managed instance group MIG Health Check Walkthrough Let’s see work simple web app example Create firewall rule Google Cloud console create firewall rule VPC network following attribute Allow HTTP traffic app you’re deploy app you’re deploy Provide name defaultallowhttp Select default network Targets select specified target tag Set target tag httpserver Set source filter IP range provide 00000 allow access IP address allow access IP address port protocol select TCP enter 80 enter click Create Create instance template Head Compute Engine create instance template following attribute Give name instancetemplate Select machine type Set boot disk image Debian9 Check Allow HTTP traffic management tab find Automation add startup script sudo apt update sudo apt install git gunicorn3 python3pip git clone httpsgithubcomGoogleCloudPlatformpythondocssamplesgit cd pythondocssamplescomputemanagedinstancesdemo sudo pip3 install r requirementstxt sudo gunicorn3 bind 000080 appapp daemon script cause instance run simple web application startup 2 Finally click create Create instance using new template instance template create instance group using template Create instance group Compute Engine instance group page following attribute Give name location select multiple zone protects zonal failure protects zonal failure Select region instance template select template created set autoscaling mode Autoscale Set Autoscaling policy CPU utilization also set policy HTTP load balancing monitoring metric also set policy HTTP load balancing monitoring metric Set target CPU usage 60 Set minimum number instance 3 It’s recommended provision enough instance entire zone go remaining instance still meet minimum number required Set max number instance 6 make sure don’t incur additional cost make sure don’t incur additional cost set cool period 120 second Make sure number higher time take CPU utilization VM initially stabilize Skip setting health check we’ll cover next article 2 click create wait minute instance running 3 go VM instance click external IP instance see demo web app page Traffic loadtest set let’s generate traffic see autoscaling action Open Cloud Shell 2 Create local bash variable using export PROJECTID command 3 Run bash script export MACHINESgcloud projectPROJECTID compute instance list formatcsvnamenetworkInterfaces0accessConfigs0natIP grep autoscalingwebappgroup MACHINES NAMEecho cut f1 IPecho cut f2 echo Simulating high load instance NAME curl q httpIPstartLoad devnull retry 2 done script increase load lead increase CPU utilization demo app reach target value 60 autoscaling start increasing size instance group 4 navigate monitoring tab instance group see increasing number instance CPU usage increasing able see scale effect running similar bash script decrease load leading decrease CPU utilization minute stabilization period autoscaler prompt decrease instance group size visible monitoring tab Use load balancer layer Critter junction global user want user Singapore end Asia east web server one US end US central region would use global load balancing route traffic nearest web server instance help reduce latency improve performance internal load balancer distributes traffic manage maintain load across backend instance group different region autoscale using HTTP load balancing policy scale seamlessly regardless traffic coming Launch day success Critter Junction able automate scaling Compute instance using autoscaling managed instance group also able improve performance serving traffic instance closest user using Global Load Balancer there’s one step scaling — identifying instance unhealthy replacing automatically stay tuned next episode cover Critter junction set Autohealing keep user happy remember always architecting Next step referencesTags Software Development Scalability Software Engineering Google Cloud Platform Cloud Computing |
1,286 | Bread Can Be Nutritious, But There Are Rules | Bread Can Be Nutritious, But There Are Rules
And modern bread breaks all of them.
Modern-day bread is the consequence of shortcuts made at every stage of its production. As a result, the human staple for millennia has now become junk food. It’s low in nutrients, high in energy, easy to eat, cheap to buy, and ubiquitous. Modern bread is also hard to digest and problematic for a burgeoning group of people. The old fashioned, ancient food is none of those things, for a whole host of reasons.
When the soil is rich, and the grains are processed appropriately; the end-product is a world apart from the highly processed, hyper-palatable pap you see on the shelves today. For many, bread can be nutritious if we use the keys, handed down to us by our ancestors to unlock the nutrients inside the grains, and banish their chemical defenses.
Here’s why you may want to make some changes to your daily bread, read on.
Grains in the human diet
Grains, the main ingredient in bread, have been in the human diet for a minimum of 105,000 years, budding in parts of the ‘fertile crescent’, an area spanning the Middle East in which ancient humans flourished. We’ve been milling grains for at least 23,000 years, and storing them before domestication for about 11,300 years. But, the first evidence of bread making was collected by a meticulous archaeologist, sweeping charred bits from around a fireplace that were later dated to 14,000 years old; the oldest bread crumbs in the world.
The archaic flatbread was made from wild einkorn, a type of unadulterated wheat that’s making a comeback as artisan bread in flashy restaurants. Other grains that have traditionally been used to make bread include, rye, spelt (Dinkel), corn, Teff, Kamut, emmer, and many others. Each has its idiosyncrasies, from growing, processing, cooking, to flavour, and nutrient content.
However, one thing they all had in common was how they were carefully processed. You may think ‘processing’ denotes a modern action, but humans have processed grains in low-tech ways, for important reasons, over millennia. Grains of all kinds, to varying degrees, contain defensive chemicals that human digestive tracts are not well equipped to deal with. Collectively, they are known as anti-nutrients.
We don’t need to evolve to eat grains
Herbivores have a digestive system that effectively grinds, soaks, and then ferments grains — pre agriculture these would have been wild — and other plants so they can extract the nutrients effectively. Humans are not herbivores, and so you shouldn’t skip the steps, which amount to predigesting hard to metabolize components using simple tools.
Tool usage has a direct influence on the stresses provoking adaptations and evolution. By predigesting grains in low tech ways, and making them easier to assimilate, our digestive systems have not evolved to perform the same task.
the ‘oysters & corn tortilla’ gang absorbed none of the zinc in the meal.
The basic steps of soaking, sprouting, and fermenting can be performed with just a bowl, some water, and little else. To this day, those with the least possessions ensure these traditions are honoured, when shortcuts are applied, problems arise. When the poorest populations rely on food aid, rather than preparing the foods themselves in traditional ways, a serious nutrient deficiency disease can manifest.
Nutrients & Antinutrients
Grains, when the soil permits, contain diverse B vitamins and minerals. So, if you eat them, you’ll obtain those nutrients, right? Sadly, it’s never that simple. Grains and other plants, including nuts, seeds, and legumes, contain chemicals that help ensure the seed survives to sprout into a plant and prolong their species’ existence. They include phytates, lectins, oxalates, gluten, and others. These troublesome components prevent micronutrients from being absorbed and cause inflammation in some people.
A study by the USDA, in collaboration with the Institute of Central America, demonstrated something quite remarkable about the effects of antinutrients in normal foods. Using blood to evaluate the bioavailability of zinc from oysters, the scientists tested three groups: Oysters only, oysters & corn tortillas, and oysters & black beans. Have a look at the line chart below.
Image from ‘Studies on the bioavailability of zinc in man.’
After the test meal, the ‘oysters only’ group measured high for zinc, the level rising straightaway as expected because the shellfish are excellent sources of the critical mineral. The ‘oysters & black beans’ group had reduced levels of zinc absorption, but the ‘oysters & corn tortilla’ gang absorbed none of the zinc in the meal. The researchers also demonstrated a similar, but not as dramatic, effect with white bread in place of corn tortillas.
When corn (maize) was first brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus, after his successful 1492 mission to the Americas, it took off quickly. Corn has a higher yield than the European grains of the time; rye, wheat, and barley. But it carried with it a hidden curse. The Aztec and Mayan civilizations had learnt, probably the hard way, that corn needed processing before eating.
The next logical step was to blame the victims by claiming they were Vampires right up until the 20th Century when scientists discovered the truth and the simple remedy; appropriate food preparation.
Low-tech Processing
The ancient Central Americans had a trick up their sleeves. They used limewater, an alkaline solution, to soak corn overnight before cooking. The limewater breaks down the antinutrients in corn, giving our digestive tracts the ability to extract the nutrients that are, without the preparatory step, locked away and untouchable. Although the ancient people’s couldn’t tell you what the mechanisms were, they knew it was a step not to be missed.
However, those growing the hardy crop in the Dark Ages, Europe, had no idea. Starting centuries before science advanced enough for answers, people were afflicted by a nightmarish disease called Pellagra, see the image below.
Sadly, the European settlers in the Appalachians, USA, were not as savvy as the ancient Central American cultures who knew how to make corn digestible. Image Credit.
The vitamin B3 (niacin) deficiency disease is classified by four ‘Ds’: Dermatitis, diarrhoea, dementia, and finally death, and reached epidemic proportions at times. By 1735, the learned of the time suspected a connection with corn, but couldn’t puzzle it out. After all, the Central Americans ate more corn, but pellagra seemed not to touch them. The next logical step was to blame the victims by claiming they were Vampires right up until the 20th Century when scientists discovered the truth and the simple remedy; appropriate food preparation.
The traditional techniques; sprouting, soaking, fermenting, and cooking, are low-tech ways of processing foods that have been done for millennia and are still taken seriously by traditional cultures, and foodies. Modern science, as ancient wisdom had done with trial and error, has determined how effective these simple techniques are for improving the bioavailability of nutrients within foods, and deactivating the chemicals that do cause real harm to some. | https://medium.com/beingwell/bread-can-be-nutritious-but-there-are-rules-c4933e3a5dc5 | ['Tim Rees'] | 2020-12-28 20:18:16.745000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Diet', 'Lifestyle', 'Science', 'Food'] | Title Bread Nutritious RulesContent Bread Nutritious Rules modern bread break Modernday bread consequence shortcut made every stage production result human staple millennium become junk food It’s low nutrient high energy easy eat cheap buy ubiquitous Modern bread also hard digest problematic burgeoning group people old fashioned ancient food none thing whole host reason soil rich grain processed appropriately endproduct world apart highly processed hyperpalatable pap see shelf today many bread nutritious use key handed u ancestor unlock nutrient inside grain banish chemical defense Here’s may want make change daily bread read Grains human diet Grains main ingredient bread human diet minimum 105000 year budding part ‘fertile crescent’ area spanning Middle East ancient human flourished We’ve milling grain least 23000 year storing domestication 11300 year first evidence bread making collected meticulous archaeologist sweeping charred bit around fireplace later dated 14000 year old oldest bread crumb world archaic flatbread made wild einkorn type unadulterated wheat that’s making comeback artisan bread flashy restaurant grain traditionally used make bread include rye spelt Dinkel corn Teff Kamut emmer many others idiosyncrasy growing processing cooking flavour nutrient content However one thing common carefully processed may think ‘processing’ denotes modern action human processed grain lowtech way important reason millennium Grains kind varying degree contain defensive chemical human digestive tract well equipped deal Collectively known antinutrients don’t need evolve eat grain Herbivores digestive system effectively grind soak ferment grain — pre agriculture would wild — plant extract nutrient effectively Humans herbivore shouldn’t skip step amount predigesting hard metabolize component using simple tool Tool usage direct influence stress provoking adaptation evolution predigesting grain low tech way making easier assimilate digestive system evolved perform task ‘oysters corn tortilla’ gang absorbed none zinc meal basic step soaking sprouting fermenting performed bowl water little else day least possession ensure tradition honoured shortcut applied problem arise poorest population rely food aid rather preparing food traditional way serious nutrient deficiency disease manifest Nutrients Antinutrients Grains soil permit contain diverse B vitamin mineral eat you’ll obtain nutrient right Sadly it’s never simple Grains plant including nut seed legume contain chemical help ensure seed survives sprout plant prolong species’ existence include phytates lectin oxalate gluten others troublesome component prevent micronutrient absorbed cause inflammation people study USDA collaboration Institute Central America demonstrated something quite remarkable effect antinutrients normal food Using blood evaluate bioavailability zinc oyster scientist tested three group Oysters oyster corn tortilla oyster black bean look line chart Image ‘Studies bioavailability zinc man’ test meal ‘oysters only’ group measured high zinc level rising straightaway expected shellfish excellent source critical mineral ‘oysters black beans’ group reduced level zinc absorption ‘oysters corn tortilla’ gang absorbed none zinc meal researcher also demonstrated similar dramatic effect white bread place corn tortilla corn maize first brought Europe Christopher Columbus successful 1492 mission Americas took quickly Corn higher yield European grain time rye wheat barley carried hidden curse Aztec Mayan civilization learnt probably hard way corn needed processing eating next logical step blame victim claiming Vampires right 20th Century scientist discovered truth simple remedy appropriate food preparation Lowtech Processing ancient Central Americans trick sleeve used limewater alkaline solution soak corn overnight cooking limewater break antinutrients corn giving digestive tract ability extract nutrient without preparatory step locked away untouchable Although ancient people’s couldn’t tell mechanism knew step missed However growing hardy crop Dark Ages Europe idea Starting century science advanced enough answer people afflicted nightmarish disease called Pellagra see image Sadly European settler Appalachians USA savvy ancient Central American culture knew make corn digestible Image Credit vitamin B3 niacin deficiency disease classified four ‘Ds’ Dermatitis diarrhoea dementia finally death reached epidemic proportion time 1735 learned time suspected connection corn couldn’t puzzle Central Americans ate corn pellagra seemed touch next logical step blame victim claiming Vampires right 20th Century scientist discovered truth simple remedy appropriate food preparation traditional technique sprouting soaking fermenting cooking lowtech way processing food done millennium still taken seriously traditional culture foodie Modern science ancient wisdom done trial error determined effective simple technique improving bioavailability nutrient within food deactivating chemical cause real harm someTags Health Diet Lifestyle Science Food |
1,287 | Creating a Near Real-Time Financial News Dataset With AWS Lambda | AWS Lambda’s logo
Stock prices fluctuate over time depending on market sentiment. Firms can gauge the current and historic market sentiment for individual stocks or entire markets by using financial news articles. With these articles, firms can use natural language processing techniques such as named entity recognition and sentiment analysis to measure outlook for specific stocks or the market as a whole. These methods help to tag articles about publicly traded companies like Microsoft or Netflix and to calculate a sentiment tag or rating indicating if the financial article is positive, neutral, or negative.
This article will go over how you can compile a dataset of financial news from CNBC Finance in an S3 bucket that updates daily.
To find the top financial news article of the day from CNBC Finance, we can use the requests library in Python to send a GET request to https://www.cnbc.com/finance/.
We then parse through the response using Beautiful Soup. We identify “cards” on the website which contain links to the individual articles. We want to retrieve the URLs and record them in a list.
For each URL we retrieve, create an Article object which contains the date and text of the article.
To run this automatically with AWS, I will use AWS Lambda and store the results in an S3 bucket. Create an S3 bucket. Navigate to the IAM console and create a role that grants access to your S3 bucket.
Log into the AWS Lambda Console and click “Create function”. Select “Author from scratch”, select a Python 3.8 runtime, name your function, and click the “Create function” button again.
Since we are using two Python libraries that aren’t included in the AWS Lambda Python 3.8 environment, we have to download and zip our code to include in our deployment package. The libraries we have to add are requests and Beautiful Soup. From the command prompt, create a new directory on your computer named cnbc_dependencies and navigate to it. Download the requests package to that directory with
pip install requests -t .
Make sure to include the period, which downloads the package to the current directory. Download Beautiful Soup.
pip install beautifulsoup4 -t .
We need make a few modifications to our code first to insert the article text files into S3. We need to specify the handler function in our code which Lambda invokes. Name your Python script lambda_function.py. With these changes in place, the code should look like this:
Copy your Python file to your directory and then zip the contents of the directory. You can make modifications your code later from within the text editor in the AWS console if needed.
Which files should be included in the zipped deployment package?
From the Function code editor in the Lambda console, click on Actions > Upload a .zip file.
Scroll down to the Basic Settings section of your Lambda function and look at the Handler setting. “lambda_function” should be the name of your Python file. “lambda_handler” should be the name of a function in your Python file. Lambda will look for this Python file and function when the Lambda function is invoked.
Now let’s add an automated trigger to run this function daily. Navigate to the top of the Lambda function configuration page and click the “Add trigger” button. Select “EventBridge (CloudWatch Events)”. Create a new rule with a Cron schedule expression of “cron(0 13 1/1 * ? *)” to run everyday at 1300 UTC (0900 EST). Click “Add” to add the trigger.
To verify your Lambda function has access to both CloudWatch and S3, click on the Permissions tab and view the Resource summary.
Everything should be good to go now!
The articles will be saved as text files and organized by year, month, and day.
One possible improvement is reducing the amount of memory required to run this Lambda function. The minimum amount of memory you can use is 128 MB, but this function has been using memory in the 250–350MB range because I’m storing all the responses from each article web page before sending to S3. If I send the article to S3, delete the article from memory, then send a request for the next article, I could scale the memory I use down to 128 MB. | https://medium.com/swlh/creating-a-near-real-time-financial-news-dataset-with-aws-lambda-509e2fe53261 | ["Daniel O'Keefe"] | 2020-10-17 20:17:52.119000+00:00 | ['Python', 'AWS Lambda', 'AWS', 'NLP', 'Finance'] | Title Creating Near RealTime Financial News Dataset AWS LambdaContent AWS Lambda’s logo Stock price fluctuate time depending market sentiment Firms gauge current historic market sentiment individual stock entire market using financial news article article firm use natural language processing technique named entity recognition sentiment analysis measure outlook specific stock market whole method help tag article publicly traded company like Microsoft Netflix calculate sentiment tag rating indicating financial article positive neutral negative article go compile dataset financial news CNBC Finance S3 bucket update daily find top financial news article day CNBC Finance use request library Python send GET request httpswwwcnbccomfinance parse response using Beautiful Soup identify “cards” website contain link individual article want retrieve URLs record list URL retrieve create Article object contains date text article run automatically AWS use AWS Lambda store result S3 bucket Create S3 bucket Navigate IAM console create role grant access S3 bucket Log AWS Lambda Console click “Create function” Select “Author scratch” select Python 38 runtime name function click “Create function” button Since using two Python library aren’t included AWS Lambda Python 38 environment download zip code include deployment package library add request Beautiful Soup command prompt create new directory computer named cnbcdependencies navigate Download request package directory pip install request Make sure include period downloads package current directory Download Beautiful Soup pip install beautifulsoup4 need make modification code first insert article text file S3 need specify handler function code Lambda invokes Name Python script lambdafunctionpy change place code look like Copy Python file directory zip content directory make modification code later within text editor AWS console needed file included zipped deployment package Function code editor Lambda console click Actions Upload zip file Scroll Basic Settings section Lambda function look Handler setting “lambdafunction” name Python file “lambdahandler” name function Python file Lambda look Python file function Lambda function invoked let’s add automated trigger run function daily Navigate top Lambda function configuration page click “Add trigger” button Select “EventBridge CloudWatch Events” Create new rule Cron schedule expression “cron0 13 11 ” run everyday 1300 UTC 0900 EST Click “Add” add trigger verify Lambda function access CloudWatch S3 click Permissions tab view Resource summary Everything good go article saved text file organized year month day One possible improvement reducing amount memory required run Lambda function minimum amount memory use 128 MB function using memory 250–350MB range I’m storing response article web page sending S3 send article S3 delete article memory send request next article could scale memory use 128 MBTags Python AWS Lambda AWS NLP Finance |
1,288 | How to Start a Business in an Afternoon Using Python and Dash | Creating index.py
Now it’s time for the fun part… The code! Start by loading dependencies for Dash and the component libraries:
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import dash_bootstrap_components as dbc
from dash.dependencies import Input, Output, State
from dash.exceptions import PreventUpdate import flask
from flask import Flask
Notice I import flask too. That will make hosting the Dash app simpler, so I recommend including it.
Instantiate the Flask server and Dash. To use Dash bootstrap components, set the external_stylesheets value to dbc.themes.BOOTSTRAP
server = Flask(__name__) app = dash.Dash(__name__,server = server ,meta_tags=[{ "content": "width=device-width"}], external_stylesheets=[dbc.themes.BOOTSTRAP]) app.config.suppress_callback_exceptions = True
Notice I set the config option suppress_callback_exceptions to True. This Dash project does not actually require any callbacks. Regardless, I include this bit of code in case I decide to build a multi-page website with advanced features in the future.
The Dash App Layout
The template layout is a simple pattern using Dash HTML and Dash Bootstrap components. No callbacks are necessary since the page doesn’t use any interactive Dash components:
Website Template
Notice the Headers and footers are created using dbc.Jumbotron. A Jumbotron is a lightweight component that helps content stand out. It takes up a lot of space on the screen which makes it great for showcasing buttons and messages.
You can simply replace the bold values with your own, but I recommend playing around and adding more components to customize the header and footer. You can even use an image or insert a custom logo!
header = dbc.Jumbotron([dbc.Container([
html.H1("Your_Website_Here.Com", className="display-3"),
html.P("Find super deals at Your_Website_Here.com"),
html.Hr(className="my-2"),
html.P(" " " "),
html.P(" ")
], fluid=True) #end container
], fluid=True)# end jumbo footer = dbc.Jumbotron([dbc.Container([
html.H1("Your_Website_Here.com"),
html.P(''),
html.P("123 Fake ST NE", style= {'text-align': 'center'}),
html.P("MN 55445", style= {'text-align': 'center'}),
html.Hr(className="my-2"),
html.P(''),
html.P('Copyright © 2020 Your_Website_Here - All Rights
Reserved.')
],fluid=True)#end container
] ,fluid=True)#end jumbo
Notice I use html.P as placeholders. That way it is easy to add a tagline or more text if needed.
To programmatically create the dbc.Card components that store the image link, I create a helper function named make_card():
def make_card(alert_message, color, cardbody, style_dict = None):
card = html.Div([html.P(" ")
, dbc.Card([dbc.Alert(alert_message, color=color)
,dbc.CardBody(cardbody)])#end card
,html.P(" ")
,html.P(" ")
])#end div
return card
Notice the function uses dbc.Alert to automatically create a colored header for the card.
Next I’ll create a function to help build the series of cards inside the dbc.Container between the jumbotrons.
def create_body(items):
b = []
for item in items:
b.append(dbc.Col(make_card(item[0], "primary", item[1])))
return b
Notice I wrap the make_card function with dbc.Col so the cards are spaced apart in the UI.
Notice the make_card function takes in a list of lists and uses the first value, item[0], for the card’s dbc.Alert message and the second list value, item[1], for the card’s dbc.Cardbody.
Now it is time to populate the cards using the items I want to promote!
Add Products by Creating a List of Links
In a text editor, paste the html that copied from clicking the Highlight HTML button after searching for items on the Affiliate page. It will look something like this, but it will appear as a long string:
Notice the link contains 3 components:
1. An HTML “a” tag with a href value.
2. An HTML “img” tag with src value inside of the “a” tag from part 1.
3. An HTML “img” tag outside the “a” tag.
I will only use the first 2 parts. Using the Dash HTML component library, it is easy to recreate the link’s component structure. In addition to the link, I give the link a name. For example, if I have 1 item in the item list:
item_lists = [
["item_name", html.A(id = 'item1', href= value
,children = [html.Img(src = value)])]#end item 1
] #end item list
Notice the list begins with item_name, followed by the affiliate link.
Notice, I give the html.A component a unique ID. That will make it easier to use in callbacks.
Construct the Layout
Now that the layout components can be constructed using the functions, and the item_lists is populated with affiliate links, I’ll put it all together and set the app.layout.
def create_layout():
layout = html.Div(style={
'background-image': 'url("/assets/people-2557483.jpg")',
'background-position': 'center',
}, children = [
header
, dbc.Container(id = 'card-cont', children = [dbc.Row(create_body(item_list))], style = {'background-color':'white', })# end container
, footer
] #end children
) #end div
return layout app.layout = create_layout() if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run_server(debug = True)
Notice the function create_layout pulls the background image from the assets folder.
Notice I pass the item_lists into create_body function inside the children argument for dbc.Container.
Congratulations! You just created your first affiliate website!
Landing Page Template
Complete Code
Here is the complete website template code! You will need to populate the item_lists with your own links.
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import dash_bootstrap_components as dbc
from dash.dependencies import Input, Output, State
import dash_table
from dash.exceptions import PreventUpdate import flask
from flask import Flask server = Flask(__name__)
app = dash.Dash(__name__,server = server
,meta_tags=[{ "content": "width=device-width"}]
, external_stylesheets=[dbc.themes.BOOTSTRAP]) app.config.suppress_callback_exceptions = True header = dbc.Jumbotron([dbc.Container([
html.H1("Your_Website_Here.Com", className="display-3"),
html.P("Find super deals at Your_Website_Here.com"),
html.Hr(className="my-2"),
html.P(" " " "),
html.P(" ")
], fluid=True) #end container
], fluid=True)# end jumbo footer = dbc.Jumbotron([dbc.Container([
html.H1("Your_Website_Here.com"),
html.P(''),
html.P("123 Fake ST NE", style= {'text-align': 'center'}),
html.P("MN 55445", style= {'text-align': 'center'}),
html.Hr(className="my-2"),
html.P(''),
html.P('Copyright © 2020 Your_Website_Here - All Rights Reserved.')
],fluid=True)#end container
] ,fluid=True)#end jumbo def make_card(alert_message, color, cardbody, style_dict = None):
return html.Div([html.P(" ") , dbc.Card([dbc.Alert(alert_message, color=color)
,dbc.CardBody(cardbody)])#end card
,html.P(" ")
,html.P(" ")
])#end div def create_body(items):
b = []
for item in items:
b.append(dbc.Col(make_card(item[0], "primary", item[1])))
return b def create_layout():
layout = html.Div(style={
'background-image': 'url("/assets/YOUR-BACKGROUND.jpg")',
'background-position': 'center',
}, children = [
header
, dbc.Container(id = 'card-cont', children = [dbc.Row(create_body(item_lists))], style = {'background-color':'white', })# end container
, footer
] #end children
) #end div
return layout item_lists = [["coca cola t-shirt" , html.A(id = 'item1', href="item link", children = [html.Img(src="image link" )])]
, ["coca cola t-shirt" , html.A(id = 'item2', href="item 2 link", children = [html.Img(src="image 2 link" )])] ]# end item list app.layout = create_layout() if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run_server(debug = True)
Now that the landing page is completed, it is time to explore hosting the Dash App.
Hosting the Dash App
Before getting into it, to host the dash app you will want two things:
A domain name A web server
If you’re interested in learning how to set up users and authentication, check out my tutorial, How to Setup User Authentication for Dash Apps using Python and Flask.
Buying Domain Names
To get a domain name for the web site, use a domain name provider like GoDaddy. Domain names are typically pretty cheap! My UJR domain name was UltimateJerkyReview.com
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet.
Simply search google for cheap domain names, shop around and find the best deal you can! Try to make the domain name relevant to the products you’re trying to sell.
Finding a Web Server
It is fairly easy to find virtual hardware on which you can host a web page. I’ve previously reviewed a few hosting options for DIY web projects. I think the company hetzner.com offers some of the best prices for the amount of compute power available. I’ve used DigitalOcean a few times too. Both are stable and affordable options! It is best to do your own research, but I’d recommend either of those options to start.
To serve the website to external users across the web requires some kind of web server back-end. Nginx is a lightning fast, open-source web server framework that is easy to use and perfect for this use-case! Along with Nginx, I am using uWSGI to set the website to run as a service that runs in the background when the Linux operating system boots up.
Although it isn’t difficult to host the website, the process contains many steps. Review the complete step-by-step guide to hosing Dash applications on Linux in my hosting guide:
Once the site is hosted, look into protecting your domain using a service like Cloudflare. Cloudflare offers web-infrastructure and website-security services including DDoS mitigation, Internet security, and distributed domain-name-server services. It is completely free to set up too! | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-start-a-business-in-an-afternoon-using-python-and-dash-48a8cb08f290 | ['Eric Kleppen'] | 2020-12-15 15:19:48.701000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Web Development', 'Marketing'] | Title Start Business Afternoon Using Python DashContent Creating indexpy it’s time fun part… code Start loading dependency Dash component library import dash import dashcorecomponents dcc import dashhtmlcomponents html import dashbootstrapcomponents dbc dashdependencies import Input Output State dashexceptions import PreventUpdate import flask flask import Flask Notice import flask make hosting Dash app simpler recommend including Instantiate Flask server Dash use Dash bootstrap component set externalstylesheets value dbcthemesBOOTSTRAP server Flaskname app dashDashnameserver server metatags content widthdevicewidth externalstylesheetsdbcthemesBOOTSTRAP appconfigsuppresscallbackexceptions True Notice set config option suppresscallbackexceptions True Dash project actually require callback Regardless include bit code case decide build multipage website advanced feature future Dash App Layout template layout simple pattern using Dash HTML Dash Bootstrap component callback necessary since page doesn’t use interactive Dash component Website Template Notice Headers footer created using dbcJumbotron Jumbotron lightweight component help content stand take lot space screen make great showcasing button message simply replace bold value recommend playing around adding component customize header footer even use image insert custom logo header dbcJumbotrondbcContainer htmlH1YourWebsiteHereCom classNamedisplay3 htmlPFind super deal YourWebsiteHerecom htmlHrclassNamemy2 htmlP htmlP fluidTrue end container fluidTrue end jumbo footer dbcJumbotrondbcContainer htmlH1YourWebsiteHerecom htmlP htmlP123 Fake ST NE style textalign center htmlPMN 55445 style textalign center htmlHrclassNamemy2 htmlP htmlPCopyright © 2020 YourWebsiteHere Rights Reserved fluidTrueend container fluidTrueend jumbo Notice use htmlP placeholder way easy add tagline text needed programmatically create dbcCard component store image link create helper function named makecard def makecardalertmessage color cardbody styledict None card htmlDivhtmlP dbcCarddbcAlertalertmessage colorcolor dbcCardBodycardbodyend card htmlP htmlP end div return card Notice function us dbcAlert automatically create colored header card Next I’ll create function help build series card inside dbcContainer jumbotrons def createbodyitems b item item bappenddbcColmakecarditem0 primary item1 return b Notice wrap makecard function dbcCol card spaced apart UI Notice makecard function take list list us first value item0 card’s dbcAlert message second list value item1 card’s dbcCardbody time populate card using item want promote Add Products Creating List Links text editor paste html copied clicking Highlight HTML button searching item Affiliate page look something like appear long string Notice link contains 3 component 1 HTML “a” tag href value 2 HTML “img” tag src value inside “a” tag part 1 3 HTML “img” tag outside “a” tag use first 2 part Using Dash HTML component library easy recreate link’s component structure addition link give link name example 1 item item list itemlists itemname htmlAid item1 href value child htmlImgsrc valueend item 1 end item list Notice list begin itemname followed affiliate link Notice give htmlA component unique ID make easier use callback Construct Layout layout component constructed using function itemlists populated affiliate link I’ll put together set applayout def createlayout layout htmlDivstyle backgroundimage urlassetspeople2557483jpg backgroundposition center child header dbcContainerid cardcont child dbcRowcreatebodyitemlist style backgroundcolorwhite end container footer end child end div return layout applayout createlayout name main apprunserverdebug True Notice function createlayout pull background image asset folder Notice pas itemlists createbody function inside child argument dbcContainer Congratulations created first affiliate website Landing Page Template Complete Code complete website template code need populate itemlists link import dash import dashcorecomponents dcc import dashhtmlcomponents html import dashbootstrapcomponents dbc dashdependencies import Input Output State import dashtable dashexceptions import PreventUpdate import flask flask import Flask server Flaskname app dashDashnameserver server metatags content widthdevicewidth externalstylesheetsdbcthemesBOOTSTRAP appconfigsuppresscallbackexceptions True header dbcJumbotrondbcContainer htmlH1YourWebsiteHereCom classNamedisplay3 htmlPFind super deal YourWebsiteHerecom htmlHrclassNamemy2 htmlP htmlP fluidTrue end container fluidTrue end jumbo footer dbcJumbotrondbcContainer htmlH1YourWebsiteHerecom htmlP htmlP123 Fake ST NE style textalign center htmlPMN 55445 style textalign center htmlHrclassNamemy2 htmlP htmlPCopyright © 2020 YourWebsiteHere Rights Reserved fluidTrueend container fluidTrueend jumbo def makecardalertmessage color cardbody styledict None return htmlDivhtmlP dbcCarddbcAlertalertmessage colorcolor dbcCardBodycardbodyend card htmlP htmlP end div def createbodyitems b item item bappenddbcColmakecarditem0 primary item1 return b def createlayout layout htmlDivstyle backgroundimage urlassetsYOURBACKGROUNDjpg backgroundposition center child header dbcContainerid cardcont child dbcRowcreatebodyitemlists style backgroundcolorwhite end container footer end child end div return layout itemlists coca cola tshirt htmlAid item1 hrefitem link child htmlImgsrcimage link coca cola tshirt htmlAid item2 hrefitem 2 link child htmlImgsrcimage 2 link end item list applayout createlayout name main apprunserverdebug True landing page completed time explore hosting Dash App Hosting Dash App getting host dash app want two thing domain name web server you’re interested learning set user authentication check tutorial Setup User Authentication Dash Apps using Python Flask Buying Domain Names get domain name web site use domain name provider like GoDaddy Domain name typically pretty cheap UJR domain name UltimateJerkyReviewcom domain name identification string defines realm administrative autonomy authority control within Internet Simply search google cheap domain name shop around find best deal Try make domain name relevant product you’re trying sell Finding Web Server fairly easy find virtual hardware host web page I’ve previously reviewed hosting option DIY web project think company hetznercom offer best price amount compute power available I’ve used DigitalOcean time stable affordable option best research I’d recommend either option start serve website external user across web requires kind web server backend Nginx lightning fast opensource web server framework easy use perfect usecase Along Nginx using uWSGI set website run service run background Linux operating system boot Although isn’t difficult host website process contains many step Review complete stepbystep guide hosing Dash application Linux hosting guide site hosted look protecting domain using service like Cloudflare Cloudflare offer webinfrastructure websitesecurity service including DDoS mitigation Internet security distributed domainnameserver service completely free set tooTags Programming Entrepreneurship Business Web Development Marketing |
1,289 | The Majority of Genre Fiction Follows This Format. Does Yours? | Framing your structure
Imagine a rectangle divided into four equal blocks.
Image provided by the author
Now label each section. The first block is the Preparation Phase, the second the Reactive Phase, the third the Proactive Phase, and the fourth the Conclusion Phase.
Image provided by the author
Easy, right? Next, we’ll deal with the lines between the blocks.
The line between the Preparation and Reactive Phase we’ll call Game Changing Moment #1. Game Changing Moment #2 is the line dividing the Reactive Phase from the Proactive Phase. And, you guessed it, Game Changing Moment #3 divides the Proactive Phase from the Conclusion Phase.
Image provided by the author
This is the basic framework for all good stories, especially genre fiction. Readers subconsciously look for this structure and identify with each of these key points. When this framework is present, the story seems complete, and our readers feel that sense of emotional satisfaction.
Let’s look at each segment in more detail.
The Preparation Phase
Image provided by the author
This section encompasses the first quarter of your novel. This block sets up the story by introducing your characters and setting. Readers get to see what your character’s daily routine is like prior to the cascade of events that sets their life on a different course.
One character should emerge as the hero at this point. By showing their normal existence, readers can then identify with and emotionally respond to them at that moment when events spiral out of control.
The Preparation Phase is also the place to identify the stakes the hero will be playing for and introduce any inner demons that may hinder them later on.
Game Changing Moment #1
Image provided by the author
This is the moment where the story really gets going and is arguably the most important event in your entire book. Game Changing Moment # 1 introduces the primary conflict. The main character’s new quest, goal, or need is firmly established.
This inciting incident should also inform the reader what is at stake.
The Reactive Phase
Image provided by the author
The second phase of the story shows the hero responding to this big conflict.
This first reaction is often unfocused and unorganized. They do not yet have the tools needed to attack the problem and are instead reacting. This blind reaction may take many forms — running, hiding, observing, or avoiding.
Basically, our hero needs to buy some time to figure out what’s going on before they can plan their response.
Game Changing Moment #2
Image provided by the author
This event is what the hero needs to move on from the passive Reactive Phase. It usually enters the story in the form of critical information. The hero’s initial viewpoint of the conflict should change upon receiving this new information.
This is also the moment when the stakes begin to raise. However, our hero, armed with this revelation, now goes on the offensive. They can proactively deal with the conflict instead of being at the mercy of events.
The path forward is clear.
The Proactive Phase
Image provided by the author
While the Reactive Phase saw our character instinctively reacting, in the Proactive Phase, our hero is actively working to resolve the conflict.
They may try and fail multiple times. But each time this happens, the stakes become higher, and the tension grows stronger. If you’ve properly set up your Preparation Phase, the reader should root for the hero to keep trying after each failed attempt.
Remember those inner demons? Now is the time to put them into action. They can be another reason our hero doesn’t initially succeed.
Naturally, the opposing force is also responding to our hero’s attempts. Since their goals are in opposition, the success of one means the failure of the other.
After a series of small victories and defeats, just when it seems that the hero may finally gain the upper hand, the all is lost moment enters the story. Without any new information, they have gone as far as they can.
Failure is imminent.
Game Changing Moment #3
Image provided by the author
Now is when the reader expects that final plot point that drives the story to its exciting conclusion. New information is revealed that provides the hero with everything they need to succeed.
Game Changing Moment #3 should enter your novel about three-fourths of the way in. From this moment on, no new information should be revealed.
All the pieces of the puzzle are in play.
The Conclusion Phase
Image provided by the author
The final segment of any story is the dramatic climax leading to resolution. The ultimate conflict between hero and opposition takes place and the hero’s goal is achieved. At this point, the main character’s inner demons are also laid to rest. | https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/the-majority-of-genre-fiction-follows-this-format-does-yours-722d58009428 | ['Jennifer Mittler-Lee'] | 2020-12-21 17:03:16.164000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing Tips', 'Fiction Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Writing'] | Title Majority Genre Fiction Follows Format YoursContent Framing structure Imagine rectangle divided four equal block Image provided author label section first block Preparation Phase second Reactive Phase third Proactive Phase fourth Conclusion Phase Image provided author Easy right Next we’ll deal line block line Preparation Reactive Phase we’ll call Game Changing Moment 1 Game Changing Moment 2 line dividing Reactive Phase Proactive Phase guessed Game Changing Moment 3 divide Proactive Phase Conclusion Phase Image provided author basic framework good story especially genre fiction Readers subconsciously look structure identify key point framework present story seems complete reader feel sense emotional satisfaction Let’s look segment detail Preparation Phase Image provided author section encompasses first quarter novel block set story introducing character setting Readers get see character’s daily routine like prior cascade event set life different course One character emerge hero point showing normal existence reader identify emotionally respond moment event spiral control Preparation Phase also place identify stake hero playing introduce inner demon may hinder later Game Changing Moment 1 Image provided author moment story really get going arguably important event entire book Game Changing Moment 1 introduces primary conflict main character’s new quest goal need firmly established inciting incident also inform reader stake Reactive Phase Image provided author second phase story show hero responding big conflict first reaction often unfocused unorganized yet tool needed attack problem instead reacting blind reaction may take many form — running hiding observing avoiding Basically hero need buy time figure what’s going plan response Game Changing Moment 2 Image provided author event hero need move passive Reactive Phase usually enters story form critical information hero’s initial viewpoint conflict change upon receiving new information also moment stake begin raise However hero armed revelation go offensive proactively deal conflict instead mercy event path forward clear Proactive Phase Image provided author Reactive Phase saw character instinctively reacting Proactive Phase hero actively working resolve conflict may try fail multiple time time happens stake become higher tension grows stronger you’ve properly set Preparation Phase reader root hero keep trying failed attempt Remember inner demon time put action another reason hero doesn’t initially succeed Naturally opposing force also responding hero’s attempt Since goal opposition success one mean failure series small victory defeat seems hero may finally gain upper hand lost moment enters story Without new information gone far Failure imminent Game Changing Moment 3 Image provided author reader expects final plot point drive story exciting conclusion New information revealed provides hero everything need succeed Game Changing Moment 3 enter novel threefourths way moment new information revealed piece puzzle play Conclusion Phase Image provided author final segment story dramatic climax leading resolution ultimate conflict hero opposition take place hero’s goal achieved point main character’s inner demon also laid restTags Creativity Writing Tips Fiction Writing Self Improvement Writing |
1,290 | Importance and Value of Cross-Pollination in the Workplace | Importance and Value of Cross-Pollination in the Workplace
To build a high-performing team, we need to find creative ways to cross-pollinate in our business organizations. Cross-pollination can be an essential consideration for aspiring entrepreneurs in new ventures and business leaders for transformation.
In this article, my aim is to highlight the value proposition and the importance of cross-pollination for high-performance teams in new ventures and transforming business environments.
I’d like to share a simple example which helped transform a competitive, rigid, and difficult culture to a pleasant learning environment.
Cross-pollination is a metaphor taken from botany. The literal meaning of it is the transfer of pollen from plant flowers with different DNA which enable the creation of new types of plants carrying different attributes.
Cross-pollination is a powerful metaphor to understand the importance of diversity to create fusion in the workplace. Fusion is an enhanced form of collaboration.
Fusion refers to joining different things with different attributes or functions together to co-create or re-create a single new entity or form. Fusion relates to concepts such as integrating, blending, merging, amalgamating, and bonding. These terms are compelling norms for enabling inclusiveness and creating a diverse work culture in business organizations.
The metaphor of cross-pollination refers to sharing and interchanging of ideas, thoughts, information, and tacit knowledge for the enrichment of team capabilities.
One of the critical benefits of cross-pollination in the workplace is to maintain continuous learning. I shared my experience of continuous learning in a story overviewing prominent adult learning theories. I Simplified Prominent Adult Learning Theories For You.
Here is my cross-pollination story for your enjoyment.
You can find more of these stories on my News Break profile. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/importance-and-value-of-cross-pollination-in-the-workplace-c5b046001c00 | ['Dr Mehmet Yildiz'] | 2020-12-28 16:13:02.842000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Culture', 'Lifestyle'] | Title Importance Value CrossPollination WorkplaceContent Importance Value CrossPollination Workplace build highperforming team need find creative way crosspollinate business organization Crosspollination essential consideration aspiring entrepreneur new venture business leader transformation article aim highlight value proposition importance crosspollination highperformance team new venture transforming business environment I’d like share simple example helped transform competitive rigid difficult culture pleasant learning environment Crosspollination metaphor taken botany literal meaning transfer pollen plant flower different DNA enable creation new type plant carrying different attribute Crosspollination powerful metaphor understand importance diversity create fusion workplace Fusion enhanced form collaboration Fusion refers joining different thing different attribute function together cocreate recreate single new entity form Fusion relates concept integrating blending merging amalgamating bonding term compelling norm enabling inclusiveness creating diverse work culture business organization metaphor crosspollination refers sharing interchanging idea thought information tacit knowledge enrichment team capability One critical benefit crosspollination workplace maintain continuous learning shared experience continuous learning story overviewing prominent adult learning theory Simplified Prominent Adult Learning Theories crosspollination story enjoyment find story News Break profileTags Writing Business Entrepreneurship Culture Lifestyle |
1,291 | Cloud Native Architecture Fundamentals | Overview of Cloud Native
Cloud-Native became the buzzwords in a very short time and the biggest trends in the software industry but before we even talk about the Cloud-Native application, let’s first understand more about cloud computing fundamentals.
In simple terms, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services — including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence — over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs changes. Typically, you use cloud computing in three ways IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. For the scope of this blog, the above information should be sufficient to get started.
Cloud-Native is the way or approach to build and deploy applications that take great advantage of cloud computing services using various cloud computing models. The Cloud-Native principles and architecture help you to build Apps faster, better and shorten the path to production. it is about achieving overall speed, scale, agility and competitive advantage.
Unlike the continuous hype that drives our industry, Cloud-Native is for-real. Considering the Cloud-Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a group of more than 200 major corporations with a charter to make Cloud-Native computing ubiquitous across technology and cloud stacks. As one of the most influential open-source groups, it hosts many of the fastest-growing open-source projects in GitHub. They include projects such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, Helm, Envoy and gRPC.
Four Key Pillars of Cloud Native Architecture
1. Microservices
Cloud-Native systems embrace Microservices, a popular architectural style for constructing modern applications. Built as a distributed set of small, independent services that interact through a shared fabric. Microservices share the following characteristics:
Domain orientated approach to implements a specific business capability within a larger domain context.
Each Microservice should be developed and deployed autonomously and independently.
Each Microservice is self-contained, encapsulating its own data storage technology (SQL, NoSQL) and programming language/tools.
Each Microservice runs in its own process and communicates with others using standard communication protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS, gRPC, WebSockets, or AMQP.
2. Container
Nowadays, containerization has become a very popular technology for deploying apps. The container provides portability and guarantees consistency across environments. By encapsulating everything into a single package, we isolate the Microservice and its dependencies from the underlying infrastructure.
Kubernetes/K8s is a container orchestration and management system built by Google. When operating at scale, container orchestration is essential. Scheduling, Networking, Monitoring, Failover etc is a common orchestration task of an orchestration engine.
3. DevOps
DevOps creates a culture and an environment where building, testing, and releasing software happens rapidly. It helps you in automating the process of platform provisioning and application deployment. Hence, it makes infrastructure and deployments consistent and gives a repeatable characteristic. Cloud-Native apps should be managed by DevOps tools like Jenkins, Dockers and Kubernetes.
4. CI/CD
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery helps you in making frequent releases and speedup the go-to-market process. At the same time, this enables you in moving incremental software changes into production constantly through automation. Continuous delivery makes the act of releasing software robust and reliable so that, organizations can deliver software more frequently with less risk and get customer feedback faster.
Best practices and guidelines for implementing Cloud-Native applications
Modern Design, the 12 — Factor app
1. Codebase — One codebase tracked in revision control, many deploys
2. Dependency — Explicitly declare and isolate dependencies
3. Configurations — Store configuration in the environment
4. Backing Service — Treat backing services as attached resources
5. Build, release, run — Strictly separate build and run stages
6. Processes — Execute the app as one or more stateless processes
7. Port binding — Export services via port binding
8. Concurrency — Scale-out via the process model
9. Disposability — Maximize robustness with fast startup and graceful shutdown
10. Dev/prod parity — Keep development, staging, and production as similar as possible
11. Logs — Treat logs as event streams
12. Admin processes — Run admin/management tasks as one-off processes
API is the only medium for apps to communicate
Apps communicate using APIs. When you’re building an application, we should think about how it will be consumed by applications running in the same ecosystem, and start by designing an API strategy. A good API design makes the API easy to be consumed by app developers and external stakeholders. It’s a good practice to start by documenting the API using the OpenAPI specification before you implement any code. Some of the good open source tools are APICURIO, Swagger, etc can be leveraged for designing and development.
Authentication and Authorization
Security is a wide area to cover as it includes operating systems, networks and firewalls, data and database security, application security, and identity and access management. But here let’s focus on security from an application’s point of view. APIs provide access to the applications in your enterprise ecosystem. You should therefore ensure that these building blocks address security considerations during the app design and build process.
Data in transit: Use TLS1.2 to help protect data in transit. You might want to use mutual TLS for your business applications. This is made easier if you use service mesh like Istio/Linkerd on Kubernetes Engine.
Application and end-user security: Transport security helps in providing security for data in transit and establishes trust. But it is a best practice to add application-level security to control access of your app based on who the consumer is. The consumers can be other apps, UI, vendors, partners, etc. You can enforce security using API keys (for consuming apps), certification-based authentication and authorization, JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) exchange, or Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). OAuth 2.0 is the industry-standard protocol for authorization.
Some of the Critical Design considerations
Beyond the guidance provided from the twelve-factor methodology, there are several critical design decisions one must make when designing a distributed system.
Resiliency: In a distributed architecture, what happens when Service B isn’t responding to a network call from Service A? Or, what happens when Service C becomes temporarily unavailable and other consumers’ services are blocked?
Service to service communication: How will front-end client and any consumer applications communicate with backed-end core services?
Will you allow direct communication or, will you abstract the back-end services with a gateway façade that provides flexibility, control, and security?
What is the right way for back-end core services to communicate with each other?
Will you allow direct HTTP calls that lead to coupling and impact performance and agility? Or will you consider implementing the event-driven architecture and decouple the services using streaming platforms like Kafka or RabbitMQ.
Data distribution: In Microservices, by design, each Microservice encapsulates its own data which means each service has its own database allowing operations via its publicly exposed interface using API. If yes, how do you query data or implement a transaction across multiple services?
Cloud-Native deployment is the way forward to achieve business growth and flexibility in today's Multi-Cloud environment.
Thanks and happy learning!! | https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/cloud-native-architecture-fundamentals-ac13f979916d | ['Rupesh Patel'] | 2020-12-01 05:35:02.891000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Cloud Native Application', 'Microservices', 'Architecture Design', 'The Twelve Factor App'] | Title Cloud Native Architecture FundamentalsContent Overview Cloud Native CloudNative became buzzword short time biggest trend software industry even talk CloudNative application let’s first understand cloud computing fundamental simple term cloud computing delivery computing service — including server storage database networking software analytics intelligence — Internet “the cloud” offer faster innovation flexible resource economy scale typically pay cloud service use helping lower operating cost run infrastructure efficiently scale business need change Typically use cloud computing three way IaaS PaaS SaaS scope blog information sufficient get started CloudNative way approach build deploy application take great advantage cloud computing service using various cloud computing model CloudNative principle architecture help build Apps faster better shorten path production achieving overall speed scale agility competitive advantage Unlike continuous hype drive industry CloudNative forreal Considering CloudNative Computing Foundation CNCF group 200 major corporation charter make CloudNative computing ubiquitous across technology cloud stack one influential opensource group host many fastestgrowing opensource project GitHub include project Kubernetes Prometheus Helm Envoy gRPC Four Key Pillars Cloud Native Architecture 1 Microservices CloudNative system embrace Microservices popular architectural style constructing modern application Built distributed set small independent service interact shared fabric Microservices share following characteristic Domain orientated approach implement specific business capability within larger domain context Microservice developed deployed autonomously independently Microservice selfcontained encapsulating data storage technology SQL NoSQL programming languagetools Microservice run process communicates others using standard communication protocol HTTPHTTPS gRPC WebSockets AMQP 2 Container Nowadays containerization become popular technology deploying apps container provides portability guarantee consistency across environment encapsulating everything single package isolate Microservice dependency underlying infrastructure KubernetesK8s container orchestration management system built Google operating scale container orchestration essential Scheduling Networking Monitoring Failover etc common orchestration task orchestration engine 3 DevOps DevOps creates culture environment building testing releasing software happens rapidly help automating process platform provisioning application deployment Hence make infrastructure deployment consistent give repeatable characteristic CloudNative apps managed DevOps tool like Jenkins Dockers Kubernetes 4 CICD Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery help making frequent release speedup gotomarket process time enables moving incremental software change production constantly automation Continuous delivery make act releasing software robust reliable organization deliver software frequently le risk get customer feedback faster Best practice guideline implementing CloudNative application Modern Design 12 — Factor app 1 Codebase — One codebase tracked revision control many deploys 2 Dependency — Explicitly declare isolate dependency 3 Configurations — Store configuration environment 4 Backing Service — Treat backing service attached resource 5 Build release run — Strictly separate build run stage 6 Processes — Execute app one stateless process 7 Port binding — Export service via port binding 8 Concurrency — Scaleout via process model 9 Disposability — Maximize robustness fast startup graceful shutdown 10 Devprod parity — Keep development staging production similar possible 11 Logs — Treat log event stream 12 Admin process — Run adminmanagement task oneoff process API medium apps communicate Apps communicate using APIs you’re building application think consumed application running ecosystem start designing API strategy good API design make API easy consumed app developer external stakeholder It’s good practice start documenting API using OpenAPI specification implement code good open source tool APICURIO Swagger etc leveraged designing development Authentication Authorization Security wide area cover includes operating system network firewall data database security application security identity access management let’s focus security application’s point view APIs provide access application enterprise ecosystem therefore ensure building block address security consideration app design build process Data transit Use TLS12 help protect data transit might want use mutual TLS business application made easier use service mesh like IstioLinkerd Kubernetes Engine Application enduser security Transport security help providing security data transit establishes trust best practice add applicationlevel security control access app based consumer consumer apps UI vendor partner etc enforce security using API key consuming apps certificationbased authentication authorization JSON Web Tokens JWTs exchange Security Assertion Markup Language SAML OAuth 20 industrystandard protocol authorization Critical Design consideration Beyond guidance provided twelvefactor methodology several critical design decision one must make designing distributed system Resiliency distributed architecture happens Service B isn’t responding network call Service happens Service C becomes temporarily unavailable consumers’ service blocked Service service communication frontend client consumer application communicate backedend core service allow direct communication abstract backend service gateway façade provides flexibility control security right way backend core service communicate allow direct HTTP call lead coupling impact performance agility consider implementing eventdriven architecture decouple service using streaming platform like Kafka RabbitMQ Data distribution Microservices design Microservice encapsulates data mean service database allowing operation via publicly exposed interface using API yes query data implement transaction across multiple service CloudNative deployment way forward achieve business growth flexibility today MultiCloud environment Thanks happy learningTags Engineering Cloud Native Application Microservices Architecture Design Twelve Factor App |
1,292 | A Ship Wreck Of A Crime | A Ship Wreck Of A Crime
A ship filled with gold sank. 130 years later, it was found.
SS Central America Image from the public domain
The SS. Central America set sail for New York City on September 3, 1857. It carried 10 short tons of gold, as well as 101 crew members. Captained by William Lewis Herndon, the ship was not expected to encounter trouble from mother nature.
Three days after it departed, a tropical storm developed off the east coast of the Bahamas. It picked up strength over time and became a category 2 hurricane on September 9. The same day the SS Central America entered the Atlantic Ocean.
As the storm intensified, the crew worked to keep the ship afloat. By the 11th of September, the sails were ripped and torn from the winds. The boat was pushed back and forth, thrown off course.
Making matters worse, the boiler threatened to quit working, and water poured in from a broken seal. Morale amongst the crew was low. Many believed they were going to die on the ship.
When the storm seemed to subside, they cheered. Bucket brigades started trying to reduce the amount of water in the ship. Their efforts failed, as the water continued to rise thanks to the second part of the storm.
Hurricane 2 of 1857 succeeded in sinking the SS Central America. While there were survivors, the majority of those on board drowned.
The gold they were carrying was lost with the ship.
After The Disaster
The world went into mourning when people learned the SS Central America sank. Families and loved ones mourned the loss of life. William Hendron was hailed a hero for trying to save as many of his crew as possible and go down with his ship.
Authorities in the United States rewarded his courage by naming two navy ships after him. Hendron, Virginia, was also named for the captain. Also of note, his daughter married Chester Arthur, a future president.
As the mourning subsided, practicalities replaced them. Word spread that $8 million in gold went down with the ship. Investors were skittish about the news, helping usher in the Panic of 1857. The financial crisis nearly destroyed the stock market.
Insurance companies paid claims to those who owned the gold bars. The matter was thought to have been settled.
Until it wasn’t.
Searching For The Gold
On the 133rd anniversary of the SS Central America’s sinking, a crew set out to find the wreckage. The effort was led by Tommy Thompson, a treasure hunter from Ohio. He used the Bayesian Theory to locate the ship.
Using a remotely operated vehicle, the crew discovered artifacts and the gold. An appraiser valued the found gold between $100 and $150 million. The recovery crew celebrated their victory! Life would be good for them; they were certain.
The celebration was short-lived. After the discovery of the gold, the insurance companies that paid damages in 1857 sued the crew. They argued the gold belonged to them since their money had covered the cost of losing it. Crew members, including Tommy Thompson, argued that the gold was abandoned.
As the judge looked at the case, tensions between the sides rose. Finally, the verdict came in. 92% of the gold belonged to the crew, 8% would go to the various insurance companies.
With the decision, everything seemed to return to normal. Tommy Thompson released a book about his adventure discovering the SS Central America. Everyone was living the good life. Money was plentiful, and nobody had any complaints.
That changed in 2005.
On The Run
Those who invested in the 1988 expedition sued Tommy Thompson in 2005. They alleged he had not paid them the money they were owed from the find. In fact, he had absconded with the money and not even spoken to several of them after taking their initial investment.
The next year, several crew members filed a lawsuit. They alleged that Tommy owed them money from the discovery. He had shut them out as well. As evidence was presented in the lawsuits, it was discovered that the treasure hunter had an off-shore bank account.
With that discovery, some of the investors began to argue they were scammed. They believed Tommy misled them intentionally and never planned on sharing the loot with them.
Proving their point, Tommy Thompson disappeared in 2013. After a judge issued an arrest warrant for him, police went on the hunt. They looked everywhere; they believed he could be hiding. Clues were maddeningly short on supply.
It seemed incomprehensible that a person could vanish into thin air, even with a lot of money.
Do Not Pass Go
Authorities found him in Boca Raton. Tommy Thompson was brought into court and faced the judge. He was asked why he didn’t appear before the court; no answer was given. The judge sentenced him to 2 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
As part of the deal that was struck, Tommy was to tell the court where the gold was hidden. He refused to do so. The court reminded him it was part of the deal to tell them where the gold was and assist in bringing it back to the U.S. They were met with more refusal from the treasure hunter.
By mid-December 2015, the judge was tired of Tommy’s game. The treasure hunter was found to be in contempt of court. This charge usually only requires a defendant to be in jail for 18 months. As with everything else about the case, nothing was simple or traditional.
Over the past five years, Tommy has been intermittently asked about the gold. There is hope that he will come out and tell them where it can be found every time. Each time, he disappoints them and says he has no idea. Even suggesting that he forgot.
Which earned a rebuke from the judge. In an official court record, his honor asked how someone could design and patent a submarine but not remember where they put gold.
In October 2020, Tommy appeared in court via video. He and the judge went through their usual routine, frustrating the court even more. It was noted that the former treasure hunter has spent 1,700 days in jail and owes more than $1.8 million in fines.
It appears as though the hunt for the SS Central America gold may be on once more. This time, there are people alive who can help find it. | https://medium.com/crimebeat/a-ship-wreck-of-a-crime-887f4d5809b0 | ['Edward Anderson'] | 2020-12-17 10:32:40.711000+00:00 | ['True Crime', 'Weather', 'Culture', 'Science', 'History'] | Title Ship Wreck CrimeContent Ship Wreck Crime ship filled gold sank 130 year later found SS Central America Image public domain SS Central America set sail New York City September 3 1857 carried 10 short ton gold well 101 crew member Captained William Lewis Herndon ship expected encounter trouble mother nature Three day departed tropical storm developed east coast Bahamas picked strength time became category 2 hurricane September 9 day SS Central America entered Atlantic Ocean storm intensified crew worked keep ship afloat 11th September sail ripped torn wind boat pushed back forth thrown course Making matter worse boiler threatened quit working water poured broken seal Morale amongst crew low Many believed going die ship storm seemed subside cheered Bucket brigade started trying reduce amount water ship effort failed water continued rise thanks second part storm Hurricane 2 1857 succeeded sinking SS Central America survivor majority board drowned gold carrying lost ship Disaster world went mourning people learned SS Central America sank Families loved one mourned loss life William Hendron hailed hero trying save many crew possible go ship Authorities United States rewarded courage naming two navy ship Hendron Virginia also named captain Also note daughter married Chester Arthur future president mourning subsided practicality replaced Word spread 8 million gold went ship Investors skittish news helping usher Panic 1857 financial crisis nearly destroyed stock market Insurance company paid claim owned gold bar matter thought settled wasn’t Searching Gold 133rd anniversary SS Central America’s sinking crew set find wreckage effort led Tommy Thompson treasure hunter Ohio used Bayesian Theory locate ship Using remotely operated vehicle crew discovered artifact gold appraiser valued found gold 100 150 million recovery crew celebrated victory Life would good certain celebration shortlived discovery gold insurance company paid damage 1857 sued crew argued gold belonged since money covered cost losing Crew member including Tommy Thompson argued gold abandoned judge looked case tension side rose Finally verdict came 92 gold belonged crew 8 would go various insurance company decision everything seemed return normal Tommy Thompson released book adventure discovering SS Central America Everyone living good life Money plentiful nobody complaint changed 2005 Run invested 1988 expedition sued Tommy Thompson 2005 alleged paid money owed find fact absconded money even spoken several taking initial investment next year several crew member filed lawsuit alleged Tommy owed money discovery shut well evidence presented lawsuit discovered treasure hunter offshore bank account discovery investor began argue scammed believed Tommy misled intentionally never planned sharing loot Proving point Tommy Thompson disappeared 2013 judge issued arrest warrant police went hunt looked everywhere believed could hiding Clues maddeningly short supply seemed incomprehensible person could vanish thin air even lot money Pass Go Authorities found Boca Raton Tommy Thompson brought court faced judge asked didn’t appear court answer given judge sentenced 2 year jail 250000 fine part deal struck Tommy tell court gold hidden refused court reminded part deal tell gold assist bringing back US met refusal treasure hunter midDecember 2015 judge tired Tommy’s game treasure hunter found contempt court charge usually requires defendant jail 18 month everything else case nothing simple traditional past five year Tommy intermittently asked gold hope come tell found every time time disappoints say idea Even suggesting forgot earned rebuke judge official court record honor asked someone could design patent submarine remember put gold October 2020 Tommy appeared court via video judge went usual routine frustrating court even noted former treasure hunter spent 1700 day jail owes 18 million fine appears though hunt SS Central America gold may time people alive help find itTags True Crime Weather Culture Science History |
1,293 | 7 Habits That Helped Me Lose 20 Pounds During The Pandemic | 1. I Used Jordan Syatt’s x12 Rule to Decide My Daily Calorie Limit
Even though I just called this a rule, I don’t mean to say you need to stick to this every single day. I try to live by the 80/20 rule. I went into this phase admitting I’m human. The only way to make lasting change is to understand this is not a diet, this is your life. Make small, incremental changes you can sustain for life instead of dramatic changes you’ll give up on in a few days.
How did I decide on a calorie limit?
I follow Jordan Syatt online, he has an insightful video on YouTube to help you calculate how many calories you should eat for fat loss. I encourage you to watch the full video but here’s the short answer so you can start now.
Take your goal body weight in pounds and multiple it by 12. Example: 150 lbs x 12 = 1800 calories a day.
For your protein intake, he recommends you take your goal body weight and multiply it by 1. Example: 150 lbs x 1 = 150g of protein per day. I rarely ever met this amount yet still achieved progress.
Track everything you eat and stick to your calorie limit 80–90% of the time for 30 days and you will see a difference on the scale and in your clothes.
It’s important to include foods you enjoy within your calorie limit. For example, I find a way to include french fries (specifically the Alexia brand) or a protein cookie nearly every day as a treat. The main reason most diets fail is people go to the extreme and eliminate every “bad food.” This might work for a while but eventually, your self-discipline will run out. This is a lifestyle, so find ways to incorporate foods you enjoy and you will find success.
2. I Prepared and Ate Every Meal at Home
All restaurants were closed. The only option for food was the grocery store. Not only did this save money, but it naturally encouraged good nutritional habits. While everyone was panicking and stocking up like crazy on canned foods, I shopped the abundant produce aisle.
3. I Tracked Everything I Ate
And I mean everything. I used the free app Lose It! to scan and input every bite of food I consumed.
Tip for tracking: Buy a food scale. The only way to be exact with what you’re putting in your body is to measure. Measuring cups can be misleading, use weight in grams instead.
Most people have no clue how much they’re overeating. Simply by tracking what you eat for a week will help you lose weight. Once you realize how much a serving size actually is, you’ll start choosing healthier options.
4. I Ignored Every Single Fitness Metric Except One
Before the shelter-in-place order, I went to the gym 5–6 times a week, focusing primarily on strength training and reached 10,000 steps most days. During shelter-in-place, my activity dwindled to almost nothing. Rather than beating myself up about this, I chose to focus on one thing at a time. Physical activity was never a problem for me. Instead, I narrowed in on the most difficult part of weight loss: Food habits and the mindset behind them.
Spending all my time home alone, except for my cat, meant I had a lot of time to think. The motivation behind choosing unhealthy food vs a healthy one became obvious to me. I used a sweet treat or salty snack to ignore a stressful situation at work or feel better after a bad day. I allowed food to soothe my anxiety and depression. By working with a therapist, I learned better ways to cope with my stress and anxiety that didn’t involve food.
Despite the fact there is a world pandemic going on, I actually found more peace at home. I focused on my mental health, investing in myself, and making better decisions, all actions I know will lead to lifelong change including weight loss.
5. I Didn’t Only Rely on Myself
I believe in working with experts especially if you want to reach a new level. I knew I needed guidance so I searched a few nutritionists in my area, called and made an appointment.
Recipe by Ronaldo Linares; plate photography by Renée Comet
The first nutritionist I met offered a few nuggets of wisdom, such as adding more protein into breakfast by drinking a protein shake. She also educated me about the plate method.
The plate method is based on a 9-in diameter plate to help you keep portions sizes in check. Fill 1/2 your plate with non-starchy vegetables, 1/4 with grain and starchy vegetables, and the last 1/4 is your lean protein. I’ll admit I’m still working on getting to this ideal plate but as I said before I aim for the 80/20 rule, not perfection.
Especially while we’re stuck in a rut at home, getting an informed outside opinion on your eating habits can give you exactly the perspective shift to change your eating habits.
6. I Didn’t Expect Instant Results
I weigh myself every morning. Not because I expect to lose weight every day but because I like to look at the data. In quarantine, you’re the only accountability partner you have. It also helped me realize how and why weight fluctuates. For example, if I consumed more carbs one day the scale might go up a pound the following morning but eventually, it would go back down in a day or two.
I also highly recommend you take before and after progress measurements. The scale isn’t the full story. You may notice the scale doesn’t budge but you lose inches in your thighs and waist.
If you focus on food and psychology first, you will notice a difference in your clothes. Remember this isn’t temporary, it’s a lifestyle. Focus on small, attainable changes and give yourself time to see results.
7. When My Weight Loss Slowed, I Didn’t Panic
You’ll lose the most in the first 2 months then less the following. I lost 15 pounds in the first 6 weeks, 2 pounds in May, and 3 pounds in June. You might feel disappointed with slow progress but it’s still progress.
If you take into account that your life will be throwing you off — especially in a pandemic — an average 2-pound weight loss per month actually is the average. Setting attainable expectations will keep you going. It doesn’t matter if you lose 30 pounds in the first month if you gain it back the next when you lose motivation — by setting attainable goals, you can continue to make small changes you can live with. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/7-habits-that-helped-me-lose-20-pounds-during-the-pandemic-6a516c4892cc | ['Monica Galvan'] | 2020-11-26 21:48:01.784000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Wellness', 'Lifestyle', 'Nutrition', 'Fitness'] | Title 7 Habits Helped Lose 20 Pounds PandemicContent 1 Used Jordan Syatt’s x12 Rule Decide Daily Calorie Limit Even though called rule don’t mean say need stick every single day try live 8020 rule went phase admitting I’m human way make lasting change understand diet life Make small incremental change sustain life instead dramatic change you’ll give day decide calorie limit follow Jordan Syatt online insightful video YouTube help calculate many calorie eat fat loss encourage watch full video here’s short answer start Take goal body weight pound multiple 12 Example 150 lb x 12 1800 calorie day protein intake recommends take goal body weight multiply 1 Example 150 lb x 1 150g protein per day rarely ever met amount yet still achieved progress Track everything eat stick calorie limit 80–90 time 30 day see difference scale clothes It’s important include food enjoy within calorie limit example find way include french fry specifically Alexia brand protein cookie nearly every day treat main reason diet fail people go extreme eliminate every “bad food” might work eventually selfdiscipline run lifestyle find way incorporate food enjoy find success 2 Prepared Ate Every Meal Home restaurant closed option food grocery store save money naturally encouraged good nutritional habit everyone panicking stocking like crazy canned food shopped abundant produce aisle 3 Tracked Everything Ate mean everything used free app Lose scan input every bite food consumed Tip tracking Buy food scale way exact you’re putting body measure Measuring cup misleading use weight gram instead people clue much they’re overeating Simply tracking eat week help lose weight realize much serving size actually you’ll start choosing healthier option 4 Ignored Every Single Fitness Metric Except One shelterinplace order went gym 5–6 time week focusing primarily strength training reached 10000 step day shelterinplace activity dwindled almost nothing Rather beating chose focus one thing time Physical activity never problem Instead narrowed difficult part weight loss Food habit mindset behind Spending time home alone except cat meant lot time think motivation behind choosing unhealthy food v healthy one became obvious used sweet treat salty snack ignore stressful situation work feel better bad day allowed food soothe anxiety depression working therapist learned better way cope stress anxiety didn’t involve food Despite fact world pandemic going actually found peace home focused mental health investing making better decision action know lead lifelong change including weight loss 5 Didn’t Rely believe working expert especially want reach new level knew needed guidance searched nutritionist area called made appointment Recipe Ronaldo Linares plate photography Renée Comet first nutritionist met offered nugget wisdom adding protein breakfast drinking protein shake also educated plate method plate method based 9in diameter plate help keep portion size check Fill 12 plate nonstarchy vegetable 14 grain starchy vegetable last 14 lean protein I’ll admit I’m still working getting ideal plate said aim 8020 rule perfection Especially we’re stuck rut home getting informed outside opinion eating habit give exactly perspective shift change eating habit 6 Didn’t Expect Instant Results weigh every morning expect lose weight every day like look data quarantine you’re accountability partner also helped realize weight fluctuates example consumed carbs one day scale might go pound following morning eventually would go back day two also highly recommend take progress measurement scale isn’t full story may notice scale doesn’t budge lose inch thigh waist focus food psychology first notice difference clothes Remember isn’t temporary it’s lifestyle Focus small attainable change give time see result 7 Weight Loss Slowed Didn’t Panic You’ll lose first 2 month le following lost 15 pound first 6 week 2 pound May 3 pound June might feel disappointed slow progress it’s still progress take account life throwing — especially pandemic — average 2pound weight loss per month actually average Setting attainable expectation keep going doesn’t matter lose 30 pound first month gain back next lose motivation — setting attainable goal continue make small change live withTags Health Wellness Lifestyle Nutrition Fitness |
1,294 | Turing Test vs Chinese Room Argument | Albert Einstein once famously remarked that “ The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
Since the past two centuries, there has been a constant effort to define AI both in Medical and AI community. Two of the most famous attempt to tackle this are Turing Test and The Chinese room argument.
Turing test is a method of measuring AI on whether they are capable of thinking like humans.
The Turing Test is a deceptively simple method of determining whether a machine can demonstrate human intelligence: If a machine can engage in a conversation with a human without being detected as a machine, it has demonstrated human intelligence.
In simple words even if you are not a human but act like one you are human.
On the other hand, according to American philosopher John Searle said that the Turing test was inadequate. The argument and thought-experiment are now generally known as the Chinese Room Argument.
Imagine youself in a closed room. Now suppose a girl passed a chinese letter to you. You don’t know anything about chinese but you have chinese to english(and vice-versa) computer program. With the help of that you decode and converse with the girl. The narrow conclusion of the argument is that programming a digital computer may make it appear to understand language but could not produce real understanding.
Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. Computers at best can simulate what we can understand.
Which one is more appealing to you? I think most people will go will Searle because that just makes us think that we are much more interesting and complex to decode.😯
Photo by kazuend on Unsplash
Well, both theory might intrigue you on giving you thought on which is better I would also like to put a few cons of each theory.
Turing did not explicitly state that the Turing test could be used as a measure of intelligence or any other human quality. He wanted to provide a clear and understandable alternative to the word “think”, which he could then use to reply to criticisms of the possibility of “thinking machines” and to suggest ways that research might move forward.
One of the most commonly raised objection is that even though the person in the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese, the system as a whole does — the room with all its constituents, including the person.
So here I conclude my thoughts on this. What's your take on both? Do you think anyone can be standalone used as metric of measuring intelligence?
Here are a few of my other blogs. | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/turing-test-vs-chinese-room-argument-4e7592c3277 | ['Parth Chokhra'] | 2020-10-22 16:27:57.540000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Philosophy', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Data Science'] | Title Turing Test v Chinese Room ArgumentContent Albert Einstein famously remarked “ measure intelligence ability change” Since past two century constant effort define AI Medical AI community Two famous attempt tackle Turing Test Chinese room argument Turing test method measuring AI whether capable thinking like human Turing Test deceptively simple method determining whether machine demonstrate human intelligence machine engage conversation human without detected machine demonstrated human intelligence simple word even human act like one human hand according American philosopher John Searle said Turing test inadequate argument thoughtexperiment generally known Chinese Room Argument Imagine youself closed room suppose girl passed chinese letter don’t know anything chinese chinese englishand viceversa computer program help decode converse girl narrow conclusion argument programming digital computer may make appear understand language could produce real understanding Searle argues thought experiment underscore fact computer merely use syntactic rule manipulate symbol string understanding meaning semantics Computers best simulate understand one appealing think people go Searle make u think much interesting complex decode😯 Photo kazuend Unsplash Well theory might intrigue giving thought better would also like put con theory Turing explicitly state Turing test could used measure intelligence human quality wanted provide clear understandable alternative word “think” could use reply criticism possibility “thinking machines” suggest way research might move forward One commonly raised objection even though person Chinese Room understand Chinese system whole — room constituent including person conclude thought Whats take think anyone standalone used metric measuring intelligence blogsTags Machine Learning Philosophy Artificial Intelligence AI Data Science |
1,295 | Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021 | Source: Derivative from original on Pixabay, created with photoshop.
Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021
These are the best universities to pursue a Ph.D. in machine learning, with research rankings in AI and machine learning research.
Last updated, December 19, 2020
Considering various factors such as the research areas, research focus, courses offered, duration of the program, location of the university, honors, awards, and job prospects, we came up with the best universities to help prospective students choose. This article is most suited for individuals who would like to pursue a Ph.D. with a focus on machine learning and need some guidance on their decision making.
📚 Check out our simple linear regression for machine learning tutorial. 📚
For the list of the universities, please jump at the end of the article.
Note: The universities mentioned below are in no particular order. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/best-universities-to-pursue-a-phd-in-machine-learning-ml-academic-program-8fa31eee3b6d | ['Towards Ai Team'] | 2020-12-19 22:13:28.087000+00:00 | ['News', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology', 'Future', 'Education'] | Title Best PhD Programs Machine Learning ML 2021Content Source Derivative original Pixabay created photoshop Best PhD Programs Machine Learning ML 2021 best university pursue PhD machine learning research ranking AI machine learning research Last updated December 19 2020 Considering various factor research area research focus course offered duration program location university honor award job prospect came best university help prospective student choose article suited individual would like pursue PhD focus machine learning need guidance decision making 📚 Check simple linear regression machine learning tutorial 📚 list university please jump end article Note university mentioned particular orderTags News Artificial Intelligence Technology Future Education |
1,296 | Why I Became a Writer | Traveling the world was always a top priority for my wife and I. We wanted to eat sushi in Japan, baguettes in France, pizza in Italy. Neither of us had really traveled anywhere; we had been dreaming about traveling the world since we first started dating.
Here’s what happened that changed everything:
At work one day, I mentioned my dream to travel the world with some coworkers.
And I’ll never forget how my coworkers reacted:
They scoffed.
They scoffed.
The Epiphany
When I told my coworkers my dream, they straight up laughed at me.
They told me to keep dreaming — I’d never be able to get the time off work. Sure, maybe a long weekend trip somewhere local. But to get a week off in a corporate job? Let alone several weeks? Ha! Maybe after 5–10 years, when I’d accrued enough vacation time. Welcome to the real world kid, they said. This is how it is.
And that’s when I was like…fuck this.
I decided right then and there. Come hell or high water, I’m going to be a writer and never, ever, ever work in a terrible place like this ever again.
But how?
Right around the same time, I stumbled upon an article that gave me the answers I needed. I still remember it vividly; it was titled Why Most People Will Never Be Successful.
The article said that most people were simply not willing to do the work to get what they wanted. Most people won’t be successful because they never fully commit to doing the work to achieve their dreams.
That article punched me in the face. It was like a light went on in my head. I saw things more clearly than ever before. It felt like waking up from a 25-year old dream.
For the next few months, I began going through an incredible mental transformation. I needed to be a writer — OK. At the time, all I had was some silly blog with, frankly, nothing good on it at all.
I realized I hadn’t been taking myself seriously. I just journaled silly thoughts here and there, even a whole eBook, of junk that wasn’t helping anybody. I knew it was time to get serious.
I also knew it was time to get the hell out of my 9–5 job. Every day when I walked into work, it felt like I was carrying a big, gross, slimy, acidy black ball of dread lodged firmly in my stomach.
The Plan:
So my wife and I got serious. We started working on a secret plan to escape. We told no one — we didn’t want anyone at our jobs finding out.
We secretly got our Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate so we could finally travel the world (and get paid!). It took months. Remember, I was working full-time and still finishing my master's degree. What little free time I had left vanished.
But it was worth it. We finally had a plan.
I finished my last online class on October 18th, 2017. The next month, I told my boss I was leaving. My last day at work felt like a dream — I knew I was never coming back. Ever.
Then we sold everything we had and moved to South Korea to teach English. We didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone there, and had no experience traveling.
But we couldn’t be more excited.
Still, I knew I hadn’t “made it” yet. I was keenly aware: if I didn’t become a serious writer while in South Korea, I’d be forced to come back to America and go find another horrible soul-sucking desk job again. Not an option.
So I started posting on this little site called Medium. Like, all the time. Before, I would post a few times a month on my little blog that no one read, then not publish again for months out of depression and frustration. But in Korea, I started publishing content almost every day.
It was a really busy schedule — teaching and grading homework and navigating a new country/food/culture/language/job — but desperation made me incredibly motivated. Come hell or high water, I would become a successful writer.
I started consistently waking up at 5:00 am (!) before long-ass school days just to write another article. Every break I had at school, I’d scarf down some instant ramen, walk over to Starbucks in the freezing South Korean winter, and work on another article. Write, write, write.
Things started…happening.
I started getting on the “top 20 most popular Medium articles” like, all the time. I remember one day, my wife and I were sitting in a Korean coffee shop on our day off. When I opened my computer, I saw that I had over 600 views in a single day. That was the most I’d ever, ever, ever had.
I knew something was happening, something special. So I kept writing, kept publishing.
But then, heartbreaking disaster.
The disaster
I had signed up for a writing course hosted by my favorite Medium writer. He was one of the most successful writers on the platform, and it’s not exaggerating to say I was a freakin’ disciple of his. My notebooks and journals were filled with quotes by him. I devoured his content, and wanted to be just like him. I practically wanted to be him, and my writing style was very influenced by his. So when his course came by, I jumped at the chance to spend hundreds of dollars to buy it.
In my eagerness and excitement, I had begun stupidly, unintentionally plagiarizing this guy’s work. Not a lot — a line here, a quote there. It wasn’t out of malice or deceit; I basically worshipped the guy! I wanted to be just like him! I was quoting and citing him all the time in my work already. But a few times, I just didn’t. In my attempts to imitate his style, I began mimicking him a little too much.
Someone in the course called me out. I just wanted to say, I’ve been seeing some plagiarism and copying in here. I’m not going to name names, but unless this person comes forward, I’m going to say something soon, the ominous comment read.
Wow, sucks for that person, I remember thinking. I didn’t even realize they were talking about me!
The next day, I wake up and use the restroom, as I usually do. I’m sitting on the toilet, and I see a notification on my phone: my favorite Medium writer (the guy who made the course) sent me a personal message!! I was ecstatic. Even though I was undeniably, indisputably his #1 fan in the whole world, there were over a hundred students in the course, and I knew he had lots of customers just like me. Still, I couldn’t believe he had actually sent me a message!
But when I read the message…oh man. I still remember how stunned and horrified I felt.
I know you’ve been plagiarizing my work, it read. Something like that; That’s unacceptable. I don’t appreciate people stealing my work. We’ve decided to kick you out of the course.
That was it. Short and sweet. Final.
I remember enormous beads of sweat breaking out all along my forehead. My temperature spiked. I wanted to puke. I wanted to cry. Me, plagiarizing? Me? I’m your biggest fan! I would never do that! Not intentionally, at least! It’s all a huge misunderstanding!
But it was about to get worse.
I logged back in the course, intent on making a public apology for my oversight and tell everyone how sorry I was for making such a stupid mistake. But people had already beat me to it.
Hey, the copycat is named Anthony Moore! one comment read. My favorite Medium writer commented, too. Don’t worry, I spoke with him. We’re kicking him out.
My blood ran cold. I kept reading — it got worse.
Wow, that guy likes you so much, he practically wanted to BE you! the student mocked.
I know X) my hero wrote. They were laughing at me, making fun of me. Using my name. Telling the whole world I was a plagiarizer. That I was no good, that I didn’t deserve to be there.
I spent the rest of the day in stunned, somber silence. I couldn’t eat. I could barely concentrate. To have my hero, my hero, shit-talk me in front of the whole class, making fun of me and rejecting me…it was one of the worst days of my life. | https://medium.com/publishous/why-i-became-a-writer-bc2effe0bff1 | ['Anthony Moore'] | 2020-05-11 22:39:48.140000+00:00 | ['Medium', 'Anthony Moore', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Writing'] | Title Became WriterContent Traveling world always top priority wife wanted eat sushi Japan baguette France pizza Italy Neither u really traveled anywhere dreaming traveling world since first started dating Here’s happened changed everything work one day mentioned dream travel world coworkers I’ll never forget coworkers reacted scoffed scoffed Epiphany told coworkers dream straight laughed told keep dreaming — I’d never able get time work Sure maybe long weekend trip somewhere local get week corporate job Let alone several week Ha Maybe 5–10 year I’d accrued enough vacation time Welcome real world kid said that’s like…fuck decided right Come hell high water I’m going writer never ever ever work terrible place like ever Right around time stumbled upon article gave answer needed still remember vividly titled People Never Successful article said people simply willing work get wanted people won’t successful never fully commit work achieve dream article punched face like light went head saw thing clearly ever felt like waking 25year old dream next month began going incredible mental transformation needed writer — OK time silly blog frankly nothing good realized hadn’t taking seriously journaled silly thought even whole eBook junk wasn’t helping anybody knew time get serious also knew time get hell 9–5 job Every day walked work felt like carrying big gross slimy acidy black ball dread lodged firmly stomach Plan wife got serious started working secret plan escape told one — didn’t want anyone job finding secretly got Teaching English Foreign Language TEFL certificate could finally travel world get paid took month Remember working fulltime still finishing master degree little free time left vanished worth finally plan finished last online class October 18th 2017 next month told bos leaving last day work felt like dream — knew never coming back Ever sold everything moved South Korea teach English didn’t speak language didn’t know anyone experience traveling couldn’t excited Still knew hadn’t “made it” yet keenly aware didn’t become serious writer South Korea I’d forced come back America go find another horrible soulsucking desk job option started posting little site called Medium Like time would post time month little blog one read publish month depression frustration Korea started publishing content almost every day really busy schedule — teaching grading homework navigating new countryfoodculturelanguagejob — desperation made incredibly motivated Come hell high water would become successful writer started consistently waking 500 longass school day write another article Every break school I’d scarf instant ramen walk Starbucks freezing South Korean winter work another article Write write write Things started…happening started getting “top 20 popular Medium articles” like time remember one day wife sitting Korean coffee shop day opened computer saw 600 view single day I’d ever ever ever knew something happening something special kept writing kept publishing heartbreaking disaster disaster signed writing course hosted favorite Medium writer one successful writer platform it’s exaggerating say freakin’ disciple notebook journal filled quote devoured content wanted like practically wanted writing style influenced course came jumped chance spend hundred dollar buy eagerness excitement begun stupidly unintentionally plagiarizing guy’s work lot — line quote wasn’t malice deceit basically worshipped guy wanted like quoting citing time work already time didn’t attempt imitate style began mimicking little much Someone course called wanted say I’ve seeing plagiarism copying I’m going name name unless person come forward I’m going say something soon ominous comment read Wow suck person remember thinking didn’t even realize talking next day wake use restroom usually I’m sitting toilet see notification phone favorite Medium writer guy made course sent personal message ecstatic Even though undeniably indisputably 1 fan whole world hundred student course knew lot customer like Still couldn’t believe actually sent message read message…oh man still remember stunned horrified felt know you’ve plagiarizing work read Something like That’s unacceptable don’t appreciate people stealing work We’ve decided kick course Short sweet Final remember enormous bead sweat breaking along forehead temperature spiked wanted puke wanted cry plagiarizing I’m biggest fan would never intentionally least It’s huge misunderstanding get worse logged back course intent making public apology oversight tell everyone sorry making stupid mistake people already beat Hey copycat named Anthony Moore one comment read favorite Medium writer commented Don’t worry spoke We’re kicking blood ran cold kept reading — got worse Wow guy like much practically wanted student mocked know X hero wrote laughing making fun Using name Telling whole world plagiarizer good didn’t deserve spent rest day stunned somber silence couldn’t eat could barely concentrate hero hero shittalk front whole class making fun rejecting me…it one worst day lifeTags Medium Anthony Moore Entrepreneurship Business Writing |
1,297 | Converting a React App to Typescript | Converting Our App to TypeScript
We can now begin using TypeScript by renaming our existing files to use the TypeScript file extension. Let’s start by renaming our entry point to index.ts from index.js . Also, remember to make sure to update your entry point in webpack.config.js .
After you make your update remember to kill your server and restart it. After you make the change, you should see the following:
Rule: You can only use JSX in files ending with the .tsx extension, not the .ts extension
Since our index.ts file uses JSX syntax, the compiler fails to recognize it. It will only recognize JSX in files ending in .tsx . If we rename our entry point to index.tsx , the app works. By contrast, if you try renaming your cart.js to a .ts file, you will encounter no problems with your build since JSX is not used.
Understanding Types vs. Interfaces in TypeScript
TypeScript does have a degree of type inference, but for the purpose of learning, we will manually type our application.
There are two ways to define types: interfaces and types. They have a number of differences. You can use what you prefer, but Microsoft generally recommends the use of interfaces where possible.
In general, interfaces are useful for objects. They allow you to denote the shape of the data you are using.
Types (or type aliases as they are known) are, in my opinion, better for functions and individual properties.
Below are two videos with some more information on differences and possible approaches.
Good overview video
In-depth comparison of Interfaces vs Types in Typescript. Optional but great video!
Adding Types to Plain JS Files
In this section, we will begin adding types to our project. We will focus on adding types to our files not containing JSX like our utils file.
I like to centralize the location of our type definitions so they can be easily imported and reused. We will first add a types folder in our src directory. Once this is done, we will take a look at our product.js file in our constants folder. As you can see our product information is an array of objects with a number of properties like id, quantity, etc. Below is an example.
Let’s now create an interface that defines the expected properties of a product. Let’s create a file called product.ts in our types directory.
Once we have created the file, let’s write our first interface. Below is the declaration.
Our first Interface !— Defined in types/product.ts
Now that we have defined an interface, let’s use it in our application! Let’s type our list of products using our interface. This is located in constants/product.js .
Our first step is to rename the file to product.ts to unlock the power of TypeScript.
Next, we have to import our Product interface. We will then annotate our list to denote that its type signature is an array of Product .
Here is a look at what our updated file should look like. We have added in some comments as well.
Annotating our list of products using our Product interface
After making this change and starting the app you should see … an error!
Reason — ”description“ property is not a part of all our products
We can fix this by making the “description” property optional.
Additionally, we can also define a ProductList type. We will head to our types/product.ts file and update it with the following code.
Our updated product type declaration file
Upon restarting the app, it should now correctly compile. If you want you can also replace Product[] with our new ProductList type. In the next section, we will take a look at typing functions.
Adding Type Signatures to Functions
In this section, we will be typing our cart utils file. This file is responsible for calculating the total of our cart. As always our first step is to rename our cart.js file to cart.ts .
We should note that this file uses lodash. If we want to leverage the type safety that TypeScript allows us, we need to import type definitions for lodash. These definitions will let the compiler know what types our lodash functions expect as arguments and what type they return.
Instead of having to manually type these functions, there is a project on Github named DefinitelyTyped. There are a large number of type definitions for a ton of different common packages. Let us first install the types for lodash with the below script.
Installing type definitions is as easy as an npm install for most popular packages
Let us now import our product types that we defined. Let’s now type our first function to calculate the total cost of a product. We will see two approaches to do this: inline or predefining a type alias.
Type annotating our function in-line.
Type annotating a function using a pre-defined type alias
Whichever approach you use is up to you.
I like to use inline typing generally if the function is not reused. This allows the typing to sit next to the logic, functioning as documentation.
I usually use the type alias approach for functions that are passed as props or reused. We can now continue to type the rest of our file.
Below is our fully typed file.
Our fully typed cart util file
Adding Types to React Components
We will now begin to look at adding types to our React component. First, let’s install the type definitions for the React libraries that we are using. We can do so with the below script.
We now want to rename our component files to the .tsx extension. After we rename our files, we want to restart our server. You should then see the following error. | https://medium.com/swlh/converting-a-react-app-to-typescript-f72b65d798bc | ['Jayson Alzate'] | 2020-12-17 20:36:51.665000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'Typescript', 'React'] | Title Converting React App TypescriptContent Converting App TypeScript begin using TypeScript renaming existing file use TypeScript file extension Let’s start renaming entry point indexts indexjs Also remember make sure update entry point webpackconfigjs make update remember kill server restart make change see following Rule use JSX file ending tsx extension t extension Since indexts file us JSX syntax compiler fails recognize recognize JSX file ending tsx rename entry point indextsx app work contrast try renaming cartjs t file encounter problem build since JSX used Understanding Types v Interfaces TypeScript TypeScript degree type inference purpose learning manually type application two way define type interface type number difference use prefer Microsoft generally recommends use interface possible general interface useful object allow denote shape data using Types type alias known opinion better function individual property two video information difference possible approach Good overview video Indepth comparison Interfaces v Types Typescript Optional great video Adding Types Plain JS Files section begin adding type project focus adding type file containing JSX like utils file like centralize location type definition easily imported reused first add type folder src directory done take look productjs file constant folder see product information array object number property like id quantity etc example Let’s create interface defines expected property product Let’s create file called productts type directory created file let’s write first interface declaration first Interface — Defined typesproductts defined interface let’s use application Let’s type list product using interface located constantsproductjs first step rename file productts unlock power TypeScript Next import Product interface annotate list denote type signature array Product look updated file look like added comment well Annotating list product using Product interface making change starting app see … error Reason — ”description“ property part product fix making “description” property optional Additionally also define ProductList type head typesproductts file update following code updated product type declaration file Upon restarting app correctly compile want also replace Product new ProductList type next section take look typing function Adding Type Signatures Functions section typing cart utils file file responsible calculating total cart always first step rename cartjs file cartts note file us lodash want leverage type safety TypeScript allows u need import type definition lodash definition let compiler know type lodash function expect argument type return Instead manually type function project Github named DefinitelyTyped large number type definition ton different common package Let u first install type lodash script Installing type definition easy npm install popular package Let u import product type defined Let’s type first function calculate total cost product see two approach inline predefining type alias Type annotating function inline Type annotating function using predefined type alias Whichever approach use like use inline typing generally function reused allows typing sit next logic functioning documentation usually use type alias approach function passed prop reused continue type rest file fully typed file fully typed cart util file Adding Types React Components begin look adding type React component First let’s install type definition React library using script want rename component file tsx extension rename file want restart server see following errorTags Programming JavaScript Web Development Typescript React |
1,298 | Will My Daughters Ever Drive a Car? | Me and Sofia — foto by the author
Will My Daughters Ever Drive a Car?
My daughters will grow as Autonomous Passengers in a new kind of mobility but will they need a driver's license?
I am the father of three amazing daughters: Stella, a beautiful and smart 13 years old teenager, Sofia, an incredibly smart 3 years old and last but definitely not least… Emily, just one 1 old but already able to show all her strong and curious character.
These girls do their best to keep me busy with all those kinds of stuff that fathers must deal with every day and maybe it is too early to get worried about it.. but recently after a pleasant conversation with a friend that works like me in the transportation industry, I’ve started to hear in my mind an almost philosophical question:
My daughters are digital natives, but they still use a very analogic and traditional piece of paper to draw their amazing and fantastic animals and flowers at home and a lot of paper notebooks while learning at school… so the question is: will they need a driver’s license in 2038?
Well, considering how things are developing today, probably not… Let me tell you why…
Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash
The dream of a new mobility
Imagine waking up early for work, getting ready, reading some news online on your tablet while having breakfast, without worrying about traffic and the chance of being late for having been in the traffic jam for forty minutes.
You access an application on your cell phone and request a car to take you to work, and in a few minutes, it arrives. A mechanical voice says a polite “good morning, welcome”, confirms that the destination is the one entered in the application. The vehicle starts the journey by driving automatically.
The AI algorithm will calculate the shortest route considering the variables of traffic, traffic lights, number of vehicles, accidents, and works on the way. Whatever else may affect the trip. Comfort will be a priority: air temperature, water if you feel thirsty, and various playlists to choose from will be available.
This scenario seems to be the future of mobility.
My daughters will grow in this reality and considering that, as they are deemed Native Digital today… they will grow as Autonomous Native Passengers in a new kind of mobility, ruled by Autonomous Vehicles.
Photo by Adrian Williams on Unsplash
Safety as a horizon for new mobility.
I love to imagine this autonomous scenario for the future, which may not happen anytime soon, considering that full automation faces “very complex” problems. It could end up reducing these vehicles to some very restricted applications.
But I am a dreamer, and I believe that Autonomous Vehicles’ technology is an indispensable tool for zero accidents on roads worldwide. This will be the leading driver (pun intended) for massive adoption.
I was born in Brazil at the end of the ’70s and had the not desirable fortune to grow in a country where traffic incidents used to count more deaths than some military conflicts.
Over the years, I’ve had lost an unacceptable number of friends due to traffic incidents.
Recent studies show some improvements, but the situation is still dramatic, even with some increase in the number of fatal incidents.
According to the World Health Organization, in 2018, car accidents were the leading cause of young people’s death up to 29 years old. To give you an example, in the USA, 94% of accidents, which caused 1.35 million deaths, had their causes related to human errors.
It is argued that, by 2025, autonomous cars will represent 4% of the total vehicles sold in the world and 75% in 2035, within 15 years. This could drastically reduce the number of incidents across the globe. I will tell you why…
Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash
Autonomous Vehicles will drive better than you do.
Autonomous vehicles will not get tired, distracted, or intoxicated while driving.
They will be controlled by AI systems connected to redundant sensors and other top-level electronic equipment.
They go from one place to another, as the user instructed, and while on the way, they will collect all the necessary environmental information, such as signals, pedestrians, and other vehicles, while being directed by satellite systems to make a safe and optimized trip.
This technology has been developed globally, in universities and research centers, and in the automotive industry itself.
Many brilliant minds are putting a tremendous amount of money and effort into making it happen safely and efficiently.
Photo by Lerone Pieters on Unsplash
Rethinking our cities
If this technology succeeds, and I really believe it will, not only will my daughters’ driving experiences will change, but the whole metropolitan model wherever they will decide to live in the next 20 years will change, too.
According to a study carried out in the United Kingdom, shared VAs will increase the urban space by 15 to 20%, mainly by eliminating parking areas.
Research is being published on the international scene with optimistic projections of the autonomous transport application in different instances.
In the next 20 years, I see that it will be much more comfortable and pleasant to live in cities once they start adapting to Autonomous Vehicles.
This transformation is already taking place and it will allow no accidents on the road in the next 20 years, but this will depend on a process of profound change based on three pillars where shared and connected mobility, autonomous and electrical will rely on technology in vehicles also outside of them.
My daughters will grow in a complex metropolitan ecosystem formed by drones that take people or feed agriculture, robots, and various vehicles of different sizes that can take many people and just one (the so-called micro-mobility), wireless electrical charges, and other technologies we already start to see today.
But even with all this available automation, will they be able to or required to drive? The question is still open.. and maybe to help us to answer that, we should look through the next point:
Photo by shun idota on Unsplash
What are the advantages of AVs?
As we can see today, the main advantages of Autonomous vehicles are safety enhancements but also time savings.
For example, those who today drive for an hour to get to work could dedicate themselves to work and do video conferences in their vehicles…
Hopefully, my daughters in 2038 will use their commuting time to study, watch some programming language on youtube or simply chat with their friends and colleagues, thanks to the increased comfort and security delivered by the AVs.
But probably, they will not have a long commuting time since AVs are expected to reduce traffic and reduce accidents due to the remarkable optimization that AI algorithms will apply to our mobility.
For sure, their health will have a great benefit from less pollution in our cities, because 100% of AVs in the future will be electric.
Photo by takahiro taguchi on Unsplash
And what about the driver’s license?
But what happens if, instead of all these features and improvements provided by full automation, my daughters will decide to put themselves behind the steering wheel, considering that still, a steering wheel will be available in AVs vehicles?
Well… I really don’t see this as an alternative in 2038 when Emily, my younger daughter, will be 18 years. According to research carried out in the UK in 2019, drivers of self-driving automobiles will need certification to adapt to new vehicles.
According to the survey, the driver’s license will continue to be indispensable in the future since vehicles will require human intervention in certain circumstances.
This kind of study is beneficial to put some light on the limitation of technology today. However, I still believe that in the next 20 years, many of the open questions still represent a roadblock to the full adoption of AVs will find their reliable answers. We will reach a level of standardization and safety requirements in our roads that will be unacceptable to allow humans to drive.
Probably we will move the ownership of the driver’s license from humans to the algorithms directly. But this is another story that I will cover in a future article.
Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash
Conclusion
Self-driving vehicles will become part of our lives. When controlled by algorithms instead of humans, vehicles will lose their current value as a fetish or status symbol and finally become a tool.
AVs’ benefits are numerous and significant, and their adoption will represent a great challenge to many business models as we know today.
Maybe it is too early to imagine VAs on a large scale on the streets, but it is time to put some questions and start to prepare the ground for them in all spheres.
Autonomous Vehicles will be a reality very soon. In 1908, Henry Ford revolutionized the way we see cars, making them a symbol of utilitarianism, comfort, and status. Now, after just over a hundred years, AI will reinvent mobility and start a new era.
Read more about it
If you want you can read more about Autonomous Vehicles in these articles: | https://medium.com/swlh/will-my-daughters-never-drive-a-car-6e579158717a | ['Jair Ribeiro'] | 2020-12-06 18:00:22.287000+00:00 | ['Mobility', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Future', 'Autonomous Vehicles', 'Autonomous Cars'] | Title Daughters Ever Drive CarContent Sofia — foto author Daughters Ever Drive Car daughter grow Autonomous Passengers new kind mobility need driver license father three amazing daughter Stella beautiful smart 13 year old teenager Sofia incredibly smart 3 year old last definitely least… Emily one 1 old already able show strong curious character girl best keep busy kind stuff father must deal every day maybe early get worried recently pleasant conversation friend work like transportation industry I’ve started hear mind almost philosophical question daughter digital native still use analogic traditional piece paper draw amazing fantastic animal flower home lot paper notebook learning school… question need driver’s license 2038 Well considering thing developing today probably not… Let tell why… Photo Ishan seefromthesky Unsplash dream new mobility Imagine waking early work getting ready reading news online tablet breakfast without worrying traffic chance late traffic jam forty minute access application cell phone request car take work minute arrives mechanical voice say polite “good morning welcome” confirms destination one entered application vehicle start journey driving automatically AI algorithm calculate shortest route considering variable traffic traffic light number vehicle accident work way Whatever else may affect trip Comfort priority air temperature water feel thirsty various playlist choose available scenario seems future mobility daughter grow reality considering deemed Native Digital today… grow Autonomous Native Passengers new kind mobility ruled Autonomous Vehicles Photo Adrian Williams Unsplash Safety horizon new mobility love imagine autonomous scenario future may happen anytime soon considering full automation face “very complex” problem could end reducing vehicle restricted application dreamer believe Autonomous Vehicles’ technology indispensable tool zero accident road worldwide leading driver pun intended massive adoption born Brazil end ’70s desirable fortune grow country traffic incident used count death military conflict year I’ve lost unacceptable number friend due traffic incident Recent study show improvement situation still dramatic even increase number fatal incident According World Health Organization 2018 car accident leading cause young people’s death 29 year old give example USA 94 accident caused 135 million death cause related human error argued 2025 autonomous car represent 4 total vehicle sold world 75 2035 within 15 year could drastically reduce number incident across globe tell why… Photo Dan Gold Unsplash Autonomous Vehicles drive better Autonomous vehicle get tired distracted intoxicated driving controlled AI system connected redundant sensor toplevel electronic equipment go one place another user instructed way collect necessary environmental information signal pedestrian vehicle directed satellite system make safe optimized trip technology developed globally university research center automotive industry Many brilliant mind putting tremendous amount money effort making happen safely efficiently Photo Lerone Pieters Unsplash Rethinking city technology succeeds really believe daughters’ driving experience change whole metropolitan model wherever decide live next 20 year change According study carried United Kingdom shared VAs increase urban space 15 20 mainly eliminating parking area Research published international scene optimistic projection autonomous transport application different instance next 20 year see much comfortable pleasant live city start adapting Autonomous Vehicles transformation already taking place allow accident road next 20 year depend process profound change based three pillar shared connected mobility autonomous electrical rely technology vehicle also outside daughter grow complex metropolitan ecosystem formed drone take people feed agriculture robot various vehicle different size take many people one socalled micromobility wireless electrical charge technology already start see today even available automation able required drive question still open maybe help u answer look next point Photo shun idota Unsplash advantage AVs see today main advantage Autonomous vehicle safety enhancement also time saving example today drive hour get work could dedicate work video conference vehicles… Hopefully daughter 2038 use commuting time study watch programming language youtube simply chat friend colleague thanks increased comfort security delivered AVs probably long commuting time since AVs expected reduce traffic reduce accident due remarkable optimization AI algorithm apply mobility sure health great benefit le pollution city 100 AVs future electric Photo takahiro taguchi Unsplash driver’s license happens instead feature improvement provided full automation daughter decide put behind steering wheel considering still steering wheel available AVs vehicle Well… really don’t see alternative 2038 Emily younger daughter 18 year According research carried UK 2019 driver selfdriving automobile need certification adapt new vehicle According survey driver’s license continue indispensable future since vehicle require human intervention certain circumstance kind study beneficial put light limitation technology today However still believe next 20 year many open question still represent roadblock full adoption AVs find reliable answer reach level standardization safety requirement road unacceptable allow human drive Probably move ownership driver’s license human algorithm directly another story cover future article Photo Gabe Pierce Unsplash Conclusion Selfdriving vehicle become part life controlled algorithm instead human vehicle lose current value fetish status symbol finally become tool AVs’ benefit numerous significant adoption represent great challenge many business model know today Maybe early imagine VAs large scale street time put question start prepare ground sphere Autonomous Vehicles reality soon 1908 Henry Ford revolutionized way see car making symbol utilitarianism comfort status hundred year AI reinvent mobility start new era Read want read Autonomous Vehicles articlesTags Mobility Artificial Intelligence Future Autonomous Vehicles Autonomous Cars |
1,299 | Serverless Alternative: Executing Python Functions using AWS, Terraform, and Github Actions | Serverless Alternative: Executing Python Functions using AWS, Terraform, and Github Actions
Automate the deployment and execution of a Python function without worrying about package size, execution time, or portability
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash
What’s better than Serverless? Serverless is all the buzz these days and for good reason. Serverless is a simple, yet powerful cloud resource to execute function calls without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. But every superhero has their kryptonite and recently, I’ve ran into a few issues with AWS Lambda Serverless Functions:
Package Size Limitation: My Python dependencies are larger than the 50 MB compressed (and 250 uncompressed) size limits. Execution Time Limitation: My Python function takes longer than the 15 minute limit. Lack of Portability: AWS Lambda functions aren’t easily portable to other cloud vendors.
The obvious alternative is provisioning an EC2 instance to install the dependencies and execute the function, but I don’t want the server to be on all the time. Time is money, and EC2 instances running 24/7 cost money. I don’t want to manage the deployment, manually turning on and off the instance and executing the function. I also want to have function portability in case I want to deploy this function in a different cloud.
Ultimately, I want to automate the process of provisioning an EC2 instance, executing the Python function, then destroying the EC2 instance and all underlying infrastructure. (If you simply turn-off the EC2 instance, you will continue to pay for the volume). Enter Terraform and Github Workflow.
Terraform and Github Workflow are tools any modern DevOps or Cloud engineer need to build and deploy applications. Terraform quickly provisions cloud infrastructure to execute the function. Terraform scripts are also easily portable to other cloud vendors with changes to the services used. Github Workflow manages the deployment. We are also using a Github repository to hold all the Terraform and Python code used by Github Workflow.
Here is a video of me running the Github Actions showing how the function is executed and Terraform makes changes in the the AWS console:
Github Workflow deploying AWS infrastructure using Terraform and executing a Python Function
Outline:
AWS Setup Terraform Script Github Secrets Github Workflow YAML Setup Executing Python Function Conclusion
AWS Setup
The first step is to setup AWS so we have the right user permissions and key pairs to use for the Terraform scripting later. I won’t delve too deeply into user permissions here. For this tutorial, I simply created a new user in IAM and gave my user administrative access (I don’t recommend this; you should always provide a user the least amount of access required for the user to accomplish tasks). Copy the access and secret key somewhere to be used later in this tutorial.
Next, you want to create a PEM key to use in the terraform scripting and for Github Workflow to access AWS. While on the AWS services homepage, select “EC2”. On the left side of the console, select the “Key Pairs”. On the top right of the screen, there is a button which states “Create Key Pair”. Enter the name of the key, and select “PEM” as the file format. Finally, hit the “Create Key Pair” button to create the PEM key. Your browser should automatically download the private key. Place this key somewhere accessible since it is integral to the entire process.
You will also need the public key that corresponds to your private key. To get this, open terminal, change directory (cd) to the location of the private key, and run the following script:
ssh-keygen -e -f aws_private_key.pem > aws_public_key.pem
The result of this script should output the corresponding public key. You can copy this to your favorite code text editor. This public key will be important later.
Note: I recommend testing the keys before running Terraform scripts by creating an EC2 instance and trying to SSH into the instance with the PEM key that we just created in AWS.
Terraform Script
Now that we have AWS properly configured, we can create Terraform scripts to provision the resources needed to execute the Python function:
Notice that we included an S3 bucket which isn’t really needed, but I wanted to provide some additional scripts just in case this resource is applicable for your project. Also notice that the public key we created in the previous step can be entered into “<the rest of your public key>”. The egress and ingress rules are not secure, they allow anyone with valid credentials to connect to the instance. But since the purpose of this tutorial is to provide an example, I haven’t configured security properly. I selected a random AMI, but makes sure to find the right image for your workload.
N ote: I recommend test running terraform scripts on your local machine before creating Github Workflow. I created a folder on my Mac desktop and added the path to the Terraform executable in my Bash profile before successfully initializing Terraform. You can run the Terraform related Github Workflow actions defined later in this tutorial on your terminal. Please use this link to install Terraform.
export PATH=/path/to/terraform/executable:$PATH
Note: if you are completely new to Terraform I recommend this LinkedIn Learning Course on Terraform.
Github Secrets
Before using the Github Workflow to run the terraform script, we need to setup Github secrets with a few keys related to AWS and Terraform. Here is a screenshot of my secrets:
My Github Repo Secrets
The “SSH_KEY” secret contains the private AWS Key automatically download when creating a key pair on the EC2 console. You can output the private key value by entering this command:
cat aws_private_key.pem
The “TF_API_TOKEN” key needed is for the Terraform API that Github Workflow will use to execute the scripts. Use this link to gain access to the Hashicorp Terraform API token (you may need to create an account).
Github Workflow YAML Setup
Now that our Github secrets are properly configured, we can create the YAML file in Github Workflow:
At a high level, when this YAML executes upon a new push to the Github Repository, a new “runner” is created, which is a newly created virtual environment on a Github host which “runs-on” the operating system you define. Then it seeks to complete all the “jobs” defined in parallel. In this case, I only have 1 job and thus all the “steps” (consisting of “actions”) are completed sequentially. Each “step” builds upon one another which means that any changes made in previous steps is accessible to future steps. Now some of the “actions” completed in each “step” “uses” pre-defined actions, these are actions created by others that can be imported. In this tutorial I am using 4 actions. The Github Workflow syntax is confusing. I recommend spending some understanding the key terms I put in quotes.
N ote: This is a pretty good introduction to Github Actions. I also recommend this Github Actions course on LinkedIn Learning.
The YAML file commands are dense so I will focus on some of nuances and peculiarities of the code starting from the top and working down:
On line 42, we must change permissions for the key in order to use them for SCP and SSH later.
On line 53, we must import the private key to Terraform before being able to provision infrastructure on AWS.
On line 59, I am using “auto-approve” to automatically create the infrastructure. If you try to run this command without “auto-approve” the terminal requires a “yes” to create the infrastructure creation.
On line 62 and 65, we are setting environment variables that are needed in future steps. The command on line 62 stores the infrastructure created by Terraform in a JSON format. Then the Python script on line 65 iterates through the JSON text and creates a variable for the EC2 public ip address that we SSH into later. Each time we run this workflow, a new EC2 instance with a different Public IP address is created. Thus, we need a script to get the Public IP address that we SSH and SCP to later.
Here is the Python Script which I call “tf_parse.py” in the YAML:
There is probably a lot of head-scratching on line 71. Why would anyone add time to the workflow? This took me the longest to debug. My assumption was that once Terraform completes the infrastructure, I can SSH and SCP to the instance. I was wrong. You need some time for the EC2 instance to initialize before running the subsequent commands. I’ve added 20 seconds, but it may take more or less time depending on the type of instance you’ve provisioned.
You need some time for the EC2 instance to initialize before running the subsequent commands. I’ve added 20 seconds, but it may take more or less time depending on the type of instance you’ve provisioned. On lines 78 and 79 I’ve added some additional parameters to prevent the terminal requesting authorization to add the host name. Here are the functions you can use if you prefer greater readability:
Note: Use the functions above by entering the following command in the YAML file:
Finally, the command on line 83 prevents Terraform from destroying the aws_key_pair in the next step. Here is a useful resource to output all the Terraform states in case you want to prevent the destruction of other resources.
Executing Python Function
The Python function is being executed on line 80 on the AWS EC2 instance. For this tutorial, I am executing a basic Python function, but the sky is the limit. If you want to install some dependencies before running the script, check out line 50 and beyond in the YAML file from my previous article on creating a CI/CD pipelines on AWS.
Note that the dependencies need to be installed on the EC2 instance and not the Github Workflow “runner”.
Conclusion
This tutorial showcases how to automate the deployment and execution of a Python function using AWS, Terraform, and Github Workflow. We highlighted some the problems with Serverless functions and how this workflow can be a reasonable substitute or replacement. However, its important to remember that we pay for the time that the Terraform initiated EC2 instance is running. It also takes much longer to use Terraform to provision the instances and run the function when compared to simply executing a Serverless function. Remember, we have to provision the underlying infrastructure every time we want to execute the function.
Another reason I prefer Terraform and Github Worflow is because AWS Lambda functions lack portability. Once Lambda Functions are used, its difficult to transport that function elsewhere. This is due, in part, to the syntax restrictions for Lambda Function returns, Lambda Handlers, Layers, and other configurations. Also leveraging AWS API Gateway to invoke the function further prevents portability to another cloud vendor. Terraform makes it easier to find the corresponding services in another cloud vendor and deploying the workflow. Serverless functions remain powerful tools for creating scalable services in the cloud but there are significant flaws and disadvantages.
What other possibilities are enabled by this structure of infrastructure creation and deployment? How about managing infrequent, time-insensitive services with this workflow? With some changes to this tutorial, we create and deploy the underlying infrastructure for the application servers, load balancers, S3 Bucket, and then destroy those instances when the services are completed. This might be crucial for any startup with large data-intensive applications seeking an effective way to mitigate costs for their DEV and TEST environments or even PROD. | https://towardsdatascience.com/better-than-serverless-executing-python-functions-with-aws-terraform-and-github-actions-9967509b030f | ['Ary Sharifian'] | 2020-09-23 17:50:10.070000+00:00 | ['Terraform', 'Python', 'Github Actions', 'Serverless', 'AWS'] | Title Serverless Alternative Executing Python Functions using AWS Terraform Github ActionsContent Serverless Alternative Executing Python Functions using AWS Terraform Github Actions Automate deployment execution Python function without worrying package size execution time portability Photo Alex Knight Unsplash What’s better Serverless Serverless buzz day good reason Serverless simple yet powerful cloud resource execute function call without worrying underlying infrastructure every superhero kryptonite recently I’ve ran issue AWS Lambda Serverless Functions Package Size Limitation Python dependency larger 50 MB compressed 250 uncompressed size limit Execution Time Limitation Python function take longer 15 minute limit Lack Portability AWS Lambda function aren’t easily portable cloud vendor obvious alternative provisioning EC2 instance install dependency execute function don’t want server time Time money EC2 instance running 247 cost money don’t want manage deployment manually turning instance executing function also want function portability case want deploy function different cloud Ultimately want automate process provisioning EC2 instance executing Python function destroying EC2 instance underlying infrastructure simply turnoff EC2 instance continue pay volume Enter Terraform Github Workflow Terraform Github Workflow tool modern DevOps Cloud engineer need build deploy application Terraform quickly provision cloud infrastructure execute function Terraform script also easily portable cloud vendor change service used Github Workflow manages deployment also using Github repository hold Terraform Python code used Github Workflow video running Github Actions showing function executed Terraform make change AWS console Github Workflow deploying AWS infrastructure using Terraform executing Python Function Outline AWS Setup Terraform Script Github Secrets Github Workflow YAML Setup Executing Python Function Conclusion AWS Setup first step setup AWS right user permission key pair use Terraform scripting later won’t delve deeply user permission tutorial simply created new user IAM gave user administrative access don’t recommend always provide user least amount access required user accomplish task Copy access secret key somewhere used later tutorial Next want create PEM key use terraform scripting Github Workflow access AWS AWS service homepage select “EC2” left side console select “Key Pairs” top right screen button state “Create Key Pair” Enter name key select “PEM” file format Finally hit “Create Key Pair” button create PEM key browser automatically download private key Place key somewhere accessible since integral entire process also need public key corresponds private key get open terminal change directory cd location private key run following script sshkeygen e f awsprivatekeypem awspublickeypem result script output corresponding public key copy favorite code text editor public key important later Note recommend testing key running Terraform script creating EC2 instance trying SSH instance PEM key created AWS Terraform Script AWS properly configured create Terraform script provision resource needed execute Python function Notice included S3 bucket isn’t really needed wanted provide additional script case resource applicable project Also notice public key created previous step entered “the rest public key” egress ingres rule secure allow anyone valid credential connect instance since purpose tutorial provide example haven’t configured security properly selected random AMI make sure find right image workload N ote recommend test running terraform script local machine creating Github Workflow created folder Mac desktop added path Terraform executable Bash profile successfully initializing Terraform run Terraform related Github Workflow action defined later tutorial terminal Please use link install Terraform export PATHpathtoterraformexecutablePATH Note completely new Terraform recommend LinkedIn Learning Course Terraform Github Secrets using Github Workflow run terraform script need setup Github secret key related AWS Terraform screenshot secret Github Repo Secrets “SSHKEY” secret contains private AWS Key automatically download creating key pair EC2 console output private key value entering command cat awsprivatekeypem “TFAPITOKEN” key needed Terraform API Github Workflow use execute script Use link gain access Hashicorp Terraform API token may need create account Github Workflow YAML Setup Github secret properly configured create YAML file Github Workflow high level YAML executes upon new push Github Repository new “runner” created newly created virtual environment Github host “runson” operating system define seek complete “jobs” defined parallel case 1 job thus “steps” consisting “actions” completed sequentially “step” build upon one another mean change made previous step accessible future step “actions” completed “step” “uses” predefined action action created others imported tutorial using 4 action Github Workflow syntax confusing recommend spending understanding key term put quote N ote pretty good introduction Github Actions also recommend Github Actions course LinkedIn Learning YAML file command dense focus nuance peculiarity code starting top working line 42 must change permission key order use SCP SSH later line 53 must import private key Terraform able provision infrastructure AWS line 59 using “autoapprove” automatically create infrastructure try run command without “autoapprove” terminal requires “yes” create infrastructure creation line 62 65 setting environment variable needed future step command line 62 store infrastructure created Terraform JSON format Python script line 65 iterates JSON text creates variable EC2 public ip address SSH later time run workflow new EC2 instance different Public IP address created Thus need script get Public IP address SSH SCP later Python Script call “tfparsepy” YAML probably lot headscratching line 71 would anyone add time workflow took longest debug assumption Terraform completes infrastructure SSH SCP instance wrong need time EC2 instance initialize running subsequent command I’ve added 20 second may take le time depending type instance you’ve provisioned need time EC2 instance initialize running subsequent command I’ve added 20 second may take le time depending type instance you’ve provisioned line 78 79 I’ve added additional parameter prevent terminal requesting authorization add host name function use prefer greater readability Note Use function entering following command YAML file Finally command line 83 prevents Terraform destroying awskeypair next step useful resource output Terraform state case want prevent destruction resource Executing Python Function Python function executed line 80 AWS EC2 instance tutorial executing basic Python function sky limit want install dependency running script check line 50 beyond YAML file previous article creating CICD pipeline AWS Note dependency need installed EC2 instance Github Workflow “runner” Conclusion tutorial showcase automate deployment execution Python function using AWS Terraform Github Workflow highlighted problem Serverless function workflow reasonable substitute replacement However important remember pay time Terraform initiated EC2 instance running also take much longer use Terraform provision instance run function compared simply executing Serverless function Remember provision underlying infrastructure every time want execute function Another reason prefer Terraform Github Worflow AWS Lambda function lack portability Lambda Functions used difficult transport function elsewhere due part syntax restriction Lambda Function return Lambda Handlers Layers configuration Also leveraging AWS API Gateway invoke function prevents portability another cloud vendor Terraform make easier find corresponding service another cloud vendor deploying workflow Serverless function remain powerful tool creating scalable service cloud significant flaw disadvantage possibility enabled structure infrastructure creation deployment managing infrequent timeinsensitive service workflow change tutorial create deploy underlying infrastructure application server load balancer S3 Bucket destroy instance service completed might crucial startup large dataintensive application seeking effective way mitigate cost DEV TEST environment even PRODTags Terraform Python Github Actions Serverless AWS |
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